First to say that my impressions in my previous post might've been a tad influenced by the hype of having a new whistle, but they had 90% truth to it!
pancelticpiper wrote:
Interesting to hear that the 2nd octave is easier than the MK, which for me had one of the easier 2nd octaves I've come across, in testing 20 or so makes of Low D. That Goldie must be very light indeed up there! It's something I prize in whistles.
For me, Burkes tend to have rather stiff 2nd octaves.
What about air efficiency? I could hold High B around twice as long on either my MK or Goldie as on my Burke.
Another factor that's important to me is the strength of Bottom D. Burkes have huge booming powerful Bottom D's, the various MKs I had had odd touchy Bottom D's, and my Goldie is about in the middle.
I think that we were more or less talking about similar things when I talked about the easiness of the second octave and you about air efficiency. Both the Burke Viper and the MK Kelpie that I have are very air efficient in means that I can hold the high notes longer with one breath. They both need a lot of pressure to get the second octave blown, which makes it much harder to blown - almost but not quite too hard for me - than the Goldie I now have. Does that make any sense?
So by that definition the Godlie I now have is less air efficient, but the second octave is still easier to blow. I suppose some of this is subjective, some whistle-specific and some my inability to pay attention to these things to the same extent as you fellows.
retired wrote:
Hooleh - I had an MK Kelpie -it had many good qualities - strong low d, efficient, decent sound but the upper end of the second octave was too loud for me - how do you find the top end of the Goldie compared to the Kelpie ?
I would say that on this Goldie the second octave is not so loud as it is in my Kelpie. It's not quiet, either, though. Sounded nice in a small-ish session.