G’Day everyone! I’m new here on the forum (and to the art that is whistling)
I went and bought my first two whistles today: a Feadog high D and a Generation high Eb
I was just wondering… Do changing the fipples around make the whistles sound different?
Say if I put a Generation fipple on a Feadog tube, would the Feadog sound like a Generation? I’ve heard that Generations (if you happen to get a decent one) sound pretty good, but I wanted a whistle in D and the music shop didn’t have a Generation in D… If I changed the fipples around on my whistles, would the Feadog sound like the Generation? Or should I stick with the Feadog?
I really can’t help you out on the cross dressing of whistles but I note you are from Townsville. Welcome to these forums! I used to jog up Stanton Hill and lived on Magnetic Island for a while. That was in the mid seventies and I was sort of listening a lot to J J Cale.
Were you around then and was your nick name Dangerous Dave?
I believe the correct terminology is “Franken-whistle.” At one time or another, most of my fipples and tubes have “known” each other. I’ve put most of them back with their original partners. I still have an Oak fipple on a brass Feadog tube just because I like the feel of the brass tube better than the chrome one that came with the Oak.
The ultimate Franken-whistle, of course, is Jerry Freeman’s Mellow Dog which is a tweaked Feadog C fipple on a tweaked Waltons D tube. Get a tweaked Feadog C tube with it and you have the best whistle buy on the planet.
(Jerry - do you give discounts for unsolicited testimonials?)
You also have the option of buying a quality top to fit one of your tubes. When you are ready for something like that, visit Mack Hoover’s website: http://www.mackhooverwhistles.com.
In my humble opinion, Mack makes some of the finest whistles on the planet. I used one of his Whitecaps on a Generation tube to make an amazing Eb.
But I would stick with what you have for now. There will be a good contrast between the Feadog and Generation heads
By the way, be sure to examine the insides closely. Some of these off-the-shelf whistles have a little plastic “flash” from the molding process that needs to be removed.
I tried switching the fipples around and the result (I thought…) was pretty good. I like the sound of the Generation fipple a bit more than the Feadog. …But I’ll probably change my mind when I learn to play the thing well…
I did the poster-tack (called blu-tack in Oz) tweak and sanded the blade a little bit (blunting it, I think, got rid of some “buzz”)… It sounds really good, except there’s a lot of breath noise (which was there before I tweaked it)…
Is there anything I can do to stop this?
Or should I concentrate on playing it more than tweaking it?
Cheers,
Dave
P.S: Talasiga, I dunno if Horseshoe Bay is still good… Don’t think I’ve ever been there… I’ll hafta go have a visit some day
For a quiet spot, at the moment, I’m playing in my car… I live at college here at uni, so I can’t really play in my room… The whole college goes beserk
There are a lot of little things that happen when you mix whistle parts to make “hybrid whistles”
The headjoint windway height, angle, width can make a “reedy” or a “wood” sound. The volume might be greater, it might clog less. Presence of “ears” could give more stable sound. Square bore at mouth end has a different characteristic sound than round bore.
The tonebody (the shaft with the fingerholes on it) may have a more comfortable feel, the diameter of the toneholes on one whistle might be bigger which affects “cut-off” frequency and sings better in the high octaves. Smaller holes cross-finger better. Another whistles tonebody section might have better tuning with itself. Maybe it’s a conical shaft with good sound and spacing.
What sounds good to one person may not be what another person is looking for. And some players choose certain sound characteristics for specific songs.
Sometimes breath noise is from bits of plastic from the mold separation in the windway area, an exacto knife or careful filing may help. The undercut of the windway is often neglected - out of sight, out of mind.
