Naill, Robertson, & Sinclair + Crozier Cane bass + Canning or Cane tenors

These sound files come courtesy of John Follin!

There are 6 sound files here. There are 3 different bagpipes, Naill (~1980’s), Robertson (~1920), and Sinclair (~1950-60’s). All are with a Crozier Cane bass. They are then split into 2 sets of 3. 1 set being with Canning tenors, the other set being with regular cane tenors.

John says he retunes at times and shuts off a tenor or two and then restarts them so you can hear the harmonic effects from the blending of the drones.

Naill with cane tenors

Naill with Canning tenors

Robertson with cane tenors

Robertson with Canning tenors

Sinclair with cane tenors

Sinclair with Canning tenors

Here I have spliced together each set of files that use the same drone reeds with snippets of about 5 seconds each for direct comparison.

Naill, Robertson, then Sinclair with Cane tenors

Naill, Robertson, then Sinclair with Canning tenors

As a personal comment from the 2 sound files above.

1. The Naill’s are evenly balanced, being hard to distinguish tenor and bass sounds.

2. The Robertson’s have a dominant tenor sound, giving them a very noticeable ring. Though this ring is present for all the recordings as long as your speakers are good enough to reproduce the sound.

3. The Sinclair’s have a very bass dominant sound, with subdued tenors.

I prefer the Robertson sound the most. To me, it resembles my 1950’s Hendersons. The ring is very prominent and they have a very bold tone. To each his own, however.