I’ve got a Dixon A in aluminium which has a lovely soft husky voice but is £55. I can’t comment on the plastic version but that’s only £31 so is within your budget.
Thanks for your thoughts, Cunparis. I’d like to make a Guido whistle one day but not right now. When you say you tape your Guido High D, you mean you put tape either side of the window?
Hotblack, I’ve no doubts the Dixon whistles have a lovely tone what’s the fipple like in shape and what’s it like to to use?
Here’s what it looks like:
I narrowed both sides until it wouldn’t play well and then made it a little larger so that it played. I’d love to have Guido make me a quiet whistle but I don’t want to bother him with such things.
The only disadvantage to this (or the parks ring) is that it will play flat.
Looks good. The playing flat doesn’t bother me since I don’t intend to play with anyone else. Doesn’t Guido make a quieter D whistle anyway? I might just give him a try since he seems to be open to a refund if you don’t like his whistle.
He can make them quiet or loud. I got a quiet G and a loud D. At the time it was my first D. Now that I play mostly my Generation (Freeman tweaked) D, the Guido D became my quiet whistle.
Not really sure what you mean about the fipple shape and how it affects playability. I have a range of whistles from Dixon to Susato to Goldie to Generations etc. The fipple makes no difference to the usage. If you mean the beak of the whistle then I find no problems changing from a flat one like the Goldie to a curved one like the Susato.
If you use ABC and (free) software, then you can transpose each tune so that it looks as if it is ‘D whistle friendly’ (D, G, Em, Am). Then you just choose the right whistle for the key of the tune. I cannot name the notes in the key of Bm, nor do I need to. If I still had a Bm whistle I would pick it up to play a Bm tune, but would have learned it with the fingerings I would use to play it in D on a D whistle. Sounds complicated but is actually easy. I think that that is what clever people here mean by saying that the whistle is a transposing instrument - me I stick to high and low D (and sometimes bass A).
Thanks DrPhill. Much appreciated but I’d worked that out. It does make everything much simpler doesn’t it.
Bet you get one sometime!
I’ve no desire to learn the notes of several keys; rather I’ll play every whistle as if it were a D whistle.
But (unlike C and F recorders) you don’t really need to learn multiple keys. And you already know the D fingerings because they’re the basis for everything else (hence the use of terms like ‘written’ or ‘fingered’ G to describe sounding Eb on a Bb or F on a C!)…
So I still bet you get one sometime!
Interesting concept there (major and minor whistles), but think you might actually find that disturbing in practice!
Whoops, Bb not Bm. That is because I am musically illiterate. Another reason for simplifying everything!
But what would be wrong with a minor whistle? I am happy playing minor keys on the major whistle, and I am sure that my brain would cope with the change. Maybe you mean that someone with a huge amount of practice under their fingers would find the effect disturbing because it jars with learned expectations? Being a relative newbie I might have an easier time adjusting.
I wonder if there would be any practical advantage? And what would happen if I used a minor fingering (Em or Am on the D whistle) on a whistle that was itself minor?
Well (assuming bell note as tonic), you couldn’t get the melodic minor scale with six holes + all fingers off and no half-holing, so you’d have to go harmonic minor or maybe ‘cheat’ with Aeolian mode (aka ‘natural minor’). But the former’s not going to suit many trad tunes and the latter’s going to leave you no option for a sharpened leading note because you can’t half-hole with all fingers off!
I wonder if there would be any practical advantage? And what would happen if I used a minor fingering (Em or Am on the D whistle) on a whistle that was itself minor?
Take a hypothetical Aeolian whistle in D (scale = D,E,F,G,A,Bb,C,D), play it with quasi-E minor fingerings and you’ll get E Locrian (E,F,G,A,Bb,C,D,E), or half-hole to sharpen the leading note (in this case the bell note) and you’ll get goodness-knows-what (E,F,G,A,Bb,C,D#,E). Likewise your quasi-A minor fingerings will produce A Phrygian (A,Bb,C,D,E,F,G,A) or who-knows-what-again (A,Bb,C,D,E,F,G#,A) with half-holed leading note…
Or maybe just talk to Hans about his ‘Gypsy whistles’, which seem to avoid the bell note as tonic and look like a far more considered concept!
OK, thanks; as I suspected, the theory goes way over my head. I will not be making any minor whistles! I have enough to do leaning to play those that I have…
Of course, you know you can instantly turn any standard whistle into a Dorian whistle by the use of Shift Fingering. Also known as the whistle capo. 
Just shift your fingering up one hole. Bottom ring finger on the B2 hole. Top index finger on the “phantom” hole above T1, and top middle finger on T1. And the pinky to cover B3 (which now feels like B4) for your new 7th scale tone (and your new register break). Voilà Dorian.
Feels weird but lets me try my LH sans pinkie if I ignore the ‘phantom’ hole! 