I have four recordings of the same little piece. The first was done on my beloved Abell, the second on an O’Riordan traditional mouthpiece and brass tube, the third on a Susato non-tunable VSB, and the fourth on a Sweetone; all are d whistles.
Thanks Jessie. . .I love comparative clips like this! And once again, it proves that someone with skill and talent can make an inexpensive whistle sound wonderful.
How do you describe the sound of the Sweetone (which I find very different from the other three)?
Lastly, for as long as I’ve been on this board you’ve referred to your ‘beloved Abell’, never, if I recall as ‘my Abell’ or ‘my wonderful Abell’…nearly always its very precisely ‘my beloved Abell’. It reminds me of my great grandfather and his last wife, who was UNIVERSALLY called “Fanny Darling” because he never called her anything else. I honestly thought that was her name.
That was great Jessie, although I still can’t get my media player to play more than the first 10 seconds of anything and my observations are therefore seriously qualified. It’s nice to have a way to compare whistles with all or most other variables controlled and equalized.
Two things I picked out in my allotted 10 seconds:
Amazing how a player makes all the whistles, cheapest to most expensive, sound very much alike.
The Abell sounded to me to have the “richest” or fullest or warmest sound of the bunch.
The mix was not silly; it sounded great - when else would you hear four whistlers so in tune together?
The Abell wins in my books (ears)! What a difference between the sounds! If you want to have some fun, open up 2 or more of the tunes at once and try to get them to play in harmony together. I did this quite by accident, and it was great fun! (too much time on my hands?)
A little funny secret about me: I take “my beloved Abell” with me when I travel, and sometimes it gets turbulent on planes…I start to feel nervous and I reassure myself by thinking that the universe, or God or whatever you want to call it, wouldn’t let anything happen to that very special instrument, so I am safe.
A very lovely piece…contrary to most folks so far, when Jessie hit that first slide on the O’Riordan, I went “oh yeah!” Was exactly the sound I wanted to hear.
It’s a lovely tune…lent itself well to ear learning, so I thought I’d give a shot recording the same tune on some other whistles. I don’t have any high end recording equipment with me, don’t have the backup music, and currently have a cold, but here’s my shot on this tune on some other whistles.
Hoover PVC http://www.tinwhistler.com/misc/samples/comp/comp_hooverpvc.mp3
Warning, this one’s like 220K(all the others are around 90K), because I had to save it at 24000Hz 40bps..otherwise, I got a harmonic buzz between the A on this whistle and my computer fan. I’m pretty sure I saved the rest at 22050Hz, 16bps
Very nice recordings JessieK How did you get the multiple tacks to sinc up like that? you must have good timing.
On 2003-01-12 15:25, PhilO wrote:
That was great Jessie, although I still can’t get my media player to play more than the first 10 seconds of anything and my observations are therefore seriously qualified.
I had the same problem with my aol media player, so I went to settings and disabled it. now when I click on something I download it but I get to hear the whole thing in good quality. Before everything that played after the first interuption would click and sputter.
Bagfed, I am totally rhythmically challenged, so to make sure that I would match the backup track each time, I played along with a rhythm track that was omitted from the mix. My secret is out!
Greg, that is so incredibly cool! I am thrilled that you were motivated to learn the tune and that you did so many recordings of different whistles. Thanks!
J
Edit: I wrote the tune a few years ago.
[ This Message was edited by: JessieK on 2003-01-13 14:36 ]
I loved the Abell and the sweetone has such a nice roll up to the “b” at the climax of the tune, it sounds much more Irish sounding than the susato. But then again I have always disliked the susasato’s sound and the way they play. But bravo.
On 2003-01-12 17:12, JessieK wrote:
Greg, that is so incredibly cool! I am thrilled that you were motivated to learn the tune and that you did so many recordings of different whistles. Thanks!
How could I not be? It was a lovely tune, well played..of course it was inspiring
I’m not buying into your “rythmically challenged” dodge.
I’ve listened over and over to the Abell version of your tune, and I’m struck by how beautifully timed the ornamentations are. It’s a simple enough melody, yet with such well-crafted ornamentation, it’s helping me understand how it all fits together to make a lovely piece of music. Thanks for sharing it.
Jessie and Greg,
Very nice playing, indeed!
For sound, my favorites, in order, are:
Abell
Burke
Copeland
I disliked very much the Susato and Sweet. I was surprised at the difference between the Abell and the O’Riordan. Also surprised at how good the sweetone compared against the expensive ones. I’d like to hear how some of the other cheapies (Gen type) sound in this type of comparison.
Mike
Mike:
I really wanted to put a Gen up there for comparison, but I couldn’t find one in my whistle drawer that was in tune enough for me to be happy with it. I’ve already given away all the decent ones I had.
I’ve already given away all the decent ones I had.