Description
The uilleann pipes is the national bagpipe of Ireland. It is a complex instrument made up of several pipes, a pipe bag to hold the air, and a set of bellows used to inflate the bag. This library features two full sets of uilleann pipes each with chanter, drones, and regulators – including a rare double-bass regulator.
Performance
The uilleann pipes are one of the harder traditional Irish instruments to play but now, through the wonderfulness of Kontakt, anyone can play them… yes even you!
Our aim was to take the components of this complicated instrument and map them to the keyboard in a way that is easy for you to play and perform.
Drones
Just like on the real instrument the drones of Dicky Deegan’s Uilleann Pipes sample library can be turned on or off using a single key switch for each pipe. These key switches are velocity sensitive which is great when working in a DAW as it prevents the switches being triggered incorrectly when you play back your sequence. You can read more about the way these key switches work in the user guide.
Regulators
The regulators are polyphonic for playing chords. For notes that are available on more than one regulator pipe you have the option to select which pipe’s samples are triggered, giving your performance an extra hit of realism.
Chanter
The chanter is monophonic. Playing in an overlapped style will trigger legato transitions and to compliment this further we’ve included a retrigger function which is ideal for trills. Using the slide controls you can perform formant correct slides of varying lengths and by adjusting the velocity of notes you can replicate the sound of performing the chanter on or off the knee.
Extras
To help you create detailed mock-ups we’ve included an extra Kontakt instrument featuring a selection of bellows and bag noise samples. These are recordings of Dicky filling the pipe bag with air before and during his performance. These samples are of various lengths and intensities so that you can fit them into your sequences.
Maximum Control
One of the advantages of sample libraries is being able to do things that are impossible on the real instrument.
With Dicky Deegan’s Uilleann Pipes not only do you have control over the volume of the three microphone positions, you can also set the balance between the drones, regulators, and chanter. This is incredibly useful for adapting the instruments to different contexts or incorporating them into ensembles.
Editions
The Professional edition of Dicky Deegan’s Uilleann Pipes contains five Kontakt instruments, two in the key of D, two in C#, and the bellows and bag noise patch. One of the instruments in each key is a standard patch with smooth, elegantly edited samples waiting for you to create a performance. The other is a little more wild and untamed and captures more of the musician’s raw emotion.
The Lite and Professional editions share all of the same features but the Lite edition contains only the standard D patch and the bellows and bag noise instrument. This is a great choice if you’re on a lower budget or don’t require the extra options of the C# chanter and the untamed patches. You can upgrade from the lite to the pro version at any time.
Stephen Wilson (verified owner) –
I am and have always been an advent fan of the Uilleann Pipes, and this is the best I have ever heard. To appreciate this library, you really need to study the instrument of how it’s played, and how it sounds, and the best way is to sit and watch some one doing just that. These pipes are so sweet to play when playing back in your chosen DAW with a well selected reverb plugin. These, in my opinion, are the best sounding and best utilised pipes on the market. I have often been asked when playing my composistions, who is playing the pipes, says it all, doesn’t it?
Eugene Smith (verified owner) –
From the moment I started to play with this I was truly blown away by the sound.. the faithful reproduction is amazing. The song I have written is in a traditional Irish ‘folk song’ style about an event that occurred to one of my ancestors in Ireland during ‘the troubles’. My oldest brother brought this story to my attention and asked if I might write a song about it.. unfortunately he passed away before I had even started to write it but now it is close to being ready to record. There are no Uilleann players in my area so I was very pleased to find this product.
flwehr (verified owner) –
I used these in a recent commercial release where I was looking for a moody Irish feel in a track. They are wonderful to work with and have a very authentic sound, unlike some other bagpipe samples that can tend toward reedy, Casio-like tones (If you want to go full Monty authentic, use the appropriately-named “untamed” patches.). Highly recommended.
Masachika Nanjo (verified owner) –
Nice Sounds!!
Daniel Silva (verified owner) –
This library is an absolute must-have if you’re looking for an Uilleann Pipes for your production. The articulations are beautiful, the instrument responds very well to your performance. Not to mention the price!
medwyn (verified owner) –
Excellent in every way.
As a multi-award winning artist I am VERY picky about what I use. A VST needs to sound authentic, sound great, needs to be expressive, easy to use -install – control because there’s nothing worse than being in the flow of being creative and you get bogged down by technical or performance issues. This is one of those rare VST instruments that truly ticks all the boxes as indeed do many of the VST’s on this site. Highly recommended ! Get it you wont regret it, it is FAR better than its competitors.
Medwyn Goodall
MG Music Ltd. UK
Steve Codling (verified owner) –
Very playable and fun to use… Always glad to support small developers, and this was well worth it… And amazingly fast customer support when a server glitch completed the invoice but didn’t give me a download link – resolved within just a few minutes after emailing!!! WOW!
Francis Binns (verified owner) –
Absolutely brilliant after-sales service. I encountered a few problems loading the instrument and I was helped within minutes. I’m fairly useless with technology but David was very patient and helpful. I should’ve read the manual really! Great sound as well once I got it all going smoothly.
Cheers, Frankie
pascal basso (verified owner) –
Very nice instrument . And very nice support ! Really . Pascal 🙂
gregorydilworth (verified owner) –
This a wonderful beautiful instrument. Even if I could afford a real set of pipes I haven’t the dexterity or musical knowledge to achieve the quality of sound and playability of this kontakt instrument. In fact the biggest problem I have, is not to overuse it.
Add to this the excellent customer service. I had a drastic computer failure and lost the installation files and the installed instrument. I was quickly sent a download link so I could reinstall.
Highly recommended!
jonbentley.iphone (verified owner) –
Great product! I highly recommended trying out the untamed patches as they have a really authentic, natural sound. It’s very easy to use and the way the patches are spread across the keyboard with separate sections for each of the pipe makes writing a realistic performance extremely intuitive.
Chris (verified owner) –
Great sound, fun to use, great price, what more could you want from a sample library?
Dirk (verified owner) –
love it !!! 🙂