I’ve got a few different whistles, all metal. The one that is the most pleasing to my ear is the Clarke. It has a sort of “breathy” sound. Is it unique. All the other whistles I have produce a very crisp note.
thus it is, Clarke is one of the best whistles
facts in make, but its big defect is the air requirement.
but he is even exelent whistle, also I have taste of mine.
Not sure what your question is…
I will agree that Clarkes are breathy.
Shaws are similar.
Many people here refer to whistles as
sounding either “chiffy” or “pure”.
Hi AlonE:
The Clarke has a funny shape as well, sort of conical with a squared off end. My other whistles are all straight bore tubes. The Clarke is very elegant.
Hey thanks fearfaoin, that’s nice to know. I was wondering if there might be any wooden whistles that have a “chiffy”? sound like the Clarke.
Wooden whistles are generally warmer in tone so they probably have more in common to a Clarke than to other metal whistles in sound. Wooden whistles tend to be more expensive and require more care in exchange. There are plenty of makers of fine wooden whistles - at last count, I had a list of well over 20 of them.
Any whistle can be made to sound chiffy. It has to do with the efficiency of the available energy being converted into the oscillation around the blade. The “chiff” component can be very useful when exploring harmonic overtones around a note - pure toned instruments don’t have as many options (thinking r*cdr here 
). Such subtleties tend to get lost when you add a few more instruments to the mix - Shakuhachi, Ney and Kaval rely heavily on it and are usually played with few support instruments, if any. Whistles seem to occupy a middle-ground in this regard.
(edited to add: The best chiffy wooden whistles I’ve heard are made by Greg (Wanderer) - Chris Abell’s whistles also have a nice chiffy component)
Clarkes are the best, my Copeland is like a pro Clarke
Copeland= pro Clarke!!!
you are my idolo!
good phrase! 
Interestingly, the conical shape is the “original” shape and therefore all of the others are “funny shapes”. LOL
…john
True, Wanderer’s whistles are nice and chiffy, a very traditional
sound. He also makes whistles out of Corian, so they look like stone.
They’re called “The Stonehenge™ Whistle”. Neat stuff.
(P.S. Greg, if you see this, I tried to post a link here to your whistle
site, but it’s hard to google of late. I just get redirected to your tunes
site, and there’s no link there to the whistle store. Please tell me you
haven’t stopped making whistles!)
Hi Mitch:
That’s very interesting. I’ve got a few cheap whistles that I don’t mind experimenting on. I’m assuming you’d carefully file the blade down?
Thanks for all the great information folks. Now all I have to do is learn how to play 
… the easy part right 
Greg’s whistles are definitely “chiffy” in this regard and has a nice warm tone. This might be due in part that they are pretty fat with a large bore. I could easily slide a feadog tube into the Mahan one and have room to spare.
I noticed the same thing, Fearfaoin, my link to his whistle page redirects to his main review website.
The Clarke original (ie, rolled tin w/ wooden fipple) is my favorite whistle sound, as well.
It’s interesting that the conical bore Clarke whistle is most like the ‘irish’ sound of the conical-bore wooden flute; whereas all the tubular whistles are like the boehm flute.
to you to bro
Now see.
I have a few these things.
I don’t care much for Clarkes.
I don’t care if they are the “original”.
Blah, blah blah.
Its its a poor design.
Straight up.
Great for design making a ton of them very fast… not so great for playing.
I don’t mind the wimpy-chiffyness…and sure I can play them I just want to smash it afterwards.
Its the air reqs I can’t stand.
Wind blows through those things like The goose that ate a box of exlax. ( thats a tune… I’m sure of it)
You have to smash the crap outa the top of the wind way to bring it in line… and teach it a lesson like a ginger step kid.
If you want to play these things go ahead.
Don’t let me stop you.
Just make sure you are sitting down and put your head between your legs every so often to keep from passing out.
Hey BB - don’t get carried away. Experimentation is good but whistles have been known to die in the name of science! (curiosity killed the whistle? 
)
The easiest way to play with the chiff is to move the blade up and down - the Clarke “original” is the best subject for this kind of thing because you can easily un-do the damage - remember: filing is forever
There are a number of different ways to get chiff - almost anything you do to a soundblade or windway can affect it, but many of them also have undesirable side-effects. For guidance - have a look at the “Engineering Department” on the C&F front page.
As for the term “original” - it may be argued that the conical Clarke design was the original tin-whistle, but examples of the standard cylindrical pennywhistle are still unearthed from time to time which pre-date the Clark by hundreds of years. From my perspective, the “original” Irish sound was being produced in the 60’s and 70’s mostly on Generation whistles - legend also has it that Finbar Furie’s whistle was a cane cylindrical that ultimatly died and was replaced by the first Overton. The simple-system itself predates all of this by aeons. These days, we live in the “Golden Age of Whistles” where inovation abounds and the whistle for you might be made by robots or men in any color of any metal, wood or plastic, cylindrical, conical, square or donut-shaped - a good time to be alive!
they are the original tin whistle
I’m not sure that I’d go that far. Many think a Generation or
a Feadog (properly played) sounds much more “traditional”
than a Clarke…