What do you like about a specific make of pipes??

PiperTim · Post by **PiperTim** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:21 am

BadPiper wrote:You are asking a question that only you can really answer. You are likely to get as many different answers as there are makes of pipes or possibly even pipers. Two owners may give conradictory answers on the same make. In my opinion you need to find a good set that you like.

Interesting. So are the best makers simply those who happen to be lucky enough to have a "style" that appeals to a greater number of people than other makers? I realize everyone's taste will be somewhat different, but it seems like there must be something (or "somethings") that really experienced pipers can see, hear, or feel when they pick up an instrument they've never played before that indicates to them that it's an unusually high quality set. Then again, what do I know? (The answer is, not much.)

Everyone generally agrees that you want the best quality set you can afford so you at least have a fighting chance with the beast. But is someone who is relatively inexperienced in a position to make that determination? And if the advice would then be to have an experienced piper take a look at them, what exactly are they looking at or looking for? Am I beating a dead horse?

By the way, I'm not the original poster of the question. That person has probably already chosen their set. I'm simply following up because I'm intrigued by the question and found myself going through the same thing when deciding to upgrade to a half set. I still doubt that I'm the best judge of whether a set I try is really a "good" one.

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:32 am

The best answer is that the answer changes with your own experience and tastes. Because the answer is always changing, even for yourself, there is no one answer that anyone can give you that everyone can agree on. Not all players like the same sets, or the same features of sets. There are detractors and nay-sayers for even for the best known pipemakers' sets. You should hear what some of the pipemakers say about each others' work.

Get a beginner's set that you can afford (there's lots for sale on and off, here and there). Get your feet wet. Get some live instruction if at all possible. Learn and grow from there. You do not have to be married to one set forever, and you should not set out at the beginning with the most expensive set in the world.

djm

BadPiper · Post by **BadPiper** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 12:19 pm

[quote][/quote]

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:04 pm

Well I'd sure as heck go over to Bruce's and listen to his pipes.

I've never played a Childress set but have heard only positives about him and his instruments.

I've only played sets by half a dozen makers and am certainly nothing like a good player. I love Lynch sets because they seem warmer, richer and less "in your face" than some sets. I have a Roberts set here now that I like for the same reasons.

PJ · Post by PJ » Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:50 pm

BadPiper wrote:It's not a question of being lucky... As with everything in life consumers want the best...

As for me, if I was buying another set now, bearing in mind that I have a fair understanding of the markets opinion, I would have to like the look of them...

Customers want the best? You think you're a customer? If you equate buying a set of pipes to buying a CD or a pair of jeans or a new TV, then I pity the pipemaker you'd buy from. A typical set of pipes is made for a particular person by a particular person - intuitu personnae. They don't mass produce them (except they guys that sell on eBay

). It's much more personal than that. I've mentioned in previous discussions that the pipemaker's business model is more like a pre-Industrial Revolution (I don't mean this to be in any way disrespectful) or certainly pre-consumer-based society which is based on a different type of relationship than we're used to in the age of consumer protection, extended warrantees and so on.

You'd buy a set based on the look? It's a musical instrument. Why not consider buying based on the sound?

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:31 pm

Also consider that the reed is nearly everything to a pipe (and the cane is nearly everything to the reed). I've played pipes which typically are very loud, re-reeded by another and made warmer and sweeter. I've had trhe oppostie experience as well playing a set that was much louder than other sets I'd played by the same maker because it was re-reeded by someone else.

I suspect the pipe maker could accommodate your wishes to a degree.

Others more experienced than I may correct me, but that's my impression.

I am not, and likely never will be, a reed maker and haven't been piping for long compared to most here, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt unless someone with more callouses on their elbows confirms my view.

Doc

Ceann Cromtha · Post by **Ceann Cromtha** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 3:23 am

I just got back from the Pipers' Gathering in Killington, VT (thanks and congratulations to Mark Stayton et al for a very productive event!) where I had the pleasure of meeting Bruce Childress.

I've had a Childress set going on four years and he has always offered whatever assistance needed via phone and mail. But working with him in person was even better -- he took several hours to look my set over (from reeds to loose joints) and to "update" it: specifially, he added made my regulator reeds easier to tune by adding brass tubing slides for the reeds. He is also a wonderful player and great story teller (he entertains you while he works).

(Michael Dow was also there and he is a first-class craftsman and gentleman too.)

BadPiper · Post by **BadPiper** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 3:26 am

[quote][/quote]

rgouette · Post by **rgouette** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 6:36 am

ok I'll chime in.
I'm sure Bruce would welcome a visit if it meant bringing another into the fold of piperige..whether or not you chose to buy one of his sets.

I have a half set by him(2001), and he's always been a helpful & friendly fellow.
Rich

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 4:14 am

Customers want the best. Ofcourse they do, but what is 'the best'? Let's face it a large portion of people buying pipes are never going to utilise the pipes to their full potential. Even a lot of 'advanced' players don't.

If you listen to Ennis bending and twisting the sound of the chanter, blending the harmonics with those of the drones that's a different thing altogether to someone who sits in a session rolling off the tunes with the chanter glued to the knee and using all the textbook fingerings.

I depends on what you want to achieve. I get to play a lot of chanters that won't do a lot of things my own chanter will allow me to do. For example ( and this example comes to mind as I am setting up a set for a pupil of mine who is going to the All Ireland next week): there's one popular school of design that will not do a hard low e off the knee because the second hole is too small to vent the note enough. Is that a problem? No it isn't if you aren't going to use that particular device. It limits your range of colours though.

The pipes, like any instrument, need to be humoured. If you hear a piper sound a particular way, don't expect to sound like that when you play his pipes. You won't. The sound is in there but you'll have to bring it out.

So 'best'? I'd define it as the pipes that allow you to bring out the sounds you want them to bring out, without too much limitation or compromise as far as expression is concerned.

How's that or a thought?

mukade · Post by **mukade** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 4:27 am

I wish I had the luxury of meeting a pipe maker before buying, but living where I do now it is very difficult.

I have been lucky in getting new pipes from David Boisvert, and if I buy second hand I only purchase from well-known makers.

I do have an obsession with designing unique pipes and I usually buy from makers who will bow to my fancies, but in the end it is the sound and build quality that matters.

Nothing has yet lived up to my first lignum, plain mounted chanter by Peter Hunter. It just felt right, looked right and had all the right sounds in the right places.

Mukade

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 4:45 am

mukade wrote:
I do have an obsession with designing unique pipes and I usually buy from makers who will bow to my fancies, but in the end it is the sound and build quality that matters.

... if I buy second hand I only purchase from well-known makers.

Mukade

Well, when Geoff was making my pipes he had just fended off an American customer and he asked tongue in cheek if I wanted the chrome bumpers and extra horns on my cadillac. Like in music, less if often more and a bit of subtlety and understatement goes a long way. I think anyway.

Still, 'wellknown maker' doesn't really guarantee you will get the pipes you want does it? I know of one (very) wellknown maker several of who's C sets I have played. They sound well with a particular strong sound their owners invariably love but to me they lack largely in nuance, you can stand on your head and beg the chanter but it won't don much changing of tone at all. It's great for playing away in a particular style and they are wildly popular but they wouldn't necessarily suit me at all. And in general terms I think a chanter like that would limit someone looking for different angles and sounds, without them even realising it. It's a maker's choice and fair play but a 'name' doesn't necessarily guarantee the instrument will do what you want if, when making your choice, you want to go beyond an instrument that plays easy, well and in tune. Different makers have different ideas, priorities and skills and one good set of pipes is not another.

Did anyone notice this was the 100 000 th post on the piping forum? How's that for time wasted

simonknight · Post by **simonknight** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:13 am

Peter Laban wrote: ... you want to go beyond an instrument that plays easy, well and in tune. Different makers have different ideas, priorities and skills and one good set of pipes is not another.

I've certainly found it true with other wind instruments that the instruments I prefer are not necessarily the easiest to play. I've played a number of American Fox bassoons, considered by some players to be the best. I'm always intitially impressed by the the clear resononant tone, even tuning and easy response. Then, after 10 minutes I'm bored and put them down.

Flexibility, which I value, seems to come at a price of requiring some effort to play perfectly in tune. I'm not talking about a note being stubbornly out of tune or unresponsive, but requiring, as Peter describes, some humoring.

I play two chanters, both by well thought of makers. Each chanter has a different lineage and a fundamentally different character. The one which I prefer is not by the maker probably considered to be the better of the two by many people. It has more flaws but I find it more flexible and capable of a wider range of tone colors.

It may also be because my playing is better adapted to it. There was a thread a few weeks ago about playing with constant tuning / pressure. I tried an experiment and blew a scale with constant pressure and let the notes come wherever. Most were out by at least a few cents from the just scale (the chanter has some wax and a rush to tune it). Then I consciously raised my fingers far off the chanter. The tuning varied even more. An hour later, with the humidity a bit lower, the result was different.

So the combination of player and chanter is a complex thing, and we must all have different preferences and expectations of a chanter. Those are likely to change as our playing progresses.

Hans-Joerg · Post by **Hans-Joerg** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 11:06 am

BadPiper wrote: However I did intend to say that my criteria was 1. that I should like the look of them (maybe because I am an artist) 2. thay should feel right on me and 3. they must play well and SOUND goo.

Very true. I always find it a good idea to categorize a complex matter (Uilleann Pipes after all) in order to be able to "handle" it better. Here is a very similiar thing that works well for me cause I like to work on old sets to make them (well) playable again. This always is possible but (as you can imagine) a question of effort.

1. look of them
2. playability
3. sound

It is quite clear that only #1 is eternal (unless you like a brand new & polished look), whereas #2. and #3. are but temporary (temporal?)and beyond the control of the maker (maintenance, sale to a piper of different size, reedmaking). Makers can make the "technical side" perfectly (and with some it lasts longer) but it certainly won´t last forever.
The only way for a beginner is to attend a tionól and "test drive" as many sets (if possible in quiet) as posssible (mentioned individual preferences taken into account). He will soon find out that even sets by the same maker (unless they are fairly new or "updated" by the maker himself) will differ in #2. and #3. Only experienced players can (and will) help or advise him.

simonknight · Post by **simonknight** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 1:40 pm

I don't agree that the tone and playability of the set are entirely dependent on the reed. Certainly at the extreme, a rotten reed will make a chanter unplayable, but a great some of the playing characteristics are determined by the chanter's design (bore; tone-hole size, placement, etc.) and execution. Similarly, a 'good' reed can't compensate for a chanter that should have ended up on the maker's fire or a Pakistani chair-leg.

I've played over half-a-dozen Gallagher concert chanters with a range of reeds - a worn-out, limp old Gallagher reed; a third-party reed dimensionally unsuited and over-scraped; Seth's best; and some of my own making. In all cases, the traits of the chanter design were recognizable.