BagPipes - first steps
When playing the BagPipes for the first time you will probably find that it reacts to the keyboard pretty much like any other synth. The tone is sounding as long as a midi key is pressed.
There are two noticeable differences though that have been introduced to recreate the authentic playing style of the original instrument.
  1. The Drones are not retriggered with every new keystroke. Instead they are sounding continously as long as a legato line is played.
  2. The synthesizer will sound as long as any of the keys within the playable range is held down. If You press another key while still holding the first key down and release it again the first note will be retriggered. You might already be familiar with this behaviour. BagPipes shares it with a number of other monophonic synthesizers. 

Hanging Notes ?

Now play a short note. Upon releasing the key you will encounter a hanging note! This is by no means an error but another useful feature instead. It truely mimics the behaviour of the original instrument and by this it you will be able to play traditional ornaments and figures with ease.
Traditional bagpipes will sound continously as long as the air pressure in the bag is miaintained. Activate the key hold button in the performance controls section of the panel to make the BagPipes behave the same.
Alternatively You can use a selectable Midi controler to switch the instrument on and off (set to hold pedal as default)
Of course with continous playing activated you will need a switch to turn the instrument off again. For this you have two options that can be used alternatively or in combination:
  1. activate the key off button. The Instrument will now turn off when a key outside the playable range is played.
  2. Set the  Midi controler assigned to the hold function to zero. The sound will then stop after the last midi key has been released.  

There is more

This short introduction can not describe all the features that the BagPipes is offering. Please note that there is always help at hand. Click the help button on the plugin panel to bring up the comprehensive documentation that covers all aspects of the BagPipes synthesizer.