They should have invested in a properly produced recording of the pipers. You only get one chance to make a first impression.
… what I like to call unstruments.
Sounds like his bass drone shut off or something.
It is clear to me that the recording was recorded at too high a signal level. You can hear the digital equipment clipping throughout as the inarticulate noise reminiscent of the early Modems. If the recordist was a prefessional, there should be a second track at a lower level of signal (hopefully without such clipping). Its entirely possible that this IS the second lower level track (which accounts for the time since recording to issuance of the clip, as the sound man tried to rectify the error) and that the soundman was asleep at all the switches. Not unlikely from what I’ve heard at such venues. The level of “augmentation” is generally pretty darned high. If all you do is run sound for Rock Bands, this is what you get.
Thats all very well, but did nobody think to listen to the clip before uploading it to youtube.
RORY
Just about every thing in that clip was bad.
What are they knocking them out at?
I’m glad it’s not just me. They sounded nothing like his Dave Williams set. A real disappointment!
The pipes themselves sound fine live. This is a bad recording which does not make anyone want to try them.
Hi Guys,
We realise that the balance/mix/captured sound here could be better, but we were absolutely inundated with requests from people, very keen to hear the new pipes, so we just decided to go ahead and put up this short clip as a taster. The more detailed, up close videos, where you’ll be able to hear the pipes in full, will be available in the near future.
All the best,
Kenny
how much will they be going for kenny? chanter alone, practice set, half-set etc.
For the sake of McCallum Bagpipes investment of both time and money , I hope their production team is better than their PR team .What an unprofessional mess .
RORY
The prices will be up on Fred’s site in the very near future, check there please - http://www.fredmorrison.com He’s working on that just now.
In fairness, the uilleann pipes have always been a “cottage industry” where the maker’s name is very much associated with the end product. Not many have tried to pipe making on a more contemporary business model. Maybe Arpa? There is bound to be resistence when someone tries something new.
Personally I dont see any resistance to what they are doing ,just the way they went about it. As long as the quality is there the more pipes the better.But IMHO they should of had a full working set with decent sound samples and a price list in place ,before they announced what they were doing.
RORY
PS forget the celebrity endorsement, the pipes can speak for themselves.
It’s SOP in the Highland pipe world.
There’s a great book Highland Bagpipe Makers which gives the tale of every GHB maker that there’s much known about.
Story after story, over the last couple hundred years, is similar:
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Young man takes up piping, studies under top players, and goes on to a brilliant playing career, winning many competitions
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Oftentimes he serves a period in the Army, rising to Pipe Major
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As an established “name” player he goes into pipemaking.
Thus, most Highland pipe makers were famous players, or at least top players.
This process is still going on today.
If the uilleann world was like that, Paddy Moloney, Paddy Keenan, Liam O Flynn, etc would have gone into pipemaking decades ago.
Yes they say there’s two sorts of Highland pipers, the ones who are learning the uilleann pipes, and the ones who want to learn the uilleann pipes.
These Highland pipers don’t know what to look for in uilleann pipes, don’t know the established makers, know nothing about the uilleann “scene”. What they do know about is McCallum Bagpipes, and my guess is that hundreds of Highland pipers will eventually buy these McCallum uilleann pipes, regardless of how they might be regarded in the uilleann pipe world.
I will say that McCallum has shown remarkable flexibility over the years. Generally in Highland pipemaking the maker makes what he makes, and if you want it buy it, if you don’t like it get out of my shop!
McCallum, over and over, has responded to input from the Highland piping community and continued to improve their products, and offer a wider range. People complained that their mounts weren’t threaded on; McCallum began making threaded mounts. The nickel plating would eventually wear off; they switched to solid alloy mounts. The imitation ivory was brittle; they changed to virtually indestructible stuff. Some pipers thought the drones could be more stable and easier to tune; McCallum revamped their drone design to address all these issues. They keep coming out with more chanter designs to give pipers a choice of pitches and other playing characteristics.
True that they’re newbies to the uilleann pipe world, but with their track record I expect them to respond to input and continue revamping their uilleann specs. It wouldn’t surprise me if they eventually offered a range of chanters with various pitches and bore designs.
From what I’ve read here Fred isn’t making the wood parts, nor making the reeds.
Does “voicing” mean he receives the wood parts from McCallum, then gets in there with files and reamers and modifies the bore and tone holes? That’s what “voicing” a wind instrument generally means.
Or does it only mean adjusting the reeds?
There are not many top-shelf uilleann pipers who subsequently became top-shelf pipemakers. Leo Rowsome is the obvious exception. But was he know more as a maker than a performer?
I know of one.
If many “star” players got into pipemaking in the uilleann world (as they’ve long done in the Highland world) there would be more than one, and everyone would know them.
That’s the thing in Scotland, to have a pipemaker attached to a big name.
The other thing that’s common in the Scottish pipemaking world, which I don’t care for, is for new makers to get the legal rights to the names of famous long-dead pipemakers, and to stamp those names on their new products. It would be one thing if the new pipes were careful (or even sloppy) copies of the old pipes bearing the name, but the new makers tend to make whatever style of pipes they want with no regard to the old pipes of the same name.
For the uilleann world it would be as if somebody just now sets themselves up as a startup pipemaker, acquires the legal rights to the name “Leo Rowsome Dublin” and begins stamping his products thusly. Let’s say that his pipes aren’t based on Rowsome pipes, but based on some other old maker, or perhaps not based on anything much. The maker needn’t be in Dublin at all, but could be in Scotland or anywhere.
So confusion results, as newbies hear great players both today and of the past playing Rowsome pipes and hear great things about Rowsome pipes and see the new maker Leo Rowsome Dublin and go out and buy them. They’re out playing somewhere and somebody asks them about their pipes and they say they’re Rowsome pipes, even showing them the maker’s stamps on the set.
So now you have three sorts of pipes floating around 1) original Rowsome pipes 2) pipes from various other makers based on Rowsome specs 3) new pipes made by “Rowsome” which don’t have Rowsome specs.
That’s exactly the case in the current Highland pipe world.
I know another one.