I must respectfully disagree on the Dunbar Pipes. One lady in our band plays them and they sound...well...terrible. We've tried several brands of cane reeds, including our last chance with EZ Drones and they still are the most difficult to tune and just sound...well, bad.

Her chanter sounds ok but that's because we have Naill chanters and are all matched (as well as reeds) but her drones......man...I wish there was something we could do with them.

One young man has a pretty new (meaning within a year old) set of Gibson Pipes and they sound very nice...a little loud but again, they are new[ish] and should settle within a year or two.

I play a set of Lawries and love their sound. They aren't Naills......but they do sound good for either band or solo. They too were difficult to find cane drones for but I found that they really liked the EZ Drones - so that's what I play now. I used to be the "traditionalist" and previously insisted on cane...but the difficulties in finding a compatible drone became increasingly difficult and expensive to procure in mass.