Lindsay System Chanter : Information

The core project of Lindstruments at its inception was the Lindsay System chanter for Scottish Smallpipes. This is a keyless extended range nominal "A" chanter, which makes use of a return bore both to extend the range downwards to low D, and to bridge the register gap present in the smallpipes (as in all "cylindrical" reeds).

The project arose out of research that began in 2005, with the return-bore design finally being proven in early 2013. From there, a Kickstarter project ran during March/April 2014, to finance the purchase of 3D printers and filament and facilitate more intensive work on the chanter and a set of drones to support it.

By December 2014, the version 1.0 Beta chanter had been distributed to backer-testers, following which version 2.0 was resolved by November 2015. 

A professional video, "Chanter 2" was released on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram in December 2017 to coincide with a feature on the project that ran in the January 2018 edition of "Piping Today", the magazine of The National Piping Centre. The video shows some of the range and potential of the chanter.

 The main features of the design of the Lindsay System Chanter are ;

- Ability to access a second register (High B, High C#, High D, and beyond)

- Access to additional notes below the scale, by use of a "back-bore" (Low F#, Low E, Low D)

- Access to semitones within the range (Bb, C, Eb, F, G#, High Bb)

- No requirement for keywork

- No effective alteration made to the basic "A Chanter" scale, so no new technique needs to be learnt in order to play your existing repertoire.

- Despite being a nominal "A" chanter, the chanter's two octave range begins on a low "D" (below low G). It is capable of playing music in the keys of D & G within that range, in addition to the familiar Scottish pipe modes of "A", and many other scales & modes. See further down this page for samples of some of the many scales that this chanter can provide.

- Access to a musical range compatible with that of the Uilleann pipes, Northumbrian Smallpipes, the Whistle, Wooden Flute, and the top three strings of Fiddle, Mandolin, Banjo - up to and beyond third position on the fiddle.

And the interesting thing is - this is just the 'working' range. The chanter has  an 'untamed' octave at least, above and beyond this for the adventurous player to explore!

If you're a piper, and particularly if you understand something of the principles of acoustics as they apply to a Smallpipes chanter, this will all sound 'too good to be true', in which case I recommend you watch the video provided here for a demonstration of the chanter and its capabilities.

More videos can be accessed in the "About" section of this site.

Lindsay System Chanter - Sound Samples :

The chanter has been in development for several years, and the research that gave rise to this design has been ongoing for more than a decade at time of writing. The process of finalising the design went into 'top gear' in 2014 following the success of the "Dreaming Pipes" project on Kickstarter, which culminated in the production of 20 Version 1.0 "Beta" chanters, sent out to 20 project backers, who also each received a Version 2.0 chanter on completion of the project.