I’ve read that whistles of this particular brand vary in quality. But, is it really all that hard to find a “good” one?
Not if you get one that’s been through Jerry Freeman’s hands!
Editted:
You can get ‘good enough’ Gens straight off the shelf. If the mouthpiece is clean without any funky bits of stray plastic that need to be cleaned, all the better. If you do the simplest of tweaks – filling the gap under the fipple – it gets even better.
But sometimes…sometimes…you get a Gen that is magical, that has something more than a perfectly adequate sound. That is rare.
I have only found a few that were not good ones. You have to look them over and if possible play them before buying. If you can only look them over look for one where the bottom of the ramp is close to the bottom of the windway. Check this by looking through the windway at the ramp. There should only see a small space beneath the ramp. I found one whistle one time that I couldn’t even see the ramp. It wasn’t a Generation though. I have heard people say that you have to look through 100s to find one good one. It has been my experience that I will find a good one in any random group of 5.
Ron
Thanks so much for the help. People made it sound like finding a good (untweaked) generation is so hard.
Substantial numbers of them are crappy. Lots of them are pretty good. And, one in awhile you run into a fabulous one. But, I do think tweaking is the way to go on these.
I’ve looked at a tweaked version but it just seems so expensive. I would also like to buy some in other keys but I only saw a tweaked D.
I do tweaked Generations in every key they make, both bluetop nickel and redtop brass.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Gaelic Crossings carries a pretty good selection of Freeman tweaked Generations.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. 
Just last month I got two Generation Ds from The Whistle Shop (one for me, one for a friend). I don’t know if they’re “good”, but they’re certainly not bad.
I did the putty tweak on mine and it’s my most used whistle at this point - among other cheapies.
Jason
Do the generations require lots of air to play?
In my opinion, no, the Generations don’t require any more than average breath requirements, and they are pretty middle of the road for back pressure too.
Thanks again for all the help. This was my first post. I’ve been lurking around for a while but finally got brave enough to post in the forums. I won’t be hesitant to ask questions next time after seeing how friendly everyone is.
I have both a non tweaked D and a Freeman Tweaked D and while I do prefer the tweaked to the non tweaked one the regular one is quite playable taking a touch more air than the tweaked one.
I haven’t tried any of Jerry’s recent tweaking schemes but as it is I play totally untweaked whistles (I like Cillian O Briain’s but never bothered to get one). Some Generations may be croaky and not so great for tuning or just plain mediocre(but that holds true for all cheap whistles, most mid range whistles and to an extent some high priced whistles as well) but in my mind the ‘unplayability’ as well the expectations of ‘a really good one’ often quoted here is grossly exagerated. They do just fine most of the time.
(But then again, I don’t mind calling my whistles ‘whistles’, I play the pipes already thank you, I don’t want them to sound like a dying owl, I think they are nice gadget to play diddly music on, I don’t imagine they speak to me in the voice of a supernatural being and I don’t care too much for having loads of them, or expensive ones etc, so I am out of step with opinions here anyway)
Kor! Dragged out to a shed and WHIPPED, you aughter be! 
Heh heh, “dying Owl”, that’s a good one!
Loren
HOOOOOOO
About half the Gen D’s I’ve bought were fine, about half were really bad.
“Really bad,” to be specific, means “won’t play all the way down to the lowest note at all.”
Even on the best Gens, you’ll need to at least do one tweak…they ship very tuned very sharp, you’ll need to use hot water to make the fipple removable so you can tune it to standard pitch. Of course, if you’re only going to play by yourself, I suppose this doesn’t matter…but it’s necessary if you’re going to play in session unless you can convince everyone else to tune to you.
–James
Hmmm ..gadget to play diddly music on.. That’s GTPDMO!
I think Gens make a great GTPDMO!
And DM is shorter than ITM.
I like it!