Ray Sloan pipes

Hornpiper · Post by **Hornpiper** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:53 pm

Anyone have pipes by him or heard 'em first hand? I was just checking out his website & they sound pretty gorgeous to me on the sound clip he has! Any thoughts?

Jonathan · Post by **Jonathan** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 9:01 pm

My sister has a practice set (made in 2000 I believe). Very nice indeed. Tone is excellent; workmanship is top notch.

Hornpiper wrote:Anyone have pipes by him or heard 'em first hand? I was just checking out his website & they sound pretty gorgeous to me on the sound clip he has! Any thoughts?

snoogie · Post by **snoogie** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:16 am

Jonathan wrote:My sister has a practice set (made in 2000 I believe). Very nice indeed. Tone is excellent; workmanship is top notch.

Hornpiper wrote:Anyone have pipes by him or heard 'em first hand? I was just checking out his website & they sound pretty gorgeous to me on the sound clip he has! Any thoughts?

I have a half set narrow bore D, and agree...tone is excellent, workmanship is top notch. I just made a new reed for the chanter on Sunday and will post a clip. Not sure if I'll get to it tonight, but should be able to by the end of the week.

Ray is a great guy to work with and when I bought mine the lead time was only 6 months for a half set.

The only caveat I'd tell you about them is that the drone styling is not the "traditional" Uilleann pipe styling but has more of a Scottish or small pipe nuance. No problems with the function...and in my view gives me a unique looking set, but that may not appeal to everyone.

Let me know if I can tell you anything else.
-gary

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:11 am

snoogie wrote:
Jonathan wrote:My sister has a practice set (made in 2000 I believe). Very nice indeed. Tone is excellent; workmanship is top notch.

Hornpiper wrote:Anyone have pipes by him or heard 'em first hand? I was just checking out his website & they sound pretty gorgeous to me on the sound clip he has! Any thoughts?
The only caveat I'd tell you about them is that the drone styling is not the "traditional" Uilleann pipe styling but has more of a Scottish or small pipe nuance. No problems with the function...and in my view gives me a unique looking set, but that may not appeal to everyone.

Let me know if I can tell you anything else.
-gary

I have seen, listened to and played this half set (uh, the chanter that is), and it is absolutely beautiful! The turning is masterfully done, and the drone style does resemble highland drones... although, so do some Rowsome drones. For a narrow bore D, these drones really have guts, and the chanter is as about as sweet sounding as you could ask for.

It is a solid, sturdy and somewhat heavy set of pipes (smaller yet heavier than my own wide bore 1/2 set). The photos of UPs on Ray's site are really very pretty, but nothing compared to seeing his stunning work up close...wow.

IMHO, anyone would do well if they were to purchase a set of Ray Sloan's UPs.

david.b · Post by **david.b** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 7:54 am

Hi,
Owning first a practice set and now a half set of Rays narrow bore D pipes I can only add more praise to the other posts. Rays workmanship is of the very highest order indeed and I am very pleased with the tone and playing of the pipes.
Ray is very helpful and efficient and generous with his time. The pipes played straight from the box and have remained in tune and trouble free.
He is like a number of well respected pipemakers....you get a superbly crafted instrument and a great deal of continuing backup and advice.....very helpful if you are new to uilleann pipes.

dirk · Post by **dirk** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:01 am

A student of mine has a Ray Sloan practice set. I like it very much. It has a beautiful tone and is easy to "reed." The chanter has very simple, elegant styling, with a shiny finish on the ebony. My only complaint is that the bellows has no padding under the arm or the waist. The waist belt attachment to the bellows actually has a steel band over the leather. This band rubs against my hip bone and is quite uncomfortable. The first thing I would do is make a buck-skin pillow for both the elbow and the hip, which would do fine to cure this problem.

snoogie · Post by **snoogie** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:19 pm

dirk wrote:My only complaint is that the bellows has no padding under the arm or the waist.

Ray now sells his bellows with a really nice leather pad on both arm and hip side. A bit pricey, but I've found it worthwhile for the reasons you mention.

Fergmaun · Post by **Fergmaun** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:03 pm

I just got lefthanded uilleann pipes bag with blow pipe/chanter stock tied in.
from Ray Slaon last week.

I am using Rogge bellows, Rogge B and D plumwood chanters with the bag and had no leaks from bag or from bellows blow pipe/bag blow pipe seem to be pumping the bellows less with Ray Sloan bag when playing than my rooge C full set.

Ray Slaon reply saying I do guarantee that my bags are
100% airtight and am pleased that you bear this out.

benwalker · Post by **benwalker** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:42 pm

Ray made me a replacement bag for my set....... Top quality work.
I would recommend his pipes.

snoogie · Post by **snoogie** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:41 pm

Ok, here's a snip...sorry for the back D going a bit flat in there, other than that the new reed has been working really well.

-gary

Ray Sloan Narrow Bore D with Gary's reed

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:15 am

The reed sounds really good, and the back 'd' is only very slightly flat, as far as I can tell. Perhaps it is just a matter of bag pressure? Keep up the good work sir.

snoogie · Post by **snoogie** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:26 am

I think you may be right Joseph. I've noticed it going flat mostly when I'm coming from the second 8tave to back D, rather than going up to back D...overall the new reed is either spot on in tune on a note or 10-15 cents off one way or another (certainly within my margin of error for bag pressure).

The other thing is that with my old reeds I had to play C-nat with the index and middle fingers off of the lower hand (as well as the index finger of the upper hand) in order for it to be in tune...now I can use only the index finger of each hand, slightly shading the C# hole, which is I think is a more traditional fingering.

One more week till the Florida Tionol!
-gary

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:30 am

Yeah, I'm getting pretty psyched! It'll be great meeting the piping instructors and giving them a good, hard listening to. See you in Gainesville!

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:45 am

...the more I think about it Gary, have you tried to seat the reed a little further into the chanter? Just an after thought....

John Dally · Post by **John Dally** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 12:13 am

I don't have a set of Ray's UP...yet. But I have every other kind of pipe he makes. After playing other pipes by makers with what some might consider a higher profile, I couldn't be happier with the pipes themselves and the level of support. The quality of the key work on my NSP that Ray made is unmatched by anyone.

Ray released a CD in 2003 called PIPES, RODS 'N' REELS with several tracks of uilleann piping. It's more than a little amazing that someone who is such a great craftsman is also such a great musician.

Hardly seems fair!

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