http://redhotwebshop.com/scott/
He’s in California I believe - no contact information is given, aside from an email address - and is formerly a goldsmith as I recall. Lots of unorthodoxy here, much like Chris Bayley, who he acknowledges in the thanks section. He comes right out and says it, no matter the topic, or feet stepped on. An article he wrote for the last edition of the Pipers’ Review, on using bassoon cane for pipe reeds, basically contravened everything Ted Anderson says about soft cane being more stable then hard. Bet that steamed your jockstrap, eh Ted?
“Shuttle” Union pipes, after the occasionally quite strange work of 19th century maker Malcom MacGregor. The bores of the regulators and drones are all contained within the one big piece of wood.
This site has heaps of information on making pipes and reeds, and sections on maintenance and playing pipes, too. Some of this is still under construction. He is building other types of pipes as well.
I had that website bookmarked a while back (on my old computer) it’s written in Java and running really slow on the new computer with Netscape 7.1 and DSL… however, the details are great!
As Tony mentioned, the site is not running too well. I couldn’t get the sound to play at all. I am curious of the sound he gets. Has anyone actually heard/played his stuff?
I think I may have played a holly chanter that he made and I understand it was very early in his pipemaking. I wasn’t impressed with it, but it was much better than an early Mark Hillmann chanter I played.
I neither heard it when browsing the page, but this is more due to my little surfing phoenix running on the cute penguin that still has to learn how to handle this stuff.
I’m running System 10 on an EMac with IE 5.2. The site loads very quickly over my dial up connection. The music is a midi file. I would think he would want to replace that with some sound files of his pipes.
I purchased one of Kevin’s chanters ($600+) on the advice of another “piper” a number of years back.
Unfortunately it turned out to be a poor investment and I chose to cut my losses and not try to deal with him any more.
I would be very interested to know:
1- if he has made any progress in his abilities to make a playable instrument
2- if he is willing to “make right” his earlier efforts
As mentioned I am not willing to spend a dime (postage included) on this stick, but I would welcome Kevin’s response in a PM offlist.
BTW - I have tried to communicate with Kevin about this issue a number of times in the past. Including posts on David Dayes email list and direct email. Never heard back.
I look on my experience with this particular maker as one of the unfortunate hurdles that some of us must overcome in order to play the instrument that I love.
Perhaps my experiences may help some of you in the future…
