O'Briain "improved" question

Whistle
1

Hello everyone!

I’m just picked up whistling for about a month or so. Already bought me some whistles :slight_smile:, but not yet satisfied.

My favorite whistle upto now is my O’Briain “improved” nickel whistle. And there’s my point.

I received some brass whistles lately (a good Walton C) and I really enjoyed the sound of the brass whistles. My actual questions are:

  • Is it worth buying another O’Briain "improved, but now a brass one? Does the sound differ much from the nickel one?
  • Does anyone have some thoughts about the D/Eb combo offered on Shannaquay?

Happy whistling all!

2

The brass tube is not as slippery as the nickel. There are no other significant differences.

The O’Briain Improved Eb which I have is awesome, much better than either of the D whistles.

3

I only have the brass O Briain “improved,” but, based on my experience with other brass or nickel whistles (Generations), I can’t see that there’d be any real difference at all, other than, as Ridseard said, the relative slickness.

Well, one other thing (but it doesn’t have anything to do with sound either)…nickel tends to wear a bit better than brass, so if you don’t like that “well-played” look (I like it, myself), you might prefer nickel.

Redwolf

4

Why don’t you buy a Generation or feadog in nickel and put the tube on the O’Briain head. The only difference would be I remember he makes sure the tubes are in tune and you may or may not get a mass market tube that is. At least, it would be a cheap experiment in tone qualities.
Tony

5

Actually… He tweaks the heads quite a bit. And Feadog actually redesigned their bodies to be in tune after they found out what Cillian was doing with them. The Eb improveds use a generation body that Cillian has to tweak with a tweaked feadog head… Also a great whistle… On the heads, he adds plastic to the blade and files it differently. He also fills the inner cavity with something something similar to the “blue tack” that many of us use on generations tweaks and the like…

:slight_smile:

6

I wonder whether any experienced C&F-ers have tried the Improved Eb. The Improved D, for all its virtues, has a fairly weak 1st octave with a tendency to buzz, even when the Feadog tube is replaced with a Gen. In contrast, the Eb has a strong 1st octave with nary a buzz and a perfect volume balance between octaves. (At least mine is like that.) Here’s a sound clip of The Golden Keyboard. Pardon the newbie percussiveness and sloppiness, but I think it illustrates what I’m talking about. (It’s in E Dorian and frequently drops down to low E, which comes out as clear as a bell without any particular effort at breath control.) http://pw2.netcom.com/~ridseard/keyboard_oieb.mp3

Edited to point out that the tune is normally E Dorian, but with the Eb whistle, it is in F Dorian.

[ This Message was edited by: Ridseard on 2003-02-24 18:49 ]

7

Hello,
I recently placed the O’brian improved Feadog head on a generation body, and after “improving” the gen head placed that on the feadog body. The result is two excellent whistles. The Ob/feadog/gen is my favorite whistle.
Patrick