Congratulations wrote:You mean you want to make a page of "tweakers," to compliment your "makers" pages? Or are you looking to compile a list of do-it-yourself tweaks?
Thanks. I want "tweakers." Not do-it-yourself instructions.
Well, I think you'd have to include Mack Hoover. You send him your crummy old whistle and $30 or $40, and you get back a whistle with a whitecap on it that plays great. Sort of a tweak in block caps - TWEAK!
I bought the Walton D/ Feadog C set from him. I like them a lot but only for certain applications. They are very mellow and quiet and they sound great but obviously wouldn't work for sessions and such. He does a very interesting tweak to the D body to bring it in tune and the reconstructed brass labium sound nice. I just happen to have clips of both whistles posted on another whistle site:
straycat82 wrote:I bought the Walton D/ Feadog C set from him. I like them a lot but only for certain applications. They are very mellow and quiet and they sound great but obviously wouldn't work for sessions and such. He does a very interesting tweak to the D body to bring it in tune and the reconstructed brass labium sound nice. I just happen to have clips of both whistles posted on another whistle site:
I have Tommy's mellow dog .. Bb .. F .. G .. Eb Gens. The Eb is my favorite ... can't seem to put it down. He does very good work. They are not loud but I play with a mic when I want to be heard in a large setting.
i actually have a tweaked feadog D that a friend of mine did for me, i asked him one day how it was coming, and he said its in the freezer, so i looked at him funny, but he insisted it was all part of the process.
Turned out beautifully though, but he worried me for a secound
Tell us something.: I have been playing this sort of music since 2007 and am in a band called Jonah's Lift. These esteemed fora come in handy to this very day.
This here is probably teaching granny to suck eggs, but I'm going to post it anyways.
Got quite a few Generation whistles, as I dare say most of us here have. Rather concerning how many of them are out of tune, though. One or two, at least a whole semitone out. I had the same problem with a Tony Dixon D (my favourite whistle) when I bought it, which was slightly flat. However because it's sold with a removable mouthpiece, I sharpened it up by shaving a millimetre or two off the fipple end of the tube with a hacksaw until it was spot-on.
Anyhoo, the reason I post is because I found out that you can remove a Generation's mouthpiece by immersing it in boiling water. Quite what the science is behind it, I have no idea, but I tried it on an errant, and thus expendable, G the other day and it worked. No melting or deformation of the mouthpiece at high temperatures or anything. So I plan to tune up all my Generations in the near future using the above method - a la hacksaw, for those which are flat. Interestingly, the mouthpiece on the Generation G became stuck solid to the tube again once it had cooled down.
Tell us something.: I have been playing this sort of music since 2007 and am in a band called Jonah's Lift. These esteemed fora come in handy to this very day.
Stevie D wrote:I found out that you can remove a Generation's mouthpiece by immersing it in boiling water.
Just to follow on from that, I was doing a bit more of this today. It's important not to leave the whistle standing upside down in the water, because the mouthpiece will go soft and deform as it slumps under the weight of the whistle. I lost the mouthpiece on my favourite nickel C this way! So this does work - and I tuned a couple of G's nicely - but you need to suspend the mouthpiece in the water rather than let it sit there.
Does anyone sell tweaked heads for Howard Low D whistles?
I have a Howard low D that I hardly play now that I have an Alba. I guess I could sell the Howard. But, I'm not strapped for cash, and the Howard does have an interesting tone, hmm......
I would think that the low Howards would be ripe for tweaking, as the replacement heads are available separately (right?). Plus, mine clogs easily (although I think it is one of the newer ones), so, there's motivation for someone to do some tweaking, I'd think.