Carbony?

[rsvpiper]

Anyone had any dealings with these folks www.carbony.com the carbon! chanter sounds interesting

[highland mafia]

hmm.. Had a look through their site.. Kinda seems a bit gimicky to me.. $225 for a practicee chanter and $335 for a pipe chanter??? Really? I doubt there's much improvement over poly to warrant those prices? If I had $335 to spend on a pipe chanter Id get a Strathmore blackwood and still have money left for a case of beer! LOL!

[rsvpiper]

hmm.. Had a look through their site.. Kinda seems a bit gimicky to me.. $225 for a practicee chanter and $335 for a pipe chanter??? Really? I doubt there's much improvement over poly to warrant those prices? If I had $335 to spend on a pipe chanter Id get a Strathmore blackwood and still have money left for a case of beer! LOL!

Yeh thought that too but was more interested in the sound quality and performance in various weather conditions

[highland mafia]

I would suspect the sound quality would be nothing special.. At best equal to wood. As far as weather goes. It's the reed weather effects not so much the chanter..

[Nick the DSM]

My friend has one, the whistle sounds really good. He has several of the tin kind and he really loves the carbon one too.

[hkjrb623]

the only up-side to that company that I've really seen it the range of tunings offered. Other than that everything I've seen from them sounds like really good wood, even the whistles.

[rsvpiper]

I know that reeds are effected by weather and that wood chanters really require blowing in/warming up to get the best tone from them and that poly chanters are not as good tone wise as wood! SO it comes back to the sound quality and simplicity of use would the carbon chanter give a tone like wood with the easy usage as a poly chanter.

The sound bite I've listened to isn't very helpful as the player is dicking about bending notes as he play's so you don't get a true sample of the chanters sound oh and it's indoors too.

[highland mafia]

I know that reeds are effected by weather and that wood chanters really require blowing in/warming up to get the best tone from them and that poly chanters are not as good tone wise as wood! SO it comes back to the sound quality and simplicity of use would the carbon chanter give a tone like wood with the easy usage as a poly chanter.

The sound bite I've listened to isn't very helpful as the player is dicking about bending notes as he play's so you don't get a true sample of the chanters sound oh and it's indoors too.

My 2 cents.. Well ok so maybe you'd get the quality or wood in any weather. Would that slight advantage be worth $335 to me? No. But that's me. And believe me I love my bagpipe tech stuff! But this one just dosent seem to have a very good musical benifit/cost ratio...They look neat though .

[OC Richard]

I saw their booth at the NAMM Show last year. As someone earlier said, the whole thing struck me as gimmicky rather than practical.

Hard to beat the sound and durability of a good poly chanter... witness the tone of many of the world's top pipe bands.

[Pyper]

I've talked to Rob, owner of Carbony, on a number of occasions. I bought one of his low whistles, which plays really nice.

Rob is an engineer, which probably explains his approach to things. The benefit, according to him, of carbon fibre, as a material, is that it is absolutely immune to changes in temperature and humidity. So you can take your whistle out of the freezer and play it in tune. Go on stage and it's still in tune. Since he plays in a band, one of his concerns is what the stage lights do to his instruments (i.e., nothing).

There's a lot less benefit to that strength when it comes to a pipe chanter, because the reeds aren't immune. And ABW doesn't react to temperature either (per se).

It's still kind of neat. He makes a whole set of pipes. I listened to Richard Kean play them (pipes and drones) and they sounded good. But Richard Kean could probably make any set of pipes sound good...

I don't think I'd buy his pipes or his chanter, but his whistles are good.