{"id":153,"date":"2008-09-13T12:19:49","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T17:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/?p=153"},"modified":"2014-08-08T09:01:49","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T14:01:49","slug":"john-center-versus-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/?p=153","title":{"rendered":"John Center versus Henderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately for Robert MacDonald (http:\/\/www.westcoastkilts.com\/) he had to sell several sets of pipes to pay for a roof. Fortunately for me, I acquired a set of John Center 3\/4 size cocus wood, celluloid mounts, nickel ferrule, bagpipes, or rather, my wife did, at least that is what I tell her. Below are pictures of them and them next to my full size 1950’s Henderson pipes (african black wood, white mounts, nickel ferrules) for comparison. As of the writing of this part of the post (recordings will be added soon), the chanter tunes the low A to 462 Hz. For reference, concert A is 440 Hz, Bflat is 466\/468 (depending on who you ask), and most modern bagpipes pitch the low A anywhere from 472 – 484 Hz. The chanter holes are the same distance apart as a Gibson chanter (pictured) but the holes are smaller. With Ezeedrone reeds, the drones would tune easily to the modern 472 – 484 Hz. The tenons on the Gibson (pictured) and a McCallum oval holed chanter are too big to fit into the chanter stock. I will have to acquire an adapter or commission a replacement chanter stock. With MG reeds with the A 440 extenders, the drones (though they tune pretty low on the tuning pin) will tune to the 462 Hz of the low A. The chanter is marked Center and below, though very faded, ? n u r g ? can be made out, which makes me believe they were made in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ringo Bowen has set of pipes very similar to this on his website (http:\/\/www.thebagpipeplace.com\/museum\/page6.html); it is the 4th picture from the bottom. According to Ringo, Center made pipes in Edinburgh between 1869 and 1908. That makes these pipes at least 100 years old, as the date of this writing in 2008. Notice the 50 year old mounts on my Henderson pipes are still very white whereas the celluloid on the Center pipes is now a distinct yellow. They are very light weight and the drones have a mellow tone, unlike the Henderson pipes next to them. Full sized pictures can be seen by clicking on each picture. The last 3 pictures are of bass drones. Enough chatter, Enjoy!<\/p>\n

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I have always thought cord guides were really ugly, I like Center’s minimalist approach!<\/p>\n

Here are some sound files of the Center drones (The chanter is 462 Hz, the drones 475+ Hz, that is why there are no recordings of everything yet):<\/p>\n

1. Ezeedrone Tenors – Wygent DuaTone Bass -> ezeetenorsduatonebasscenter<\/a><\/p>\n

2. MG Reeds – Bass o-ring bridle removed so the drone reed would fit in the stock (still has clear flat plastic bridle)! – retuned several time during the recording so they will go in and out of tune -> mgcenter<\/a><\/p>\n

I was walking around so that is why the volume changes during each recording.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately for Robert MacDonald (http:\/\/www.westcoastkilts.com\/) he had to sell several sets of pipes to pay for a roof. Fortunately for me, I acquired a set of John Center 3\/4 size cocus wood, celluloid mounts, nickel ferrule, bagpipes, or rather, my wife did, at least that is what I tell her. Below are pictures of them … Continue reading John Center versus Henderson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ghbsolo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patrickmclaurin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}