One only has to look at Mack Hoover’s current post to know that Mack has a fondness for “thinking outside of the box” whistles. Looking at his website shows an impressive array of whistle types that He’s made. His original types, the all brass whistles, are still some of the nicest looking whistles that he does. (although the wooden ones are reeeeal tempting)
I am planning a trip to visit the family and needed a “show” whistle to be able to play a duet with “musician of the family” brother. I had asked Mack for the standard bore brass with the following request: Nice looking, rich sound, medium volume and good tuning. (I don’t want much do I) He e-mailed me back and suggested a wide bore brass that he had had some success with previously. Now Macks whistles are handmade so there will always be some variation in the sound and character of his whistles but I trust him to make me a good whistle so I quickly agreed to the wide bore.
I must apologise for the lack of a good picture of this whistle. I even bought a new digital camera to get a picture but found that my ten year old computer is not able to handle the hookup. If anyone has a good digital scanner, I can mail them some photos of the whistle if they can post them, just let me know…
What is it… Hoover Wide Bore all brass in high D
Construction Details… This tunable whistle is all brass with the tone body section of an identical diameter to a standard Generation C whistle. The wall thickness is substantially greater (about .040" or slightly less than a millimeter) This gives the whistle a nice solid feel and weight. I have a heavy brass tube Dixon which is even heavier, but that one actually gets tiresome to hold after a while. This whistle is solid without being overly heavy. The tone holes are perfectly centered on the tube and Mack did a nice job with chamfering the edges for a smooth feel. The hole spacing is virtually identical to a Feadog D I have here for comparison but the holes tend to be a bit larger. The mouthpiece section is of slightly larger diameter and fits over the tone tube to make the tuning slide. The wall thickness of the mouthpiece section is also heavier than average. dfernandez77 did a review some time ago of a Hoover all brass narrow bore with nice photos. This whistle looks similar but with some differences. The fipple material on this whistle is black delrin instead of the corian. The shape of the bottom of the fipple is a perfect shape to fit well on the lips. In fact a blacktop fipple of Mack’s that I have has virtually the same curve on the bottom. The surface of the delrin on the bottom is sanded so smooth that it actually shines. Speaking of shining… the whole whistle does that (shines that is) Obviously Mack spent some time polishing this baby and it shows.
I had noticed that the fit of the slide area had a really nice smooth feel when moved. I took the two sections apart and noticed that Mack had used a piece of clear scotch tape around the tone tube section for a kind of “gasket” material. I know that this might strike someone a a little crude, but it works amazingly well. The thickness of the taps makes for the perfect fit of the two sections. I have had the whistle apart dozens of times now to clean it. (I’m a clean freak, what can I say) So far there is no signs of the tape wearing out. Even if it does, it would be easily replaced.
Tone and playing characteristics… If anyone has had Macks whistle before, you will notice immediatly that this whistle shares that typical Hoover sound. The tone is quite pure with a higher level of musical richness and fullness than the Blacktop fipple model which has a sound that is similar. The volume on my whistle is a solid medium, about the same as a stock Generation. I am sure if one wanted a louder volume Mack could make it a bit louder. The width of the window on mine is somewhat small because I had asked for a medium volume. There is room on the mouthpiece to make the windway a little wider. Like all Hoovers the backpressure requirement is fairly low. Suprisingly, there is the need to push slightly by the top of the second octive. This is a bit unlike my Blacktop whistle.
The Tuning on this whistle sounds very nice. I don’t usually put whistles to the ‘tuner’ test but I did on this whistle out of curiosity. With an average breath pressure, all of the notes were within 10 to 20 cents of in tune. All could be brought into tune with the appropriate breath control. The C natural played very well in tune with xoo-ooo fingering. The only thing I noticed was a slightly “weaker” character to the note with this fingering. oxx-xox fingering made for a solid c natural with the same timbre as the rest of the notes… real nice
Although it’s hard to fault this whistle for anything, I should mention the one negative which I found. The responsiveness was excelent on all of the notes but one… The bottom bell note was a little slow to respond if one played thru the bell not too quickly. I studied the airway exit shape and windway exit height and chose to do something to correct this myself. I took a thin stick of cherrywood and glued some 600 grit sandpaper to it. I then sanded down the airway floor, stopping to check the sound frequently. After opening it up a bit the whistle now responds well right to the bottom note and did not lose anything in overall tone. I chose to do this myself, but I’m sure Mack would have done this if someone sent it back to him. I e-mailed Mack about the slow responsiveness issue and he was very gracious, explaining that he tends to check the tuning and playing at a slower speed, and did not notice the response issue. He thanked me and said he would be more aware of this in the future.
Summary Even though the Wide Bore brass is not one of his “regular” offerings, I am very pleased to have this whistle. The combination of great looks and nice sound is hard to beat. The solid construction gives the whistle a real professional feel to it. No whistle is completely perfect though and like all whistles with metal in their windways, this whistle should be kept warm while playing to minimise clogging (not a big problem though). The tone and tuning is first rate… I hesitate to admit to what I paid for it as it is an “experimental” model and not on his price list but needless to say for any of you who have dealt with Mack before… It is one heck of a good value
DreamOgreen 
