Bagpipe Tuning with 4 Phones & 4 InTune Mics: The Ultimate Visual Tuning Experiment
by Jori Chisholm, Founder of BagpipeLessons.com
Last Updated: February 13, 2026
I ran an experiment that I’ve wanted to do for years set up four smartphones, each with an InTune Mic clipped to a different part of my pipes — one on the bass drone, one on each tenor drone, and one on the chanter.
Then I started playing… and filmed what happened on all four screens at once.
For the first time ever, you can see what’s really happening with all four sounds of your bagpipe — simultaneously, in real time.
In the video, you’ll discover:
- How each drone behaves independently — and how they interact when you bring them together
- The exact moment when “in tune” locks in (and what it looks like when it drifts)
- Why your phone’s built-in microphone can never give you accurate readings
- How the InTune Mic isolates each sound so your tuner app finally works the way it should
Watch the video below.
Read the full video transcript below.
Video Transcript: Hey everybody, Jori Chisholm here. So, check this out. I’ve got four iPhones and four InTune Mics, and I’m going to try something I’ve never done before. I’m going to get these all hooked up with my favorite bagpipe tuning apps, and I’m going to see what it looks like to get my chanter and all three drones in tune at the same time on four separate screens.
Honestly, I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time. I have no idea how it’s going to go, but I’m really excited because for the first time ever, we’re going to be able to see every sound that the bagpipe produces all at once, independently. So this is going to be cool. Let’s see what happens.
Apps: Braw Bagpipe Tuner (Chanter) + TonalEnergy (Drones)
So, here’s the plan. I’m going to get the four InTune Mics set up, each with its own phone. I’m going to be using the Braw Bagpipe Tuner on the chanter, which is my favorite tuning app that shows all nine notes and has a great calibration feature. And then I’m going to use a different tuner called the TonalEnergy Tuner, also called the TE Tuner, for the three drones.
It’s going to be a matter of finding out where my low A is using the Braw Tuner and seeing what happens. So let’s do it. Let’s put the chanter in and see how we’re doing.
Got my Infinity chanter and my Tone Protector, my InTune Mic on the chanter. Here we go.
Find Low A Pitch and Calibrate the Chanter
Looks like my chanter is at about 477.6—about 478. So let’s get that chanter tuner calibrated nicely.
Okay, so I’m in tune. That’s 478.7. So now I got it.
Let’s put it to 479.
Done. Done.
479. Done. Done.
And 479.
Done.
Now let’s see if this works.
Why the Drone Tuners Look “Jumpy” (They’re Extremely Sensitive)
Well, that works. The other thing you notice is these tuners are so sensitive—especially this TonalEnergy. If you’re looking at the plus and minus, it’s dancing all over the place. It’s just because these things are so, so sensitive, and it just displays it.
So that seemed to work, though. I got my low reference number from the Braw Tuner using the “use current average” feature, and then set my TonalEnergies to that number.
So let’s do a little bit more tuning and playing and see what happens.
What You Want to See: Flat Green Lines (Locked Drones)
Okay. So the drone tuners are doing what I would expect them to do, which is they’re showing a flat line of green. Now the bass one, which is the orange mic here, is moving a little bit. Now, I don’t know if it’s this phone or if it is that my bass drone is just a little bit more sensitive in pressure than my tenors.
Now, I’m only blowing one pressure into the bag, right? Just one bag, one blowing pressure. Any little unsteadiness is going to be transmitted to all of the reeds equally—but not all reeds are affected equally.
So let me explain that.
Pressure Sensitivity: Why Some Reeds Move More Than Others
Just like with your practice chanter, changes in blowing pressure are going to affect the reed. It’s going to affect the pitch of the reed and maybe the volume of the reed a little bit. But some reeds are more sensitive than others.
If you had the perfect reed, you would like it to be not sensitive at all. We wouldn’t even have to worry about blowing steady. The reed would just do its exact pitch that it’s going to do, regardless of what happens with the pressure. That type of reed doesn’t exist.
But there are some reeds in some drones and some chanter reeds in some chanters that are less resistant to those pitch changes that result from moving pressure. So we want to blow steady to keep the pitch steady, but we can also find out: are there some reeds that are going to be steadier in our pipes than others?
That’s one of the things I love about my Foundation pipe chanter reed—it’s really pressure-stable. It’s the opposite of being really sensitive. You can blow a little bit harder or softer—not because you’re trying to, but just the natural little bit of fluctuations in your blowing pressure—and it doesn’t affect the pitch of the notes as much as a lot of other reeds that I’ve played.
So let’s just keep playing here.
Quick Chanter Tweaks with Tape (D, C, Low G, etc.)
So on the Braw Tuner, I can see some of these notes. I can see my D is a little bit sharp, so I’m going to put a little bit of tape on my D. My C is a little bit sharp—I’ll put a little bit of tape on the C. My B is a little bit flat, although sometimes I like a B that’s slightly flat on the tuner. Some really good pipers who have a great sound, that B is just very slightly flat on the tuner.
My low G is quite sharp—add a little bit of tape on the low G hole. You can do one or both holes.
And let’s see where we’re at. I also notice that my low A is slightly coming up, which is what I would expect. The more you play, the pitch is going to rise. So that low A has come up a little bit.
Let’s play and see where we’re at.
Low A has definitely come up. I’m going to hit “use current average.” Now it’s come up to 479, which is pretty close to where it was before, wasn’t it? Let me just recheck that.
Don’t Blow to “Fix” a Flat Note (Tune It Instead)
If a certain note on your chanter is flat, don’t blow harder—take tape off. Any adjustments that you do with your blowing pressure to try to compensate for the tuning of the note are going to make it harder to get that note in tune.
So if every time you get to a high A it’s a little bit flat, and your ear hears that, and either intentionally or sort of subconsciously you blow a little bit harder to make that high A less flat so it sounds better—you’re not going to fix it. That is not a good strategy.
What you want to do is blow really, really steady. And if the note is flat, let your ear discover that it’s flat, and then tune it—either by taking tape off or pushing the reed in.
What you never want to do is blow to create a note, either by blowing harder or slacking off.
Okay, now I’m going to retune. I’m going to recalibrate my drone tuners to 480.
And let’s see where we’re at here.
Now I notice a couple chanter notes. My E’s flat and my high G’s flat. So I think I put tape on those before. Take some off.
Visual Demo: Blowing Harder Fixes a Note but Throws Drones Sharp
Okay, now that we have the chanter pretty much dialed in and the drones are pretty much dialed in, I want to show you visually why blowing steady is so important.
If I had a note that was flat—for example—and I wanted to blow harder to make that note go in tune, watch what happens to the drones.
Okay, my high G is pretty good there, but I’m going to put extra tape on high G, which should make it flatter than I want it to be, which is lower pitched. And then I’m going to blow. And you’ll hear that high G is flat. You’ll see it on the Braw Tuner that it’s flat.
And then what’s going to happen? I’m going to try to blow harder to try to make the high G sound better. And then watch what happens over here on the drones.
It freaks out the drones. The drones go sharp, and they go out of tune when I blow harder on the chanter.
So I’m going to take that tape off. In fact, I even think I shut off one of my drones there.
So if you needed a more clear example of the importance of steady blowing on the bagpipes, this is it. Anything that you do to your pressure affects all of the reeds.
If you feel the need to blow harder or softer for some chanter tuning reason—a note is sharp and you want to slack off, or a note is flat and you want to blow harder—the reason that’s a problem is that first of all, it’s very hard to do that reliably. How are you going to change your pressure for that one note when it comes in, then go back to your normal pressure for the other notes? It’s just not a strategy that’s going to work.
But a huge problem in addition to that is that your drones go in and out of tune.
Let’s try that again now that my high G is back in tune.
I guess it wants to be there. Yep.
479.5. That’s where it wants to be. Let’s get our drones tuned to that.
Using TonalEnergy Time Span to See Steadiness and Movement
Really good. I love this. So with the TonalEnergy Tuner, you can really see if your drone is in tune. In tune would be that green line. Above would be sharp. Below would be flat.
But not only does it show you the pitch—because it has that line—you can see the movement. So you can adjust the time span here. You can go for a three-second time span, or I can go—let’s go to like a nine-second time span. And then you can see it’s going to just show more time on the screen.
When I’m tuning, I want to see what’s going on. And I know that there are going to be some pipers in the band who have really steady drones, meaning they don’t go up and down a lot. They’re just locked to whatever pitch. And if they’re out of tune, I can tune them.
But if they’re moving around, it’s really hard to tune because you’re hitting a moving target. If the sound wave is going up and down like that—or that line—it means that the pitch is constantly changing. It’s going up, it’s going down.
Sometimes you see unsteadiness. The other thing that you’ll see is it will be pretty good, but then the drone will go out of tune—typically goes sharp. Often this is when the player is going to the top-hand notes, and that is a signal that they’re overblowing on the high A. Probably they don’t even know they’re doing it.
They would know if they used a Bagpipe Gauge and they would see the pressure spiking. But you can see it on the TonalEnergy Tuner because it shows that the drones go sharp when you overblow.
Sometimes it’s all of them. Sometimes it’s just the bass drone, because for most sets of pipes, the bass drone is a little bit more pressure-sensitive than the tenors. Not always. People can have all sorts of problems with their tenors too. But with a really good set of pipes, with a really good set of reeds, you can reduce that pressure sensitivity.
But often the bass drone—even in the best-case scenario—is just a little bit more sensitive. It’s a bigger reed, bigger drone. There’s more air going through it. The tongue’s bigger. It’s more wide open.
What Drones Should Look Like While Playing (Flat + Green)
So what should your drones be showing you when you’re playing?
It should be showing you a flat green line. Green shows you that it’s in tune. And the flat line shows you that it’s not moving.
If there’s any movement there, that means that the pitch is changing. And you don’t want the pitch to be changing in your drones unless you’re tuning your drone. You want to tune them, but you don’t want them to be moving on their own.
What would cause a drone to be constantly moving pitch?
Blowing pressure could. It could also be affected by moisture. Now, temperature is going to affect it, but you’re usually not going to see up-and-down swings due to temperature changes.
A bad drone reed, or an old drone reed, or a dirty drone reed, or a drone reed that’s malfunctioning, or a drone reed that just doesn’t match your bagpipes—it’s possible that a drone reed works in somebody else’s pipes but not in yours.
If you’re able to achieve that flat line, it means that that drone is not moving up and down. It’s not sensitive. It’s not changing pitch.
If you can get the flat line right at zero on the green, then it’s perfectly in tune. So that would be ideal.
On my own pipes, I would be looking for three flat green lines. And when I’m going around and tuning in the band, I’ve got my phone, I’ve got my TonalEnergy—I like to use that for drones—and I go around from drone to drone on each player in the band with my InTune Mic.
I want to see a flat line. If it’s high or low, I just tune it. But it needs to be flat. Then I get it to flat line and green.
So let me put my pipes out of tune and we’ll see what’s going on here.
I’m going to go back to about a three-second time span on these so I can see what’s going on when I’m tuning.
Recap: Steady Blowing + Stable Reeds = Stable Tuning
Pretty good. So it looks like my bass drone tuner has died. I was ignoring the low battery warnings.
So I hope what you could see from this demonstration is the importance of getting your drones in tune so they really sound like one locked sound. You could see it when there were three flat green lines. You could hear that the drones were in tune.
And also with the TE Tuner, you can see the sensitivity of those drones and how they respond to changes in pressure.
It’s impossible to get your pipes perfectly in tune if the sounds are moving around. And the number one thing that’s going to cause those drones to go up and down would be unsteady blowing pressure. So blowing steady becomes really, really important.
But the other thing is you want to make sure that your drone reeds and your drones together are inherently stable. You don’t want them to be so sensitive to little tiny pressure fluctuations.
So making sure you’re good with your steady blowing. Make sure that you’re not trying to tune a note on your chanter by either overblowing to fix a flat note or slacking off to fix a sharp note, because you really can’t do that reliably and it’s going to make your drones go in and out of tune.
So: blowing steady, never blowing to create a note, and then making sure that your drone reeds and your drones are happy together—that they’re not too sensitive. Because if they’re stable and they’re not moving around due to pressure changes, you’ll have a flat line and then you can just tune it so that they’re in tune.
So my goal with the Braw Tuner would be everything straight up and down in the middle here, with the check marks showing that those notes are all in tune. And then each one of my drone tuners would have a flat green line, meaning it’s in tune and it’s not changing.
What This Demo Reveals About the Four Sounds of Bagpipes
Okay, so that was really fun and amazing.
Here’s what we just learned—and what I think you can see—which is each note needs to be perfectly in tune independently. You can see it on the tuner. You can see what it looks like when a drone is out of tune. And you can see what it looks like when it’s in tune: that flat green line.
You can see what it looks like when it’s moving around a little bit because of pressure instability. And then when it’s really locked in, which is flat and green.
You can see how when you get the low A and your three drones perfectly in tune at the same pitch, you can hear that locked-in sound.
You can also see the importance of making sure that you know exactly what your low A pitch is so you can match your drones to it. Pipers that are experienced and expert at tuning their pipes by ear—that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re able to get each drone matched to the other drones, so your drones are locked together, and they have to be locked into the low A on the chanter.
If the drones are together but the low A is out, it doesn’t sound right. If one or two of the drones is locked in with the low A but the third drone is out, you don’t get that locked-in sound.
Good pipers have this all in their head. But now, for the first time, we got to see what it looks like visually with the four phones and the four InTune Mics.
You can see how you tune one drone independently and move that sound of that drone until you get it in tune, and then you go on to the next one.
If it looks visually right, it sounds tonally right. You could see with the four apps going—with the Braw Tuner for the chanter—when you got the low A with the check mark and you got the three drones with the flat green lines, it’s showing you that it’s in tune, and you could hear it totally locked in tune.
Now, do you need four phones and four InTune Mics to get a great result with tuning? No, absolutely not. One InTune Mic with one phone will transform your tuning. You get it calibrated to your low A, then you move it to the drone and tune it, then to the next one and the next one.
I have a video on my channel where I get all three of my drones in tune in under 60 seconds, and that’s just with one mic moving from one drone to the next. It really works well. That’s pretty fast.
With the InTune Mic and your phone and some practice, you should be able to get your tuning process down to a couple minutes, and that’s really fast.
But I think understanding what’s happening with the four sounds of your pipes is really important. Now you have a better understanding of what’s going on when your pipes are out of tune. You have four different pitches, and when they’re in tune—when everything is locked in together—now you know visually what you’d be looking for, and now you know what you’re listening for, too.
You know what locked-in sounds like, and you know what locked-in looks like.
The InTune Mic will help you get your pipes in tune on your own faster, with more precision, giving you more confidence. But it also is going to help train your ear.
Every time you tune your pipes with the InTune Mic on your favorite app, you’re getting that visual feedback and you’re training yourself to hear what the screen is showing you. You’re learning what perfectly in-tune sounds like.
Over time, you start hearing subtle tuning things you never noticed before—subtle wavering between the two tenors, slight sharpness or flatness in certain notes on the chanter that you will be able to identify.
You will have a much more refined and sensitive ear for tuning on your own without the app.
That’s the transformation you’re going to get from the InTune Mic. It’s not just your ability to tune better and faster, but a deeper appreciation and understanding of how to tune your instrument on your own.
I honestly didn’t know how this four InTune Mic demo was going to go when I started, but I have to say it was really cool to be able to see visually what it sounds like when the pipes are totally locked in.
You don’t need four InTune Mics to get started. You just need one to unleash the power of your smartphone for more precise, more confident, faster tuning.
You Only Need One InTune Mic (How It Works, Where to Get It)
You can get one for yourself. Head on over to InTuneMic.com.
It works with any iPhone or Android phone and any tuner app. There’s no Bluetooth. You just plug the receiver into your phone, turn on the mic, they lock together, and you’re ready to go.
There’s an iPhone version for the older iPhones with a Lightning plug, and a USB-C plug for Android devices, newer iPhones, and any other device like a computer.
Plus, you get my online drone tuning course and a bonus guide that has all of my favorite apps for pipers.
Check it out at InTuneMic.com.
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