Hi, I just bought a low d Goldie second hand that said in the description that it was a soft blower but it feels like it has considerably more back pressure than my MK pro low d. Do you know if this is normal or if I have been sent a medium or hard blower. Thanks
Welcome Felix. Colin engraves the windway height inside the bore at the bottom of the whistle, so if you haven’t yet, take a look at what numerical designation is indicated there. 1.0 has been the standard soft-blow, which I doubt has changed.
Cheers
stiofan
Ok perfect thanks I will check that now
Fascinating, stiofan. Can you tell us what Colin’s other classifications are and what he stamps them?
Interesting to consider the description “easy blowing”. I might have guessed a low windway ceiling would make for increased back pressure, so not so easy blowing.
But perhaps there are other ways of looking at it? Does the lower ceiling height speed up the jet, meaning you don’t have to blow as hard?
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See also: Goldie soft/medium?
Colin now engraves the actual windway height, but previously he called them “soft” “medium” and “hard”.
I’m very familiar with how Goldie Low D’s both with the “soft” and “medium” heads play, and how the tunable MK’s play (I’ve owned a half-dozen of them) and honestly the differences in backpressure seem negligible to me.
Where the differences are apparent, though subtle, are in how the “soft” and “medium” Goldies play. Also the “medium” head is a bit more air-efficient than the “soft” however all three (the MK’s and both Goldies) are the most air-efficient Low D’s that I’ve played.
Thanks this is very helpful, having read this I expect I have been sent a hard blowing whistle (the markings are too unclear and faded to read). It is much more difficult to get the goldie into the second octave than the Mk and it has a very muted, quieter sound than the Mk. The other possibility I can see is that there is a fault with the whistle as there is a distinct buzzing in the upper end of the first octave.
One question Felix, if you can’t read the markings are you sure it’s a Goldie?
At one point in time three different makers were making identical-looking Low Whistles
Bernard Overton (the inventor and original maker)
Phil Hardy and Colin Goldie (both of whom were licensed to make Overton whistles).
I know Bernard Overton himself made some extremely hard-blowing Low Whistles for professional Highland pipers, and it’s possible that Phil or Colin made them also, when requested.
These were quite stiff in the 2nd octave requiring a strong blow.
Being a Highland piper myself I find the backpressure on all whistles negligible, so I’m not really the right person to judge that.
What I am very aware of is air efficiency, the quantity of air that must pass through a whistle as it’s played, because this limits how long a note or phrase can be played on a single breath.
Yes MK’s have a very easy 2nd octave however part of this is how they tune. All the MK’s that I owned had slightly sharp 2nd octaves, meaning that to play the two octaves in tune with each other meant strongly blowing the low octave and backing off on the 2nd octave.
My Goldies aren’t like that. They have the octaves tuned down the middle according to most makers I’ve tried, meaning a bit more increase of blowing for the 2nd octave.
About buzzing in the 2nd octave, I don’t know what that could be, unless there’s moisture condensation in the (quite narrow) windway.
Yes it is a Goldie, there is an engraving on the outside of the whistle that says Goldie. The part I cannot read is inside the whistle which looks like it was written in pencil. Apparently it was made in 2012 so it has clearly not a new instrument. I can make out the first number which is a 9 but I cannot tell what the second is. From what you have said I believe it may just be unfamiliarity with the whistle. Thanks so much for you help, I have one last question, if I were to get a low f Goldie in the place of this low d, would Colin be able to make it with similar playing characteristics to the Mk or is that too far from what the Goldie whistles can do. Thanks so much for you detailed responses.
Terry: Apparently I was slightly off on the windway schema. As pancelticpiper rightly pointed out in the Goldie soft/medium thread (linked above by Tunborough), here’s the correct lineup:
However, if I recall correctly, Colin mentioned to me a few years ago that he actually can/does make windways in between these standard ones.
FWIW, I’m very happy with my narrow-bore Goldie with 1.0 windway (very soft/easy blower).
Hmmm…
.8 mm “hard blower”
.87 mm “medium blower”
.97 mm standard “soft blower”
1 mm very soft/easy blower
So, we should interpret it as
0.8mm, low windway ceiling, need to blow hard to overcome resistance.
1 mm, high windway ceiling, blow softly as lower resistance.
Interesting that a 20% change in windway height is enough to cover the range!
Interesting too that my tweaked treble D whistle has a higher windway ceiling than any of these Low D whistles. I might have guessed that a low whistle would need more airflow than a treble whistle!
But there are probably other complicating factors. There usually are with woodwinds!
Felix if it’s two digits and the first is 9 that really narrows it down.
If Colin was sticking to is stated schema that means .97 but as Stiofan says Colin also makes in-betweeners or order. This opens up the possibility that it could be (just making a number up) .92 being halfway between Medium and Soft, who can say.
We can say it’s not down in the .8 range, the Hard to Medium range.
For sure my Soft Goldie Low D has the benefits that come with it: easy high notes, flexible leaping between octaves, yet retaining strong fat low notes. In short the Easy is “more musical” but the tradeoff is a tad less air-efficiency.
The most similar thing I’ve played is a Lofgren Low D, which was lovely.
But as I mentioned part of what makes MKs play like they do is the octaves relationship which is different from Goldies. The caveat is that all the MKs I had were tunable pre-Pro ones, and he might have changed his design since that time.
I have a Goldie Mezzo F and it’s superb, possibly my best whistle next to my vintage Generation C. But I’ve not played an MK F so I have no idea how the two might compare.
I forgot to mention that going back and forth between a Medium and Soft Goldie makes me really want to try one in between, around .92 let’s say.
It might be the ideal Low D for me if it does fall right in the middle regards performance.
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My treasured, and still very active and gorgeous, Goldie low D is from the transitional period when they were still stamped 0verton on the lower part of the barrel but signed and dated inside the barrel by Colin. No sign of any numbers,when did he start recording those in the barrel?
My Goldie Low C is like that, stamped “Overton” on the outside but inside the bell is written
Colin Goldie Dec 1999 for Adrian Carr
Colin told me he uses .1mm for the Low C.
My Low D has “Goldie M” stamped on the outside, the inside says
Colin Goldie Feb 2011
So no windway height measurement.
It strikes me as odd that he writes the windway height on the body instead of the head.
Because I can switch heads between my Low D and Low C, that’s how I know what a “soft” Goldie Low D plays like.
Yeah, it is funny that he writes it in the barrel but I suppose considering how deep into the head he’d have to write it so that it wouldn’t interfere with the tuning section, I guess it’s just more manageable to write it in the barrel.
I have a Low F from Colin just purchased at the end of last year, he described it to me as a “medium-soft” and has “.95” scratched inside the barrel. But he also said if I wasn’t happy with the pressure, he would swap the head for me free of charge if I paid for shipping. I’d maybe consider getting the medium blower but then I’d have mismatched markings! Oh the humanity!
Felix, I have Burke and Chieftain low D’s. I bought a new soft blow (0.97mm) Goldie and can tell you it requires FAR more pressure that those two. Based on my conversation with Colin Goldie, you have to blow a thin blade of high-pressure air though your lips, especially to reach the second octave. If you get this right you’ll eventually get a velvety sound that should eliminate the scratchy/buzzing noise you mention; but it can be difficult to transition smoothly between high and low notes. I’m new at this and it is a struggle. (Note that I downgraded from a medium Goldie because the second octave required too much pressure at my stage of development.) Sorry I can’t comment on the MK. I suspect your Goldie was accurately described as a soft blow, but that’s relative to other Goldies. BTW, the technique used on the Goldie is completely wrong for my Burke and only produces wind noise. So you may have to experiment with different approaches to the whistles. Note also, that Goldie’s designation of Low, Medium, and Hard has changed over time. I believe the Medium he sent me was 0.9mm. So if you can see a 9 there’s no way you have anything harder than a medium. As others wrote, a medium used to be 0.87mm. That’s even further evidence you have a soft blower.
As I’d mentioned all whistles require negligible pressure to me.
I played a Burke “Pro Viper” for a few years, later switching to a Colin Goldie “Medium blower” and I didn’t notice any difference in resistance/backpressure between them.
What I was aware of is that the Burke, probably because of the higher and wider windway, and larger bore, required significantly more volume of air to play than the Goldie.
As I recall the Burke was the least-efficient Low D of the dozens of makes I tried, and the Goldie and MK were the two most-efficient.
This really becomes apparent when holding B in the 2nd octave, which I could do twice as long on the Goldie or MK than on the Burke.
Being that the Burke is no louder than the other two, it makes one wonder what all the extra air is doing.
I’m very new at the Low D so that likely accounts for the difference we’re perceiving in pressure. Given how smoothly and effortlessly I see some playing the medium-hard blowers, I know I have much to grow into with regard to the Goldie. At the moment it feels like significant pressure is required for the second octave, but I’m also noticing that if I get the position of my lips just right, I can relax a bit more. So I’m going to keep working with the 0.97mm Soft Goldie and see if I eventually move up to 0.9mm Medium, which I have in reserve.
A little off of Felix’s question, but I also thought that the Burke required a great volume of air. In fact I contacted Michael Burke to see if he had a more “efficient” option. In short the answer was that it does not require more air if played as designed. His advice was; do “not tighten your lips unless you want more noise. Use glottal or diaphragmic pulses that give a fast attack and the notes will take less air and be more dynamic.” I had been trying to play the Burke like the Goldie in order to conserve air. Now I’ve opened up the lips and push just enough from the diaphragm to make the sound. It’s a different technique and has greatly reduced the air volume. At the moment I’m able to play phrases about the same length on both the Goldie and the Burke. (Note that both were made in 2025.)
Again, I’m new at this and have a long way to go before realizing the potential of these instruments. At this stage they feel very different. So back to Felix’s point, it could be that the soft Goldie feels hard due to issues with technique, as I’m working through. It would be great hearing from experienced players how they approach the Goldie, but maybe that’s a subject for a new topic.
Felix, I think I’ve just bought this from you on the usual auction site. 
(If not, ignore this!) I also have an MK pro and agree the Goldie has more back pressure which I actually like. For me, it’s a near perfect whistle, creamy smooth all the way up and it’s quickly become my favourite. It does seem to take more pressure than some but lean into it and the tone is spectacular and long phrases aren’t a problem; I’ve never played a Goldie before so I’m very glad I took a chance on it!
I think the windway is 0.97 but it’s conceivably 0.92, the number is a bit scuffed.