Having been gripped by the tweak-bug lately, and wanting the Zen experience of the good cheap whistle (after reading the thread “Anti-WhOA and the Zen of Cheap Whistles”), I ordered a small assortment of cheapies from the Whistle Shop which arrived this afternoon. In other words, I’ve been having fun this evening (I can’t vouch for my neighbors, however).
I got:
a Clare (brass)–nice sound, sort of like a mellow Generation
a Little Black Whistle–nice sweet sound, horrible intonation
a Feadog MkIII (brass)–robust first octave, not so-good second
a Generation “Folk” (green top, brass)–nice bright Generation sound
a Generation red top (brass, of course)–same as above, just not quite as good
Tweaking findings, results:
All whistles received the ‘blue tack’ tweak, which seemed to solidify the tone a bit.
I was really hoping to combine the best head with the best tube, but the only head transplant of any merit is the LBW head on the Feadog tube. This whistle has a nice round, robust sound that’s on the purer side, definitely darker sounding than a Gen and better sounding than the tube with the Feadog head.
The Clare is good, but it somehow just doesn’t really excite me.
The Generations are both quite nice. After blue-tacking them, I dulled the edge of the blade on each ever so slightly; they both played a bit more cleanly. I’m pretty enthusiastic about the green top one…it was good even untweaked. It has that great Generation brightness and pop on the ornaments that makes playing quick tunes a joy. This is my favorite of the batch.
I melted the windway of the red top Gen and narrowed it, resulting in a sweet core to the sound, but breathiness around it. It plays well and is a bit quieter, so it’s a good practice whistle. It is breathier than I’d like. Any way to change that?
I made a guitar pick ramp for the Feadog, and it made it almost unplayable (odd, since the exact same thing worked quite well on a Walton’s Mellow D, another really out of tune but really nice sounding instrument).
(My cat loves playing with the discarded Feadog head and LBW tube, so nothing has been wasted.)
All of the brass whistles have the same intonation problems…really flat A and B in the second octave. Otherwise, the intonation is decent. Is there any way to fix this cheap whistle pet peeve of mine?
So, in conclusion, my stable now consists of three whistles I really like (Burke Al-Pro, Gen Folk, and nickle Gen B-flat) plus three that are just nice to have around or would make good giveaways to the whistle curious. The Generation, IMO, has the perfect cheap whistle trad sound…I’ll be looking no further with the cheapies.
In hopes that somebody found these ramblings interesting,
Micah