I own and enjoy a nickel Generation tweaked whistle, by Jerry Freeman. I was wondering about the brass body Generation, also tweaked by Jerry. Are there any major tonal differences between them?
I have a tweaked Feadog with a brass body which I think is less slippery than the nickel body, but that might be my imagination…
Anyway, what are your collective opinions concerning the two Generations?
Thanks to all who reply.
With best regards.
Stephen
I think it has less to do with the material and more to do with the thickness (among metals, that is. Enter plastic/wood and all bets are off). Nickel Gens are actually brass coated with a thin layer of nickel, but are much thinner than the “brass-only” variety, which tend to have a sweeter, more resonant sound to my ears. The thinner tube to me sounds piercing on the high whistles but very nice on lower whistles.
Really? I have both a nickel and a brass Generation in D, and the thickness is exactly the same. They’re not tweaked by Jerry Freeman though, but… the thickness, really??? The OP asked for the difference concerning the Gens only, didn’t he? I feel like I’m heavily misunderstanding something here… However, I prefer brass, too.
Since you’re asking for opinions between the brass and nickel Jerry Gens, and I have both, I’ll offer mine.
I find them virtually identical in tone. But others disagree. The only difference I notice is in the feel. While I agree that at first the nickel seems a little harder to hold on to, after you play consistently for some time you get used to it IMHO. YMMV. I’m staying out of the thickness issue since I can’t see any difference between them and my non-digital calipers don’t show any difference. It might be too small for me to measure with this ancient analog device though.
Jerry will make some minor adjustments if you’re seeking something different though. You might contact him if you are. You can also ask his opinion about differences since he makes them to a specific set of criteria.
ecohawk
Huh. Jerry’s stuff is always great so I wouldn’t be surprised if they sounded the same. Odd that the tubes seem the same; when I’ve compared nickel/brass versions of the same brand of whistles the brass has almost unilaterally been thicker. Perhaps the current Gens differ from that pattern, though last I checked they didn’t.
I have both a nickel and a brass Generation in D, and the thickness is exactly the same.
Well the nickel would be thinker but only by a few microns because that’s how thick the nickel plating would be.
You’d want a high end calipers to measure the difference!
I never really noticed the difference in sound between nickel and brass with newer whistles.
But, After many years of playing the inside of a brass whistle will build up a layer of oxidation which will result in a slightly mellower tone than a nickel plated whistle body as the rougher interior absorbs some of the high end frequency’s of the sound waves.
As a whistle maker I can say that a whistle body would have to be a bare minimum of at least 1mm thick before it it would have a noticeable effect on tone.
Current Generation D brass bodies are .356mm and a lot of Low Whistle makers use a body thickness of between 1.25 and 1.5mm.
Wood whistle bodies are usually a bit thicker again but it’s the thickness of the whistle body aka the “chimney height” of the hole that changes tonal properties of the whistle.
All the best,
Tommy
Just to clarify, when you say one Gen sounded like this and then the other like that, are you recording them and playing back or just listening to them through your own facial bones as you play? I’ve found in the past that a lot of the “differences” I’ve “heard” from one to the other whilst playing tend to disappear when recorded and played back.
Philo
It’s just because everywhere (especially at (online-) shops where both variants of one brand are offered) it is said that brass has a warmer timbre, whereas nickel sounds clearer and purer. Now this has become a deeply ingrained consensus. Maybe there really is a marginal difference; but if you want to believe it, of course it will sound that way to you.
I still do prefer brass.
I answer the question thusly:
If there’s a difference, it’s subtle. If there’s a difference, brass is slightly warmer, nickel is slightly brighter. I’m not sure I can hear the difference. The difference between any two whistles is likely to be more than the difference between nickel and brass. Nickel feels slippery to some people, brass doesn’t.
The nickel plated tubes are the same wall thickness as the brass tubes. The thickness of the nickel plating is far less than the tolerance of the wall thickness, which means any two tubes of either material can vary in wall thickness more than the thickness of the nickel plating.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I was going to answer this very much the same. I make whistles, and I have experimented with a variety of metals and various thicknesses as well. I do find differnces between most of them, albeit subtle ones.
There is a difference in thickness between brass and nickel plated brass whistles as some have pointed out - but Jerry as points out, this difference is moot as it pertains to any woodwind. Painted brass whistles present a thicker wall on average than do plated tubes, yet they retain the warmth of plain brass (which are usually laquered, it should be noted). The reason for this difference isn’t wall thickness, it has to do with the temperment of the material itself. Some are capable of hearing these distinctions, and some are less capable.
For what it’s worth, EVERY whistle I’ve recorded playing with sounds different on playback than it does to my ear while I’m playing it - that’s a matter of acoustics, not whistles.