The quiet guy takes control.
Sorta…
After a dozen years of making whistles from “just about anything” and succeeding in getting a reputation linked with “quiet” and “inexpensive” and “novelty” I decided to own it.
I like quiet whistles. I want to offer inexpensive whistles. I like novelty. Whitecaps are all three. So are Hoover brass tunable narrow bore and traditional bore soprano D whistles. I’ve decided to leave off making other than these because of common sense and the economy. Blacktops aren’t much different than Whitecaps and if I charged a “fair” would not be inexpensive. Wood whistles are out of my league. All that pursuing unique materials no longer makes sense to an old man.
Customer satisfaction is still guaranteed if you want what I offer!
And for the same reasons I have started doing my own web site. The closely shorn and somewhat naked http://www.mackhooverwhistles.com/ is up and running with some pages not so up and running but soon to be.
Mack, you may have chosen to stop making wooden whistles, but as the owner of a black-topped mahogany G you made, I can assure you they are not out of your league. I’ve acquired a few other Hoovers over the years, and they get a lot of play.
So, there’s all that and the occasional poem as well! Good luck with your redesigned website.
Have to agree with crookedtune. You have a fine hand with wood, Mack, and I have the peach and walnut G to prove it.
Glad I have my specialty whistles already … a ski pole A, my Katrina whistle, etc. Never plan to turn loose of them.
Customer satisfaction has always been your specialty. Can’t think of anyone that does it better. Good luck with assuming all control of the website and the whistles!
My advice would be to turn your welcome page into your home page. If you must, stick the big pic on bottom of the welcome page. Home pages that consist of nothing but an ‘enter here’ link are annoying, athough it’s worse if they have flash animations or autoplay music.
ct and kj and simon, you are great examples of what motivated me to hang in and motivate me still!
I wish it were possible to I.D. every one I feel the same about here and on the other boards, but just so you all know I would if I could!
Simon I’ll take that advice! My old friend and webmaster Peter designed those pictures that have been there so long and I can’t easily part with them but I didn’t know just how to fit them in till your suggestion.
Dale and administrators, can you grant an old quiet guy permission to say thanks?
I have more Hoovers in my whistle case than any other kind. And I’m a guy that supposedly likes “loud” whistles.
Mack, the low E that you built for me, and the wood-grain look mezzo A, get tons of playing time. The Whitecap on the Eb Generation is probably the best sounding whistle in the whole caboodle.
Thanks Loren and MT. I think the problem may be fixed or nearly so. If not, let me know and I will accept gratefully suggestions as long as they are kept very simple!
Hey Mack - loud things have a tendency to go through one ear .. and out the other.
Warms my heart to see you still doing that quiet magic you do. Some help by grabbing you by the ear and pushing your face in it, some help by just being here.
I thought I’d chime in here to say that my Hoover brass narrow bore quiet whistle is my quietest whistle, the magic whistle that allows me the pleasure of sitting in our sunny breakfast nook and quietly playing my whistle without annoying roommates in the livingroom (not quite adjacent, but no doors between us to muffle me for them). It allows me to play whistle downstairs while my roommates are upstairs asleep in their beds. I have an assortment of quiet whistles, being an apartment dweller who likes to play in the evening hours, and my Hoover narrow bore is the one I turn to when extra-late hours or proximity of involuntary listeners demand extra thoughtfulness.
And my extra-quiet whitecap, while louder, is the practice whistle that gives me the most whistley satisfaction. Hard to describe what I mean there, but most quiet practice whistles involve some compromise tonally, but my whitecap has a combination of reediness and purity that I find quite enchanting. But you can get whitecaps to be quieter or louder, depending on what you ask for. Mack is great to work with.
i have to say i’m sorry to see the blackcap go… i still have mine, and i play it on a feadog d body, a gen d body, and a gen Eb body–it makes them all playable.
i’m sorry i missed out on the g too; if you ever have a mind to try them again, you can put me on your list…
also, i looked at your pictures… seems to be all whitecaps. do you have any photos of the narrow bore brass? or am i missing something…
do you have any photos of the narrow bore brass?
Here’s a link I found by Google search. It’s from about 2001 when I was selling through Thom. They haven’t changed much except for black delrin fipple plug and have a tuning sleeve.
I don’t have any photos of the brass narrow bore I like well enough to put on my website. I hope to get some on and a lot of archived photos of other whistles I’ve made…one of these days.
I give permission to anyone willing to post a photo.
