great highland bagpipes and smallpipes
The chanter is available in a combined Great Highland bagpipes (GHB) and Scottish Smallpipes
(SP) version.
THE CONTACTS
The contacts on the chanter are electrical and not mechanical, meaning that
they do not have to be pressed down to achieve contact. The grip does not have
to be any firmer than that on the pipe chanter. The contacts are about 3mm in
diameter, and with their highest point slightly above the surface of the pipe in
order to get a better feel for their position. Worth mentioning is that there is
no electrical "ground contact" on which a finger or any other part of the body
has to rest on, or be connected to, whilst playing.
PLAYING
You start the drones by playing low A, and then the chanter by playing an E.
If you don't want the drones to sound you just play an E. If you want to shut the sound
off briefly, just play the "off" fingering combination and it will go silent
until you start playing again.
SETTINGS/CONTROLS
There are two contacts that are used to control all settings. To adjust a
setting, just hold the relevant fingering combination and use the control
contacts.
The following can be controlled:
- Sensitivity: Since the fingers sometimes can be very dry, causing them to
become poor conductors, and sometimes quite sweaty, leaving a sweat film on the
chanter short-circuiting the contacts, the sensitivity is possible to set. Most
of the time though, the setting of the sensitivity can be ignored.
- Pitch: With Sound set to Smallpipes, the low A goes from 216Hz up to 267Hz in steps of 1 to 2Hz.
With Sound set to Highland Pipes, the low A goes from 433Hz up to 533Hz in steps of 3 to 4Hz.
The key of the chanter can easily be set to A, Bb, or C.
- Metronome: easy to start in desired tempo.
- Drones: volume relative to chanter. The drones are always in tune with and follows the key of the chanter.
- Sound: Great Highland pipes or Smallpipes sound.
- Scale: The chanter can play a basic scales with an additional C natural in GHB mode.
- Volume: affects chanter, drones, and metronome.
MIDI
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an electronic communications
protocol that enables electronic musical instruments, computers, and synthezises etc.
to communicate with each other. MIDI does not transmit an audio signal -
it transmits digital data messages defining parameters such as pitch and
volume of the musical notes to play. See http://www.midi.org for further reading.
You enter MIDI mode by holding a specific fingering combination and then
inserting the MIDI cable plug to switch the chanter on. A green LED lights up briefly at the upper end of the chanter indicating that the chanter has entered MIDI mode.
The chanter is fixed on channel 1. The bass is fixed on channel 15 and the tenor fixed on channel 16.
In MIDI mode the metronome is not available.
The pitch is adjusted in semi-notes.
The volume settings for chanter and drones affect the "velocity" of the MIDI
note. On some devices the velocity is the same as the volume for the note, on
others it isn't. It is up to the receiving device to interpret the velocity
data. With the sound setting on Smallpipes, all notes have the same velocity. With
the setting on Highland pipes, the higher notes has lower velocity than the low
notes.
Please note that MIDI cable is sold separately.
BATTERIES
The chanter uses two 1.5 Volt LR44, SR44, V357 type batteries, or one CR1/3N battery.
The lifetime of the batteries is up to 40h of playing. Battery lifetime in MIDI mode is up to 110h.
The battery lifetime depends on the capacity of the batteries.
A red LED indicates when the batteries are flat.
DIMENSIONS
The length of the pipe is 233mm and the diameter is 16mm. Despite the small
dimensions this is a full-size chanter and the spacing of the contacts is the
same as the spacing of the holes on a pipe chanter. The dimensions together with
the low weight of approx. 50 grams, make this chanter very portable indeed.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The manual
SOUND SAMPLES