This was submitted to An Píobaire for publication, but has not been picked up nor rejected yet. An issue has been mailed since then, so I’m assuming they don’t want it.
In all, it is favorable, but honest about the set’s shortcomings and how to fix them.
Buntús Uilleann
Inexpensive Full Sets For Beginners or Spares
Antaine Ó hÓgáin
One of the things that discourages prospective uilleann pipers from picking up the instrument is the lack of an inexpensive and reliable full set without a years-long wait list.
US pipemaker Tim Britton has developed a product that may offer a solution. I purchased one of these sets two years ago and have spent time getting it up to snuff. This can be a workable option for a decent full set at a reasonable price and wait if one is willing to do a little extra work.
Mr. Britton, in addition to producing high quality sets of his own making, rebuilds sets made in Pakistan. The price of a full set is currently $2600 (about €1910) and states a waiting list of one month. When I placed my order two years ago the price was the same, but the wait was closer to four months. Regardless, I waited a fraction of the time I was quoted for other sets priced 2-3 times higher.
The set itself is of blackwood and brass, with a stitched, suede leather bag and a three-keyed chanter. It appears to be patterned after a set by Kirk Lynch. Judging by the evidence of Mr. Britton’s alterations it would be entirely unplayable without the rebuilding.
I found the chanter to be the most disappointing component of the set. Mr. Britton had to fill and redrill almost every one of the tone holes, and made for it a new reed. My displeasure with it does not have anything to do with its basic functioning, indeed it played in tune reliably in both octaves, but uses a shorter, unbridled reed that produces a somewhat harsher sound than my long-reeded chanter from Bruce Childress, to which I have always been partial. The joints for the original chanter and all the rest of the set is shored up with thread, which I prefer to cork. Almost every joint required more thread in order to get it airtight, but that was fairly simple, and any cotton thread from a sewing machine can be used if the proper binding cannot be found.
The bag is of good quality with a suede finish that has been glued and stitched. The tie-ins for the bellows, mainstock and chanter are well done, although I don’t know whether or not they are the doing of the original maker or Mr. Britton. Two years of relatively heavy use have yielded no leaks or other discernible problems.
The bellows uses a suede-covered plastic tube to connect to be bag, allowing the length to be customized after-market. The wood used on the bellows is attractive and strong, and the leather material is the same as the bag itself. The straps on the bellows were another story, however. The leather was of low quality and uncomfortable, the buckles were light and the screws were short. I replaced both straps with inexpensive padded leather belts made for pants and longer screws. This solved all the above problems and looked nice as well. The only other complaint that could be made with regards to the bellows is the strips of blue plastic under the brass tacks used to make a seal. I made a simple cosmetic alteration to these by gluing a strip of paper with a celtic knot pattern and holes for the tacks over it.
The drones are beautiful. The bass drone is a hook style instead of Taylor or H style without a soundbox. The reeds are traditional all-cane and are remarkably stable. I did add a small glob of blutak to each reed tongue and stability through octaves and varying humidity became even better. The rosewood mainstock includes an easily accessible drone shut-off switch.
The regulators are a bit trickier. It is good to have them prior to being ready to start using them. In this way, proper posture with respect to the keys can always be used. When the beginner begins to use them, he tends not to use them heavily, and so these are well suited. They did, however, require the most extensive modification on my part. To begin, the plate securing the bass regulator to the mainstock was of slightly different curvature than the mainstock and therefore had a small gap. Filling the gap and tightening the screws solved this problem completely.
The keys joints were a little loose, and the cut of the keys did not easily facilitate sliding although many other higher quality pipes use the same key style. The pads on the keys were good, for the most part, and just a little tweaking to the springs tightened the contact between the pad and the hole, eliminating any leaks. I had to identify what eventually became four pads with leaks, three minor, one major. I fixed this by replacing the pads, not with other pads that wouldn’t sit properly on the hole, but with unbaked sculpey clay, covered with a little circle of saran wrap so that they would stick to the pan in the key, but not to the hole. completely airtight and has been working like a dream for a long time. I used the same method to repad a trumpet spit valve many years ago.
The regulators were in major need of tuning, which I found exceedingly difficult using the tuning pins and traditional method. The reeds are plastic, but do not sound bad in the regs. I found that a combination of trimming or filing the plastic and using clear tape to partially obscure tone holes provided the easiest, most reliable and most cosmetically acceptable approaches. The benefit of having plastic regulator reeds is their durability and stability. Once the regulators are tuned, they will remain so. Preparation for playing requires only tuning the drones to the chanter.
In all, Mr. Britton’s rebuilt full set is an exceptional value for the money and wait, particularly suitable for the beginning piper’s first set or an experienced piper’s “travel” set. This could be the first step towards a commercially available “mass produced” set accessible to those without the time or money to spend on a custom or used full set from an established maker’s own design.
Anyway, the point of all this is that you should be able to get a reasonably decent recording out of some pretty cheap (read: mostly free) equipment. No hot processers, or fancy effects…just play into the mic. We have a page up that details some of this proces if you’re interested in checking it out. This might help your recording quality some…but perhaps not. Feel free to try any of it though: 