Before I try tweaking anything, I was wondering if particular tweaks cause particular (and foreseeable!) effects. For instance, does putting blue sticky tack or wax in the fipple reliably make the whistle sharper? Quieter? Can’t tell what it will do?
Ideally, I’d like to be able to figure out how to approach tweaking a given whistle depending on how I want to change the sound . . .
Tery
I don’t think one can predict with any degree of certainty what will happen. I did the blue tack thing to an Acorn, and it got quieter and played better. (In fact, it became the whistle for late night practicing before I got the Clarke.) Did the same thing to a Little Black, and it had no effect. It seems to have little (if any) effect on intonation, but since one generally removes the mouthpiece to do the tweak, the tuning can be adjusted.
My experience is that the sticky tack makes it easier to keep the whistle in one octave or the other, ie, breaks and horrible-sounding harmonics are less of a problem.
Charlie
Ridseard is correct. It’s a hit-and-miss thing and unpredictable. Basically, if you have a whistle that doesn’t seem to be playing properly, jumping octaves easily, scratchy sounding, etc, always try the easiest tweaks first. As a rule of thumb, if a whistle jumps octaves easily and is temperamental in the first octave, there’s usually too much air circulating within the mouthpiece and reaching the blade, so filling the mouthpiece bowl (cavity) directly beneath the airway with sticky-tack, wax or epoxy is the logical approach. Another effective way to restrict the air volume entering the mouthpiece is by heating the mouthpiece’s airway over a stove and squeezing it together slightly. This in itself often creates a very sweet sounding whistle, while eliminating the octave jumps and temperamental nature of the whistle. Practice on some “junk” mouthpieces first!
If that doesn’t help, try the guitar pick/fipple blade tweak by adding a piece of a thin or medium guitar pick to the top or underside of the fipple blade.
You can also try combinations of these tweaks. It’s fun and educational to mess with all this using inexpensive whistles, but keep in mind it doesn’t always work. But when you resurrect that basically non-playable cheapie into a nice sounding, easy playing instrument that you enjoy playing as the result of your own efforts, it’s worth the time.
BTW, none of these tweaks affects pitch/intonation assuming you use the same mouthpiece that came with the whistle.
Hope this helps,
Denny
The first thing I want to try is to see if I can cut the air requirements of the Meg I keep in the car. I’d also like it to be quieter.
I tried putting a toothpick in the fipple opening. That did nothing. Sounds to me like I should start by filling the cavity in the fipple. If that doesn’t work, the next thing to try might be heating the fipple and narrowing the opening – that one makes me nervous though. Sounds like a small mistake could ruin the whistle.
If something wonderful happens, I’ll let you all know 
.
Tery
Tery, I’ve only tried the sandpaper, blue tack and the toothpick. The toothpick did seem to make my whistles quieter (I only tried it on two), and chiffier. The sandpaper was probably unnecessary on mine, because I looked through each fipple before doing it and didn’t see any extra plastic sticking up. I did it just so I wouldn’t be overlooking anything. The blue tack did make a difference in each of the Gen Ds I was using for my experiment. They wouldn’t stay in octave and they squeaked badly until after the sticky tack. Then they settled down and became nice whistles.
Let us know how your experiment turns out.
This is what I’ve found in my own experiments with cheapo whistles. Your own experience may well vary from this, so don’t consider them hard and fast rules.
Dulling the blade a bit makes the first octave stronger but makes the second octave harder to play. Sharpening the blade makes the second octave easier to hit but reduces the power of the first octave and the bell note.
Shortening the window makes the whistle sweeter. Lengthening the window makes the whistle tone drier and harsher. Lenthen the window (shorten the blade) too much, and the whistle won’t play at all.
Narrowing the windway increases resistance, volume, and purity of sound. Widen the windway to add air and chiff to the sound, decrease volume, and decrease resistance.
A curved windway has more resistance than a rectangular windway. A tapered windway has more resistance as well.
Again, these aren’t hard and fast rules. Use with caution. My best advice: if a whistle plays pretty well, don’t try to tweak it until you get very good at tweaking whistles. Never try to tweak an expensive whistle!!!
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
[ This Message was edited by: peeplj on 2002-07-25 15:20 ]
Results so far: I’ve got the Meg almost where I want it to be a super car whistle for me. My requirements for a car whistle are that it be a cheapo, sound halfway decent, and be quiet enough for me to play with the car windows up without turning heads five or ten feet from my car.
First, I filled the cavity with sticky tack. (The fipple on this whistle seems to be made differently from the Generation and Clarke I had at hand to compare with – the bottom is angled inside, instead of rounded, and there’s a slit in the windway that feeds down into the cavity.) That seemed to lower the air requirements and make the whistle sound cleaner, perhaps especially in the higher range. It definitely cut the chiff. But the whistle wasn’t much quieter, if at all.
Next, I trimmed a guitar pick (thin, with a round edge – it occurred to me that the thickness and shape of the pick might make a difference here) and sticky-tacked it over part of the window. That quieted the whistle all right – all the way to silence. Whoops! Since it’s sticky-tacked on, I can slide the little pick-window-cover up and down. Turns out that very little movement of the pick can cause quite a lot of change in volume. But I now have the volume to where I can play in the car in the supermarket lot or something and not be very audible outside the car. And I can adjust the volume however I want! I like this!
The top 2-3 notes are still not quite right. I think they’re just a little louder than they need to be. I’m going to stop tweaking this whistle for a while, though, until I decide what, if anything, else to change.
So far, so good! And thanks for the help. I’m going to print this thread and add it to my notes on tweaking, for the next time . . .
Tery