Vpipes tuning

Uilleann Pipes
1

A friend of mine is starting out on the pipes and he has a set of vpipes. I got to check them out over the weekend and was very surprised to find that it was horribly out of tune. I seem to think this is some sort of sick and twisted uilleann pipe curse! I put each note up against the tuner and found that:

Low and High D in tune (the only notes)

e, f#, g, - about 10 cents flat.
a - 15 cents flat

and now the fun part:

b - 30 cents flat
c nat - plays an a# which is 30 cents sharp.
c# - can’t remember exact tuning but it was horribly flat. maybe 40 or 50 cents.

Essentially all the ‘top hand’ notes were all over the place.

If the whole lot was evenly out of tune I’d cope with that - the vpipes have an adjustment setting for this, but its for the whole lot. There does not seem to be any function to tune individual notes.
Also tried a factory reset, and just intonation and absolute tuning settings.

Can anyone shed some light here please? I’m temped to advise the owner to contact the vpipes manufacturer.

Thanks

2

To me, that would be the most logical thing to do. Why should anybody know better than the manufacturer?

3

Have you tried adding a rush and some tape?

ps it would have to be electrical tape, of course.

4

Somebody had to say it…

5

Try Calibration : Sensitivity → Calibration
Hope this helps

6

do these have a setting so you can play in flat keys?

do they have both hard and soft d?

i can’t imagine they’d be able to reflect alternate fingering or playing off the knee but perhaps i’m wrong?

is there anything you can do with one that is impossible on a real chanter?

7

If you check under the cover at the back you’ll probably find the switch is set to ‘evil’ mode. You need to set it to ‘good’. I believe they were manufactured by the same company that produced Krusty the Clown dolls.

8

Thanks , that made me laugh :laughing: :thumbsup:

9

Hello amckay,
I play them successfully and love them for playing at late night or when my wife watches TV. I assume that the sensors are dirty. They work as capacitive sensors as displays of smart phones do. May be dirt is leading away some capacity. Normally vpipes are perfectly in tune - just tuning or equal tuning.

10

… and not to forget - do re-calibration afterwards two or three times and do touch any sensor while calibrating, also not the bottom sensor …