Things like this are easily solved: I have played a slow air (and for those of you who are fussy about a ‘real’ comparison, it’s the same slow air five times over) on five whistles. It doesn’t tell you much about the response of the whistles but hey, we aim to please.
No entertainment this time: point to prove. How many of you can pick the ‘clunker(s)’ and how many the designer whistle(s). I am not giving away what whistles, there may or may not be one or more expensive ones included, for all you know they may be all Generations. To some of you it should be so obvious, shouldn’t it?
I can say they all play as easy as each other. There are differences, in volume, intonation and between the octaves. As so often the whistles with a lovely second octave are maybe less great in the lower and vise versa, something not many whistlemakers seem to have tackled completely. But not really a problem, to me they all have their merits and de-merits but as a bottom line they are all very usable.
To address the recording : all clips were done within fifteen minutes in my kitchen, durign the second one you can hear the clock strike 9.30. Cats jumped on the table a few times but such is life. The recorder used is an Edirol R-09, sitting on the table about 50 cm away from the whistle. Recording of the MP3s was set at a sample rate of 44 and a bitrate of 96. A higher bitrate would have yielded more detail sound-wise but I had to balance the quality with the upload/download times, each file is now around 1.8 MB which is enough to hear sufficient differences between the whistles. The files are as they were recorded, they have not been interfered with after the recording.
The air is Taimse im’ Choladh and if anything it’s probably played on the slow side for the character of the song.
Now show us what you’re made off. This is your chance to put some beef to those proclamations cheap whistles sound like ‘chalk on a blackboard’ etc. Make your point now otherwise maybe hold your peace forever.
Lovely playing. Peter, in your hands they all sound like perfect whistles, and I can’t venture a guess about what’s what. All I can say is that my experience is different when it’s my own hands and lips on the whistles. Different whistles give me a different feeling as a player.
FWIW, I’ve had one “bad” Gen (which was easily fixed) and 4-5 good ones. As a player, I like them fairly well, but feel that I (with my limited abilities) am able to make better music on a few of my “crafted” or “designer” whistles. I don’t have bad things to say about any whistle I have owned.
That’s because those “designer” whistles are usually easier to play “better music” than with the cheapies. Just my experience though, and everybody’s different of course, but that’s how I feel about the relationship between the two different classes. Of course, one person’s idea of “better sounding music” might be different from the next person’s, hence, why there are so many instruments out there, each having different (more or less) characteristics from the other.
The ideal whistle is one which makes it easy for me to accomplish what I want to accomplish. For me, that’s a tweaked Gen (purportedly a clunker, or at least not a “designer”). Sadly, I’ve misplaced the one I purchased in Doolin .
None of the whistles used in Peter Laban’s soundclips sound like ‘chalk on a blackboard’,- although at least some of them sound slightly different from the others.
However,-the first whistle played in the soundclip posted by peeplj that started this discussion does absolutely sound like ‘chalk on a blackboard’.
I guess we all agree that in the hands of a lousy player no whistle will sound good, no matter the price tag, just as a lousy shot won’t make any gun hit its target.
-But the interesting question would be this:
Would a competent enough player be able to make peeplj’s](http://flutesite.com/samples/badngood.mp3%22%3Epeeplj%27s) bad Gen sound equal to the ‘good’ Generation played later in the same soundclip?
Well, yes there wouldn’t be much of a point if they either were all either exactly the same or totally different. James didn’t start this discussion. It has been going for years. And I have gone over my point of view re picking the suitable and the bad ones from a batch in James’ thread, for the umpteenth time. So let’s keep that there.
Thanks for that. I believe I attempted to download firefox when I first got the mac laptop I’m currently using, but I got a message at that time that my browser was not compatible. However, I clicked on the link you provided and am now using firefox as I type this, so I’ll have to take a quick spin around the internet and see how it works (speed and stability wise) with my OS/memory combination.
Thanks again. Good to see you still hanging around here as well.
I am running a PowerBook with OS 10.3.9 with 384 mb. I am using Safari 1.3.2 and the latest Firefox with no problem. What OS have you got. Best, Cyril.
I’m currently stuck with Safari 1.0.3 (v85.8.1) and 256 mb. Been looking for a G3 ibook compatible 512 mb memory chip cheap on local craigslist, but haven’t found anything yet. I’m not really willing to drop a hundred on a new chip, plus additional $$ on OSX 10.3 or higher, since I could practically buy a new PC notebook for not a whole lot more at this point. Too bad, cause I like this little ibook.
So far Firefox seems to be running well enough though.
.