Bagpipes Piano Ultimate Edition is four authentic sets of Scottish and Swedish bagpipes in the form of an easy to play piano keyboard.
The four sets of bagpipes are:
Great Highland Scottish Bagpipes - The most popular Scottish marching pipes, in the traditional key of Bb.
Scottish Border Pipes - Scottish smallpipes in the key of A with a sound distinctly different from but similar to the Highland pipes.
Scottish Smallpipes - Scottish smallpipes in the key of A, one octave lower than the Border Pipes, with a rounder, bubbly sound.
Swedish Säckpipa - Swedish bagpipes in E minor, with a very haunting sound.
The keyboard, starting on the note G, exactly matches that used for traditional Scottish bagpipes tune transcriptions.
The Scottish bagpipes samples are supplied by ePipes.co.uk based on their "Studio Piper" virtual MIDI bagpipes instrument. If you want to control bagpipe sounds using MIDI, be sure to check out their products. The sounds in this app can only be played from the Android device, not MIDI.
Audio samples for the Säckpipa provided by Jonathan Parker from an instrument made in 1986 by Leif Eriksson.
Operating Instructions:
Touch any key to start the chanter playing. Once a key is started, the chanter plays continuously just like a real bagpipes chanter. This accurately emulates the behavior of the real chanter, the sound keeps going as long as there is pressure in the bag.
Play a melody on the chanter by touching the keys.
Touch the drone puck image to switch the drones on and off. Stopping the drones also stops the chanter sounds.
Touch the "i" on the upper right corner to bring up the instrument selector and links where you can find out more about ePipes.co.uk and their line of MIDI bagpipes controllers and virtual instruments.
There are two playing modes:
Choose the "Easy" play mode to play the main Highland chanter notes using just the white keys.
Choose the "Normal" play mode to play all the notes on the chromatic keyboard.
Playing Tip: To make your playing sound more authentic and for repeated notes, quickly slide from an adjacent black key to the note you are playing to simulate a piping "cut" ornament.
For more fun and to experience the full quality of the samples used for the app, try playing the app through an external amplified speaker connected to the headphone jack on your device.
I installed it on a relatively new Samsung tablet. It kept getting stuck with multiple notes playing on top of each other. Closing and reopening app helped sometimes. Not enough. Definitely annoying, greatly. Happened with multiple pipe sets, with or without the mix key on. With or without drone on. Great concept, maybe with an update or two it will work consistently enough to use at a gig
Only 3 sets and can't change the drone key.
The sound cuts alot
don't waste yours money
Old version drone does not skip like a loop but it does now
Sounds OK, however you cannot play same note twice and app should allow user to change key of song.
Enjoyable app., more realistic tone than any synths i had! ThankYou, Logan N. Gerken
Bug fix for sticky keys
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