Touring O'Brien Maple - Review

Whistle
1

I have been lucky enough to be a stop on the O’brien Maple Tuneable High D Tour.

As the name suggests the whistle is made of maple and has brass fittings and tuning slide. The whistle has a Delrin fipple. The price on the website is 150 Canadian which according to the curency converter is 135 US.

here are a few pics. pardon the miniatures in the background :slight_smile:




The whistle has a very sweet sound to it and I am quickly falling in love. Unfortunatly Friday I must send on to the next stop on the tour but I am definitly going to look into purchasing one of these beauties.

As I said the whistle has a lovely sound of about medium volume. The balance between the octaves is just right. The whistle takes little air to blow compared to many other whistles I own. There is very little chiff in the sound. To me this is just about the perfect sounding high D.

Here are two tracks of me playing the O’brien. The first track is just the whistle, no effects.

The second track is the same as the first one only I slapped on my favorite reverb setting

http://www.shadoespace.net/mp3/Amhran_Obrian_noverb.mp3

http://www.shadoespace.net/mp3/Amhran_Obrian_liteVerb.mp3

I am by no means an expert player. Not even close to close but even for the begining player this is a lovely instrument.

edit: Spelling corrected everywhere but the file name with Apologies to Mr O’Brien for spelling his name wrong.

2

Thanks for that!

I was also lucky to be in on that tour. I’ve never written a full review, and wasn’t sure I wanted to take that on. But I, too, can say that the O’Brien is indeed a lovely whistle! It’s a VERY easy player, very pure and has a low air requirement. I felt it might be a bit quiet for session use, but would make a GREAT whistle in every other way. And it looks lovely.

I have a Sweetheart Pro D that I love, (which is what I call “more strident”), but for anyone wanting a more laid-back wooden D, I’d rate this one very highly. Great whistle!

3

Good pictures. Looks to be very well made. Thanks for the sound clip and review. Ed’s space has nice music also.

4

Thank you much. Glad you liked it. One of these days I will get some more stuff up there hehehe

5

How can I get my name added onto the tour list?
Dave

6

I’m interested, too.

7

So am I. :smiley: :smiley:

Ron

8

I will add a few more to the end of the tour- just PM your mailing addresses to me. Thanks.

Let me know if you’d rather try one of my new three piece wooden pocket whistles. I could start a new tour for one of those.

9

I landed back in the US in time to participate in the O’Brien maple high D North American tour. This is a lovely and well-made tunable whistle, as seen in the pics in the above post by shadoe42. The whistle is very playable, with a low breath requirement and a sweet tone. The volume of the whistle is medium-quiet, so it would be well suited for solo playing or perhaps playing in a small group. The bottom E and D are not very strong, however, and for me this is a drawback as I like to be able to lean into these bottom notes somewhat. I wonder if perhaps these notes can be strengthened? As a point of reference, I most often play Burkes or a favorite old Generation.

In summary, the O’Brien maple high D looks nice, feels nice, and sounds nice. The tone is sweet and pure, especially above the bottom E and D. Very lovely indeed.

Thanks to David O’Brien for the opportunity to participate in the tour!

Laura