Bagpipes Keyboard Ultimate is an entire world of bagpipes in one iPad keyboard app!

It includes four extremely realistic sounding sets of Scottish and Swedish bagpipes in the form of an easy to play keyboard.

The four sets of bagpipes are:

Great Highland Scottish Bagpipes - The most popular Scottish marching pipes, in the traditional key of Bb.

Scottish Border Pipes - A Scottish smallpipe in the key of A with a sound distinctly different from but similar to the Highland pipes.

Scottish Smallpipes - A Scottish smallpipe in the key of A, one octave lower than the Border Pipes, and has a rounder, bubbly sound.

Swedish Säckpipa - A set of Swedish bagpipes in E minor, with a very haunting sound.

Operating Instructions:

Touch any key to start the chanter playing. Once a key is started, the chanter plays continuously just like a real bagpipes chanter. This accurately emulates the behavior of the real chanter, the sound keeps going as long as there is pressure in the bag.

Play a melody on the chanter by touching the keys.

Touch the drone puck image to switch the drones on and off. Stopping the drones also stops the chanter sounds.

Touch the “i” on the upper right corner to bring up the instrument selector and volume controls.

The balance between the drones and chanter volume may be adjusted with the sliders.

There are two basic play modes.

Choose the “Easy” play mode to play the main Highland chanter notes using just the white keys.

Choose the “Normal” play mode to play all the notes on the chromatic keyboard.

Touch the “?” for on-screen help and fingering chart.

Playing Tip: To make your playing sound more authentic and for repeated notes, quickly slide from an adjacent black key to the note you are playing to simulate a piping “cut” ornament.

For more fun and to experience the full quality of the samples used for the app, try playing the app through an external amplified speaker connected to the headphone jack on your device.

The drone and chanter sounds are provided by ePipes in Glasgow, Scotland, and are based on extremely high quality per-note studio recordings of some of the finest sets available.

Audio samples for the Säckpipa provided by Jonathan Parker from an instrument made in 1986 by Leif Eriksson.

Drone puck image courtesy of Mike DeSmidt.