I had a Susato VSB in D probably a decade or so ago. I didn’t love it, so I sold it. Well, I’ve been playing my Susato SB D much more recently because it’s my most wind resistant whistle and gigs right now are primarily outdoors and I live on the windy Great Plains. The SB Susato is a great whistle, but it is louder than I like indoors. I’m totally fine with it outside, but indoors the high A and B make my head want to explode (the lower octave is lovely, though).
So, I bought another VSB in D and it came today. Wow…I can’t figure out why I didn’t love this whistle before (although I strongly suspect I wasn’t good enough for it at the time). This is one sweet whistle. It’s everything I love about the SB with better octave balance and an indoor bearable upper octave.
This is my new go to whistle. I like this more than my Killarney, well, at least at the moment. I’m a bit of a whistle slut, so my opinion may change with time. But as of right now…I’m in love.
I’ve never had one of those, but for sure my feeling is that most smaller-sized Susatos have bores too large for their length. It’s why, for me, Susatos get better as they get lower, and the Low D and Low C are such sweet players.
I used to have a Susato mezzo A that had a small bore, the bore of their normal soprano D whistle, and it was a great player. The head was interchangeable with the D. I don’t think they’ve made that SB A in a long time.
So I can see how a VSB soprano D would play very well.
I’m with you Richard, and that’s what I like about the VSB. Well balanced and a sweet upper octave compared to the SB’s harsher upper octave. The slightly fuller SB lower octave is not so much better than the VSB lower octave. Actually, I quite like the VSB lower octave.
Something odd I have noticed is that people seem to get out of these whistles what they expect from them…if someone sees Susato and picks it up sighing, saying something like “these just never sound good to me,”–which is a gently edited version –then sure enough, they are loud and squawky and you couldn’t imagine someone paying money for such.
However, in the hands of someone familiar with their quirks, they can sound really really nice.
Some of this may be the individual whistle–I’ve owned several of them, each slightly different from the other. Even plastic instruments aren’t always identical, as molds can age over time, subtly changing dimensions and part alignments. But I think most of it is the player, and them having taken the time to learn how to play that kind of whistle.
Myself, I think it’s good to play many different kinds of whistles, as each whistle will teach you something new, and the Susatos will certainly teach you about breath control and support. However, there is another school of thought that says that you should concentrate your efforts on a single instrument and not switch.
The good news is, whistles are for the most part inexpensive enough that if you want several, you can have several. Orchestral woodwinds are different in that regard–you wouldn’t imagine someone having twenty oboes for instance, but twenty whistles is a modest collection.
