In order to keep the beautiful sound of certain tunes on a low whistle that have to be played an octave higher, I wandered if there was any whistles 2 octaves lower than a regular whistle, or to put it another way, a whistle an octave lower than a low whistle. I was wandering just how rare these whistles are, and if they maybe even twice the size a low whistle, and even twice the price! Also, does anybody know where they are available, if indeed at all?
Thanks.
Mike Burke sports his really gigantic low D subwhistle. Here with Bob Tedrow at the Dublin Festival 1999.
While some makers (eg Colin Goldie) offer down to a ‘bass’ G or (Daniel Bingamon?) even bigger, fipple flutes start to suffer from all kinds of problems of reach, poor projection and slower response when they get too big. So you can get recorders with keywork etc. in great bass (C) and sub-contra bass (F) sizes, but typically still with the latter two problems, and transverse flutes may be a better bet (you can have fun Googling for bass, contrabass and hyperbass flutes etc.) although still probably not the answer (which is perhaps almost impossible in the shape I think you’d like) to your question at all!
Assuming you’re talking about D whistles …
Aside from one-offs from Michael Burke or Dan Bingamon … No, not really. The physical size and consequent hole spacing of a contrabass (low low) D whistle would make it impossible to play by human hands without keys and plates/linkages. And then it would no longer really be a whistle but some kind of keyed thing. And the breath requirements for adequate volume and response may be daunting.
The Paetzold contrabass recorder gives another idea of what it might look like.
http://www.lazarsearlymusic.com/Paetzold-Recorders/paetzold_recorders.htm
And you can see that the cost is a bit more than “twice the price”.
Keep in mind that octave folding is a standard skill on the whistle. And if you’re not playing the whistle’s own repertoire, then a whistle may not be what you want. Try contrabass recorder or bass flute.
I have a greatbass recorder. Works pretty well but I bought it 30 years ago and you wouldn’t want to pay what it costs now. I can play it up to hornpipe speed but getting jigs and reels out of it with any style is pretty difficult, the keys have a lot of travel to slow you down.
Louder, lighter, going a semitone lower, more responsive and much cheaper: a Turkish metal G clarinet. Because it has an enormous dynamic range it can blend in with pretty near anything.
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk103/synwhistles/lowlowd.jpg
Breath requirements are certainly not daunting! The lowest couple of notes require some control but the rest of the two octaves present no difficulties and response is fine, allowing that the L/L whistle is not designed for session music.
No longer a whistle? So a low D with one key is no longer a whistle? Bah, as they say, humbug!
I forgot the height requirement. Is the stool included? 
One key … No, that’s probably OK; you can work around the limitations. Six (or four) keys? No (or limited) half-holing, side finger vibrato, finger slides, partial hole intonation control, partial hole cuts … If you can’t pick up a whistle and apply the full range of normal whistle techniques, then it’s not really a whistle IMO but some other kind of fipple flute. Not that that can’t still be useful.
13 hours to go. This is the same as mine except I only have a single low C hole:
Didn’t sell at their starting price of 1025 pounds so they’ve relisted it at the same price.
Odd behaviour but it’s worth that much.
Thanks for all the fantastic information. Very informative indeed!!!