A few weeks ago I got an Oak D whistle for my birthday. I really like it except that it made this buzzing sound on E and D. I noticed a stray bit of plastic in the windway which I carefully trimmed away with a small razor knife - E doesn’t buzz anymore but D still does. Anybody have any suggestions?
I haven’t seen an Oak, and I’m not whistle expert, but I’ll throw my two cents in. See if the mouthpiece will come off (I’m sure there are plenty of posters out there who will tell you how to go about this). Then look in the open end. My bet is you’ll find something else hanging in there that you could carefully dislodge or trim away.
Whitey
~. . . . . .
My very first whistle was an Oak. I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked again and the buzz never went away. I think it’s either a quality control issue or a bad design.
Jessie
I never could tweak out the buzz in my Oak either… and I’m a fairly experienced whistle tweaker.
Put another brand mouthpiece on the pretty nickel plated Oak body and you’ll have yourself a nice whistle.
My Oak seems to be real sensitive to moisture and debris inside. A small ramrod with a cloth or paper towel usually helps. You might try that before performing surgery.
You can eliminate most of the buzz by changing how you are blowing into the whistle. I love Oaks. They all tend to be buzzy, but if you experiment with your breath control, you can help fix the problem. Also, buy several. I just received another one in the mail and it has the prettiest little sound. But do tweek it by adding wax to the mouthpiece.
JP
Hi,
I’ve got an Oak that I really like, but it did have a bit of a buzz to it from time to time. Just yesterday I put some sticky tack in the chamber under the airway and the buzz is gone. It may have also reduced a bit of the “chiff” you get on the attack (which I like), but overall it is my best sounding cheap whistle now.
-Brett
Thank-you all very much for your suggestions.
JohnPalmer, what you mean “adding wax to the mouthpiece”?
Dale has a section on waxing your whistle on Chiff and Fipple. You will be dripping wax into the part of the mouthpiece that is under the wind way.
JP
Is your Oak brass or nickel?If its brass there could possibly be some gobs of clear varnish inside the whistle near the end which might be causing the buzz. Mike
I just got a D Oak and it also had a buzz (and a very ragged transition between ocataves.) As per Dale I dripped and molded some wax under the airway and minimized the buzzing (and smoothed the transition a bit). It didn’t totally go away, but with a little breath control, I can manage it. You have to blow gently when you’re way down low. Funny, I just registered onto this message board to see if anyone else had this Oak D problem.
Digimagi, thanks for the information! I’ve been so busy the last few months that I simply haven’t had time ( to try the sticky-tac tweak on my Oak D. Other than that annoying buzzing on E and D I love my Oak - its well balanced between octaves and its perfectly in tune - plus it has that shiny nickle-plated body which looks great.