Everything you need to write for pipes and drums
A full score editor, realistic playback and easy sharing – all in your web browser.
All your scores in one place
Stored in the cloud, organised in folders and tags, and easy to find with search.
Full orchestration
Bagpipes, snare, tenor and bass – individually or as one score. Split and merge as you need.
Realistic playback
Real and synthetic bagpipes, smallpipes, practice chanter, practice pad, snare, pitched tenors and bass. Crescendos, diminuendos and accents too.
Fully featured editor
Cut, copy and paste, add and remove staves and bar lines, undo and redo – everything you'd expect.
Productivity
Automatic beaming and spacing, plus shortcut keys for notes and embellishments.
Any modern device
Desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone – if it has a modern web browser, it runs Ensemble.
Collaboration
Share with band colleagues and students, work together in shared Workspaces, use distribution lists, and invite corps members to play back and download.
High-quality engraving
Crisp PDFs of single scores, or a whole set list as one PDF.
Hear the whole band
Real bagpipes, snare, pitched tenors and bass, played together with crescendos, diminuendos and accents. Press play to hear Pipe Major William Gray's Farewell to the Glasgow Police in full.
Open the score in the viewer →Shared Workspaces
Work on scores together. Everyone in a Workspace gets full control of its contents, so the whole team can edit and organise the same scores.
Everyone in the Workspace needs a Pro or Corps Edition subscriptionFind any score with tags
Every 6/8 march with a bass/tenor part, or this year's competition set – whichever folders they're in.
Tagged for you
Ensemble tags every score with its time signature and instruments, and keeps them up to date each time you save.
Idiom and your own tags
March, Strathspey, Reel, Jig and more, plus your own colour-coded tags such as “Gig set”. Tag several scores at once – and when you share a score, or keep it in a workspace, your tags go with it.
Filter and find
Narrow any folder by Idiom, time signature, instrument or tag, see every score with a tag in one click, and find scores by tag in Search.
Studio Tools
Let Ensemble do the writing. Studio Tools add new parts to your score in seconds, and write down a tune as you play it.
Create Pipe Harmony
A seconds part for any pipe part, from note-for-note to free-flowing – and a different variation each time you ask.
Create Tenor Score
A tenor drum part that fits your pipe and snare parts, with pitched drums, runs and flourish bars.
Record from your chanter
Play your electronic (MIDI) chanter, or a practice chanter into your computer's microphone, and watch the notes, gracenotes and embellishments appear in the score.
Import from an image or PDF
Got a tune on paper? Upload a photo, scan or PDF of a printed score and Ensemble turns it into a score you can edit, play and share.
Beta · Pro & Corps Editions · printed scores onlySync scores with YouTube
Link a score to a YouTube video and the music follows along – a great way to teach a tune or a tenor flourish.
The full list
Pick a section to see everything Ensemble can do.
- Notes and rests from whole note to 1/64th note
- Drag single or multiple notes on the stave
- Cross note heads
- Pitch up/down tool
- Bar lines: single, double, start, end and repeats
- Add and edit staves
- Multiple time signatures in one score
- Multiple tempos (metronome marks) in one score
- A vast array of pipe embellishments
- All snare embellishments
- EUSPBA, other and custom tenor flourishing symbols
- Dynamics (ppp, pp, mf, ff, fff and more)
- Dot and double dot
- 1st/2nd timings, including 2 of 2, 2 of 2 & 3
- Configurable highlight colours
- Unison marks (ff, f, u and more)
- Cut, copy, paste, undo and redo
- Crescendo and diminuendo (drumming)
- Automatic beam and spacing tools
- Dot/cut and cut/dot tool
- Swap hands tool (drumming)
- Optimise bar widths
- Text with your choice of font, size and position
- Images and logos, including animated GIFs
- Phrase library
- Common and custom time signatures
- Option to hide time signatures
- Stave and system indentation
- Dozens of shortcut keys
- Optional dark theme
- Start a new score with several instruments at once
- Create a pipe harmony part automatically (beta) Pro & Corps
- Create a tenor score automatically (beta) Pro & Corps
- Record from an electronic (MIDI) chanter (beta) Pro & Corps
- Record from a practice chanter through your microphone (beta) Pro & Corps
- Set the tempo, time signature and starting bar before you record, with tap tempo and a click to check it
- Show or hide part titles
- Show or hide the key signature (bagpipes)
- Show or hide bar and beat numbers
- Show or hide foot-tap marks
- Show or hide note and embellishment names (bagpipes)
- Beams under rests
- Configurable background colour
- Configurable note and embellishment colours (bagpipes)
- Full-height or compact bar lines
- Configurable tuplet style
- Automatic syllable labelling
- Real and synthetic bagpipes, smallpipes and practice chanter
- Practice pad, snare, tenor and bass drum samples
- Tempo control
- Assign tenor pitches to highlight colours
- Volume control for each instrument
- Full band-style introduction
- Syllable playback
- Tenor and bass rolls
- Download an audio file
- Configurable metronome
- Metronome count-in, with the beat shown as it plays
- Configurable footer text
- Portrait or landscape
- Page numbering
- Vertical scaling to fit more lines on a page
- One PDF from several scores
- Import from MusicXML
- Import from Bagpipe Music Writer (BWW and BMW files)
- Import from an image or PDF of a printed score (beta) Pro & Corps
- Export to MusicXML
- Export to BWW
- Distribution lists Pro & Corps
- Email PDFs to anyone Pro & Corps
- Share scores with other subscribers Pro & Corps
- Shared Workspaces – everyone in the Workspace gets full control of its contents Pro & Corps
- Give corps members access to Ensemble Corps
- Corps member engagement statistics Corps
- Edit mode and view mode
- Folders for your scores
- Tag scores by Idiom (March, Strathspey, Reel…) and with your own colour-coded tags
- Time signature and instruments tagged automatically
- Filter a folder by Idiom, time signature, instrument or tag, and see every score with a tag across all your folders
- Copy or move several scores at once
- Sync with a YouTube video
- Set lists of scores
- Score Library of over 200 free bagpipe scores
- Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge
- Works with touchscreens
- Recording from a MIDI chanter needs Chrome, Edge or Firefox