I love my generation Eb whistle and my D isn’t bad, but I’d like it to be great, I love the feel of it. I swapped heads from the Eb to the D to see if it was the head but the D still played mediocre and the Eb wonderful. I tried sanding the inside of the tube of the D to make sure there weren’t any burrs messing with the air flow, still to no avail. The question remains, will a whitecap help my nickel generation D or is it the tube?
It sounds like it must be the tube rather than the mouthpiece, if switching the heads between the Eb and D didn’t help. If that is the case, a Whitecap wouldn’t help.
You could try a spare Generation D tube to see if that improves, of try one of the Feadog brass tubes, which are very good.
While the Whitecap might not help with this, it can help in lot of other ways, mostly by giviing you a great little whistle. I have one and like it a lot. It is different from the Generation heads in that it is more sensitive to air pressure. That is, if you play in a “pushy”, impulsive styly, punching the beats with your breath, a whitecap might not be ideal. If you playing is more lyrical, sustained, even, a Whitecap will be great because they sound beautiful (at least mine does 
).
In that case, anyone have a generation D tube they don’t want?
BTW, can you tell us a little more about what it is that bothers you about the Gen D?
I’ve started thinking that the design parameters of Gen-type whistles may be more optimal for Eb than for D.
Agreed… the shorter Eb tube is much better suited to the design parameters of the Eb/D Generation head.
The razor-edged blade that gives Generations their characteristic crisp tone also makes them extremely sensitive to the tolerances necessary for proper blade positioning in relation to the windway exit.
Shorter tubes are just more forgiving than longer ones in this respect… and that seems to be true regardless of the brand name.
Without direct experience of Generation Eb whistles, I think Ridseard may be onto something. When you use the same head on a different key whistle, the head may be better suited to one than the other.
So it’s possible the problem is that the tube itself is OK, but the head just isn’t as well suited to it as to the Eb tube, in which case, a Whitecap on the same Generation tube should work fine.
It’s a theory to try out, not anything definite until someone experiments more. (Igor, would you please pass that test tube over here?)
Best wishes,
Jerry
Edited to add: Well there you go. Gary was writing his response at the same time I wrote this.
Bloom,
The bell tone of the D cracks a bit and you can’t use as much air for the lower notes, it flips up the octave too easily in my opinion.
Very likely it’s a matter of blade positioning. (See raindog’s post.) You might be able to improve the lower register by very slightly dulling the blade edge. You have to be careful, because if you dull it too much, you’ll also dull the tone. Actually, all you want to do at first is just make sure there are no irregularities in the blade edge. Just drawing the file lightly across it a couple of times may suffice.
Second Ridseard. Dull the blade a bit to strengthen the bottom end. I like to use very fine sand paper, or one of those disposable nail files. Easy does it, and keep the underside of the blade free of burrs.
already tried it, tried removing all burrs. Still sounds the same. I just haven’t made the step to try the attaching-a-new-blade-onto-the-existing-one method. I might try that, I love gens I just don’t want to ruin what I already have.
Michael,
If you have more than one Generation D head, you might experiment with working the blade edge a bit more.
I use a strip of about #300 grit sandpaper cut so it will thread into the voicing window and out the opening where the whistlehead attaches to the barrel.
I hold the whistlehead against my stomach and use both hands to pull the sandpaper strip back and forth against the blade edge. Then I take an exacto or other knife and very, very lightly scrape (too strong a word, I only touch the blade lightly) off the “crumbs” from the sanding, that hang on the blade edge both above and underneath, to leave a clean, uniform edge.
I find that it sometimes takes several times of doing this, with the bottom notes getting a little stronger each time.
I believe that it’s not only the dulling of the blade edge that strengthens the bottom notes, but also the fact that you’re taking a little off the end of the blade, which lengthens the voicing window very slightly.
It’s my understanding that a longer voicing window favors the lower register; a shorter voicing window favors the upper register.
Best wishes,
Jerry