I ordered one Burke and Overton low D from Song of the sea and told Ann I would return one. They arrived yesterday and both are fine whistles
in every way. I have played them for several hours now. I will be returning the burke and keeping the Overton.
Have fun with the Overton.
Good choice, eh Bloom? 
Yay! Have fun! 
Why did you choose the Overton over the Burke?
They are both very good whistles with fine tone. If I realy was in to WHOA
I would put a Burke in my colection but I am satisfied with a small colection. This Burke to me took an exact breath to play each note.
The Overton reminds me of my Gemeinhardt flute. Very good response at any breath hard or soft and the note is there. To me this allows the Overton to be more exexpressive. One of the first things I do when trying a whistle or flute is to try to over blow and under blow to hear the the range of each note. This Burke and the Overton both have excelent tone. But the Burke was limited to where I could go with each note.
That is just about the best answer I have ever heard. It was well thought out and to the point. I have played flute for 30+ years and I know exactly what you mean. You would make a good whistle reviewer. You should consider it. Thanks very much.
Does this mean that the Overton is more suitable for bending notes by varying the breath?
My early experience of trying to blow a low whistle - which was so long ago that it probably was an Overton - was disastrous: I was blue 
in the face and could hardly get a sound out of it. It clearly needed something like a flute-player’s breath control.
As I mainly play uilleann pipes and soprano D, I find the Burke quite easy to play, but haven’t been able to achieve any real bending.
Is that in a nutshell the nature of the tradeoff that leads some people to choose Burkes and some Overtons?
Consider, also, that you can bend notes with a finger, too, depending on your style and where you are in a tune.
Jef
I am not sure what others use to determine if they want a Burke or an Overton. I feel they are in the same class. For me it was to choose which tone I prefer. Could you explaine what bending a note is? That term is new to me. What I meant by over blowing was to hear when the note would jump the octave. And underblowing to hear when it would quit. Ben was correct when he said I gave a lot of thought to what I said about both whistles. I did not want to imply one is better. For me the Overton was just a tone that I preferred.
I’m talking about deliberate, controlled deviation from the true note.
Sliding the fingers (gradually uncovering the holes) works fine, particularly on uilleann pipes and soprano whistles.
The effect that I’m talking about is the slightly ghostly sound that is can be heard on some of the commercial recordings of low whistles, which appears to be achieved by easing or increasing the breath pressure.
Maybe you refer to DS and his habit to “drop” the pitch of a note on “release”. I have three Overtons and there is no way I can achieve this by means of breath pressure. I think the effect can only be done by “sliding up” or “sliding down” (the latter is doable, albeit much harder).
The effect that I’m talking about is the slightly ghostly sound that is can be heard on some of the commercial recordings of low whistles, which appears to be achieved by easing or increasing the breath pressure.
I recently bought a low D Overton and love it for exactly this reason. The Black Rose (Roisin Dubh) is one where this effect is particularly useful.
On the A I can go from -30 to +30 cents from the 440 for instance.by varying the breath pressure. It jumps up an octave at +50cents
Brian
I can do this with breath pressure fairly easily on any Overton low whistle or a Howard for that matter. I think Burkes have a certain plasticity of pitch by which I mean I can fairly easily blow them a bit sharp or flat. But the lowest Burke I have is a low G and it doesn’t have that ethereal Overton sound. It, and a high C, have a sort of crying sound when I vary the pitch with breath pressure. (I’m not sure that this pitch variation is due to breath pressure alone; I think I employ sax and harmonica tricks with the shape of my mouth without really thinking about it. But, on the Overton, that pitch flattening can be achieved with what I think is just breath pressure.) So both allow for pitch shaping but the resulting sound seems to me to be very different.
Roisin Dubh is a very good tune to play solo using any whistle and key.
It has a lot of slurs and just at the right measure there are notes to tongue. The volume can be changed several times to a players preference. I enjoy bending ( or sliding) the notes when it goes from
b to c# and then putting my fingers over both holes slowley from the side to make the a. Pushing more air on the c# and fading away on the a while bending it. To me it is like melting the note. There could be another term for this? To me this was easier to do whith the Overton.
b to c# and then putting my fingers over both holes slowley from the side to make the a. Pushing more air on the c# and fading away on the a while bending it. To me it is like melting the note.
That’s interesting after experimenting I have a slightly different way to do it. Slide the B finger up off the top hole, put the second finger down on the tube but not on a hole then slide both fingers down together to get the A. Got an mp3 anywhere? I got my version from http://www.fingertrip.net/whistle/index.html
Brian
I mucked about tonight with a few low whistles to see if varying breath pressure was enough to get that characteristic flattening fade-out effect. I tried an Overton low G, a Copeland low G and a Grinter low F. It worked on all three. On the Copeland I even got it going in the second octave before the note broke into the first octave. I noticed that I was pursing my lips a bit as you would to bend a note on harmonica—a bit like spitting out the mouthpiece. The effect could be accentuated by slightly sweeping a finger over the edge of the hole below the bottom finger. I think I preferred it unaccentuated.
Now, to make a valid controlled experiment, you’re just going to have to buy Burke as well, aren’t you? 
I did buy all three- Copland, Burke, and overton. I am keeping the Overton and waiting for my refund on the other two great whistles.
Funny you should say that, Roger. I do have a Burke low G but nothing lower. I just couldn’t be bothered getting it out last night. I’m sure you can get pitch variation going on it but I don’t remember it having that trademark low-whistle fading effect. Apart from ease of access, I thought that if I could get the effect on G and F whistles it would be even more pronounced on D and C whistles. I remember them as being quite easy to manipulate with breath control.