pipes|drums 8.0 goes live!

Thanks to you, our faithful subscribers, advertisers and readers, we are delighted to bring you the eighth major redesign of pipes|drums since we launched the world’s first online piping and drumming publication some 26 years ago.

We’ve come a long way since 1996, thanks to your support, and the contributions of many of the world’s best and most credible exponents of the art.

We went all-online in 2004, introducing subscription-level content and regularly introduced new and better ways to present new and even better news, features, interviews, reviews, and enlightening and fun elements.

Our latest iteration of pipes|drums is easier than ever to navigate, so that you can discover the latest pieces as well as the now more than 7,000 pieces from our nearly three-decades of archived online material.

New and improved:

Streamlined navigation

You’ll see a new navigation bar, making categories and sections easier to find.

Even more on the home page

We’re putting more content right up front, making article types clearer than ever. We’ve also brought back a constant feed of pieces from our archive. pipes|drums is always changing. There’s always more for you, and we’ve made it easier than ever to discover.

Bookmarking

You can now save your favourite articles to read or return to later. Just click the little bookmark icon on each article to save it. You can then go to your bookmark page to see all of them.

Myriad more tips from those who know

We spent a good deal of time working with more than a hundred of the greatest pipers and drummers in the world who kindly offered up their best pieces of advice. Our Tips feature includes almost a thousand separate words of wisdom. You’ll learn something new on every visit. Free wisdom, courtesy of the best.

Improved subscription process

We’ve upgraded the process to subscribe or donate to pipes|drums. At a little more than a dollar a month – one dollar! – you can enjoy all of pipes|drums all the time, while supporting our non-profit endeavour. We have no association or business backing us, so we’re free to say what we like and tackle taboo topics.

Gift subscriptions

Here, too, we’ve improved things. You can now much more easily give your favourite piper, drummer or enthusiast the gift of pipes|drums. You can choose the date they receive their special gift, automatically starting their subscription. Nifty!

Mobile friendly responsive design

We shut down the mobile app. It was too expensive to maintain and our research showed that fewer people use mobile apps anyway, preferring instead simply to access more efficient and mobile-friendly sites like ours. So we improved the “responsive design” and your pipes|drums experience from your phone or tablet will be every bit as good as from your desktop.

Banners and ads

Our advertisers are not only savvy marketers, but they understand the value of being aligned with the world’s most-followed piping and drumming publication. So, we’ve given them more visibility on the home page and in articles to increase their ROI with us. And, guess what, for the 27th straight year we have kept our advertising rates the same. (If you’re a business, band or organization interested in advertising, please do drop us a line.)

Faster, stronger . . . we can rebuild it

You should experience even faster speed. We’ve worked to optimize our “back end,” as they say, and upgraded our host environment. All that techie-weenie mumbo-jumbo simply means pipes|drums will be faster and more responsive. This wasn’t easy, since our database and structure are large and a bit complicated. But we made it a priority to improve your everyday experience.

Newsletter signup

It’s easier than ever to opt-in to our popular newsletter! Just complete the little popup or the form at the right. After that, you won’t get the popup again. You’ll receive a regular roundup email of all the articles published over the last few weeks.

Other changes

We’ve said goodbye to our Shop, which turned out to be difficult for most advertisers to administer and was taking up a lot of space. We also closed out our Classifieds section, which we started before social media made it redundant.

You know what makes all this possible? Well, everyone, since our popularity brings value to those savvy advertisers. But subscriptions, advertising and donations are our only source of revenue.

So, please do consider subscribing or making a donation so that we keep on keeping on. We appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy pipes|drums at least as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.

As always, Stay Tuned!