I have a “New Kerry Low D” whistle (the £50 one) that takes quite a bit of air, especially when I compare it to my Overton low Eb. So I’m wondering what other low whistles require less air to play. I’d like to get another low D at some point, but I’m not sure what I should be looking for.
There are two different things potentially going on when you say a whistle takes more or less air
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the volume or quantity of air that passes through the whistle when it’s producing a sustained tone
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the force or pressure of air required.
When I evaluate Low Ds one of the things I do is to time how long I can sustain a tone on a single breath. The longer I can sustain a note, the longer musical phrases I can play and the less often I need to take breaths.
The best at this I’ve personally owned is the MK. It’s also one of the loudest whistles in the low range that I’ve tried. These are among several reasons I favour the MK.
Well, if you like your current Overton low Eb, I’d say stick with Colin Goldie. Colin can vary the air requirements a bit. Tell him what your low Eb is like and have hime make a low D to match. Is your low Eb tunable? Perhaps a low D tube is all you’d need. Talk to the man.
Feadoggie
And if you don’t particularly want to stick with that Overton, MK is the way to go for so many reasons - lowest air requirement I’ve ever experienced among them.
I’m not in a position to do so, (never having played a MK), but can anyone give me a comparison between the air requirements of an MK and a Syn low D? I designed the Syn so it would have low volume/high backpressure and play more like a high whistle. I’d be interested in the comparison.
Perhaps compare the windway cross-section areas, i.e. width x height of windways, to get an approx equivalent of what flow is possible.
That’s a good test. I hadn’t done anything that scientific; I was just going by the gasping sound I was making at the end of phrases. 
I think maybe I’ll sell the Kerry low D and the Overton low C I recently picked up (my fingers are a tad too short for that monster), put the money aside, and look for an MK to show up on the Exchange forum.
My low Eb isn’t tunable (nor is the low C I mentioned above). I prefer tunable whistles but I got the Overtons for such a great price that I couldn’t not buy them. And as new as I am to the instrument (slightly more than a year), I really don’t feel I know enough to say I want any particular sound. I only know that I have difficulty playing the Kerry for the reason I described. I could go with an Overton, but I’m finding that a big part of why I enjoy the instrument is the opportunity to try out the many different flavors there are …kinda like having a blonde, a brunette, AND a redhead on your arm.
My MK is a beautiful instrument, but it seems to me that it takes quite a bit of air (or at least pressure) on the highest end (and is accordingly quite loud on those notes). Am I doing something wrong (of course, I can just take big breaths…it takes two to toot)? Might a different embouchure significantly reduce air requirements on a whistle (sorry if that’s a stupid question–it certainly makes a difference on a flute).
A while back I posted a thread where I compare four Low Ds: Reviol, Burke, MK, and Susato.
For air requirements, I played through a double jig repeatedly on each whistle and kept track of how many bars I could complete on a single breath.
I could complete 8 bars on the Susato and MK, 7 bars on the Reviol, and 6 on the Burke. It’s one of the things that made me, in the end, switch to an MK and away from the Burke, the frequent breaths the Burke required. After that, with some other whistles, I tested air requirements a bit more scientifically by timing how many seconds I could sustain a held note (I think I used middle D). I call this “air efficiency”. It might be related to what most people call “backpressure”.
Yes the “embouchure” or tone-production on a whistle is fixed and is a compromise. On the flute you can play low notes as loud as you please and high notes as soft as you please because your embouchure can adjust to the optimum for each note. On a whistle there’s going to be a difference in volume between the low notes and the high notes, though the best whistles do a very good job at smoothing that out.
Whistlemakers are faced with the fact that the stronger you get the low notes the louder and potentially harsher become the high notes, particularly High B, and the sweeter you get the high notes the softer/wimpier become the low notes, particularly Low E.
So yes, High B on the two MKs I’ve owned are on the verge of being too loud and harsh and require a strong blow but this the price one pays for having the MK’s exceptionally strong low range. Actually it seems to me that the MK has less of a volume differential between the registers than most Low Ds do. Certainly my Burke had more. The MK has an unusually strong Low E in particular.
I tried a Howard Low D at the weekend and was suitably impressed by its low air requirement compared to the Dixon Tuneable Low D and the Shaw Low D that I own.
I now have a dose of Whoa for one.
Pancelticpiper your approach to determining breath requirements sounds like a excellent idea. So how many seconds could you sustain an octave D note on your MK?
I have the Kerry low D mentioned by the OP, and I agree that it’s a wind sucker, in terms of volume of air needed in the 2nd octave. I use high G for the wind test, and with a full lungful I can play that note for 8 seconds, remembering to start the count at zero.
Ubizmo
Thanks. In the back of my head I was wondering if maybe it was just my inexperience with the instrument coming through. Glad to know at least one other person feels the same about that whistle.
I usually take a good breath, and then play a tune until there is no more air. That way i don’t have to count at all as i know how far in tune i’ve reached.
I have a GG style home-made low D, and just this evening i reduced the height of the windway by half. It yielded a bit brighter tone (maybe a bit sharper notes) with a significant improvement in the breath requirement area (i dare say doubled the playtime on one breath). Higher notes are now easier to play, as i don’t have to puff like a lunatic to reach them. Even a low D has spread it’s breath range (as in the amount of push needed to flip to a high D). I’m very happy right now.
To tell me you did it and not tell me how is the ultimate whistle tease.
Well, it could be my inexperience with the whistle coming through!
Ubizmo
Have you not read my signature line?
I am curious: what is the windway height and width now?
And what is it in a MK, if anyone could measure it?
Take your whistle and look through the mouth of the whistle into some light source. You should see lower part of the blade and, beneath it a sliver of light. That’s looking though the windway. Now, windway could be either flat or curved, but either way it’s rectangular (if it’s curved, it is still a rectangle, only curved ) . The shorter side is the height, the longer is the width.
Now, as i have home-made whistle of GG style, it includes the windway cap, which is basically a bit of tubing cut lengthwise and mounted on the top. To reduce the windway height, (as the wall of the whistle, which is made of aluminium is thicker than cap which is PVC) all i had to do is to glue a bit of PVC beneath it. It’s kinda like Jerry Freeman’s underneath blade ramp tweak, only made on underneath the top of windway cap.
Oh and, i would never ever try to tweak some brand-name whistle this way. Despite my initial excitement, the whistle had suffered some unwanted changes, like some serious de-tuning of a certain notes and overall quirkiness. 