As a newer member to the board I would like to inquire about Frankenwhistles. You know, mixing up the tubes and mouthpieces and creating new combinations. I’m wondering: what is general feeling in the whistle community about hybridizations?
Obviously Hoover mouthpieces can be designed to go on the tubes of other whistles and such. But people don’t seem to trade mouthpieces and tubes around as much as I would have thought, or at least I haven’t seen much of it. Is there an unspoken stigma attached to mutant whistles?
There are a number of threads here about just this topic, but there are a variety of ways to describe it. Try searching with “tweaked” or “hybrid” or “frankenwhistle” for starters.
And while Mack Hoover is well known for making replacement whistle heads, don’t forget that the highly regarded Mellow Dog D starts out as a Feadog C head on a Walton’s Mellow D body. (There is a lot more to it, of course.)
I have a few “frankenwhistles” or whatever they might be called. I have Generation whistles in B and C sharp which were made by chopping Generation B flat and C whistles. I came up with a formula for how much needs to be chopped from the top, how much from the bottom, and which tone holes need to be carved. These play great. I also have a Generation A which is a stretched B flat- actually I made a new body altogether.
You have to be kidding, I see this subject come up every few months
or so… I suppose some things just don’t get talked about daily.
The most interesting example, IMHO, is Jerry Freeman’s combination
of a Walton’s Mellow body with a tweaked Feadog head. He calls
this creature a “Mellowdog”. It’s pretty nice.
I also might mention that I give away for charitable causes, quantities of key of C untweaked Dellow Mogs.
This is a key of C size Waltons whistlehead on a Feadog C tube, and it makes a nice whistle. Somehow, I seem to accumulate the components for these. I only give them away for charitable use – schools, children’s music camp, scouts, day care, military servicemembers, etc. I have over 200 of these on hand right now, so it’s time to give some more away.
Please send me a PM to let me know how many you can use and for whom they’re intended, and I’ll put a CARE package together for your recipients.
I have a couple of Clare and Doolin two-piece whistles that I have stuck Feadog heads on. The tubes aren’t as nicely in tune as the Feadog ones, but they are still great little pocket whistles.
Nothing against hybrid whistles. I think Gene Roddenberry would have approved, “Infinite Diversity through infinite combinations”. Just apply it to whistles.
for a serious note, some times the bores do not have the same diameters between the two parts of a hybrid whistle. Sometime a wide bore head on a narrower tone body. This can play havoc with the tuning.
A brass sleeve made from brass telescoping tubing will help in some cases.
I always thought it was just the sound of the house settling!