As a gift from my wife, I am entitled to a new whistle 
. Now my needs have shifted towards a louder though somewhat chiffy sounding whistle. (Almost no home practice, mostly session playing when I’m tired of playing the flute.)
I’ve read reviews but interested in some direct comparisons if anyone has such experience. Things like air requirements / backpressure, loudness, tone (breathiness type etc).
Edit: the first whistle, Walt Sweet’s new model, is also known as Black Pearl.
I don’t know the Sweet whistles at all. My Reyburn high D is my favourite whistle. It’s more that it just suits me than anything else. It’s a difficult whistle to play, but so worth it. It’s one of the older models, with a delrin head, but the old ‘session’ model. It’s loud. Amazingly loud. Great for sessions in Ireland - unuseable in some of the quieter pub sessions here in the UK - it would just drown everybody else out. Average to firm back pressure, I would say. Tone is fantastic. There’s a trick to getting the top A and B, second octave. You have to make sure no fingers are even near any of the holes not in use, or you’ll get a shriek instead of a note. Once you get used to that, it’s great.
The Mellow Dog is a nice whistle - relatively loud, way less back pressure than the Reyburn. Chiffy, without being too much. Can be heard in most sessions, and is loud enough to still be too loud for at least one of the echoier pubs hereabouts.
But my go to whistle of the moment, which is the best tweaked whistle I’ve come across by a Cornish mile, is my Cillian O’Briain D whistle in brass. It plays just like the best ever Generation. (Of course, if you already have the best ever Generation … ) I don’t know why they don’t get more mention. They’re relatively cheap (I think I paid £30 or something like that), and absolutely brilliant. Medium back pressure, even tone throughout the two octaves, on the pure side, but with enough chiff to make it a really characterful whistle to play. Easy to play throughout the two octaves as well. Cillian has sorted out the finger holes so that they are perfectly in tune too. The best tuning on any whistle I’ve come across bar none. And you can play it anywhere - it’s not too loud, but it does cut through, so it can still be heard in loud sessions.
As benhall1 indicated, I find the Reyburn almost impossible to play consistently. It is loud. As is the Sweet. I just recently traded one that I wasn’t playing. I did not consider it to have much chiff, more to the pure side, but it also is loud and well in tune. Not much back pressure at all and pretty easy to play. I only traded it away to get a nice Low G that I’ve been coveting. Otherwise I’d have kept it. Nice whistle.
I play the Mellow Dog every day. It’s hard to find fault no matter what your style. It has really good volume, a nice traditional sound with plenty of chiff, though back pressure is modest, so are air requirements. This whistle has great dynamics (my terminology for allowing a great deal of latitude with breath control) and is really responsive, IMO. I have measured a full step of variance that I’m able to produce on some notes just by varying the force of my breath. Really nice on aires etc.
If you can make the jump, Paul Busman’s whistles will get you to what you want too. I have a Delrin/dymonwood that meets all the requirements you list. If you can’t make that work, consider Carey Parks. I love Carey’s whistles. They have nice back pressure, volume and capture that traditional sound as well.
good luck,
ecohawk
I’m not familiar with the whistles you reference, but if you want a really great, loud and quite breathy whistle, the Ormiston high D might be an option, and there’s one for sale on this board at a very good price right now.
OK thanks everyone, that’s a Freeman Mellow Dog for me!
Post factum: still curious about the loudness of Sweet whistles.
I have a WD Sweet high D. I like this whistle. Fairly loud (which I like) with a solid bell tone (low D). Intonation is very good. Tone is on the reedy side but this is good for ITM and folk music in general. Easy response all the way up into the third octave. And never clogs. A real solid workhorse of a whistle.
Well if I ever neeed a workhorse not a backup instrument again…
The new Reyburn whistles are probably different from the older ones (not as loud), my one is good for medium/large-ish sessions, and has the nicest tone I’ve heard on a whistle on the loud side. Doesn’t require much air at all, it’s not breathy but has some chiff.
Lorenzo, what about backpressure on the newer Reyburn?
Sorry, I’m mainly a flute player and I’m not familiar with the term backpressure…
How hard it is to blow, to put air through it? E.g. Generations are easy to blow, a Chieftain mezzo D… well…
It’s on the easy side, but requires a little push on high B. It’s possible to control some volume, keep it relatively low or push it harder. You can also contact mr Reyburn directly, he was very helpful when I bought the whistle.
I continue to be surprised that I don’t see more about Reyburn whistles on this forum. Excellent instruments. The high D I own (about one version back from current production) has a greater range of volume than any other whistle I have played. It does require an extra push on the upper A and B, but I was able to tame this with the famous MTGuru 0-ring tweak.
I know the Oz whistle is not on the list for comparison, but I’d like to share with you my experience this weekend.
I went to a Scottish highland games event on Saturday, and was in one of the buildings where many vendors were, and it was quite noisy. I met a hammered-dulcimer player (no, he wasn’t drinking!), and played a tune with him. I first tried using my Oz whistle, which cut beautifully across the crowd noise and sounded great, but it was not in the right key to play, so I brought out my Generation whistle in C to try (the only whistle in C that I have), and he couldn’t hear it - I had to almost play it in his ear so he could finally hear it. I almost couldn’t hear it, and I was playing it!
Just my two cents for volume and types of whistles. I love the sound of the Generations, but I’m slowly gravitating to just playing my Oz. I played it in the sycamore forest yesterday, where we’re building the renaissance faire right now (opens in two weeks), and it echoed so beautifully in the quiet of the trees all across the faire site.
Kristen