http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd2MdWzZo10
Great tune! I am ALMOST positive that i’m hearing a bagpipe in the tune, but to be honest…I’m having trouble hearing which one it is. my guess
would be scottish smallpipes, or perhaps an uilleann pipe?
Uilleann
Heh heh…when I saw the thread title, I misread it as “…a bagpipe óir”, and wondered if James Galway had gotten himself a golden bagpipe. I need more sleep.
I agree: uilleann pipe, a flat set, I think.
It certainly demonstrates UP chanter range, but the tone seemed way too perfect and ironed-out, so I suspect an electronic emulation.
Yeah, there’s a kind of “buzz” in the tone that made me think at first it was smallpipes or something else. But I think that’s coming from something else in the mix. Given the range and articulation It does seem to be an uilleann C set, and Pete Purvis certainly does play uilleann pipes.
I can’t say that song does a thing for me.
It’s a hurdy-gurdy, surely?
This was my problem as well! I really thought it was a scottish smallpipe. Also considering the notes he plays sound very much like smallpipe sounds. perhaps there is a live version of the tune. i’ll hunt youtube a bit 
overall: thanks for the replies!
http://youtu.be/JqykUZJ_L1U?t=2m20s Uilleann pipes indeed. I suspect you are totally right
It does sound hurdy-gurdyish, doesn’t it? Then again, you may have hurdy-gurdys on the brain after last weekend. 
And the drones that let loose at 3 seconds in are definitely not some weird French contraption.
Oh, there’s pipey-droney thingies later … but I still think it is a hurdy at the start, and that continues. I don’t think I have hurdies on the brain. At least, not that I’m about to trompette to the world, at any rate.
Don’t know about that, Ben. The live vid that DjUntzUntz posted above has, to my ear, the same “buzz”, but there’s no wheel cranking in evidence there, only pipes. Could well be a bit of deliberate distortion FX on the pipes and fiddle. I think you may have mis-heardy the gurdy*. Unfortunately, the album credits at allmusic.com are silent on the matter.
- Even if I don’t believe that, it’s too good not to say anyway.
It’s Studio Magic ®
theres an unlimited amount of things that can be done to a signal behind the glass…
could be U pipes modulating a gurdy sample, or vice versa, run thru a guitar synth. ONce digitized, it’s all just mere data manipulation… who really knows except the engineer. A totally formulaic tune. Too bad. 
the pipes in that live video are poorly mixed… that’s the thing about playing live, sometimes you’re at the mercy of sound guys who have never heard your band, sometimes guys who have never heard acoustic music of any kind.
When he’s taking the solo he sounds the same volume as when he’s noodling behind the vocals.
When I played uilleann pipes in a fairly large group years ago (loud piano accordion, guitar, electric bass, bodhran, fiddle, vocals) I used a volume pedal so I could play loud when doing solos/instrumentals and soft when playing harmony lines underneath vocals.
On the studio recording the pipes sound heavily compressed and processed. But you can still tell they’re uilleann pipes.
Definitely studio magic. There is fiddle droning in there too so that would make it sound hurdy-gurdy-ish, sort of like the dog string.
totally.
Throwing a bagpipe at the average nightclub sound guy is like throwing a transmission at a monkey.
Offtopic I know but speaking of clueless eejit soundmen…
Many years ago Silly Wizard was playing at The Barn here, a fairly small casual venue with a stage at one end, a walkup window serving beer at the other end, and wood picnic tables and benches in the middle.
Silly Wizard usually travelled with their own sound system and soundman, but for some reason at this venue they got what they got, the in-house guy, sitting at his little open-window booth beside the beer window at the back.
So Andy Stewart launches into Donald MacGillivray and the sound is horrible and he looks towards the sound booth… and there’s nobody there! Andy smoothly changed up the words of the song
“Come like a Sound Man, Donald MacGillivray…”
This got a big laugh from the audience, who saw exactly what was going on… the sound guy was in the cue at the beer window, I think.
EDIT: I just now looked up The Barn, and it actually is a barn:
“The Barn is the campus’ (University of California Riverside) historic music venue. Built in 1917 and actually used as a Barn for many years, it became a music and performance destination in the 1960’s, presenting hundreds of memorable rock and folk performances including legendary acts such as Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Tim Buckley, Wall of Voodoo, Korn, Suicidal Tendencies, the Dream Syndicate, Blink 182, the Skeletones, Social Distortion, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rage Against the Machine, No Doubt, Radiohead and countless more.”
Back in the 80s I saw Silly Wizard, Battlefield Band, and other groups there. Only seats 300.
definitely not a gurdy. Clearly a fiddle entering in and then uilleann pipes. But I suspect they may have looped the fiddle drone to continue on with the pipes, which might account for the difficulty in figuring it out. Not to mention pancelt’s aforementioned compression.