How does the Burke Aluminum “D” play? I am carefully concidering buying a “high end” whistle. I love the look and sound of the Burke whistles. What experience have you had with Burke whistles? What do you love/dislike about them?
(A link to the Burke whistle that I am pondering)
https://www.sslzone.com/burkewhistles/write/michaelburke/Product_Info.asp?ID=11
Eric
Hello, Eric. Burkes are superb whistles. So much has been written about them over the years that if you do a search, you will have hours of reading material. I play a number of Burkes, aluminum and brass. If you have direct questions, I will try to answer.
Best.
Byll
Wow. Doesn’t your avatar ever get tired?
(can’t speak for metal Burkes, mine is composite.)
emmi, I wanna order a lowD and a lowF composite. should i do it?
You can’t do better than Burke, IMHO. Others will disagree, but they are superb. I doubt anyone would disagree on that point.
I’ve owned a lot of whistles over the years…I’ve only really ever regretting selling a couple, and my Burke Al-Pro was one of them.
Luckily, I just got another one last week! 
Excellent whistles, easy to play, easy to blow the 2nd octave, very precise tuning, stable tuning slide, good looking, great sounding, decently priced for what you’re getting.
For me, there really isn’t a downside here.
I have Brass and Composite Burke Narrow Bores but not an aluminum. I cover the tone holes, squak less, and move my fingers more quickly and consistently on Mike’s Narrow Bores than the other few High D’s I have tried. For that reason I sound better on them.
I have heard others here echo the comments on Mike’s site that the upper register and beyond are easiest to reach on the aluminum.
you must resist. you must resist. you must…aw, what the heck, order the dang things.
two of em??? have you lost your mind???
well, if you insist..
yes. but that’s irrelevant.
Thank you for all the Great Advise.
I love and hate the search feature. A great deal of the time you get posts that have what you are searching come up once in the whole thread. If I was searching for info on “Burkes”. I often get quotes such as “I prefer my Burke” and then the rest of the post is about something different. Then there are times when I do get some awesome results. I just wish there was a way to search for words I am looking for only in topic titles so I get topics that are more relevant.
Eric
I have the Burke narrow-bore aluminum in D (DAN) and the wide-bore brass in C (CBW).
The DAN is great as far as timbre and responsiveness go. The second octave doesn’t get the least bit shrill until you hit the upper C#–and even that’s better than most of my other high D whistles.
One thing that you should know is that the C natural OXXOOO fingering is a just a tad sharp on the DAN, with OXXXOX being just right. The wide bores are said to be fine with OXXOOO. (See http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=21679) I mostly half-hole C nat, and my ear isn’t very acute, anyhow, so OXXOOO satisfies me. (And I seldom play with others.)
Although it’s different from the DAN in all three parameters, the CBW is also very nice. It has a slightly more complex sound–not quite as sweet. I don’t know how much of the difference is due to the key, how much to the bore width, and how much to the material. However, I’d say that you probably couldn’t go wrong with a D wide-bore Burke.
I’ve managed to drop both of my Burkes, by the way. The DAN bounced off of a tile counter onto a tile floor, and suffered only a couple of very minor dings. The CBW dropped mouthpiece-down on a pseudo-wood floor, bounced, and ended up with a little flattening of the opening opposite the mouthpiece, but I was able to use a dowel to round it out again. I couldn’t find any damage at all to the mouthpiece or the slide joint. So, they’re both pretty sturdy.
Anyhow, when I bought mine, Mike Burke offered a 30-day return if I wasn’t satisfied–as long as the whistle isn’t damaged in any way, but you should check that with him.
I love both of them.
Thank you very much. It is reassuring to know that craftsmen such as Michael stand behind thier work.
Eric
Hello Eric,
With Michael Burke’s reputation as a talented builder, with many satisfied professional players as his mainstay, coupled with a 30 Day money back offer, it’s not a difficult decision, at least for me! Good luck with your new Burke!
PS Your Avatar makes ME tired! You must be a JIG man!
Heeheee I’m having fun playing tunes to the avatar’s beat.
My everyday workhorse is the Burke brass blacktip - I like it better than any of his other whistles I’ve tried, and those were good. The black tip brass C is also excellent, and I’m still getting acquainted with a new black tip brass E.
Philo
I got a Burke DABST several months ago and play it every day. It’s very bright, pure and easy to play. It’s my first high-end whistle and at this point I can’t see getting another expensive high D (although I’m always open to bargins, antiques and maybe trying some of those “tweaked” whistles). I’ve ordered a Bflat brass from Micheal for variety and to get a sense of how brass gives a “warm” sound. You can’t miss with his whistles.
I’ve never played a Burke that wasn’t adequate and two of the three I currently own (C and low G, the other is a high D) are excellent whistles. I only play AlPros but would like to try a composite low whistle: Eb or E probably. I’d confidently buy a Burke in any key, safe in the knowledge that I’d be getting, at the very least, a good whistle.
My current favourite workhorse high D is my Sindt, but my Burke high D can step into that role any time I want it to. Since I own nearly 20 high Ds, most of them high-end, that gives you an idea of how I rank Burkes.
I have a silver Copeland, a delrin Abell, a Thin Weasel, a Harper, an Alba Q1 and an Alba SE. All in high D. But the one that gets played most is a Burke brass black tip wide bore.
I just got a brass narrow bore D and a Bb and if his aluminum whistle is anything like these You will be happy. Beautiful craftmanship and they sing like angels when my fingers get out of the way.
Winters coming on, I need to gather up some of his composite’s.