Discussion: The new instrument - pibgorn

Update 5 brought a new instrument called the pibgorn. I was really happy to find a new instrument had been added, but it seems like this one wasn't quite finished when it was released.

* The pibgorn is earsplittingly loud compared to other instruments.

* Held notes in the upper octave don't stay the same pitch, but warble around.

* The scale is all messed up. (Demo here: http://youtu.be/tY4HFf5YHp0) Notes are randomly mapped across 2 octaves, with one note way below all the others.

Here's a map of the scale:

Code:

key	note played
---	-----------
 C,	C 4
^C,	C#4
 D,	D 3
^D,	D#3
 E,	E 3
 F,	F 3
^F,	F#3
 G,	G 3
^G,	G#3
 A,	A 2
^A,	A#3
 B,	B 3
 C	C 4
^C	C#4
 D	D 4
^D	D#4
 E	E 4
 F	F 4
^F	F#4
 G	G 4
^G	G#4
 A	A 3
^A	A#3
 B	B 3
 c	C 4 (*)
^c	C#4 (*)
 d	D 4 (*)
^d	D#4 (*)
 e	E 4 (*)
 f	F 4 (*)
^f	F#4 (*)
 g	G 4 (*)
^g	G#4 (*)
 a	A 3 (*)
^a	A#3 (*)
 b	B 3 (*)
 c'	(no sound)

(*) These notes are repeated from the previous octave, but have a noticeable grace-note effect on the attack, bending up from a semitone below.


Turbine, if you're reading this, thank you for giving musicians some love, but please fix the pibgorn!

Accordeon on acid!

Thanks for the headsup Astleigh, I hadn't even noticed we got a new toy ...

I'm so going to make a serenade for pibgorn and bagpipe =p

That sounds quite a lot like a hurdy-gurdy, actually. *rubs his hands together*

BTW--here's a YouTube video of an actual pibgorn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj6YesxUNjo

Haha this is like bagpipes on acid!

Everytime, WB/Turbine deems to "throw us a bone" to the musical community of LotRO, I cringe a little and hear Forrest Gump saying, The LotRO music system "is like a box if chocolates. You never know what you're going to get".

We (the majority anyways) ask for a new instrument, preferably a Violin (viol) or similar sustained String Instrument, and what we get is the obscure and (and as Astleigh has pointed out) poorly implemented "Pibgorn", with split octaves, which, at best, will be difficult to work around, and at worst, and probably in most instance, quite possible not able to workaround to include, due to the "Split" octaves. Low octave Bagpipe style drones on the Pibgorn, also seem to drop out and reappear with out much rhyme or reason.

This instrument is clearly "not ready for Prime-Time".

Can anyone in WB/Turbine tell me if this made ANY appearance on the Test server, and if not, why not?

We asked, when LotRO changed the individual instrument musical "stances" with (I believe it was SoA update for book 13, vol 1...the music system update that also broke Multi-Index ABC file use...for over 8 months, with no information from Turbine, as to when they would fix it), to have the Dev's who handle the Music system come to the Music Forums, engage us in some converstation regarding our desire to see some Musical stances changed back for some instruments, and keep some the new stances for some others....

But above all, we all (collectively) dislike, to the EXTREME, the new Clarinet Blowgun stance that came with that update and how awkward it looked on the shorter races (Hobbit, Dwarf) and made us look like, at any moment, we'd drop into a leg split.

Over 8 months later, with no word from Turbine, we get a "Stealth patch" from Turbine which repairs the Multi-Index files so they can be used again, and also, ....get this......

.....Changes all the individual instrument stances to ....wait for it.......wait for it.... The universally disliked Clarinet Blowgun stance.

Something or someone's on acid, but I don't think it's the Pibgorn....

*/smackhead *

You know what would be great?

To have WB/Turbine indentify the developer(s) [finally!], in charge of the LotRO Music System, and have them come to THESE forums and ENGAGE US in some conversations and dialogue, regarding what We, the players and fans of the Music System, would like to see implemented, rather that what they dream up, during a "Kool-Aid Acid Test", to give us.

*/sigh*

In my opinion the pibgorn is good and bad news ... let me try and elaborate:

Bad news: The scale mapping. Also the sound, it really sounds more like a harmonica or accordeon than a reed instrument.

"Neutral" news: The upper octave bends; could make some pretty authentic sounding phrasings with them I guess, but personally I'd prefer 3 "un-bend" octaves instead. Both are wrong by the way, the real pibgorn has a very limited range, like the bagpipe chanter (an octave give or take a couple).

Good news: It tells us that development on the music system isn't 100% dead, that's awesome!

Now - if only we could get some dialog going with the dev like Kept suggests ... maybe we could even persuade him to tune the clarinet!

I do agree with Phede, having a new instrument introduced in game gives hope , someone is still working on our beloved music system and for that we must be grateful. Now the problem is that the pibgorn sounds really not very good in game, as Astleigh pointed out, the scale is messed up and. We did try several combinations and tunes last night and the results were frankly disappointing, and when someone said " ....sorry, I need to go and find out where my ear-drum has gone..." we all agree it was time to stop trying.

In real life the pibgorn sound rather nice, very similar to a simple bagpipe, but sadly it is not the same in game. I agree this instrument was probably not quite ready to be used now, it needs a lot of adjustments and I hope it will not take long before these are done .

At least now we have a way to clear the Prancing Pony from undesirable people...just pick up your pibgorn and start playing

Oh dear. That is somewhat complicated.

Nevermind, I wanted it to work so I added a conversion to that somewhat odd scale. Thanks for the investigation, it was very helpful.

Two songs for now,

Leprechauns Reel (line #4)
and
The Bishop of Bangor's Jig (line #1 or #4)

it doesn't sound too bad when you get it right, actually.

/Mirar
http://fefeconv.mirar.org/

Oh my, this is so sad. I saw a post about the instrument on A Casual Stroll To Mordor where some player used the instrument with some unfitting abc-tune. I was there at Ales and Tales on monday and heard it ingame myself. It was clear the instrument was played with the wrong music. Then I tried to find music which would fit the instrument to prove it would be good when played right but stumbled across that scale problem and finally gave up, equally annoyed by the sound of the instrument in game and the wrong notes. Add to that the - maybe - correct volume of the instrument (extremely loud!) which would render it unusable to play in group with other instruments except you have one pibgorn against 10 lutes or something like that.

The result is it's unusable for us players.

The instrument was clearly not fully developed at the time of the release of update 5. And this is so typical with the game. Everytime something new is released some part of it is not fully developed and/or implemented but it gets rushed out. Lately with the Isengard update the crafting items had some generic name like "TBD: Ring of blablabla 1, 2, 3". This is so annoying because it simply doesn't fit into the world of Middle-Earth.

If only one of the managers with the power to decide about such things would read the forums... and showed more passion about polishing the game... It surely would help.

Envoyé par Astleigh

...
* The scale is all messed up. (Demo here: http://youtu.be/tY4HFf5YHp0) Notes are randomly mapped across 2 octaves, with one note way below all the others.
...

Thank you for posting this so I don't waste time getting rep on my Woodworker to get the recipe.

(My ears, on the other hand, do not thank you... I could not listen through the whole thing).

Here's my attempt at a pibgorn tune. I had to move the A note an octave up, due to the weirdness in the scale. It was also challenging to recreate ornamentation since LOTRO ABC doesn't support grace notes. I tried to simulate a "strike" with: [D,/4E,]z3/4.

http://youtu.be/Xtp2TlMAbAg

Code:

X: 91
T: Bwrlwm [pibgorn] (0:38)
C: Trad.
Z: Astleigh
Z: source: http://youtu.be/7FiX2FlM49Q
L: 1/4
Q: 200
K: D

| [D,/4E,]z3/4 B, [A/4B,3/2]z5/4 A/ | G, F, E, F,/G,/ |
| A-A/G,/ F,-F,/E,/ | D,/E,/ F,/G,/ F, E, |

| [D,/4E,]z3/4 B, [A/4B,3/2]z5/4 A/ | G, F, E, F,/G,/ |
| A-A/G,/ F,-F,/E,/ | D,/E,/ F,/G,/ E, D, |

| [D,/4E,]z3/4 B, [A/4B,3/2]z5/4 A/ | G, F, E, F,/G,/ |
| A-A/G,/ F,-F,/E,/ | D,/E,/ F,/G,/ F, E, |

| [D,/4E,]z3/4 B, [A/4B,3/2]z5/4 A/ | G, F, E, F,/G,/ |
| A-A/G,/ F,-F,/E,/ | D,/E,/ F,/G,/ E,2 |

| [D,/4E,/]z/4 F,/ G,/F,/ E,/F,/ G,/F,/ | E,/F,/ G,/A/ B, [A/4B,]z3/4 |
| D, E, F, (3E,/F,/E,/ | D, A G, F, |

| E,/F,/ G,/F,/ E,/F,/ G,/F,/ | E,/F,/ G,/A/ B, [A/4B,]z3/4 |
| D, E, F, A | (3G,/A/G,/ (3F,/G,/F,/ E,2 |

| [D,/4E,/]z/4 F,/ G,/F,/ E,/F,/ G,/F,/ | E,/F,/ G,/A/ B, [A/4B,]z3/4 |
| D, E, F, (3E,/F,/E,/ | D, A G, F, |

| E,/F,/ G,/F,/ E,/F,/ G,/F,/ | E,/F,/ G,/A/ B, [A/4B,]z3/4 |
| D, E, F, A | (3G,/A/G,/ (3F,/G,/F,/ E,2 |

Envoyé par Mirarkitty

The Bishop of Bangor's Jig (line #1 or #4)

Or here, if you want:

Code:

X:1
T: The Bishop of Bangor's Jig [pibgorn*] 
Z: Transcribed by Firefern's ABC sequencer
L: 1/4
K: C
Q: 1/4=156
+f+ ^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C5/2
[=G,/2=C/2]
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/4
^G,/4
^A,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
^G,/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
z/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
^A/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,/2
=F,
^D,/2
^D,5/2
=C/4
=D/4
^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/4
^G,/4
^A,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
^G,/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
z/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
^A/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,/2
=F,
^D,/2
^D,5/2
=C/4
=D/4
^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C5/2
z/2
^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/4
^G,/4
^A,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
^G,/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
z/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
^A/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,/2
=F,
^D,/2
^D,5/2
=C/4
=D/4
^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=D/2
^D/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
=G,
=C/2
^A,/2
^G,/2
=G,/2
=F,/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,5/2
=G,/4
^G,/4
^A,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
^G,/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
=G,/2
^D,/2
z/2
=F,/2
=D,/2
^A/2
^D,/2
=F,/2
=G,/2
=F,
^D,/2
^D,5/2
=C/4
=D/4
^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C5/2
z/2
^D/2
=C/2
=A/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=G/2
=F/2
=G/2
=F/2
=D/2
B,/2
=C/2
=D/2
^D/2
=G,/2
=C/2
B,/2
=C3

::after listening to the sample Diamond curls into a fetal ball and whimpers, "It hurts us, it does, Precious! It hurts our earses!" *sob*::

Why, Turbine, WHY?????

We beg for years for a new instrument... and then you give us something even worse than the bagpipes???

*sobs*

There's a discussion in the General forum now, too.

My observations (from the General thread)
Lower the volume and only use it in very specific cases.
GHMS successfully used 2 (yes, 2!) in our concert Tuesday night. They were used to replace a hurdy gurdy intro to a Loreena McKennitt inspired arrangement of "To Drive the Cold Winter Away". I'd originally planned to use bagpipes, but in our test before the concert it was agreed that the "pig horn" worked well in their place.

I had them at +pp+ and back and to the sides from the rest of the band. The second one was offset by a sixteenth note to give a reverb effect.

Audience reaction was... mixed. Equal numbers of "Ooh.. that's cool" and "OMG! My ears are bleeding!" comments during the tune.

I do think regularizing the octave progression would be helpful for sure.

And it is not a bowed instrument. *sigh*

Envoyé par Siegfriedpf

They were used to replace a hurdy gurdy intro to a Loreena McKennitt inspired arrangement of "To Drive the Cold Winter Away". I'd originally planned to use bagpipes, but in our test before the concert it was agreed that the "pig horn" worked well in their place.

I had them at +pp+ and back and to the sides from the rest of the band. The second one was offset by a sixteenth note to give a reverb effect.

Audience reaction was... mixed. Equal numbers of "Ooh.. that's cool" and "OMG! My ears are bleeding!" comments during the tune.

I was there, and apologies, but I fall in the latter group and will echo Diamond......

Envoyé par diamond-tinidril

::after listening to the sample Diamond curls into a fetal ball and whimpers, "It hurts us, it does, Precious! It hurts our earses!" *sob*::

/facepalm

As I backed up to preserve my ears, the thought occurred to me to test the range/radius of the *Pig*Horn's (sorry, but to me, awful...) sound.

The other instrument's faded out long before I hit the Bird and baby's fence opposite the GHMS, while the *Pig*Horn, didn't fade out until I was over halfway to the Townhole, even set at +pp+, and that is *not* an exaggeration.

A broken, bugged and untested instrument addition, in my opinion...and it definitely shows....

Broken scale progression, OVERLY LOUD (Sorry, had to shout to be hear over the *Pig*Horn ) and such a harsh sound to me, that Bagpipes are sincerely mild in comparision, and I like using the bagpipes for some tunes, but the Bagpipes even with it's own quirks, can be used, as it isn't so BLOODY LOUD!

Unfortunately, I doubt we'll see any fixes for this *monstrosity* anytime in the near future...*sigh*.

Past History with Turbine dealing with fixes to the music system (see my last post in this thread), seem to take many months, without any word of any plans for fixes, or ever being included in patch notes.

The Dev who created this instrument, should be subjected to 16 (straight) hours of solos with a *Pig*Horn in the Pony, then made to listen to a REAL Pibgorn (for at least 4 hours), then be tasked with making the necessary Fixes to this mess, and WB/Turbine should never again make the mistake of *Not Testing Things Like This On The Test Server*.

*/doublefacepalm*

I still want to see violins. Or cellos. Or fiddles. Or even a hurdy-gurdy.

A mouth harp wouldn't be bad either.

Where do you acquire the recipe for the new instrument? The crit versions of this instrument are going for 20 gold on Brandywine atm!

Envoyé par Aothriel1965

Where do you acquire the recipe for the new instrument? The crit versions of this instrument are going for 20 gold on Brandywine atm!

I saw a recipe being sold by the Rohirrim Quartermaster, requires friend standing with Theodred's Riders.

What the Hell? WE DONT WANT A "Pibgorn" WE WANT A VIOLIN!

-> btw. the new instrument sounds like a little crying cat

Oh my.

I'd been away from the game for a while all but given up on a new instrument after Rise of Isengard was released, only to come back to check the forums and find.....this.

While initially I'm pleased to see that there was another instrument added at all, the current implementation makes me wonder ### someone must have been thinking to add this to the game in the first place.

There could be potential to use this instrument in my work........if the volume and scales were to be fixed. Forcing musicians to use +ppp+ to work with other instruments is NOT a practical solution (and it still isn't enough).

And with the scales as they are, I'd be forced to alter my usual transcription for the other instruments to work around the pig horn.... which I'm guessing most other musicians aren't about to start doing either.

While in the Theatre in Winter-home, someone dared to play a song on the pibgorn... and did surprisingly well to find a file which fit it's range and octaves just right! However, I noticed that the music did not sound at all like a real pibgorn... that is, it sounded synthesized. Tiriadoc made a comment about that once while we were talking in-game, and I agree.

If this is the future of the music system, using synthesized voices for new instruments, then I will beg the developers not to give us any more instruments, not even (or perhaps especially not) a fiddle/viol... because I do not want to spend hours and hours editing a midi or writing ABC, arranging a song, and testing a song, only to have it sound like... a midi. That is not why we fell in love with the music system in the first place. It's because our instruments were given actual samples from real instruments that they sound so amazing in our performances! We could take an ordinary midi and transform it into something really beautiful.

I will cherish the full richness of my harp,
the clear ringing of my lute,
my sweet breathy-voiced flute,
the strong reedy call of my clarinet,
the brash tone of my horn,
the wonderful variety of my drum,
the resonant depth of my theorbo,
my surprisingly versatile bagpipes,
and even my simple clanging cowbell...

you can keep the synthesized instruments on your drawing board. please.

During the after-show for the Eriador Music Society on Elendilmir, some of our friends from the audience played a duet using a pibgorn... so just to document the exact range of this new... instrument... I, and Theudebert, backed up until the dreaded pibgorn stopped.

We found it is a staggering, and solid, 30 meters! Somewhere between 30 and 31 meters it finally faded out of earshot.

By way of contrast, the lute faded out at 15 meters. So, it seems that Keptwise's casual observation of the range of the pibgorn is fairly accurate... TWICE that of other instruments!

Tried with the buggy version and canned it, but with the fix, it's grown a lot on me. Bishop of Bangor's jig sounds fantastic now.

Envoyé par Atheling

... but with the fix ...

What fix??

Envoyé par DerBarde

What fix??

From the bullroarer patch notes for update 6

Pibgorn is now the same volume as other player instruments and the notes are fixed.

"Sounds" promising
Thanks for the info.

Envoyé par Elenluin-Menelloth

From the bullroarer patch notes for update 6

Patch notes are not completely accurate, the scale is still broken:

C, and ^C, (lowest end of the scale) are one octave too high, plays C and ^C respectively.
^g is not ^g, it's g! Plz, can haz ^g? That's right, the high end g sharp is not there!

While a couple of problem notes seem to have been fixed, it is not quite done yet. I was unable to test the range because no one, and I mean NO ONE of the dozens of people on Bullroarer at that moment would give me the time of day... The only way to accurately test it is to fellow with someone and then have that person slowly step away until the sound fades away completely. Then one of the two people can mouse-over the green dot of the other person on the mini-map to see how far apart they are. I can tell you, though, that keyboard-played notes sounded just as loud as ever to me.

Now that Update 6 is live, I can confirm, without a doubt (thanks to Keptwise for helping me test it), that the pibgorn is still broken. The only thing different is that the ABC-played volume is reduced. All other aspects of the scale, range of sound, and volume of keyboard-played notes have not been fixed. And by range, I mean it is still twice that of most other instruments: 30-31 meters.

• C, and ^C, are one octave too high, plays C and ^C respectively.
• ^A, is also one octave too high, plays ^A.
• ^d has a strange harmonic warble and is noticably louder than the d
• all notes above f have the same strange harmonic warble.
• ^g is not ^g, it's g! Plz, can haz ^g?
• ^a is 2 octaves too low, plays ^A,
• overall note duration seems short and inconsistant, some notes are *very* short
• in duration.

Envoyé par diamond-tinidril

[*]overall note duration seems short and inconsistant, some notes are *very* short in duration.

But I guess that this has to do with quantization enabled in your audio options. When I tested the pibgorn yesterday I too noticed the inconsistant note durations. In my case more by some notes playing far too long considering the duration of my key press. After logging out I remembered that I had switched on quantization recently.
So I can't say for sure that this is the reason behind it but I'm quite certain.

Envoyé par DerBarde

But I guess that this has to do with quantization enabled in your audio options. When I tested the pibgorn yesterday I too noticed the inconsistant note durations. In my case more by some notes playing far too long considering the duration of my key press. After logging out I remembered that I had switched on quantization recently.
So I can't say for sure that this is the reason behind it but I'm quite certain.

Hmmm, it might be... but that would require yet another test... but playing the pighorn with keyboard is an assault on the eardrums!

While the quantize setting may have an impact on keyboard playing, it doesn't effect ABC playing, and this is where we noticed short notes this time. We played a song designed for bagpipe with a drone note. Bagpipe plays it fully, but pibgorn stops short... and we found clarinet also acts this way.... so perhaps the ability to drone was built into bagpipe (and horn) but not traditional melody instruments... *shrug*

Envoyé par diamond-tinidril

quantize setting ... doesn't effect ABC playing, and this is where we noticed short notes this time.

This is my opinion too but others state that quantization also affects ABC playing. Nevertheless this behaviour (short notes with ABC) seems to be a new bug coming from update 6 ... hurra

Envoyé par diamond-tinidril

We played a song designed for bagpipe with a drone note. Bagpipe plays it fully, but pibgorn stops short... and we found clarinet also acts this way.... so perhaps the ability to drone was built into bagpipe (and horn) but not traditional melody instruments... *shrug*

Wind instruments (like the others) also stop sounding a note after a certain amount of time except for the bagpipes (??and horn??) and I find this to be perfectly normal. I never explicitly tried the horn on long notes. If I'm not mistaken even the bagpipes only hold the notes from the lowest octave and a few of the middle one.
At least that's the way it worked before update 6, but I wouldn't be surprised to see horses puke in LotRO.

Bagpipes and horn note durations seem unchanged based on our concert last night. We didn't have a pibgorn piece, though, so can't add anything on that.

Envoyé par DerBarde

This is my opinion too but others state that quantization also affects ABC playing. Nevertheless this behaviour (short notes with ABC) seems to be a new bug coming from update 6 ... hurra


Wind instruments (like the others) also stop sounding a note after a certain amount of time except for the bagpipes (??and horn??) and I find this to be perfectly normal. I never explicitly tried the horn on long notes. If I'm not mistaken even the bagpipes only hold the notes from the lowest octave and a few of the middle one.
At least that's the way it worked before update 6, but I wouldn't be surprised to see horses puke in LotRO.

I should clarify that when I said the bagpipe played a drone note fully, I meant that the note in the ABC was set to play the longest duration of a note for bagpipe (before U6) and that the pipes still played it as intended. Similar ABC note durations were also possible with horn, before U6, and I will be hearing a song I made with horn as the drone tomorrow, I'll let you know if it ends up too short. There may be a difference in how long a note will sustain when using "freestyle" (keyboard) play as opposed to ABC play... I'll have to test that, now I'm curious!

Bottom line right now is that the pibgorn is only playable within an approximately 2 octave range from "B," to "f" (everything above "f" has an ear-splitting harmonic) and only usable for a melody line as it overpowers other instruments pretty readily with its, [ahem] "unique" voice, even set to lowest volume.

Edit: oops, I meant usable range starts at "B,"... still only 2 octave range

I must apologize. I just realized I mixed up my toons. The one I tested the pibgorn with had no quantization enabled.
But at the moment it makes no sense for me to do any further testing. I experienced massive mini lags throughout this evening. Connection symbol tells me I have zero loss, but chat hung repeatedly, moving NPCs stumbled about, and music passages up to 2 seconds were dropped. The player performing the music experienced the same things.

Why is a Simple Pibgorn (-6% Healing Power Cost) a Level 20 item while the Basic Pibgorn (nothing special) only for Level 65? Shouldn't the Basic one be available to lower level at least for Minstrels?