Matt MacIsaac reviews the Blair Digital Chanter

World-class piper Matt MacIsaac's video review of the Blair Digital Chanter, including MIDI examples and his own performance on the chanter and acoustic guitar.

[danwebb]

Came for the review but stayed for the performance. Cheers, Matt!

[donaldchalmers]

At 75, I've been out of piping for about 20 years, and finally got around to purchasing a Blair chanter for myself. I also have a DegerPipe, and loved it until it started to go bung on me. Germany is one hell of a long way to get it fixed. It started to give me contact burns on the fingers; it felt like banging them up and down on pins. It definitely put me off long sessions. Martin Deger noted the problem as "rare" and said that he has reduced the voltage from 9 to ?2.5 in the newer model. Hopefully, my Blair chanter will give me the interest to get back to piping electronically. I've already noticed an improvement in the length of my practice sessions; so much so that I had to take a few days off, since my birl finger started to hurt. Hopefully, my skin will toughen up soon.... And thanks Matt for your playing !

[markjackson]

I’ve just received my Blair but your playing was amazing.

[stephennugent]

I got it recently & what would be great for the battery is to show the percentage.

[rezpiper]

I just bought one, best thing I ever did!

[jazzman]

I got my Blair chanter through the post yesterday and had trouble getting much out of it with missed notes . I watched this video again and realised that your sensor readings were all at plus. I had minuses dialled in. I just paused this video at each pair of notes you have from high a and high g, to b and low a, and copied the settings for each note. Much better! I’ll tweak each note gradually, but I’m much happier now.
Being picky, I feel the chanter is too thin to be perfectly comfortable. I also found that if you are heavy handed, you, ll have problems with missed notes as much as with wrong sensor settings. A light fingering approach gave me much better results. Man oh man I’m so out of practice! It’s been a lot of years since I practiced regularly. It is an excellent instrument for teaching correct and clearly separated notes in the likes of doublings and taorluaths etc. The slightest errors show up instantly. I need to slow everything down and clean up my fingering!
I tried to download the app from the Blair website but got an error message about it being an invalid file type or something. My pc is well up to date, so it’s not that.

[jermins]

Great review Matt. Just got one a few days ago and I am really enjoying the sound and playing tunes on it. Thanks for a great tune as always my friend. Jermainiac.

[johnmichaelvoss]

Fantastic music. It sounds really genuine, incorporating the little nicks and imperfections that make the real bagpipe. I thought it might be possible to make bagpipe music by assembling an array of auto horns on a plank, 20 or so, suitably tuned and with a keyboard to play them. You think that might work?

[mollyr.goates]

I like your version of the handshaker.

[ruaraidhmcdonald-walker]

Great review!! This tune is awesome!!! Is there music for it anywhere? Brilliant!

[pipertripp]

That looks like an excellent piece of kit. Thanks for the review and the nice wee tune at the end.

[aaronjaben]

Amazing. When I came up we were still using cane drone reeds with hairs under the tongues and elk hide bags.

[YANDEXV]

Well now; We Rankins had a piping school on the Hebredes eons ago..this is something else. I have a midi wind expander but never got on wit it..looks like I'm going for an upgrade. Nice playing. Ty

[totointernational]

Amazing ! Thank you so much for your sound

[TildenMoschetti]

Great review and even better reel. So good!

[dfwpiper]

I need to get me that toy! I also need to get some of that reel version of the handshaker sheet music!

[benjaminhawthorne]

Do you think that "The Ergo Pipe Bag" that goes with this changer is a worthy investment? It is about $200.00, a notable increase in the cost of the chanter, but it seems it would be a whole lot more comfortable to hold the instrument with this accessorie. 🙂

[alankingwell]

Hi Matt, Can you tell me how you connect the Chanter to an Ipad pro please . I have just got one of these chanters to record in Garage band, but do sure how to go about it ?? Thank you
Alan

[nuegonah]

That price with that timbres but no breath control yet?


I know that it's useless for pipers, but with that cosmic pad I wish to add some more expression

[annescott]

🙋hi from Scotland that is just amazing loved the tune take care