Universal Piper Universal Piper

No compatability issues - ran the VST on Vista using Samplitude as the DAW.

Setup is a simple unpack job and configuring the instrument is straightforward.

The manual is very clear, though a bit of prodding and poking around the User interface is intuitive and little "instruction" is needed.

Universal piper runs smoothly all the time and uses very little CPU.
Though only used on one song to date, the results are more than impressive and it will remain a valued piece of my VST armoury.

There is NOTHING to dislike about UP.
The sounds are astonishing. I tested two other "bagpipe" VST's. One gave a synth sound nowhere near the real bagpipe sound - and with no drone sound wghile the other had muddy sound and - when played alongside the Universal piper, fell by the wayside.

Like true bagpipes, the range of notes this VST can play in any one key is limited. I found that a joy. I had to rerwite a melody line, but it meant I was working with the same parameters I'd have had if I had employed a bagpiper to play a session for me.

Some might find that limitation annoying - even ridiculous: it depends what you're aiming for.

I wanted real bagpipes and couldn't get them. Forcing the music to make a slight change didn't diminish the song, but I know it sounds like real bagpipes.  I'd hate to have someone tell me: "That tune's impossible because the bagpipes could play that melody."

The other instruments I tried allowed you to widen the note range but their sounds came nowhere close to realistic.

Having tried the leading three "bagpipe simulators, I have no question. Uiniversal Piper is as close as you can get to the real thing and I would choose it again without doubt.

And I would thoroughly recommend this VSt to anyone struggling to create realistic bagpipe sounds.