I made the above comment, one I have made before , as a general comment. Individual makers who feel they are doing a good job shouldn’t really need to come out and defend their case because the comment was not a blanket statement condemning all whistlemakers.
I do think it’s fair to say I have been disappointed with whistles more often than I have been delighted by them and I have come across a few too that maybe I would have bought if they had been offered at a lower price. And I have been put off a few at the last minute before putting in an order by idiosyncratic playing styles showcasing whistles in sound on websites a few times.
Makers dedicated to a particular music with a strong wish to make good quality instruments available at a fair price and a commitment to improving their craft, who’d say anything against that?
I’m the maintainer of that site–though I don’t maintain it very often these days.
Folks tend to have their own experiences, so I’m not surprised if people have different opinions about whistles than I do. A few points, though:
The Burke I reviewed was an Al-pro bought in 2004 and was made before Mike started putting the black-tips on his Burkes. It was not a Burke session model–I’ve never played one, but I imagine that they would take more air than his standard model. I’ve also played his composite models, which tended to take a lot more push than his “standard” model back in the day. That said, at least 8-10 years ago, standard Burkes were quite the easy-blowing instrument compared to many other high-end whistles. He’s changed his processes enough that I can’t really speak to any of his more recent instruments (except perhaps the newer composite whistle I had 3-4 years ago).
As for that bore, back in 2004 Mike described his whistles thusly: “My whistles feature perturbed cylindrical bores. Pertubations in the bore are expansions and contractions placed in the bore to effect fine tuning of specific notes or groups of notes.” Though I couldn’t find any description of the bore on his current website, he used the phrase “perturbed bore” numerous times on the site (and here at C&F) back then, and I stuck with his phraseology.
As for Generations, I didn’t own a D that I liked when I was doing most of my reviewing. So I didn’t review it. I have had nice Generations before, though, and I felt that Jerry’s tweaked Gen did not remove that old-school generation sound like tweaking sometimes can. But I haven’t played hundreds of tweaked generations–I only had that one to go by back in 2005. Maybe things have changed in Jerry’s shop in the last 8 years. Maybe they haven’t. Maybe mine was special. I couldn’t say.
I couldn’t say.