Ok, so I am finished with my Clarke Meg. It is just too “pitchy” and sounds like dookie. I want to try one of those strait-walled whistles with a plastic mouthpiece. I’m thinking of buying one of these models before I go to bed tonight.
Acorn
Clare
Feadog
Generation
Oak
Waltons
You guys steer me in the right direction here. Which of the ones listed would I be the most happy with? I just want a plain-jane strait-forward whistle with no “issues.” LOL… Help me please. I don’t want to have to buy 10 whistles before I find one I like. I’m a broke-as-a-joke college student.
Alternatively, one of you guys who has like 100 whistles laying around could send me one of your cast-offs and I would be happy to paypal you up front for the shipping!!
Go with a Walton. My first whistle was a Walton Nickel C, and it is THE BEST whistle I own. That’d be my recommendation. Nickel C and D are good. In brass, the Walton Mellow D is super. Hope this helps.
Get one of each.
And maybe a Mellowdog tweaked to go with it.
Then you’ve sorta got an idea what’s out there in the cheap whistle range.
Then maybe do a search on tweaks and figure out what to do with the whistles you don’t like.
Walton’s Mello D (wide-bore) and Walton’s C whistles are very nice.
I don’t care much for the Walton’s standard-bore D whistles - personal taste, likely.
I like Feadogs - slightly rough sounding, but very traditional (and very consistant, too).
I like Oaks, but they may not be the best beginner’s whistle - they require better breath control than most beginners have. I’ve never played an Acorn, but believe that they’re more similar to an Oak than anthing else (lower-cost version of the same basic design).
Generations have a reputation for poor QC, but they can be fairly easily tweaked if necessary - and a good Generation is a very good whistle.
I need to try a Clare - there are enough folks on the board that like them, and the two-piece would be handy.
Remember that these are very cheap, mass produced instruments you are
talking about. Multiple whistles from the same company will vary, certainly
with Megs, but especially with Generations. Also, don’t forget that a large
part of the sound may also lie with the experience of the player, so don’t
throw your Meg out yet, you may pick it up in a year and it will sound great.
That being said, I have 2 Feadogs that sound awful in the second register,
and my Claire is unplayable. But others will almost certainly have had
different experiences with those brands, and that’s OK. You just have to
experiment. There are few sure answers with the cheap whistles. (But you
can find some incredible whistles among the cheapies.)
When I first started playing, I didn’t like this whistle, then that whistle, then the next whistle, and the next.
I kept thinking there was “a better whistle” out there.
You know what I’ve learned? Whistles is whistles. You have to approach them on their own terms. They aren’t virtuoso instruments like a Stradivarius or a Steinway. They’re just whistles.
Most importantly, they’re not recorders! When you stop expecting them to sound like recorders, or baroque whatzits, and expect them to sound like whistles, they’ll start sounding just fine.
If your whistle sounds like dookie, it’s because you’re playing it dookie. I don’t intend that to sound mean or unsympathetic. It’s just the way it is.
You have to play the whistle for what it is, on its own terms.
I know this to be true because every one of those whistles I hated initially . . . all those crummy, cheap whistles that sounded like dookie . . . now sound just fine. Including the Meg, which I hated most of all.
It wasn’t the whistle. It was me. Once I got the right attitude toward the instrument and learned how to work with it, rather than the other way around, we got along.
There are lots of whistles. High end. Low end. But none of them are, not really, bad whistles. They’re all pretty much the same. Including your Meg.
I hated the Walton’s Mellow D I had…either gave it away or tweaked it into oblivion, don’t recall. The Clare I have never gets played - a very ho-hum whistle to me. Generations can be “iffy”. In my opinion, a Feadog is as good as any whistle out there.
BUT you have to keep in mind “Old Growth” oaks - IE before the design change - are an entirely different whistle than the newer ones. And much superior, IMHO. The newer ones are raspier, and harder to control. I doubt anybody could find the older ones in a store these days.
EDIT: Actually, compared to my “new growth” Oak, my Meg is fantastic. I like the mellower “conical” sound, I guess. THe Oak might be a better session whistle because it “cuts through” better. But cutting through with a cheese grater isn;t something you necessarily want.
I think the Walton Mello D is the safest bet. My old Soodlum’s (pre-Walton) Mello D is a very serviceable predictable instrument. Most everybody thinks the Walton “narrower” bore standard D is not a safe bet, by comparison.
The Acorn Surprise - -
Recently I bought an Acorn tin whistle pack (includes whistle, instruction book and CD) for about $18, to give to a nine-year old great-niece. I found the whistle to be surprisingly good, no big problems transitioining into the second octave, fairly clean tone, too. The mouthpiece appeared to be of Delrin like the Oaks.
I’ve found a couple of Feadogs, tweaked and untweaked that are OK. But I’ve played one that was terrible.
My Oak was simply unplayable, raspy, scratchy difficult second octave, unremarkable first octave. I put a Hoover Whitecap ($20) on it, which made it a fine instrument.
Hope this is helpful. Best of luck to you. RamblDoc
Jerry-tweaked Mellow Dog (Ebay, G. Crossings, others).
You won’t find a more raved-about cheapish whistle out there.
Less money that an evening of pints at the pub.
Precisely what I was about to say… will cost less money than having to buy multiples of the cheapo-mass-produced ones, trying to find a good one… You’ll have a good one, and then can wait for a decent one of the others to find you.
I think there is more room for negotiation with a violin. There isn’t all that much you can do with a whistle to improve it.
Granted, there are better and worse ones, but when you have people making fine music on low-end models . . . well, I think that says something.
And, on a personal note to you, Tal, kindly refrain from criticizing my speech habits. I write the way I talk.
Clearly, it’s not good enough to allow entry to those fancy “by invitation only” places, but it’s good enough for here. If you don’t like it, have the good manners to keep your views to yourself. Ridiculing the speech of others is deplorable, and I suspect that is true even in Australia.
Just buy a Susato. It’s the only cheap one that has no quality control problems, and it’s tunable off the shelf. If you don’t like the sound, you can tweak it to make it a bit more trad, and quiet.
If you don’t want to deal with QC, get a susato
There is a good deal of contention over this point.
I own and enjoy several cheap whistles, however, several were quite bad when I got them and had to be tweaked into a usable second octave. I also have a regular Walton D which is slightly out of tune. not enough to throw it out, just enough that I am looking for someone who want’s to get started for free. (I always suck them in with Lord of the Rings music)
I agree with Lambchop - there is so much crap written about cheap whistles, especially generations. Every generation D I own (and they are addictive) sound very much the same and they play ITM really nicely.
Of the brands you mentioned Clare would be my favourite - a lovely sounding whistle
I think there is a strong inverse relationship with peoples ability to play and the amount they end up spending on a whistle
Forgot about the Clare 2 piece. It is indeed wonderful -lighter in tone than Generations and very sweet.
As is mentioned frequently if you are having trouble ‘taming’ a whistle the Whitecap replacement head can work wonders. A Clare with a whitecap head can trounce many so called high end whistles[/quote]
I’d go with a nickel Feadog to start. Do a putty tweak on it (very simple indeed and details available from almost anyone here if needed).
Many Feadog sceptics are remembering MkI or MkII instruments which were a bit iffy. The current MkIIIs are great. In fact, it’s a MkIII Feadog head that Jerry tweaks for his excellent MellowDog variation on the factory Mellow D.
The trouble with asking for recommendations is that so few people like the same things! On the other hand, that’s part of the fun, and an unending source of debate.
