Melody / Help / Drone (Harmonium · Bagpipe)
Drone (Harmonium · Bagpipe)
ONE parametric DRONE instrument — pick the voice on the pad and the whole rig BECOMES it. The Indian harmonium and the Great Highland bagpipe are the drone-pole of the bellows family: both play a two-rank reed VOICE over a bank of three FIXED, un-note-routed drone reeds that ring continuously under everything (that shared skeleton is why they fold — the bagpipe is 'the same harmonium topology, re-tuned to the pipes'). Each pad key recalls a RIG PROFILE that re-tunes and re-voices it in one batch: the harmonium is a warm, meditative shruti-box — two near-unison reed ranks, a mellow LOW-PASSED drone tuned Sa–Pa–Sa (C–G–C), a soft filter, a slow bellows that barely breathes, in a dry contemplative room; the bagpipe is a piercing nasal chanter — a hard 'pulse' reed driven into a resonant SCREAM, a fast-speaking attack, three bright A drones (A–A–A, the low-pass BYPASSED so they buzz), presence in the mids, run on a huge steady bag (bagpipe music has no dynamics), washed in a long open-air reverb. The three DRONE reeds retune live on the switch — the most characteristic change — and the drone LOW-PASS is dialled mellow for the harmonium, bypassed bright for the pipes. Press a key to sound the reed voice over the ever-present drones; tap Harmonium or Bagpipe to change instrument.