I checked it out… and what neat thing for pipers. Take it anywhere, play it anywhere and not disturb anyone or your cat.
I was wondering if we did an email campaign, that they would try to make a whistle the same way. For us who live in condos, and apartments, and are love ones and pets have nowhere to hide, this would be a boon to any relationship
Mark,I think I’d prefer to spend my money on a high quality whistle than something that sounds like a keyboard.Have to admit though,its a nice idea.For quiet practice I simply cover half the airway of my sweetone with celotape and it still sounds nice.Mike
Mark, I have been looking for something like that for years now. If you have any leads I would like to be very involved in getting something like that off the ground for whistlers. Email me!
I have one of the Deger chanters (a techno chanter that is made to be the same overall length as a full-size practice chanter) so I can comment on this a bit.
The one major problem I see is how to tell the contraption that you just went into the higher octave. Highland pipes have 9 notes. That’s it. Whistles have a lot more. Unless there is some way to trigger octave 2 that won’t mess you up on the actual whistle, it isn’t going to be much help.
I like my stealth chanter for when the toddler is asleep, but I just blow over the top of my whistles. Plenty quiet enough. And I would also just spend the money on a nice whistle. A $200 to $350 practice instrument is fine is your regular performance instrument is $1500 or more. I’ve never heard of anyone with BOA, so probably the money can be justified a lot more readily.
If you are willing to pay the development costs, go ahead and contact the manufacturers of these stealth chanters and see what they would charge. But realize that there is enough demand for the product that few of the makers will have the time to try it unless it really strikes thier fancy.
Here’s a link to an electric whistle (I found it in the archives - We had this conversation on the old forum). The octaves are sensed by a pressure sensor in the head. It looks pretty cool.
I’ve e-mailed the inventor and he may have future plans for production but right now they aren’t for sale. I bet that 10 or 15 of us e-mailing him might help stimulate some action.
It is not that I don’t quiet my whistles at home using a Red Green special. But if these technochanters are as quiet as they are reported, then I could say play in the staff lounge at lunch time.
Erik, I did remember the link to the electronic whistle and found it a while latter. And I have emailed them stating interest in a technowhistle, haven’t been home to get reply yet.
Remember that part of the benefit of the technochanter, and of GHB practice chanters in general, is that they’re less complex than a set of pipes, and that they’re less expensive than a set of pipes. Especially that last bit.
It’s sort of the opposite situation for the whistle – $200 for a practice whistle which needs batteries and headphones – so I dunno that you’ll see a huge market there!
I’ve always been a little adventurous when it comes to crossing genre lines, and one of the things I had in mind when looking at the Techno-chanter was running it through some of my “boxes” for my guitar - distortion, stereo chorus, echoplex…
Of course there is also the possibility of running it straight into my computer for recording with maybe a litle signal processing after recording the main signal.
As far as a techno-whistle, I think Rich might be right about the cost effectiveness - unless it was the “tecno” aspects one was looking for in the first place. Trad whistlers might have no use an “electric whistle” but for fusion and other styles, there just might be a market.
And, as mentioned by Patrick, there is the other problem of hitting that second octave - a “techno-whistle” wouldn’t rely upon an air flow for sound production. Or would it? Is anybody familiar with the midi saxophones, etc. on the market?
On 2001-09-06 17:40, totst wrote:
You can always play the whistle through converters like the Pitchrider. Your whistle audio is converted to midi data.
The Yamaha midi sax I played with once (vainly trying to remember a whole six months of saxophone in grade 8!) had a pressure-sensor in the mouthpiece that sent MIDI pitch-bend messages which you could then map to whatever you wanted on your sound source. The backpressure felt saxophonish, they did a good job on that part. The keys felt awful, though.
I e-mailed Dylan, the maker of the Cyberwhistle regarding the status of his whistle, and below is the response he sent me:
Hello Blaine,
The short answer is I would like to produce some but there are a number of
obstacles to get around (not least I’m pretty busy). I’ve pasted below a
message I just sent to Beth. It might be an idea to conduct a survey amongst
interested people to determine what they expect from such an instrument.
Dylan
The CyberWhistle is a few years old now. My main aim in designing it was
not to make an electronic whistle replacement, but rather to make use of
the finger/shading technique for controlling abstract synthesis. It
turns out you can do some very good whistle impersonations as well. (Did
you listen to the sound examples?). The main difference with
controllers like the wx7 is that the degree of finger shading is
measured rather than just giving an on/off for each key. Shading is the
key to good whistle playing!
Before producing a ‘production model’ I would need to find out exactly
what people would want and expect from such an instrument. The
real-whistle player might be a bit disappointed if he wanted something
very close to their real whistle. The response times are pretty good,
but not upto fast whistle playing. On the other hand if you want
something a bit different, but with related playing technique then the
cyberwhistle might be for you.
The hardware of the cyberwhistle just outputs midi information saying
how hard you are blowing and how your fingers are positioned. The second
half of the design job was to write software running a PC that takes the
MIDI and turns it into audio. I used physical modelling synthesis
techniques to generate natural sounding output. The paper you ask for is
somewhere on a cd in a pile of junk in a friends apartment - I’ve moved
recently. I’ll try to remember to fish it out.
I haven’t done anything to the whistle since the initial design effort.
The main thing I wanted to do to the hardware was improve the finger
sensing from light based to radio based. Also a wireless transmission
for the MIDI would be very cool. On the software side there is endless
amounts of work that can be done. Initially I would need to port to
windows from SGI, but this is pretty straightforward. On the plus side
any new software can be sent out after the hardware has been sent out.
Its possible that the sound synthesis could be incorporated in the
whistle or some small box. This amounts to designing a small fast,
computer, which would be a lot of work. Alternatively a 600Mhz celeron
or better laptop is easily enough, maybe even some palm computers could
be adapted, since I’ve heard that MIDI interfaces have been built for
these..
So, what do you think? Is there a market for this thing? Maybe not for the Irish Trad people, which is understandable eand reasonalbe, but maybe for the avante garde/new age group. I can see Afro-Celt Sound System using this. I certainly would.
BTW - we still don’t know what “pitch rider” is? If Dale had written it, I am sure it would be the name of his newest band, or the name of his latest CD.
I don’t know; whether a market exists would depend on each person’s circumstances. Someone who owns/rents a house or lives somewhere where they can get alone for a while wouldn’t need one. Someone with a group of friends who like to play wouldn’t need one.
Someone who lives in a crowded area where no one else likes the sound could use one. Someone who liked whistles and technology could be interested. Someone who likes to be the first one to have a new concept would probably like one. Me, I live in a college apartment complex and am likely to be here for the next two years. I’m not good enough to play with a group. There’s nowhere easily accessible to go be by myself, unless I want to find some time from classes and go drive to a park and hope it will be empty. I would be willing to pay $150 for a standalone whistle or other keyless end-blown type of instrument, that was standalone (IE you don’t need to hook it to a computer or midi decoder) and sounded reasonably like the instrument. But the requirements of a whistle (different pitches, bends, reaction speed) - I don’t know if such a thing is affordably feasible.
I can’t afford the hundreds of dollars for a yamaha midi wind instrument. It was a stretch to get my Laughing Whistle, and the main reasons I chose that were portability and quiet. It hasn’t arrived yet, though, so I can’t judge that yet.
So I guess the instrument I need isn’t around yet, and I don’t know what it would take to create it. Probably a lot. sigh
When I get a house it is having a music room and anyone who doesn’t want to hear a whistle can go to the park grin
A Pitchrider is a electronic device which converts audio signals into midi data. You can then control midi instruments with using whatever instrument you play. You can even mix your sound with the synths. Branford Marsalis used one on his gigs with Sting. Advantage is all you need is a mic to plug in, no other special controllers to trigger the sounds and no need to learn fingerings, dip swithes, etc. Disadvantage is sometimes there can be a noticeable delay between your sound and sound being triggered. I tried one and it is a trip, but I am not a big electronics fan.
Hi to all and thank you for your input and critical thinking.
I heard back from Anders and he said basically at this time there is no thought of producing a techno-whistle, but the idea and several emails has peeked his interest.
I am familiar with piping techniques and knew that there is no second octave. What I liked about the techno-chanter is what I like about the series of Yamaha electronic instruments. Like Beth, I’m a metro gnome. I live in a huge condo complex right in the heart of the city.
I live on the inside of a “L” shape building and can literally talk to my neighbours, in a conversation voice. So playing my whistles full blast in most cases is out. And there are times that I would like to sit on the balcony and play music while watching the traffic on land and river, without disturbing my neighbours. And maybe just make musical thoughts.
The idea of techo-crossover fusion music intriques me. Didn’t think of that aspect when I first set eyes on the techno-chanter. But it’s quietness and portability, without having to plug it in anywhere did.
And the other points of cost and usefulness are also valid. Like you all, I to have invested sweat and toil to purchase good high end whistles, and to spend that kind of money on a instrument that can only do half of what us whistle players expect to do, is dear.
But in all, I think I might purchase it anyway, and teach myself to play the techno-chanter as another instrument, that can be added to the arsenal. Because sometimes in this very crowded inner city environment where the constant noise level never diminishes, it would be nice to play for myself and with myself and to let the fingers flow as words or pictures.
Sorry to ressurect an old post
but does anyone have any update on possible electronic whistles?
So, the pitchrider could be used with an electronic practice chanter like Deger or the Technochanter to produce a whistle sound?
It would be great for me to have an e-whistle like the Deger device with headphones. Here in my neighborhood in Japan is so quiet and nobody never bothers anyone that I would stand out too much if trying to play after 10 PM (and I usually want to play till much later than that and it would be nice to be able to practice without having them lynch me)
Sounds nifty, but in the meantime what’s wrong with just muting the whistles for practice? Otherwise, if you’re more keen on recording, there are some affordable condenser mics out there – some in USB for those without the cash to splurge on high-end audio I/O equipment. Just a thought.
Mike
