Walton Little Black D

ifire · Post by **ifire** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 9:13 am

I recently purchased a Little Black D, and am waiting for it in the mail. I was wondering if anyone had any comments on the whistle.

RonKiley · Post by **RonKiley** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:17 am

Some people love them and some people hate them. Of course I could have said that about almost any whistle. My LBW is rather nice. I find that I must swab it out frequently to keep from getting a slightly raspy sound. I used to keep it in my car as a car whistle but I replaced it with a Mellow D. I now keep it on my whistle stand in the den should the notion strike me to play it. BTW I have to swab out the Mellow D also.

Hope you love it.

Ron

KDMARTINKY · Post by **KDMARTINKY** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:36 am

I bought mine several years ago for $3.00 and it has been a great companion whistle. I keep it over the visor in my van and it gets played daily. The sound improved after I Tweaked it. I wouldn't take anything for it.

I think you will like it.

psychih · Post by **psychih** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 11:45 am

It's a lovely little whistle...but I wish it were more durable. Managed to squash mine while putting it away in a drawer.

Emrys · Post by **Emrys** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:02 am

A few months I was searching for the cheapest, good-sounding whistle and the LBW won hands down. It's sure a lot of bang for the buck!

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:06 am

Mine is surprisingly good.

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 4:34 am

I'm afraid I'm one of those tragic souls who has never made any Walton whistle do anything but squawk. I just can't get on with them...

arlan · Post by **arlan** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:41 am

Mine has a consistent and beautiful sound in the first octave, but in the second octave it requires a lot of air and sounds a little bit out of tune to me.

I think Clarke Meg, also a cheap whistle, has a better balance between octaves when compared with Walton's Little Black. It's good have both!!!

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:51 am

There's some variation from whistle to whistle, so you may get a good one or a not so good one. This may explain the different reports posted here.

Best wishes,
Jerry

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:32 am

LBWs are quite easy to make C-nat holes in if you want. I've done it sucessfully. You need no drilling tools at all. You can use a thumbtack (I did!).

ifire · Post by **ifire** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:36 pm

I am excited because it should come in tommorrow. I have been playing my dad's old Soodlum's. The only name on it is "Irish Whistle" so I assume its just an old version of Walton's Irish Whistle. It has a different mouthpiece, which is understandable because the whistle is older than I am.

SilverStrand · Post by **SilverStrand** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:47 am

Hope you have fun playing it!!! I enjoy playin mine

ifire · Post by **ifire** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:29 am

I was looking at the instructions on how to tweak the whistles and I was confused by the step:

Another optional step is the filling of the sub-airway cavity with wax....

I read over it several times, but I don't really understand it. The image is kinda confusing to me. I was wondering if someone could explain it to a total newbie?

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:40 am

This is a variation on what is also known as the blu tac or putty tweak.

If you take the plastic head/fipple off a Walton/Generation/Feadog type cylindrical cheapie and the look into the end of the mouthpiece you'll see that there is a kind of little hollow which is essentially the inside of the 'beak' part of the mouthpiece.

The idea is that by filling this with wax, putty or similar (until it's flat level or flush with the end of the windway) you stablise the flow of air through the mouthpiece and improve the sound.

On Feadogs this tweak works *really* well. Gens and Waltons often need the finish tidied up to remove bits of loose platic left over from manufacturing too.

walrii · Post by **walrii** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:03 am

I have both a LBW and a Walton's brass whistle. I ruined the mouthpiece for the Walton's while experimenting with tweaking (a remarkably easy thing to do -ruining, I mean). I measured the barrels of the Walton's and the LBW and discovered they are identical except for the the material. I put the brass barrel of the Walton's on the LBW mouthpiece and found the tone a bit better. I like my Feadog and Sweetone better than the LBW but not by much. I ran all the whistles on an electronic tuner and found the cylindrical ones generally tend sharp in the low octave progressing to flat in the upper octave. The conical Clarke's seem to have less variation of breath pressure to play in tune across both octaves. I liked the Sweetone right out of the box. I almost threw the the Feadog away when I got it - all I could get it to do was squawk. But it has such a cool name and lots of folks seem to swear by them so I put in my car. In a week of stoplight practice the Feadog sounded good! It seems to need better breath control than the Sweetone which takes a bit of practice for a newbie.

I might as well "out" myself at this point: I am an intermediate recorder player learning the tin whistle because I got a Joanie Madden CD and fell in love with the sound. Most modern recorders are conical bore because of the tuning characteristics mentioned above.

So here I am, a few months into my tin whistle journey. I'm practicing cuts and strikes at stoplights. I have six whistles, obviously a symptom of early-onset WhOA. I'm glimpsing Crystal People out of the corner of my eye. And I was worried about heart disease and Alzheimer's as I got older.

John in Texas