transmontana and galician (open/closed) bagpipes
The chanter is available in an Transmontana/Galician open/Galician closed version. The chanter can play either
a Transmontana, a Galician open, or a Galician closed fingering scale. You can very easily change between them if so desired. They all use the same sound samples. (When ordering, please specify which of the three fingerings should be the default at
start-up.). The bottom most hole is rotated slightly to the right. (Please specify when ordering if the bottom hole should be rotated to the
left.)
The chanter is available in black or white.
The bottom most hole rotated to the right.
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 and chanter by placing your lower hand thumb on the contact on the back.
If you don't want the drones to sound you need to turn the drone volume down to zero. If you want to shut the sound
off briefly, just let go off the lower hand thumb contact 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: the chanter is tuned to the key of Bb/Si bemol for Transmontana
fingering, and C/Do for Galician. The Bb/low C goes from
185Hz up to 738Hz in steps of 0.1-0.7Hz, with 466Hz as start pitch for Transmontana and 523Hz for Galician fingering. The key can easily be set to A/La, Bb/Si bemol,
B/Si, C/Do, C#/Do#, or D/Re.
- Metronome: easy to start in desired tempo. Sub-beats can be added.
- Drones: volume relative to chanter. The drones are always in tune with and follows the key of the chanter. For a chanter in C/Do, the drones can be set to C/Do, C+G/Do+Sol, C+F/Do+Fa, or to D/Re.
- Scale: The chanter can play three different scales:
1) Transmontana.
2) Galician open.
3) Galician closed.
- Volume: affects chanter, drones, and metronome.
- Recording: more than 1200 notes can be recorded. During playback, the
recorded notes are sounding on the right channel, and you can play along on the
left. The playback speed can be set between ¼ and 2 times the recorded speed.
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.
The chanter is initially set to channel 1, but can be set between 1 and 14.
The bass is fixed on channel 15 and the tenor fixed on channel 16.
In MIDI mode the metronome and recording are 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.
In MIDI mode the power consumption is lower and the chanter will run for
approx. 20 hours on a rechargeable 1000mAh NiMH battery.
DIMENSIONS
The length of the pipe is 249mm and the diameter is 16mm. The dimensions together with
the low weight of approx. 60 grams, make this chanter very portable indeed.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The manual:
Fingering charts:
Credits: Thanks João Bacelar for the recording of the samples.