I’m interested to know if there is any difference in sound (or playability) between these two almost identical looking budget whistles. I’m familiar with the Meg, but haven’t yet played a Sweetone. Anyone play both?
All the best…
My experience…
Out of 3 Sweetones all were ok.
Out of 10 Megs, 2 were ok,
the rest needed tweaking.
Buy the Sweetone 
My foolish 2p’s worth.
I’ve tweaked around 200 Sweetones. I’ve tweaked one Meg.
What I’ve been finding is, the Sweetones are pretty consistently good right out of the box. My tweaking improves them, but they’re not defective or unplayable in any respect before tweaking, and lots of people love them just the way they are.
When I first started doing them several months ago, two or three out of every five D Sweetones were weak on the bottom two notes. Not unplayable, but a little fragile (correctable with tweaking). Now, the consistency has improved, and about one or two out of ten are a little weak on the bottom two notes. The key of C Sweetones are a little weak on the bottom two notes more often than the key of D whistles.
So, the bottom line is, the Sweetones are pretty consistent (more so than, say, Generations) and you should be able to buy them with confidence.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I have a Sweetone D and it is very good. I have a MEG C and it is very good. Now on the other hand I don’t like the seam on the bottom. It makes it more difficult for me to place my fingers consistently. I have thought about putting a small piece of foam on the bottom in the approppriate place. I started with cylindrical whistles and find the hole placement a little hard to get used to especially on the MEG C. They play well and sound good. Jerry has the most experience and I believe he is right in all that he says. Keep whistling.
Ron
I have played about 100 Sweetones and maybe 1 needed tweaking. I have played about 80 Megs and ALL of them needed tweaking.
I think Megs were a bad idea and an even worse execution.
Edit (after reading Jerry’s next post): I don’t like the C whistles of eiher type. The cross fingered (equivalent of) C-natural is horribly out of tune.
The C Sweetones and Megs are odd with respect to tonehole position.
I had an older Sweetone C that had more comfortable tonehole spacing, but it was out of tune. I think within the last few years, they’ve revised the spacing to bring them better in tune. They are respectably in tune now.
The bottom hole is unusually far from the next hole. I find the C Sweetones and Megs play most easily with a sort of piper’s grip on the right hand. Once having gotten used to it, it’s as easy as any other whistle, but it takes figuring out.
The C Sweetones I’ve checked play the best Cnat (equivalent; it’s really a Bb) with OXXXXO fingering.
I’ve wondered if just putting a narrow strip of ductape (available in colors, so you could use black on a black whistle, etc.), maybe 1/4 inch wide, down the length covering the sharp edged seam might solve the comfort problem. I don’t like that aspect myself.
Best wishes,
Jerry
P.S. Except for the comments about the seam on the bottom of the whistle, all this information only applies to the C Sweetones and Megs, not the D ones. The D Sweetones have a conventional hole spacing and solid OXXOOO Cnat.
I got some self-adhesive velcro tape and ran a strip of the soft, fuzzy “loop” tape down the seam. Works perfectly.
Here’s something to try on the C whistles that I have found usually works pretty well:
Take some tape and cover about the top third to top half of the first tone hole. This will sometimes allow you to use ( o x x | o o o ) for C-natural, and even though it also flattens the C-sharp, you can blow a little harder on it to compensate.
For me this works pretty well; your mileage may vary. That’s the beauty of using tape–if you don’t like the tweak, it’s 100% reversible: just peal the tape off.
–James
I’m a real beginner (playing erratically for almost six months!), and find the Sweetone hits notes easier, with less sqeaking and squawking. I don’t know why, they certainly look the same, except for the material the body is made of.
I have a “natural” D Sweetone, they’re only $4.15 at Elderly.com – and the natural C is a mere $3.60. Mine is tarninshed around the finger holes already, which looks pretty cool. It might look even cooler tarnished all over…hm, maybe I’ll take some steel wool to it.
It might look even cooler tarnished all over…hm, maybe I’ll take some steel wool to it.
A green Scotch Brite scouring pad, used dry, will polish up a Sweetone just fine, without the disadvantages of steel wool (little splinters of metal sticking into your skin).
I just played my silver D Meg and natural D Sweetone back to back again, and have a few more (extremely inexpert) comments.
The Meg is especially troublesome on the Ds, both the first and second octave. Any large jump, and I’m more likely to “miss” than with the Sweetone.
The Meg is however a bit “sweeter” on the high notes. There’s less “hiss,” and they’re closer to the volume level of the lower notes than on the Sweetone.
I have two Sweetones (C and D) and one Meg (C). They are all out of tune and I rarely play them, but the Meg seems to sound best.
Sonja
I’m brand spankin’ new at the whistle, but I do own a C Sweetone and a D Meg. I like the Meg better, especially in the upper octave. I would like to try a Sweetone in D, though.
With very little experience playing Megs, here’s an observation:
If I pick up any two Sweetones in the same key, the odds are I’m going to like one better than the other. Comparing one Sweetone to one Meg probably doesn’t tell much because there’s quite a bit of variation among Sweetones alone or Megs alone that can easily make the same amount of difference.
However, even though there’s quite a bit of variation among Sweetones, most of them are fine right out of the box. But when you compare any two of them, you’ll probably like one of them better.
Best wishes,
Jerry