Has anyone tried these PVC Low Whistles??

[bearbro]

Ben if your A is like mine I think you'll like it. It has a sound more like a fulte then a whistle though.

These whistles are made in India by a company called Tribal Earth. I had bought a complete set when they first came out with them. At that time they had no D whistle. they had a C, Bb, A, low G and a Low D. The volume on all of them is quite low. All but the A gave me troubles playing the second rigester. The smallest bore (on the C whisle) is ½ inch ID and the Low D is a ¾ inch ID. They all sounded more like flutes then whistles.

Also the windway on all of them had a lot of burrs and had to be removed before I could play them. As it tuned out I would say (after a lot of tweaking) they where fair whistles except the A which is not a real good whistle but better then the rest. I sold all of them except the A.

Would I ever buy any more of them? If they ahere $10.00 or less maybe.

PS: I seen someone mention the Sasuto whistles because they are Made from PVC. I have played a Susato and I can tell you this. These whistles are no where near the quility of a Susato whistle.

[benbrad]

I just got the PVC whistle from Ebay. It is an A whistle since that is the only key I didn't have I and thought I might luck out and get a good one really cheap. I can't speak for others who may have bought one of these and liked it but I think it is a piece of KEE-RAP. You would be lucky to get 5 decibels of sound out of it in the low register. Blow any harder and you will be in the 2nd register. Even in the 2nd register it is only a little louder. Looking at the fipple you can see that it is poorly manufactured and has a lot of telltale plastic burs on the ramp. The windway is fairly large so clogging shouldn't be a problem but it won't ever be a problem for me anyway because I don't intend to play it. If you could fit it with a better fipple it might play ok but it really isn't worth the effort. I thought I might play around with it and try to tweak it a bit myself and if I mess it up nothing is really lost but the fipple is really glued on and will take some effort to get off. Right away I can see that the area unter the windway is hollow and should be plugged and I will if I can ever get it off without destroying it. Anyway, don't waste your time and money on these things. They are probably like Generations and you have to go through a suitcase full of them to find a good one.

[bearbro]

Ben I have to agree with everything you just said. One would have to buy a whole suitcase full of them to find one worth fixing up. The A whistle I have took a lot of tweaking to get it to play right. And like you said it still has very little volume. But for me thats ok since I only play for my own amusement here at home.
I think you'll find out that the mouth piece is not as glued as good as you think. They have two small spots of glue holding them in place. I think the little plastic dots hold more then the glue. What I did with mine was hold the whisle by the bore end and hit the top of the table with the mouthpiece. And it will pop right off. Dont hit it hard enough to break the tubbing, it should not take very much force to pop the mouth piece off. It will break those little plastic dots in two but it will go back together ok.

Good luck my friend.............

[benbrad]

I stand corrected. I wouldn't have believed it but I got the mouthpiece off and cleaned the burrs from the windway and the ramp and also on the sides of the ramp. Then I melted candle wax and filled the void under the windway and glued the mouthpiece back on. This thing plays pretty sweet now. It is very quiet in the lower register and as you might expect it requires more push in the second register but it sounds pretty good and plays pretty smooth now. If you are careful with breath control it is fairly eveny matched in volume in both registers. You can't really play up into the 3rd register as the low note ( A in this case ) in the 3rd register sounds very shrill and off key. I haven't checked it with a tuner yet but the small amount of tweaking I did really transformed this whistle into one that is pleasing to play. I am not a veteran tweaker as I have screwed up at least one mouthpiece trying to learn how to tweak an inexpensive whistle into a keeper. So I would now like to revise what I said earlier to reflect that these whistles are more than worth the money if you don't mind doing a little work to get them that way.

[bearbro]

Ben, as I said before I had a set of those whistles. I had a C, Bb, A, F, and a Low D (I don't think they have a regular D whistle). I to tweaked all the whistles I had and the only ones that came out half way decent was the A and C. The others was OK in the first register and maybe one or two notes in the second register. The distance from the windway to the tone edge of the tone hole is to far by about a 3/16th of a inch. But on an over all whistle they are junk. Except for the A (and maybe the C) if one is willing to spend some time tweaking them. I guess if some one could close the gap between the windway and the lebreium (I think thats how its spelled) you could get the others to play right.

On my A I cleand the windway of all its burrs, ramped the end of the windway at the tone hole end. Filled in the area below the windway. And like you wound up with a very sweet sounding whistle. Mine has a sound very close to a flute. I really like my A. I gave the rest to a young lad just starting out playing a whistle.

[Finn MacCool]

I ordered the Tribal Earth Low D some time back, and have been very pleased with it, both in ease of play and construction. I consider it my guilty pleasure , as it is less demanding to play than my other Low D for which I spent ten times the price