Carbony?

[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.