I don’t have the patience for pipemaking. I’m able to reed my own set but even that is a test for my calm. I’ve entirely given up on trying to tune my pipes in April, as that’s when humidity comes back here, and I broke several reeds in the years before I understood that.
To all pipemakers, everywhere: keep it up.
Agreed Rory… tis hard to fathom the reason, for sure. There is only one explaination that makes any sense .
Geoff Wooff
Yes. My thoughts too. We all have our burdens too carry.
Geoff I think your pipes, together with those of Dave Williams, have set the benchmark as regards quality of craftsmanship and sound. Like Dave you also communicate with your customers which is of great importance. I know it can’t be easy though if you’re stressed out and customers are impatient.
Pj in April that’s when my reeds play best after the dry winter here in Sweden. We’ll take a road trip to Normandie in July to visit museums, battlefields, and beaches. In Vimoutiers there is a Tiger Type E tank which was left by the roads in 1944. It ran out of petrol. One of the few Tiger tanks left that’s not in a museum. But I won’t take the pipes to France, just the flute
I agree that it’s unfortunate that Brad posts videos of out-of-tune pipes. Brad has never been the best with his marketing. That being said, take a listen to Preston Howard’s album “The Primrose Glen”. I think that album was either entirely or largely played on Brad’s pipes (https://open.spotify.com/album/1rGC86iClaojwSFHKlFl48?si=8YIn7QlNSGut2cMF2D5LBw). From what I remember, around that time Preston was just playing his set from Brad.
My concert full-set is one of Brad’s that I got second-hand, though it originally belonged to another Portland-native. I grew-up in the Portland Irish music community, about 20 miles from Brad’s shop, and so I’ve been around Brad’s pipes for about 15 years. When I got into pipes, I jumped at the opportunity to own one of Brad’s sets. My set has been brilliant, and Brad always answers my questions and stands by his work.
Just a general reminder that B sets are not always intended to play spot on at B.
I’d hazard a guess that this set is one of those sets that is flatter than true B, and that this was intentional.
[quote=“Steampacket”]
Geoff I think your pipes, together with those of Dave Williams, have set the benchmark as regards quality of craftsmanship and sound. Like Dave you also communicate with your customers which is of great importance. I know it can’t be easy though if you’re stressed out and customers are impatient.
Thanks for the kind words Tom.
I have to say my customers are the very model of patience. I am just putting the finishing touches to a chanter that was requested 22 years ago!!! I’d better add, there are other reasons for the delay than just my tardiness.
The stress comes not from the customers but from trying to do better and keeping one or two steps ahead of destitution. 
Thank you Geoff for your kind words. You pretty much hit the nail on the head.
To put an end to the mystery I was not the OP but I did make the set and am the one playing it in the video. I was made aware of the post and the activity involving it this evening. I am the first to admit that I am not a master at marketing and perhaps in hindsight should not have allowed the video out of my shop as quickly after reeding the set as I did. It is for sale and plays in tune (I do use a tuner 
) but, as some of the comments indicate, the reeds could use adjusting and may take some time to play in. I frequently get requests for video or sound clips and, in my enthusiasm, posted prematurely. Lesson learned.
Thanks for explaining about your video Brad. No harm done. All the best
Does he not own an electronic tuner for the very reason that ears can get tired and also why put the vid of out of tune pipes on the interweb.Its hard to understand.
Aren’t most tuners programmed to tune to equal temperament though?
Most “folk” instruments IIRC tune to just intonation.
And I’m glad of Mr. Wooff and Mr.Angus’s imput, I don’t think it’s anything wrong with the pipes, my chanter plays fine too, after some adjustments, nothing wrong with it, just the reed
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Aren’t most tuners programmed to tune to equal temperament though?
Most “folk” instruments IIRC tune to just intonation.
…
Electronic ‘Tuners’ are just measuring tools , it is the operator who does the tuning. Knowing where the notes should be to form ideal harmonies against the drones is the job of the reedmaker / pipemaker.
I bought my first Tuner in 1976 and currently own 10 different types although the one I use for Pipes tuning is a simple model ( Korg AT12) that I bought in 1984. It was through tuning by ear, using the tennor drone as the datum (and keeping tabs on what the pitch of that drone is by using the electronic Tuner), that I learned where the each note should be, as an offset value from Equal Temperament. Note that I use the word ‘SHOULD’ because getting every note to
be where it should through both octaves is a near impossible task.
I don’t know quite what you mean, Ennischanter, by 'Most “Folk instruments”… but most folk instruments I come across are tuned to Equal Temperament … including various Pipes!
Many bagpipes have their own scale, some appear quite odd to those brought up on Equal Temperament, but my theory is that the old Pipers /makers did the best they could to have a usefull instrument and just allowed the anomalies to become part of the character. 
I just thought it would be JI because of the drones, but that’s interesting. Hmmm
And indeed, that Swedish bagpipe has a very interesting scale, A-minor with a done tuned to E IIRC…
If by “folk instruments” you mean those instruments we come across in the folk (or traditional) world then we might need to consider the guitar, the banjo, the accordion, the concertina and other keyboard instruments which are generally tuned to Equal Temperament, but all the drone accompanied instruments should be tuned in a way that compliments the drones. But what does one do with the chanter scale (temperament) when the instrument has drones that are adjustable and the chanter is fully chromatic , like the Northumbrian Small Pipes ?
I prefer to use a natural scale of notes for the Irish Pipes and about 30 years ago I wrote about this in An Piobaire and used the term Just Intonation, but I am not entirely sure that is the correct title for a gammut of natural intervals which all relate to a single drone note. Once the piper wishes to join with others who play Equal Tempered instruments then some modification to the natural scale is needed either by fingering changes or physical modifications to the instrument.
Tuning must be one of the most mysterious bits of the pipemakers’ art. So many variables and so much more easily demonstrated than described.
There’s a nice bit of writing left to us from a late 18th century “commonplace book” scribbled down by an anonymous person and now in the NLI - I like to imagine that they were writing it down while Mr. Kenna attempted to put into words the sort of thing he was building:
"The modern Irish bagpipes consists of a chanter with 7 holes on vantages, some of these holes are double. The lowest note is D in the tenor clef…the highest is C in the Treble Cleff. The chorus consists of 4 drones, the smallest of which sounds in unison to the A the fifth note on the chanter, the 2nd sounds a third to the first and in unison to the F the third hole on the chanter and a fifth C the highest note in the chanter. The third sounds an octave to the 3rd hole in the chanter and the 4th a double octave to the F and an octave to the 3rd.
Confusing eh?
I can’t resist responding to this interesting comment. I don’t think it’s possible to tune any stringed instruments to ET, although guitars can be made to approximate it much more closely than, say, fiddles, where the Pythagorean tuning of the fifths makes ET, strictly speaking, impossible. (In passing, there’s a very interesting effect that happens on a fiddle where, if you try to play certain notes at the same time as others, as double stopping, you will find that one or other of those notes will need to be played at a slightly different pitch from the one that would be used when playing that note alone, as part of a melodic line.) Whistles and flutes are not tuned in ET - although I’m aware that some whistles are tuned to an approximation of ET. And uilleann pipes, traditionally, are not tuned to ET, although, as you say, there are some funny scales out there with pipes, so maybe not quite JI.
Sorry for the digression. As you were!
“folk” Instruments is a pretty vague term you are right about that, just poor wording, I am not really good with words so forgive me Mr. Wooff, I should have said “really really old” instead 
And good question, would newer built Northumbrian small-pipes be tuned to Equal Temperament since they are pretty much chromatic? I don’t really know about them, if the older types had adjustable drones or not, and if so, were they made to tune to Just Intonation? Hmmmmmm…
The French Musette de cour has adjustable drones too. Neat stuff
(Slightly off topic: An interesting thing to note, in the Prelude to Wagner’s Das Rheingold, which has drone music, the Bassoons and French horns which are tuned to Equal Temperament are never completely in tune to the droning Double Basses when they play a broken Eb chord, I always found that interesting )
Northumbrian chanters are also tuned to just temperament I believe - the chromatic stuff is tweaked to get the best result possible under the circumstances
[quote=“geoff wooff”]
I prefer to use a natural scale of notes for the Irish Pipes and about 30 years ago I wrote about this in An Piobaire and used the term Just Intonation, but I am not entirely sure that is the correct title for a gammut of natural intervals which all relate to a single drone note.
Your insights are always appreciated Geoff. I’m curious about the notion that there are different ways of tuning a chanter to the drones. Without using a tuner, in simply listening for the perfect harmonious feeling I get when a chanter note is ‘in tune’ with the drones, I was always assuming, like the ancient Greeks, that I was experiencing some deep universal perfection and basic physics of waves. Is there a different way of setting up the chanter? I suppose using scale notes from non-Western cultures?
Of course, all this Greek and Uilleann pipe perfection was ruined by the compromises of the piano and ultimately the ill temperament (in character) of modern composers with their notion that music should reflect the ugliness of the modern world.
Another thought…funny that the modern electronic piano doesn’t have a ‘just intonation’ setting for each scale so it can play in tune with the perfectly tuned pipes
Happy Piping,
Mike
I actually think there are some electric keyboards out there that do that very thing. 
And yes, it is very satisfying when my chanter is tuned in Just Temperament to my electronic drone sound, now I know what those pipers mean when they talk about “voice sounds” it’s kind of eerie, but really cool!
I recall listening to Ennis play “The Frieze Britches” on my loudspeakers, and thought someone was humming, but it was just the chanter and drones harmonizing, making that cool effect, also the speakers exaggerate the effect as well I think.
Variable Pitch control plus several programmed temperaments and one or two ‘self’ programable temperaments would make a nice keyboard for playing with the pipes. Something like this is probably available and I’d love to have this facility on my concertina.
I have an automatic device for staying in tune with my Pipes… my wife on the Fiddle .
One primary deviation from published versions of Just Intonation is the Perfect Flat Seventh which I like to use for the C natural in the low octave. This allows a beautifull harmony with the drones but being 29 cents flat of an equal tempered C it also allows room ( in pitch height) for the piper’s C, much favoured by Willie Clancy.
I’ve heard of the “piper’s C” before. Have you got a figure in cents for it, Geoff?