ELECTRONIC TUNING

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30216, 22 August 1963, Page 3

ELECTRONIC TUNING

New Method For Bagpipes Bagpipes for bands in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other export markets are now being tuned electronically in Scotland instead of by ear, says a report from Britain. The manufacturers claim that their electronic tuning device is many times more accurate in fixing the pitch and tone of the pipes than the traditional ear method.

Mr Hector Russell, head of the firm, who took up the manufacture of bagpipes in 1945 after retiring from his electrical engineering business, developed his tuning machine by adapting an oscilloscope and fitting it with tuning forks. The sounds are recorded on a graph. Then a tape recording is made of the bagpipes which plays the melody and its vibrations also appear on the graph. The chanter is altered by increasing or decreasing the size of the finger holes, or by altering their shape, until the two graphs coincide. Mr Russell says this method is the most accurate ever devised.

The firm supplies pipes, reeds, kilts and uniforms to 12 bands in Victoria, Australia, alone and to bands and individual pipers throughout New Zealand. Other customers are the Arab Pipe Band in Aden and the Aidorondack Pipe Band in New York which were so pleased with the first batch of electricallytuned chanters that they telephoned Mr Russell at 2 a.m. (British time) to let him hear the band playing them on the other side of the Atlantic.