I’ve been tweaking and screwing with whistles for a long while, trying to get a LOUD whistle that is in tune with itself and doesn’t sound like a recorder. After buying and sending back a $300 whistle I concluded I’d have to make one myself.
Here it is:
Take the head of a Susato Dublin or the head section of a Kildare (tunable) model. Cut off the head leaving about 1" of barrel remaining. Take a 1/2" electric drill bit and drill out the open end of the head piece. Careful not to push the drill in too far! Push the drill around axially a bit to give you a tad more than 1/2" opening. Use the product of your work as the fipple for a brass barrel. Play around until you find the one that works best. I ended up using some old Waltons that I had drilled and taped up to get them in tune…then broke the fipples through misadventure.
This modified Susato takes away some of the plastic sound that makes a Susato sound like a recorder. Believe it or not, it’s actually louder than a regular Susato. The resuling Frankewhistle is also tunable.
I also like to take a tiny sliver off the end of the Susato blade. This reduces the shrillness of the whistle without reducing volume, or without reducing it much. It also seems to reduce the variation in pitch between octaves. Susatos tend to be flat at the upper end of the second octave. Removing about 1/5th of a millimeter from the blade makes this whistle almost spot on.
The sound is not as round as I’d like. It’s 50% Susato after all!! But in a crowded pub this is the only whistle that I get to be heard.
Fun story: One night we were warming up. “That’s an awfully loud whistle” says me auld buddy. But when the crowd came in and the noise level went sky high I asked that same buddy if he still felt it was too loud. “No, it’s just about right now”.
Tom.
Or with a lot less hassle, you could get a Serpent Dreadnought.
serp
Which, of course, you make. Was that a commercial posting?
No, it was a green bandana!
Damn! Looks like Dale’s “Kommercial Politzei” is just too slick for me! (but, nice try, Glauber!)
serp
I don’t even know what to say. I got angry, and was about to just dump C&F and go … I dunno … somewhere else? I don’t know. As soon as I posted my pissy little message, Dale’s email came in, being kind and polite to me.
Dale is a prince among men, people, and my little diatribe, good though it made me feel at the time, was unworthy of the way I should be treating him. You Kommercial Police, I guess you have some onanistic function too, but from now on, I ask Dale first. When you see me saying something that smacks of “Serpent is advertising”, it will FIRST have been approved by Mr. Wisely.
That, I promise you.
serpent
(of course, it will cut down on Serpent postings, but lots of you seem to want that, anyhow…)
???
I post very rarely these days. I saw Serp’s comment about his product and I felt he was out of line. If eveyone with stuff for sale did what Serp does this board will be spammed out of existance. I don’t know Dale personally and I’m not as nice as he is.