Hi all!
Anyone know naything about this item at Hobgoblin:
GR2534 Uilleann Practice Pipes
The first ever low cost practice set, bag, bellows and chanter Made in UK .
Price: £ 165.00 Pounds Stg (€ 261.00 Euro)
Link to the webpage:
http://www.hobgoblin.com/local/cartpipe.htm#IRISH & NORTHUMBRIAN PIPES
Just wondering…is it feasible to get practice sets this cheap…?
Best regards,
Eivind, Norway
..
I tried one of these sets at the NAMM show in Anaheim. It was beyond horrible…
Michael
Tried very similar at World Piping Championships Glasgow last August.Couldn’t do anything in the 2nd octave.
Liam
I tried one of these once for some newbies who didn’t know what they had. These pipes sucked, to put it plainly. The chanter was not in tune with itself, let alone A=440, and could not produce a 2nd octave. It looked like someone tied a sawed off scottish practice chanter to a bag and bellows. The reed looked and sounded like whoever made it had no concept about what they were doing.
OK, thanks guys!
Seems to be a very long road to piping… 
I am starting out with a scandinavian model of bagpipe that has only one octave, but eventually playing the Uilleann pipes is the dream. I checked on the Pakistani re-made that were said to be reasonably good; but even they will be fairly expensive. Too bad there’s so little opportunity to try it out before you decide to buy. Seems you just have to go for it; at least when you live in scandinavia where there are no makers and no players…
Cheers,
Eivind
It seems your only chance will be to delay the purchase and try and attend some type of piper get together. Listen to pipes being played and see how you like them.
One thing to bear in mind is that the artist is usually as bigger part of the sound. If you buy a decent practice set that can be expanded it might be the way to start out at a reasonable price. You might try e-bay, that is were I got my practice set. Try and find one with a known manufacturer who you can buy a reed from. if not you may have to send the canter in to get reed make for it.
[ This Message was edited by: Wizzer on 2003-02-20 08:54 ]