A few makers of high-end wood whistles also offer delrin whistles instead. While the wood whistles available look absolutely beautiful, the delrin’s got me interested because of greater adaptability to tropical conditions and because less care is required to keep them in good condition.
So what do these sound and play like? How do the wood whistles and the delrin compare in general? How different is the woody sound and the delrin sound? Any observations by those with experience with these (maybe even those who make them?) would be appreciated.
I did a review on the Busman Delrin which can be found, I think on this board by doing a search or by going to the Busman site. http://www.busmanwhistles.com/
The best sounding delrin whistle I’ve played is an Abell - sounded better than some of the blackwoods it was compared to, not quite as “good” as one or two others, but mostly very much like the blackwood Abells.
I had a Delrin Busman whistle, and it was nice sounding, but not as good as my Burke Brass Session Pro, at a substantial difference in cost. Wouldn’t a brass whistle handle your climate?
I now have a blackwood Busman, which has a warmer sound than the Delrin one, not nearly as good as a blackwood Abell, but approaching it. Had to ask Jon C. to drum sand the beak to a decent length (leaving 1 ring intact at the bottom of the head joint) to make it more playable, and all is fine now.
Through one of those strange quirks of fate, I currently have three Abell D whistles. One is a Madagascar Rosewood (part of a C/D/Eflat set which will soon go to Ebay), a blackwood whistle and a Delrin whistle. As near as I can tell the differences in sound are the result of the individual differences as they were made rather than the material. I have done extensive tests between the delrin and the blackwood including blindfolding myself and playing one of the whistles without knowing which one it is and then switching to the other. I can tell a difference between them if I play one and immediately pick up the other. I have played one set the whistles aside and returned in 15 minutes and picked one up without looking… and could not identify, by sound alone, which whistle it was. They are that close in sound. Friends that listen to both claim they are unable to tell the difference, even when I can.
I also have a Busman delrin whistle and owned a bocote Busman at one time. I like the delrin much better but again my belief is that with these handmade whistles it is the subtle differences in the making of them that affects the sound rather than the material. Paul tweaked my delrin for me and a very good whistle ended up being an outstanding whistle. I just needed to explain to Paul what I was wanting and within the confines of what could be done to tweak the whistle, he did it.
I’m not saying that material has NO impact on the sound but I do believe the differences are just as likely to be from the artistry that goes into crafting the whistle as is the material. Just my opinion.
Let it be known that I do dearly love wooden whistles… but I can take a delrin whistle to the mountains or the desert without undue worrying about how that will impact the whistle. I worry about the wooden whistles. So I have both.
I also agree that the Burke Composites have a nice “woody” type sound. I have several and a composite session for sale $90 + shipping. Email me off the board if anyone wants to talk to me about it.
I have one Busman yellowheart wood and two Busman delrins (1 black, 1 yellow) all in high D. They are fine whistles. Each of the three has a slightly different sound, and I agree with other comments posted that the differences seem to be related more to the variation in hand crafting rather than the material. If you like wood but want durability and low care, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a Busman delrin.
Ok, they are two very different whistles, but I think you can tell the character of the Burke Composite whistle is very much like wood. The files are just simple scales in the low octave, cleanly recorded with no effects.
The recording is in a neutral room, with a Marshall 3/4" diaphragm condenser studio microphone, to a 44Mhz 16bit wave file, with Sony Sound Forge. NO effects were applied. Compression to MP3 is with LAME preset “extreme” which yields an average 135bit (VRB) file.
Amazing similarity - you may not even hear a difference unless you have really good speakers on your PC. The Thin Weasel has a bit of silky brightness that the Burke lacks - but the Burke Composite is pretty darn good as a proxy for wood.