First set of bagpipes

[PiobBear]

From the Pakistani pipes I've had direct experience with, I would expect that:

You will need a new chanter. Period. If they bother to tune their chanters at all, they have very curious notions of what constitutes a mixolydian scale in Bb.
You will probably need a new chanter stock. Pakistani stocks, bores, etc. are too small. Try and bore it out to take a real chanter, and it'll split.
You will need drone and chanter reeds. Don't be surprised if you need reed extenders or to countersink the reeds to get the drones in tune (or even to get the reeds to fit).
You will probably need a new bag. Several Pakistani bags I've seen are as air-tight as a colander. All of them were quite small.
You will need a new flapper valve. Again, the tendon of the blowpipe is too small, so you'll have to trim it. Some I've seen look like they were cut off with a chain saw, so it might need to be squared up and sanded smooth before a flapper could even work.

OK; now they hold air. The drone bores look like they were bored with a bit of dull flint on a stick. They're very small, very rough, often off center, and I've seen one that was bored from both ends but didn't quite meet in the middle; you couldn't see daylight through it. The tuning pins are thin, and often the pins and resonance chambers are out of round. Fire them up, and the first thing you'll notice is that because the blowpipe bore is so narrow, it's like trying to blow through a cocktail straw. The second thing you notice is how completely out of balance it is; even with good reeds the chanter overwhelms the small caliber drones. The third thing you realize is that you've just spent an equivalent amount of money on a frustrating, aggravating, wonky set of fatally shoddy pipes that you will never be satisfied with as you would have paid for a high quality set which you would've been proud of for the rest of your piping career, which could've been played virtually straight out of the box.

[davidlpope]

This is where I think that buying bagpipes is different than buying kilts. While I have enjoyed building up a collection of different kilts in the closet, I think that buying bagpipes is like marriage: do it right the first time.

Consider saving up the additional amount of money needed to get the set of bagpipes that you really want. The additional time will be well spent on the chanter, since it takes a while to master taorluaths and tunes. If you're not in a band there's no rush to get you onto a set of pipes, except your own impatience. I waited a long time to buy my D. Naills and have never regretted it. They're exactly what I wanted and are well worth the money and the wait that I put into them.

If you buy something you're really not happy with now, you'll be planning on how to uppgrade within 3 months. Delayed gratification is a good thing when it comes to buying bagpipes.

Cordially,

David