DISCLAIMER: I'm not a professional piper, have only been involved with piping for a couple of years, and playing pipes for 14 months.
My purpose here is to present a balanced review of this maker's chanter and practice set in response to IrishDuffy's question, not to in anyway be inflamatory, derogative, or self serving. I have no connection to Nick Whitmer in any way (financially or otherwise)..other than I just happened to find one of his practice sets for sale when I was in the market.
I do have my Whitmer practice set up for sale, so you might say I'm biased...however, my reasons for selling are that I purchased a narrow bore D 1/2 set and:
1) it seems a shame to leave a perfectly good set idle
2) it wouldn't hurt to get the money back out of the set (gotta start saving for those regulators!)
That being said, if the set doesn't sell, I'm perfectly happy to keep it for the forseeable future as a backup chanter...or even someday to play at sessions when I want something a bit louder than my narrow bore D.
*************REVIEW**********************
I've had nothing but good experiences with Nick and his pipes. I bought the practice set I have from someone who had bought it for their son...and then I believe he lost interest in the pipes after a year or two.
I had them shipped to Nick from the seller and he made a new reed, swapped the bag to a left handed bag, and shipped them on to me in a couple of days. I paid for the new bag, reed and shipping charges....but no labor to make the changes.
Nick was responsive to emails and very professional to do business with.
The chanter has blocks for keys, but no keys at this time. The design is straight forward, and has some added turnings at the top and bottom of the wood for decoration as well as ferrules (is that what the lines turned into the brass are called?) on the windway cap for interest.
The finish is smooth and the turnings are well cut. Overall, a good looking chanter.
I hadn't played it for 11 months after getting the Sloan narrow bore d chanter, so I was surprised at how light the Whitmer chanter felt. The wide bore Whitmer D has much thinner wood than the narrow bore Sloan D as well as not having the extra hardware of windway shutoff key and two other keys I had added to the Sloan chanter.
The reed of the Whitmer chanter plays very easily (thats good for a beginner), but the back D is seriously out of tune. The back D's been out of tune pretty much since I got it, but I've never really done anything to try and correct it...before I got experienced enough to know it wasn't right and what to do about it..I got the Sloan 1/2 set.
I'll be working on a new reed for it, and will see what happens with tuning and such after that before I pass final judgement on it.
But I wouldn't consider a chanter which needs tweeking for a sharp back D a serious flaw, as most chanters out there have some tape or rushes stuck up 'em to fix one issue or another...and a new reed may fix it...the reed in it was only played for 4 months before sitting for almost a year.
The chanter has a decent tone and is responsive. By responsive, I mean that it can keep up with any cuts or graces that I'm able to put in there...I'm certainly no speed demon, but still I don't believe there are any issues with this area.
The tone is good and solid and on par with many other wooden chanters I've heard. This chanter does not have the richness of tone that some of the 'famous' makers have...but the tone is much better than the penny chanters I've heard, as would be expected for the difference in price.
(I'm not trying to be critical of the penny chanters, they are made for a lower price range than the Whitmer set..you pay more, you get more)
The set has several features that I like. There are hooks on the bellows waist and arm strap which allow a 'quick release' in addition to the adjustment buckles. The bellows has a pad on the both sides of the bellows. The pads are cloth covered and velcro'd in place. I assume so you could change their position or take them off to wash them.
The only area on the set where I feel Nick could make an improvement would be to make the straps a little beef-ier, they seem a bit thin, but it doesn't cause a problem in any way and I wouldn't say they are so thin as to be "cheesey" in any way.
The bag is a McHarg. Enough said, a great bag with plenty of volume.
Where the reed staple inserts into the throat of the chanter it is the perfect size for a good fit on the staple. The reed can be inserted in or pulled out while maintaining a good seal on the reed and I like the way this works. This may be the norm for many chanters, but I haven't looked in detail at any others besides my Sloan chanter. The Sloan chanter requires some hemp around the base of the reed to allow adjustment.
Overall, the Whitmer set is a good servicable practice set with decent tone and is well made.
As I said at the beginning, I'm perfectly happy with it and if I don't sell it, would be fine with keeping it. Which is one reason I've not tried too hard to sell it...I offered it for sale on this board back when I got the half set...intended to put it on eBay and never did.
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=18523
Hopefully this helps and doesn't cause too much of a flame war!
Regards,
Gary
There is no try, only do or not do. - Yoda
although I did see this great deal on a alain froment set on ebay darn good price also, 18 of them were up for sale. 
