Hoover Aluminum Bb

Whistle
1

I got my new Hoover today, a Bb w/ Whitecap mouthpiece and 3/4" aluminum bore.

This whistle is, basically, like a Generation on steroids. Here’s what I mean:

  1. It plays as easily as a Gen with about the same breath requirements.

BUT

  1. It’s very stable and strong at the bottom end, and plays easily up to the first note of the third octave. I would say it’s low end is stronger and more stable than most cylindrical whistles I’m familiar with and the top end is quite comparable–quite a combination. (I found that the high “D” - really Bb, of course - is best fingered oxxxxx and attacked fairly agressively.)

  2. It’s tone is very mellow, just a bit of breathiness, but quite pure and very pleasing throughout its range. If you play it in a room with, say, ceramic floors, it’s a thing of beauty.

  3. The octaves are very well balanced and in tune.

This whistle was $55, and I consider it to be a fine value for the money.

Mack threw in a Whitecap 1/2" mouthpiece, which I fitted to an old brass Gen D. It made a remarkable difference. Mind you, it doesn’t come close to my “high end” D whistles, but it was really instructive in what a good mouthpiece can do.

Highly recommended! Oh, and thanks to the several people out there who turned me on to Mack’s work.

2

Do you have any photos?

3

oh, sorry, no. but that’s a good question, since mack doesn’t actually have a picture of this whistle on his site. his pictures show whistles without the whitecap mouthpiece, so you have to use your imagination a bit.

4

Do you have the URL for his website? :stuck_out_tongue:

5

here’s what i have bookmarked:

http://home.earthlink.net/~ffanf/hoover/index.htm

by the way, doc jones has a new post re a hoover Bb, but a cpvc instrument–which he likes very well, too.