Chiff and Fipple Forums

What is your favorite whistle and why? I have accumulated a number of inexpensive whistles, and I guess I lucked into one of the mythical 'good' Generations and also a nickel Clare that I'm fond of. The Clare has a great tone and is in good tune to itself. Love them both.

Depends on key and tune. If you're only considering high D and ignore how much better some whistles are for certain tunes IMHO, then it's a toss up between my Sindt brass head/silver body or the Schultz blackwood Thin Weasel.

ecohawk

Out of everything I've owned and/or played:
1. A friend's Lon Dubh
2. Burke DAN. I wish I'd never sold it.
3. Busman. My current main session whistle.
4. Freeman Mellow Dog C. I love this C! People who get the Mellow Dog in D and pass on the D/C set are really missing out.

my everyday whistle.. Thornton high D, why? it suits the way I play
or to put it another way, I just get on with it.

Sindt C... Smoooooooooth

Goldie low D... just a good whistle.

Old chieftian A, new Hoover brass A, onyx low d, somers c, silkstone alloy D, Reviol G, dion wood B. not necessarily in this order. All exceptional.

Sindt sterling silver/brass D
Walton Golden Tone C
O'Riordan Traveler Bflat/A
O'Riordan Traveler G
Copeland G

Philo

I agree with Thomaston. I love my Mellow Dog C. I play this more than the Mellow Dog D. Lately, I play the Mellow Dog C more than any other whistle. For a D whistle, I prefer my Thornton D and Dixon Trad. Lately, I've revisited my Generation D and really like it.

Poppi

My Mellow Dog D & Goldie Big O Low D.

i love the SHAW,so loudly!Crispy clear!It is often undervalued

Rose, KPro.

The ones I've made and a Generation Bb, until I make one that'll match/top it.

Feadog D, Generation D, and a couple Generation B whistles.

The first two are both better than just about any other whistle I've tried in D, but are also completely standard off-the-shelf whistles. The Generation I picked more or less at random out of a box of them, so I know I can get back-ups whenever I want. Both of the Ds are just very well balanced with a very nice whistley tone. The Bs are standard Bbs that I chopped a bit off the tube at the top and a littler bit off the bottom. Perfect B whistles.

Quoting Jerry Freeman's ebay listing:

*There’s really no such thing as a key of C Mellow Dog. With a D tube, the Mellow Dog is a wide body whistle. With the C tube that comes with a Mellow Dog D/C set, it’s a standard body whistle, identical to a key of C Blackbird.

So my favorite is my Mellowdog. I like the C Blackbird, but not as much. I also really like my Carbony low-G. These are so different from one another that it's not really possible to compare them.

Sindts in D, Bb, and A (latter two are new, my first A whistle); nice traditonal tone
Impempe D; smooth and creamy
Humphrey Trad C (also have a D+ body for it);powerful
An old Clarke original in C I found last summer in an antique store; lovely and smooth

I like my Freeman Generation set the best. I like the sound of my Feadog D but it is temperamental and my Clarkes always sound less in tune. I mentioned all of my whistles because any one of them can be my favorite when I pick it up. It's just that it may not be so when I put it down.

Gary