Canmore or Gannaway bagpipe bag?

[triumph]

Pros and cons of the Canmore Hybrid ( Core-tex & hide) bag, Canmore (Core-tex) bag, to Gannaway hide bag, both with zippers. I have at present a Gannaway hide zippered bag but need to replace because of air leaking around the zipper. ( the bag is 7 years old ) I am just a fun player, for my own enjoyment, do not belong to any bands or groups. I tried listing this on bobdusire forum and am looking for advice. Thank you

[imrichmond]

Personally, I would stick with Gannaway. I have played the Canmore regular bag and quite liked it. It lasted me 8 or 9 years and I found it had excellent moisture-control properties. I haven't played the Canmore hybrid, which is a very recent product, but I have Bannatyne hybrids on two of my sets of pipes. These are excellent bags for comfort and fit, but have lousy moisture control. I played one in Scotland for three weeks last summer and, despite having a regularly emptied water trap in the blowpipe stock and a tube and bottle trap in the bag, I had to completely dismantle my pipes, thoroughly swab out the drones and stocks and let everything dry out over night every day after playing. This is not such a problem here in British Columbia, but you do generally need some form of moisture-control system with a hybrid bag. I suspect the Canmore hybrid would have similar properties, since all hybrid bags have a synthetic liner with a hide covering that tends to keep moisture in the bag.

I have a Gannaway zipperless, tied-in bag on my primary set of pipes. It is now more than 5 years old and still going strong. It is by far my favourite bag. It is comfortable under my arm, doesn't interfere with my forearm, the chanter sits at a nice distance for my reach, and the bag has very good moisture-control properties. I tried an L & M Scotian (which is a hide bag, by the way, not a hybrid, as many seem to believe) a few years ago but found it too uncomfortable for me. It was quite a stretch for me to reach the chanter. Also, the Scotian has zero moisture control. If you use one, you need a heavy-duty system like the Ross canister along with it. I also had a Gannaway zippered, tied-in bag on a set of 1960 Hardies that I played as my second set for two or three years and I loved that bag. I ended up selling those pipes to one of my learners, somewhat regretfully.