If one window is good, what about....

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Terry McGee
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If one window is good, what about....

Post by Terry McGee »

I sometimes wonder what would happen if you built a whistle with two windows, not the usual one. Perhaps one at the top and one at the back, or two side by side, separated by something to keep the whistle from bending at that point. And then I go on to thinking, why stop at two (you can see how I tend to get myself into trouble, can't you)? Why not three windows, distributed at 120º increments around the whistle, with three structural members between them, to keep the front and back from falling apart. (We're probably talking metal here, rather than wood or plastics!) You'd probably need some kind of windcap arrangement to distribute air down the three windways leading to the three windows, but that shouldn't be impossible.

Firstly, I wonder if anyone has done such a thing? Am I just another in a long run of nutcases, or do I really stand out as a trailblazing nutcase?

Secondly, I wonder, would it work? Would the returning pressure front from the first open hole be up to nudging two or three jets out through their windows? Or would they squabble? Or starve?

Assuming that it works, what benefits and losses would it bring? One might hope one window good, two windows better, three windows best. But we might expect that the required airflow would rise proportionally. Would humans be up for it? What if we compensated elsewhere, eg by reducing the windway heights, or window lengths or whatever? Would two or three small fipples offer benefits over one big one? Hmmmm....

Oh well, afternoon tea time over. Better get back down to that workshop. Musing about triple-fenestered flageolets isn't going to get those flutes finished....
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RoberTunes
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by RoberTunes »

You lost me and I thought I was cycling the Whistle Highway in sunshine to IKnowWhereIAmVille. I think you'd tap into a lot of experience and generate a lot more response if you could post diagrams of those ideas, to clear up for others what you're dealing with.

Yours truly, 12-Chamber Ocarina Kid
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by stringbed »

Terry McGee wrote: I sometimes wonder what would happen if you built a whistle with two windows, not the usual one. Perhaps one at the top and one at the back, or two side by side…
Organ builders have been making pipes like this for over five hundred years. The stop is called a Doppelflöte and there’s a good description with pics and links to sound samples here. Perhaps the more relevant question is how well the sound-producing mechanism is suited to an unequivocally open pipe with a tonehole lattice.
Last edited by stringbed on Sun Jan 29, 2023 2:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by hans »

Terry, you are talking about some kind of playable steam whistle design.... well, I pity the poor player... to generate enough wind! If I make my curved windows too wide I am already in trouble. And if we are using such design on low whistles, we will be running out of steam in no time at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_whistle
I guess the steam whistle designers missed a trick there, by not using valves on the bell. It could be been a proper whistle with little extra effort, just a longer open body and lever operated valves on the tone holes. Enter the steam punk whistle machine!
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by RoberTunes »

Q: does each window have it's own associated tube and set of tone holes?
In it's refined and metallic way, it may take on something similar in appearance to what a wooden train whistle looks like, two to four tubes, which for it's own primitive purposes uses one windway, four windows and four tubes to produce one note, which because the tubes are not the same dimensions, creates that famous windy train whistle sound.

If a melodic whistle had more than one tube, what purposes and effects do the other tubes have? Octaves? Different keys? Drone notes? Drone effect? Different tonal characteristics for the same note? This makes me wonder if something could be added to a whistle in order to adjust the tone; have a regular tone available but be able to adjust the mechanics of the whistle so different tonal properties are accessed.

If there were more than one window but just one tube, I suppose a benefit to strive for might be more volume and tonal richness, or possibly easier more reliable access to a third octave? Even a four octave whistle to include the sopranino range?

Perhaps an additional feature of another window/tube could be having advanced and easy control over vibrato, note bending or trills as well as tonal adjustment. I'd buy that damned thing. If the idea worked, I'd bet it could be added to a quality whistle design and yet still cost less than $180.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1226/ ... 1556568094
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by RoberTunes »

Thanks for the link, Hans. I looked through that site and wonder if Terry imagines something similar to the Seraphoneflote?

http://www.organstops.org/s/Seraphonflote.html
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Terry McGee
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by Terry McGee »

stringbed wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 2:29 am
Terry McGee wrote: I sometimes wonder what would happen if you built a whistle with two windows, not the usual one. Perhaps one at the top and one at the back, or two side by side…
Organ builders have been making pipes like this for over five hundred years. The stop is called a Doppelflöte and there’s a good description with pics and links to sound samples here. Perhaps the more relevant question is how well the sound-producing mechanism is suited to an unequivocally open pipe with a tonehole lattice.
Oh well, at least I'm not uniquely barking mad! I do like the sound of: "Its tone has been described as full, strong, pure, round, and liquid." But perhaps not so much: "Some sources criticize it as being hooting."

Now this is interesting however. Note the windways (2 of them, of course) coming up from the bottom of the pipe. Note how they start wide (high in our terms), continue wide (high) right up to the windway exit, then taper down rapidly to a very narrow exit width (height). My "twist drills as feeler gauges" investigations have shown that some of the whistles I measured have that feature. Others taper down over the full length of the windway. Interesting to contemplate and perhaps explore the merits of both approaches.

Note that the stopper protrudes a little into the window area (on both sides of course), though there is no indication of chamfering. Is it possible that the sudden drop of ceiling height at the end of the windway is designed to help direct the jet downwards a little as a voicing tool? Especially if combined with a chamfer?

Image

Interesting that John Gouwens from Culver Academy in the US was the source of some of the information in this article. John and I have collaborated on some carillon studies, some of which are on my web site. Small world department.
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by stringbed »

Terry McGee wrote: Note that the stopper protrudes a little into the window area (on both sides of course), though there is no indication of chamfering. Is it possible that the sudden drop of ceiling height at the end of the windway is designed to help direct the jet downwards a little as a voicing tool? Especially if combined with a chamfer?
Chamfering is useful, if not outright necessary, when a rigid voicing mechanism is attached to a pipe that needs to speak with relatively equal ease in its fundamental and one or two overblown registers. That’s a constant headache for a whistle maker but isn’t an everyday concern when voicing organ pipes. The corresponding onus there is ensuring that each pipe in a named rank sounds like the immediately adjacent ones, and that the aggregate sound scales as intended from the lowest pipes toward the highest ones. I assume that the position of the block in a Doppelflöte pipe is adjusted quite deliberately during the voicing process. I would also expect the effect to correlate to the chamfer added to a whistle during its voicing — and ever so much easier to roll back if taken too far.
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by Terry McGee »

Hmmm, digging around among the clutch of whistles from my past, I find a vintage brass body, red head Generation. But whereas my other Generations show no sign of protrusion into the window, the floor of this whistle protrudes a little. About 0.25mm. No sign of chamfering. It's a pretty awful whistle - weak and never far from instability. These are probably the whistles we need to interrogate.

It reminds me we have no easy test for voicing - how the jet impinges on the edge. Or did I miss that posting?
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by hans »

RoberTunes wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:12 am Thanks for the link, Hans. I looked through that site and wonder if Terry imagines something similar to the Seraphoneflote?

http://www.organstops.org/s/Seraphonflote.html
nice one! An organ pipe which plays very loud, and needs a lot of pressure!
Scaled down to whistles, if we maximize the labium width, by introducing more channels or some other mechanism to direct airflow to an edge, which goes around the circumference of the tube (or a square tube with four edges), we end up with a whistle beast which will behave like blowing four whistles at once. A change from about a fifth of the circumference to 4/5 of it. Try that!
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by trill »

Terry McGee wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:14 am ... protrudes a little into the window ... a voicing tool? Especially if combined with a chamfer?
All the low whistles whose voices I like have both a little protrusion and a chamfer.

(edited to add the undelined "and")
Last edited by trill on Mon Jan 30, 2023 11:49 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by Tunborough »

hans wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 6:18 am
RoberTunes wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:12 am Thanks for the link, Hans. I looked through that site and wonder if Terry imagines something similar to the Seraphoneflote?

http://www.organstops.org/s/Seraphonflote.html
nice one! An organ pipe which plays very loud, and needs a lot of pressure!
Scaled down to whistles, if we maximize the labium width, by introducing more channels or some other mechanism to direct airflow to an edge, which goes around the circumference of the tube (or a square tube with four edges), we end up with a whistle beast which will behave like blowing four whistles at once. A change from about a fifth of the circumference to 4/5 of it. Try that!
If both windows have the same length, yes, I'd suspect it would work like a whistle with an extra-wide window: very loud, needing a lot of air, and not a lot of difference in performance beyond that. However, what happens if the two windows have different lengths (windway exit to blade)? Does the longer window give you a strong low end while the shorter window gives you sweet high notes, or does the short window make the low notes unstable while the long window makes the high notes hard to reach, or does it sort of average out and you get average performance, or does the whistle refuse to play well entirely? I have no idea. Who's going to build one to find out?
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Re: If one window is good, what about....

Post by rhulsey »

I've worked with a few doppelflute sets over the years in organs, but don't recall any thinking about varying cut-up heights on the mouths.

The windway, or flue, can be varied by filing either the block or the cap, but the block can't be moved as it's an integral part of the structure of the pipe. They don't necessarily require lots more pressure/volume, but the higher you cut them the more power you'll get and the more air they will require, of course. I have a small one here, with one of the caps removed. you can see the 'nicks' the voicer put in both the block and cap to smooth the speech (remove 'chiff') and reduce the sizzle in the sustained tone. Apparently I'm not doing this correctly, but here is the link to the image until corrected.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vi2kGA ... share_link
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