Did anyone trie the new Burke BrassPro with black tipped head already? I’m curious if it plays the same as the “older” BrassPro. Any comments on the sound?
(if anyone replies) thanks!
I actually tried one briefly of a musician that lent it to me at a session. It’s beauuuuuutiful. It requires very little breath to reach various notes, and it even sounds good in the third octave. Of course, I’ve never tried the old Burke, so I can’t compare…
I got one a couple of weeks ago.
It would be more accurately described as a delrin-tipped head…same as Mike’s been doing on his lower whistles.
The instrument is in a word…astoundingly bueno!
Oh wait that’s two words. :roll:
I’ve owned the brass and the aluminum session pros and see no difference in playing but this whistle is much nicer to have in your mouth which is, of course, where whistles belong. 
Excellent work as usual Mke.
Doc
Delrin-tipped… I really don’t understand what this means? Are you suggesting an aluminium whistle head with delrin for the mouthpiece up to possibly the windway.. and the rest being metal. How is it attached… Pinned? I thought Burke whistles were all metal except for the delrin plug… like a Sindt.
It’s like the difference between waking up in the morning on a frigid day and going to the bathroom on plastic seat rather than an aluminum one.
WOW, thats cold. 
Thx for the photo link Gary. I think the old style, all metal fipple was better. Unless, someone has some facts about the airway maybe being better out of plastic than metal. I just don’t like it.
He may have done that to reduce clogging in the windway.
The “Pro” series has always featured a Delrin lined windway… the new design just extends it to keep your lips off the metal.
It’s hard to verbally describe the difference, bit if you saw the old style pro and new style pro side-by-side, you’d easily understand.
I’d take a couple of photos to demonstrate, but they’d probably be too fuzzy to be useful because of my crappy digital camera. 
Oh. I get it.
It looks to me like he turned down the delrin to the inside diameter of the brass all the way to the tip of the beak on the old version, allowing the brass to go the whole distance.
On the new version, it looks like he only turned down the delrin part of the way and left the rest flush with the outside of the brass to provide the delrin mouthpiece surface. Yes?
Best wishes,
Jerry
The old-style wide bore brass Burke had a Delrin plug, all else was metal. This evolved into the Pro Session, the mouthpiece of which looks superficially the same, but the windway is completely Delrin lined, and the windway and window have slightly different dimensions. (As Jerry stated, the Delrin lined windway reduces clogging.) The most recent incarnation has a Delrin tip, in addition to the Delrin lined windway. This makes it slightly more comfortable and more acceptable to people who don’t like putting brass or aluminum in their mouth.
Next question …
What’s going on with the geometry of the tuning slide? Is there some sort of widening inside there that balances octaves or something?
Best wishes,
Jerry
Jerry, do a search.
Keyword: perturbations
Author: Michael Burke
Hi everyone,
Just a note to explain a couple of things about the black tipped headpiece.
Jerry Freeman and others who have some have described them well
and the pictures do a good job illustrating the design from the outside.
I really need to get some decent pictures up and I apologize for the confusion on this new item. I have always had a delrin liner in the metal head that extends all the way to the bottom of the window on all Pro Series whistles. These liners are difficult to make and expensive too, but they make the whistle almost clog free unless it gets contaminated and needs cleaning.
I decided a couple of years ago to put the black tipped head on the aluminum whistles because of some questions customers asked about metal and specially aluminum in their mouth. I have never felt that there was a safety issue myself, but I want customers to feel comfortable with the things they put in their mouths, both healthwise and on a tactile level as well. Which brings up the second reason I did it. Other customers told me that they bit down on their mouthpieces and the metal hurt their teeth. Finally, Joanie Madden told me she liked to have plastic, not metal in her mouth because of the comfort issue. That did it. I started with the low A, low G, then the narrow bore D and Eb and E and F and then the B and C whistles. I also replaced the head for the low F and low E with a black tipped head and soon the low D too. I had made about a thousand of the solid brass heads, and aluminum heads for Session whistles, and am not running out of them and replacing them with black tipped heads. I like the looks of them myself. The only down side is that the heads cost double what the old ones did to make and therefore I have had to raise prices a bit on my lower priced whistles to cover it. I will keep the price down on the older model until they are all gone, and then the solid brass head D Brass Pro session will be discontinued. I still have about 6 of them, though that is not enough to last long and we may have sold them out already.
The D AL Pros will also sell out in a month or so, I expect and be replaced by a Black Tipped Session Aluminum D at the higher price.
Change is expensive for me, but I like to respond to my customers preferences in whistles. This will not change and therefore I will continue to look for ways to improve our instruments by listening to you, our great customers.
I hope this clears up any questions.
All the best
Mike
Thanks for the tip, Ridseard. Wonderful information Mr. Burke has posted. Fascinating.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I have both Brass and Aluminum Narrow Bore D and a BB Brass Burke whistles with the new mouthpieces. They are the best and now the only expensive whistles I have. And I have owned and sold most of the better non-wooden models. I am not sure why, but I find them a major improvement over the previous Burke whistles (which I thought were real nice). I think I have better embrouchre with the new models. This may be because the mouthpiece of the new models has a slightly more curved shape but sice I allready sold my old Pro whistles (because I needed the money) I can’t check this. All I know is that since I received my new Burkes my playing really improved. I really appreciate the work Mike put into this new design.
Now I’m happy 
Thank you all for responding … the explenation and support of other players help making my choice. Thanks for the photo’s as well!
Those were really attracting photos…