I have a question about using the PAS with bagpipes. We've now played four gigs with our four-PAS setup, and while the concept of "setting your own sound from the stage" is an admirable one, and it works extremely well for us most of the time, we have a problem in that Scottish Great pipes are very loud on stage, and because of their acoustics, their sound diminishes in the house as an amplifier does. The PAS units, however, do not diminish in the house the same way.

So, what we are faced with, is a stage sound that is not the same sound that is heard in the house, and it's hard for us to mix ourselves because the house sound is so different from the stage sound when the great pipes are being used.

We also use several other kinds of pipes, and the mixing problem with them is a bit different. Those pipes, like the Border pipes, are loud in the vicinity of the player, but not to the rest of the band on stage, so that when they are being amplified through the PAS, the piper can't hear what is coming from the amplifier because the pipes themselves are so loud to him locally.

I'm not sure how to get around this problem. We really want each band member to control his/her own sound, but we are unable to do that as well as we'd like because of the nature of the instruments. I've posted our line-up in other threads, but here's our setup again, house left to house right:

System #1 (piper):
L1/B1
2 SM57s for instruments (Scottish great pipes, Scottish small pipes, Border pipes, Uillean pipes, Northumbrian pipes, concertina, percussion (bones, shakers)
1 SM Beta 58 for vocal and high and low whistles
Small Samson mixer which runs the 57s into channel one and the beta 58 into channel two of the PAS
The piper likes using the mixer instead of the remote control for the PAS, although we do plug the remote in. He says it makes more sense for him to kill the mics with the mixer when he is playing the great pipes.

System #2 (strings, bodhran and vocals)
L1/B1
1 SM 58 beta for vocal directly into channel one of the PAS
Small Behringer mixer which controls standard guitar, open-tuned guitar and Irish bouzouki hard-panned into channel two of the PAS, and 1 SM57 for the bodhran, hard-panned into channel three of the PAS

System #3 (flute,whistles, doumbek and vocals)
L1/B1
1 SM 58 beta for vocals and wind instruments, directly into channel one of the PAS
1 SM57 for doumbek, directly into channel two of the PAS

System #4 (bass guitar and vocals)
L1/B1/B1
Bass guitar directly into channel one of the PAS
SM 58 beta for vocals, directly into channel two of the PAS

Any ideas on what to do in this situation, where the stage sound really is different from the house sound?

Thanks very much,

--Chuck Lawhorn
bass guitarist, IONA
www.ionamusic.com

Chuck

It always amazes me, and is a reality check, that violin players often suffer from tinitis because their ears are close enough to the sound source to make it really really loud there. Sounds like the same thing here.

About all I can offer is a strategy we have taken on drums: Make the instrument as soft as possible (small shells, thin cymbals, etc) and get the sound of the instrument into the sound system. I don't know much about bagpipes, other than supposing all the sound (or much of it) comes from a lot of pipes attached to the air supply/bladder. So, my question back is that if there is a way to (1) pick up the sound of the instrument and (2) make the instrument itself lower in acoustic level, this could lead to a solution. One way, of course, is to put the bagpipe and pickup trandsucers or microphones (and not the player) in an iso booth. Not a great idea for a live show, and intended only as a means of illustration. Also, is a bagpipe a collection of sources (ie a distributed source)? If the instrument can be close-miked or fitted with a bunch of local pickups (like "wind pickups"), the instrument can possibly be played softer and the sound system level can be brought up to a better play level, whereby the player hears mostly the system and not the instrument. My guess is that this isn't a great ideas because (1) the player is so close to the instrument and (2) good tone is probably only acheived when you crank the instrument.

This reply is meant as the beginning of a dialog on this subject. Ideas now? Got a website I can look at one of these on?

Thanks for the reply, Cliff.

Unfortunately, bagpipes are a "binary" instrument. They're either playing or they aren't. There's no volume control, and there's no way to make them louder or softer. In that way they're like the harpsichord, which also only has one volume level.

My web site has a page of band pictures, and one of them shows Ian with the pipes. (It also shows the four Bose systems, but the logo only shows up as a blur in the pictures. I wonder why that is...?)

Anyway, the URL is:
http://home.comcast.net/~clawhorn/iona

The sound comes out of the three drones (the pipes that point upward) as well as from the chanter (the melody pipe with the finger holes).

Talk to you later!

--Chuck

Chuck

Fascinating.

My guess would be to group the three drones together at their end, maybe with a rubber band or something, and place a small cardioid mic (like a lav) near the end grouping, hoping this doesn't mess with the tone. An sm57 would work too but the electrets are small and unobtrusive. Same for the melody pipe, assuming the sound comes out the end and not the finger holes. Keep the mics out of direct airflow. Now you have two mics with a lot of signal, compared to an "area" mic attempting to pick the whole instrument up. Listen and EQ accordingly, even try some presets. Like, if it sounds "chesty" or "boxy", you will probably have too much level in the 200-400 Hz octave. Many of the mic presets correct this for close vocal.

Worth a try? (Keep them cards and letters coming).

Cheers

Thanks again, Cliff.

The problem is, the Great Pipes don't need to be miked at all. They're so loud that any sound coming out of the PAS would be lost. That's why we have such a problem. The pipes are decaying like a point source of sound does, while the PAS' are decaying like cylindrical radiators, so the sound on stage is not the same sound in the house.

Electret mics might work on the other pipes, but Ian changes instruments in mid-tune, and trying to get them set up quickly isn't practical. We would need a large number of mixer inputs to handle all the mics we would have to use for all the different pipes, as well as the concertina.

We'll keep working on it. We'll be playing in MA this summer, although without the PAS, as we're playing a Festival that provides sound for us. If you (or anyone else out there) have a chance, come hear us and you'll get an idea of what we're working with.

Chuck

Time to stretch for a solution. The goal is to make the system's sound dominate, thus allowing the tone to be distributed evenly. One way is to simply crank it, giving you the bagpipe equivalent of an AC/DC concert. Probably not what you want. Another alternative is to drastically reduce the level from the instrument itself without compromising its tone. Actually, it's reducing the sound of the instrument itself and producing a tone out of the system that is an "accptable illusion" of the real thing.

There's probably a way to quiet the instrument and pick up its sound, like putting it in a big lossy duffle bag or something. If you do this, you will have the world's first electric bagpipe.

The latter two words actually strike fear into my heart.

I laughed out loud at that one, too.

electric bagpipe....

Actually, electric bagpipes do exist, after a fashion. There are MIDI pipes (that scares me, too, imagining a bagpipe guitar solo hurts my brain), but there are also electric practice pipes that use touch switches to activate the notes (remember, Scottish bagpipes have only nine notes, in a mixolydian mode from G to A, but pipes play a half-tone sharp, so the pipe's A is really a B-flat. Confused now? Good!), and when sent through an amplifier, represent the articulation and ornamentation of a bagpipe very well. It isn't good enough for live performance, though.

Chuck

This is very, very disturbing. But, hey, I'll rubberneck with the best. Got a link on the electric bagpipe? (Actually, I'll bet that I could bring it to a Linemen gig and the band would love it.)

Cliff, here's a site from a maker of electric bagpipe chanters:

http://www.deger.com/

Amazing. I'm never, ever, disappointed by the level of creativity of the human race. The Electric Bagpipe: what a concept. I listened to the sound files on the website and decided that the drone note should have some kind of randomizer on it. It doesn't sound that "organic" as it is rock-steady. Normally, the drone is warbling a bit, isn't it? I'm guessing this would get annoying after a while. Any comment on this from "analog" bagpipe players? Other than this, it sounds about right.

Our piper keeps his drones remarkably steady, but he is a champion piper. "Warbling" drones will lose you points in a competition very quickly.

One of the ways to make a bagpipe sound staccato is to use the high A on the chanter as a "fill note." If the pipes are tuned correctly, the high A will on the chanter will lose itself in the high A drone, and the other notes played around it will sound like they're being played by themselves. It's a pretty amazing effect, and requires quicker fingers than this bass player has.

Well, I just wanted to let you know that our problem with the PAS and the bagpipes has been "solved," though not in the way we wanted. Our piper's wife got a job with Microsoft in Seattle, and the whole family moved this past Thursday. Our former piper will be sitting in with us for a few gigs this summer, but the newest member of IONA is a fiddler, and the fiddle shouldn't present the same problem as the pipes.

We've been working like crazy to change our arrangements to fit the new instrument, and it changes our sound quite a bit. We've had a piper in the band for the last 8 years, and this sound is going to take a bit of getting used to, although so far things are sounding very good, indeed.

The fiddle through the piper's PAS should sound wonderful, and I can't wait to start playing with it.

--Chuck

Just for the record… My son, a Highland piper, has played the electric “practice” chanter at shows with great success. The highland pipes always presented a challenge because or the quirky nature of the drones as well as the volume right out of the chanter. We would typically “cork” the drones (stuff corks in the end of the buggers effectively shutting them off). The rest of the band would drone on b-flat performing the function of the drones. This took care of one issue.

When Chris found the electric chanter from Finland we were all excited… to some extent. If the electric pipe is run through a little reverb, keep it simple, it is a reasonable facsimile of the Highland pipes. The audience does all the same bagpipe stuff they do with the big pipes so I guess we were successful. This is just a wordy, fyi, as we have used both the highland pipes and the wee electric changer from Finland through out single PAS. I love the PAS and it has really changed a lot of things about the way we do things in the band including the fact that I don’t have to drive a van anymore!

HI Chuck, John in TX here. Eric Rigler(did the soundtrack for Braveheart,etc..) has had great success using electret condensor mics AND transducers on both GHB and Uillean pipes. If I remember correctly, he also uses 10 to 20db pads on his mini mixer when he records. Just a thought for future reference. I dunno if Eric has ever used a PAS, but I sure plan to soon!