Please forgive me if this question has already been answered or didn’t even need to because my not being able to find anything about it only depended on my ineptness (wooo, this was like the most articulated sentence I ever wrote. It’s probably wrong somewhere, too xD).
I was thinking of buying a whistle from Erik the flutemaker but wasn’t able to find anything about him on the board, so I’d like to know your opinion on his products. Thanks and sorry again if my search wasn’t good enough.
There are quite a few discussions about him here. Personally, I wouldn’t get one. He is a pretty good maker, but for those prices you can get better. Susato or Freeman tweaked would be the better choice. But his whistles are pretty fancy and cool looking. You would probably get a lot of questions about it out in the pub. They aren’t bad at all, but they are not the best. I know that is pretty vague, but I hope that helps.
Even the outdoor playing has the sound of the batcave come cathedral reverb. Does sound great though. And some amount of his money goes to a charity if I remember correctly…Other than the charity of himself… . But that shouldn’t be the only reason to buy. Price and quality is what you should look at.
I’ve dealt with Eric to buy a double whistle from him. (everyone needs one of those!) but for that he uses Susato untunable D whistles and does not do the making of the whistles. He’s great to deal with and makes a serious effort to do constructive things for many folks.
That said I haven’t a clue about how good his whistles are. He does nice work but that is all I can say.
Essentially, I think he takes Susato heads and glues them (!)
on wooden bodies. If you like the sound of a Susato but prefer
it to be untunable and smell pleasantly of wood, then his whistle
is for you! If you need it to be tunable, then you might as well
just get a Susato, the sound is pretty much the same.
Kind of an old thread but in case you were still soliciting opinions…
I have a bamboo Bb whistle from him. It plays nice and is in tune with itself and only slightly sharp when checking against a tuner.
It has a bit of a different sound then a susato, more airy I guess, especially in the first octave. Actually not that woody as you would expect but bamboo doesn’t really have much of a woody sound to me anyway.
Comfortable to hold. More so then then some of the plastic material whistles I’ve played…
And then there’s Erik himself, I met him briefly quite a few years back when I worked at the NY Ren fest (a lifetime ago, wasn’t into flutes then but bought one from one of his assistants at the ren fest a few years later when I was visiting) my impression is that he’s a very nice guy who has found his calling and found a way to get paid for it too.
I like his flutes but the D flute is a stretch and a half and very wind intensive. Loud and pleasantly deep though…
Don’t really know anything about the guy or his whistles, but the video of the blues whistle he makes really makes me want to pull out the visa card. Blues Pennywhistle
. But that shouldn’t be the only reason to buy. Price and quality is what you should look at.