Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Bagpipes_Scottish_Smallpipes_in_A_Preview

Harmonic Frontier Audio – Bagpipes Scottish Smallpipes in A, Preview (v0.9)

A high-quality bagpipes dataset (Scottish smallpipes in A) — designed for AI training, music research, and creative audio projects in folk and world music.

Scottish Smallpipes in A, a preview dataset, created by Harmonic Frontier Audio.
It provides developers, researchers, and musicians with a compact reference set, demonstrating the quality and format of the full Harmonic Frontier Audio bagpipe dataset series.

For citation, see DOI link at bottom of this page

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🔎 Summary

This dataset provides high-quality, rights-cleared recordings of the Scottish Smallpipes in A — a bellows-blown aerophone characterized by steady airflow, a mellow tonal profile, and reduced dynamic pressure compared to mouth-blown bagpipes.
The recordings emphasize stable pitch, smooth harmonic content, and controlled ornamentation, making them valuable for AI music modeling, timbre analysis, continuous-tone synthesis, and tradition-aware sound generation research.

Developed by Harmonic Frontier Audio, this preview follows The Proteus Standard™ for dataset provenance, transparency, and ethical AI use.
Learn more about the Proteus Standard → https://harmonicfrontieraudio.com/proteus-standard

Full dataset details and licensing information are available at: https://harmonicfrontieraudio.com/datasets/scottish-smallpipes

It offers clean, consistent audio files capturing the Scottish Smallpipes across sustained tones, scale passages, traditional embellishments, and articulation patterns representative of authentic performance practice.

If you find this dataset useful, please consider giving it a 🤍 on Hugging Face to help others discover it.

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🎶 About the Scottish Smallpipes

The Scottish smallpipes are a quieter relative of the Great Highland Bagpipes — the most widely recognized type of bagpipes, commonly associated with the word “bagpipes.” The smallpipes are traditionally bellows-blown though mouthblown sets are also common.
They typically play in the key of A with a range from low G to high A, accompanied by three drones tuned to A.
Unlike many instruments, the smallpipes produce a continuous sound with no rests, and the chanter naturally grows louder as it ascends in pitch.
This continuous and dynamic quality makes them uniquely challenging — and rewarding — for audio modeling and dataset creation.

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📂 Contents

Audio Files (.wav)

• Recorded at 96 kHz / 24-bit WAV format
• Exported as mono or stereo (depending on mic configuration)
• Clean recordings with no fade-ins or fade-outs (pipes are already sounding at file start/end)
• High-pass filtered at ~40 Hz to remove subsonic rumble

Categories in this Preview

1. Scale Exercises

   • No Gracenote Scale Exercise
   • G Gracenote Scale Exercise
   • Includes chanter-only, and stereo mix examples

2. Sustained Notes

   • Low A (plain sustain)
   • C (vibrato)
   • D (plain sustain in chanter-only mic, and stereo mix)
   • E (vibrato)
   • High A (plain and vibrato)

3. Short Tune Snippet

   • "My Gallant Hero" - Mono mix of chanter + drones (balanced, natural sound)

4. Isolated Components

   • Drones only (no chanter, drone mic only)

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Metadata (.csv)
Includes structured fields for file name, instrument, category, content, note pitch, vibrato (true/false), BPM, mic position, channels, sample rate, bit depth, recording chain, and dataset version.

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🎤 Recording Notes

• Pipes recorded in a treated room with dual mic setup:
  • Chanter mic (Oktava MK-012) near chanter
  • Drone mic (Rode NT1-A) near drones
• Stereo files are balanced mixes:
  • Chanter = Left
  • Drones = Right
• Levels are natural to the instrument — high notes peak louder than low notes, reflecting authentic dynamics.

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🌈 Spectrogram Preview

Below is a spectrogram of the included short tune snippet, showing the harmonic profile of the Scottish Smallpipes in A:

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🎧 Demonstration Audio

This repository includes three audio examples for listening and comparison:

1. Dataset in musical context (mixed & mastered)
A brief musical excerpt demonstrating the Scottish Smallpipes in A Preview dataset integrated into a musical arrangement, highlighting expressive timbre and real-world usability.

Track: “My Gallant Hero”
Producer: Blake Pullen
Source Audio: Harmonic Frontier Audio – Scottish Smallpipes in A (Preview)

2. Raw dataset recording
An unprocessed audio excerpt taken directly from the dataset’s audio files, representing the actual licensed source material without musical context or processing.

3. Fully AI-generated reference (no dataset audio)
A comparison track generated entirely by an AI music model without using any Harmonic Frontier Audio recordings, included solely to illustrate current generative limitations.

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📜 Demo & Licensing Note

The Demos/ folder contains demonstration material only.
Only the raw recordings in the dataset audio files constitute the licensed dataset.
AI-generated reference tracks are not part of the dataset and are not licensed for training or reuse.

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🪶 Production Notes

• Instrumental accompaniment in the contextual demo was generated using Suno (Pro plan) under a commercial license.
• All dataset recordings were performed, recorded, and produced by Blake Pullen for Harmonic Frontier Audio.

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⚡ Usage

This preview pack is designed for:

• Evaluation of Harmonic Frontier Audio format and quality
• Testing workflows in ML training, sample library creation, or DSP pipelines
• Demonstration for developers exploring bagpipe timbres

👉 Note: This is not a full dataset. The complete Harmonic Frontier Audio dataset for Smallpipes in A will include:

• Full ornamentation library
• Sustained notes across the full range
• Additional exercises and variations

Other smallpipes keys (C, D, B♭) and Highland Bagpipes will be released as separate datasets.

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💡 Full Dataset Availability

This is a preview pack of the Smallpipes in A dataset.
The complete dataset — including extended recordings, multiple takes, ornaments, and additional mic positions — is available for licensing.

For licensing inquiries, please contact:
📩 [email protected]

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📥 How to Use This Dataset in Python

You can load the Parquet-converted version of this dataset directly with the datasets library:

from datasets import load_dataset

dataset = load_dataset(
    "Harmonic-Frontier-Audio/Bagpipes_Scottish_Smallpipes_in_A_Preview",
    split="train"
)

print(dataset)

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🔗 Explore More from Harmonic Frontier Audio

• Scottish Smallpipes (Preview)
• Highland Bagpipes (Preview)
• Irish Tin Whistle in D (Preview)
• Subharmonic Phonation / Vocal Fry (Preview)
• Kalimba (Preview)
• Kazoo (Preview)
• Overtone Singing (Preview)

(All datasets follow The Proteus Standard™ for ethical dataset provenance and licensing.)

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📜 License

Released under CC BY-NC 4.0.

• Free for non-commercial use, testing, and research.
• Commercial licensing available via Harmonic Frontier Audio.
• A formal rights declaration is included in this dataset bundle.

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📧 Contact

Harmonic Frontier Audio
📩 [email protected]
🌐 https://harmonicfrontieraudio.com/

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🔮 Future Roadmap

This preview release is the first step in the Harmonic Frontier Audio Celtic Instruments Series.
Upcoming planned datasets include:

• Full Scottish Smallpipes in A dataset (expanded embellishments and articulations)
• Highland Bagpipes
• Irish Low Whistle
• Irish Flute

Over time, Harmonic Frontier Audio will also expand into additional world folk instruments, building the first dedicated catalog of folk/ethnic datasets for AI training, synthesis, and sound design.

🗒️ Release Notes

Version 0.9 (August 2025) – Initial Preview Pack release for Scottish Smallpipes in A.
See CHANGELOG.md for detailed version history.

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Citation

If you use this dataset in your research, please cite:

Pullen, B. (2025). Scottish Smallpipes in A Dataset (Preview) [Data set]. Harmonic Frontier Audio. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16909138

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4527-0178

BibTeX

@dataset{pullen_2025_smallpipes_preview,
  author       = {Blake Pullen},
  title        = {Scottish Smallpipes in A Dataset (Preview)},
  year         = {2025},
  publisher    = {Harmonic Frontier Audio},
  version      = {0.9},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.16909138},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16909138}
}