You’re the boss!
The redpipe offers a vast range of different settings:
- You choose your sound (Scottish GHB, Gaita, MedievalPipe, Smallpipe),
- You choose your fingering (Scottish fingering (GHB), chromatic, vibrato, french Cornemuse/ Shepherd’s pipe, Huemmelchen and Dudey, Renaissance, medieval bagpipe in minor and Gaita)
- You choose your key (key can be modified in halftone steps)
Rolf Jost gauging a Great Highland Bagpipe
We have been often asked how much air and pressure is needed to play the redpipe caledonia compared to an acoustic Great Highland Bagpipe.
So we did some tests and found out the following:
We gauged a GHB with a cane reed for the chanter and with SM 90 synthetic reeds for the drones using a Bannatine medium bag.
We gauged a pressure of 85 millibar (1.23 psi) with 17 air blasts per minute.
With the redpipe Caledonia (also with Bannatine medium bag) we gauged 33 millibar
(0.47 psi) with a small airblast per minute (with the air-exit-valve closed). The more you open the valve the more often you have to blow. The pressure stays constant.
The redpipe caledonia calibrates the pressure automatically when switched on. So it also can be played at great altitudes without effort.
Similar values can be measured with other air.blown redpipe models.
If you don’t want to press the bag all the time you can switch into the continuous-tone-mode. You then only have to press the bag shortly to start the drones. By putting your left-hand fingers on the chanter the chanter also starts to play. Now the instrument plays until you stop it with another short pressing of the bag.
Why should that bother me?
Charlie Allan is the leader of the Scottish Celtic folk band Soar Patrol. This group is playing exclusively instrumental tunes with the bagpipe as the leading instrument. The performances of the group last 2 hours or more. During the festival season the band is playing 2 or 3 times a week for several month.
Charlie is a strong guy but he admits that this challenge is hard for him and physically exhausting. Since he took up the redpipe as his second pipe he can change between his acoustic pipe and the electronic pipe without making compromises to the sound.
As a result he told us, that playing gigs since then has become much more fun for him making it possible to concentrate much more on the live performance and his interactions with the band.
Besides that the redpipe often helps to deal with bad weather conditions that causes problems for his acoustic pipe. Because it works.
Charlie Allan, Soar Patrol, playing a redpipe metal
So playing the bagpipe professionally can profit a lot from using an electronic redpipe. And it makes life a lot easier.
A redpipe will not change an amateur player into a virtuoso – it still depends on your playing skills how good your bagpipe playing sounds. But it makes it easier to concentrate on playing by minimizing the efforts.
A surprising success story
A laced black leather cover and big martial drones –when Rolf Jost started to build the first redpipe metal it was not clear that this would become a big success.
Wie es zum neuen redpipe-Modell MERLIN kam
Mit der neuen MERLIN ist redpipe neue Wege gegangen. Für die Entwicklung dieses Marktsacks arbeitete redpipes Entwickler Rolf Jost eng mit einem Musiker zusammen, der sich bereits seit längerer Zeit mit dem Eigenbau von Dudelsäcken beschäftigte.
The story of the new redpipe Merlin
With the development of the redpipe MERLIN Rolf Jost took a different approach. He worked closely together with a musician who had concerned himself with the building of bagpipes for some years.
Charlie Allan has truly earned the title’braveheart’. It takes some courage to get in touch with an electronic bagpipe for the very first time and directly jump on stage with it. But for Charlie the redpipe Caledonia saved this evening. The bagpiper of the Scottish Tribal-Folk band Soar Patrol had an infect with an insistent coughing and normally the gig at the ‘SpectaculumFestival’ in Wasserburg (Germany) would have been cancelled under this circumstances.
But Charlie is a tough guy and doesn’ give up soon. A night shift on behalf of Rolf Jost, the inventor and manufacturer of the redpipes and a special courier made it possible that Charlie and his band colleagues could perform their concert.
“It was a new experience to play electronically and remembering not to blow so much but I really warmed up to them the end of the day and the crowd didn’t seem to really notice.”
The adjustable air-management oft the redpipe made it possible for Charlie to perform as energetic as always despite of his tattered health.
Soar Patrol is a Scottish band with three drummers, a bagpipe and an electric guitar having its roots deep into the celtic tradition and merging it with modern styles. They have been referred to as “The Motorhead of Folk”.
Charlie got to play bagpipe while working as chief of the ‘Combat International’ agency, a company offering skilled combat and stunt performers for historical film productions playing in old Scotland. Charlie and his team participated in big films like ‘Braveheart’, the Ridley Scott films ‘ Robin Hood’ and ‘Gladiator’ or ‘King Arthur’ with Russel Crowe.
„I started playing bagpipe in 1999 during the shooting for Gladiator. I bought a Great Highland Bagpipe and started practicing in a London hotel. My team was engaged as combat performers and I realized that my company had to offer all kind of great things but no music. So I decided to change that and started to learn bagpipe.
From these beginnings the band Soar Patrol took form – first focused on medieval instruments and traditions. But soon the group evolved their music into a combination of traditional Celtic roots and modern elements. This was mainly due to the decision to take an electric guitarist on board.
Meanwhile the band performs in two different variations: the Tribal Pipes & Drums- or the Tribal Celtic Rock Act.
This was also the reason for Charlie Allan to prick his ears when a Canadian musician told him about the redpipe. An electronic bagpipe seemed to fit well to the new concept of the band and Charlie liked the thought of using new sounds and effects in combination with bagpipe and electric guitar.
His initial skepticism was gone when he saw that with the right amplification the redpipe was not to tell from the original GHB. He also recognized that it was a big relief for him to be able changing from his acoustic bagpipe to the redpipe .
„I play very hard and I am one piper with a battery of nine drums and three drummers, the energy we put into our performances wipes us out and we get pretty exhausted. I play non stop for 1 and a half hours and with oncoures it can be almost 2 hours. With the Redpipe I get a well deserved rest. Now it’s even more fun because I can change between both pipes and more different sounds.”
But mostly I value with the red pipe the reliability and how they are not affected by temperatures and always in tune. Little or no maintenance and no fatigue!”
Charlie Allan is an enthusiastic tradionalist. His latest project with his other company, the‘ Clanranald Trust for Scotland,‘ is the construction of a fortified medieval village as an educational facility where youths and groups can come and have “hands on” experience of early medieval life in Scotland.
But Charlie does not cling to the past too much. Seeing that his audience dances like always and is not taking notice of the fact that he is playing electrified made him relax.
“I made a comment to Desdemona of Schelmish, good friends of ours. I said to her ” I feel like I’m cheating” and she gave a hearty laugh and said ” don’t be silly you’re fingers are still doing the work” so I just grinned – she is right after all.
http://www.combatinternational.com/
Scottish Tribal Folk Band Soar Patrol
Charlie Allan hat sich den Titel ‘Braveheart’ redlich verdient. Es gehört schon etwas Mut dazu, unmittelbar vor einem Auftritt erstmalig einen elektronischen Dudelsack in die Hand zu bekommen und sofort damit loszuspielen. Aber für Charlie war die redpipe caledonia die Rettung an diesem Abend. Eine üble Erkältung mit schlimmem Husten beutelte den Piper der schottischen Tribal-Folkband Soar Patrol und unter normalen Umständen hätte der Gig beim Mittelalter-Festival ‚Spectaculum in Wassenberg abgesagt werden müssen.
Aber Charlie Allan ist wie gesagt ein harter Bursche und gibt so schnell nicht auf. Ein paar Nachtschichten von Rolf Jost, dem Erfinder und Hersteller der redpipes und ein Sonderkurier ermöglichten es, dass Charlie und seine Bandkollegen an diesem Samstag doch auf die Bühne konnten.
Konan Mevel ist ejn vielseitig talentierter Musiker aus der Bretagne und spielt hauptsächlich Flöten und Dudelsack. Neben seiner eigenen Folk-Rock-Band Skilda spielt er mit der berühmten bretonischen Folk-Gruppe Tri Yann, ist aber auch in andere Projekte involviert wie z.B. bei der keltischen Rock-Oper Excalibur.
Als Musiker ist er sowohl an den Wurzeln bretonischer Musik interessiert als auch an ihrer Verbindung mit modernen Elementen. Vor zwei Jahren begann Konan mit elektronischen Dudelsäcken zu arbeiten – zunächst mit einer ‘redpipe classic’, einem elektronischen Dudelsack mit gesampelten Sounds von Original-Bagpipes ( wie der Great Highland Bagpipe und der Scottish Smallpipe),
Konan Mevel is a multi-talented musician from Britanny who plays flutes and bagpipes. Besides of his own folk-rock-group Skilda he plays with the famous Breton folk-band Tri Yann and also in different other projects like the Celtic Rock Opera Excalibur.
As a musician he is as well interested in the roots of Breton music as in the fusion of this music with modern elements and instruments.
Two years ago Konan started to work with electronic bagpipes first playing the ‘redpipe classic’, a pipe with sampled sounds from original bagpipes like The Great Highland
