I have done this to all my whistles and my god this is totally top class information. I've done it with very extra care on my two Feadog whistles, one is a pro. And it even improved that too.
Great tip, thanks! By the way I tried it and I found it does two things. One, it lowers the volume and two it more or less compresses the sound and seems to create a more forgiving instrument.
After months of struggling with cheap imitations, I finally spent a few dozen dollars on a REAL instrument and then everything became smooth, nice, delicate and pleasant. My advice: money = quality (more money = more quality !!!)
Thank you for your video. I am surprised by the way you added poster board tac to the whistle and also impressed by the improved sound. That is great. Jerry Freeman has been tweaking generation whistles for years and the main thing he was showing me was that he used the blue tac on the inside of the whistle in that hollow zone behind the area where the air comes out before hitting the splitting blade. I do that also and have noticed it decreases the possible overtones from vibrations in the plastic which I have noticed. I may have to try what you are doing because I just got a Bb model and it still has some overtones that I would like to improve. From looking at the splitting blade it looks pretty good so I do not want to try to improve it. I will have to check the email he sent me but there are a few things more that he does to tweak these units. Yours sounds very good. I wish I could see a clear photo of the area that you put the blue tac and then painted over with the nail polish.
What I do is when I fancy a whistle in a certain key I buy a cheap one to try it out and if I like it I then buy a more expensive whistle in that key. I did buy a generation Eb and it was awful because the mouthpiece was malformed inside and it was untweakable. I got it from amazon and I sent it back for another one which sounded great. I do prefer a good whistle and the ones I end up buying are the whistles by Wild which are fantastic.
My solution was to make my own, but it was a very steep learning curve that would not be for everybody (or even a significant number of bodies). I'm almost at the point where I'm happy with what I make, but I'm still tweaking. I'm making even temperament whistles (ie classical scale) and to be honest all the mass produced stuff sounds like rubbish to me now. For example making narrow bore whistles and even using the same tube for D and Eb whistles is just cost cutting that goes a bit too far. It's good that there's cheap stuff for people to try out and learn on, but you really can get a much better whistle for only a little more money (like $100 instead of $10). To put it another way, you can't polish a ...
If you buy a more expensive whistle you get interchangeable mouth pieces each with a different whistle sound .....more money but worth it ! Eg. Howard...
Absolutely agree. Price differences on most products are 99% marketing these days. It is a tube with a tapered mouth piece, for god sake. I bet to make one yourself would be just as good as any mass produced one. There you go! nice video for you. Make one from scratch and then upload the video of you playing it.
Thanks. I've also got a couple of session whistles now and I think they are great, but this video was to show that if you don't have the cash, you shouldn't worry that you necessarily "need" one.
Ah, it's on the outside. I actually just discovered the Cutie Pie has also found this trick, but I didn't know about that at the time. Her video shows it a lot more clear: ua-cam.com/video/ACM9yoMjG5k/v-deo.html&ab_channel=CutiePie
@@kimweidotcom Yes I found that out yesterday but I can tell you I DO NOT AGREE with her(Cutiepie) advice on using PVC tape to possibly seal any micro air leak. I tried it and the cheap plastic Generation mouthpiece cracked along the seam. I will agree with her about using a wax or petroleum jelly. I was lucky to be able to glue tie and cover it with electrical tape because the crack kept spreading along the seam. I was fortunate to be able to seal the crack for the time being.
I personally think if someone, if they are a beginner, was to buy a Generation whistle, they should start with Bb instead of any other keys. From what I have gathered, with the Bb whistles, there is still quality control over it, so it sounds decent, whereas it's a hit or miss with the other keys. Of course, it's a different matter if one already has experience with tweaking cheap whistles, I suppose. I actually ordered a couple of Bb Generation whistles but due to the current political climate, the shipping service is on hiatus so I need to wait or pay extra for the courier. When it comes to high D whistles, I think I'd always recommend Clarke Sweetone (I love my pink Sweetone!) or Feadong Pro as a cheap option. Buying 4~5 Generation whistles and using the best and tweaking it is a fine idea, but I think there's also room for debate then why not just buy a whistle worth 30~40 pounds to begin with? You could just buy something from Tony Dixon or Susato from the get-go, and those are guaranteed to sound better.
I think the verdict is that Generation aren’t that consistent. Everyone has a different story from “the ones I bought were great” to “never again! Mine was terrible” I think I was really comparing the tweaked cheap one to something more in the £100 range. I haven’t really found anything I like in the £20-40 range but I suppose some people have done.
Save some money and buy a Kilarney brass D, you will never want to put it down. No matter how you mess with a generation or similar it is still a generation. I have the Killarney D and I simply never want to put it away. Perfect tone all the time.
Hi Brian. I disagree. I now have a couple of session whistles - a Lir and a Dixon, which are great but I still love the sound and feel of my collection of tweaked Generation whistles and often go them them first for a recording, even for the BBC.
I can assure you I'm not overblowing the whistle - it's important to mention that for those watching who would be wanting to compare the two whistles. My other tweaking video shows me playing an untweaked Generation with no issues - this one was just a bad one which could not achieve high notes well with any breath pressure offered.
@@kimweidotcom Been playing Generation whistles for over 50 years now but since I'm getting up there I figured I'd treat myself to a nicer one before it's too late😂. Would you recommend the Lir as I've had my eye on them for a while now.
Absolute rubbish,, been playing penny whistle for over 40yrs,, yes this can help make a nasty cheap whistle sound a bit more bearable but to compare it to a makers whistle of a couple of hundred quid is an insult, btw there are some decent penny whistles to be found that won’t break the bank, £15/20 ish range
To get the best out of Generation whistles you need to know how to play them. The person in this video is quite evidently over-blowing them. I can easily make my whistles sound like this by blowing too hard into them. This "tweak" probably creates some more wind resistance, giving more back-pressure, meaning you could blow harder without the note stating to "bobble" and break. Generations have that "classic" sound of a tin whistle. They also have that easy/light playability that many of us also look for in a whistle. Are £200 or more whistles generically "better"? Not really, they're mostly simply different. Most expensive whistles are louder, have a stronger first octave, and a much louder second octave. It has to be said, some expensive whistles are not all that good or consistent. You really don't guarantee anything by paying more. So, would I tell everyone to play only Generation whistles? No, I don't even do that myself, and other people may have other requirements or preferences. I've acquired other whistles suited for different environments (eg. playing outside, or on a particularly windy stage), but for a sweet, light blowing, chirpy "traditional" whistle, I think a Generation is hard to beat.
I guess it must be a matter of personal preference. I am really happy with my Generation whistles and just recently, yet again chose to make a recording for a client using a Generation D rather than my £100 session D. But I feel you've taken the title of my video somewhat literally. If that's the case, perhaps it would be better off to change it to "Never Buy An Expensive Tin Whistle Before You've Tried Tweaking Your Cheap Whistle With Blu Tack." My motivation for this video was that I felt quite upset by the fact the some people on lower incomes might be lured into thinking they can't learn the whistle with a £6-10 whistle because the one they bought happened to be a bad one. Hope that clears this issue up a bit. I'll also add a couple of sentences to the description just to clarify that I'm not intending to slam high end whistle makers: I've added this: "I'm not saying this will make your whistle 'as good' as a really expensive one, but it will certainly make it good enough to play professionally on... This video is specifically to help people on a budget. I also have great whistles by Tony Dixon and Lir, both of whom make fantastic whistles for a higher price."
@@andrewwigglesworth3030 I completely agree that un-tweaked Generation Whistles are just fine... most of them... but I prefer the tweaked sound. Of the 7 I've ever bought this is the only one I could not get a clean sound from. I attempted to tweak the mouthpiece from it and it didn't work. Something's wrong with it. If this was the first whistle I'd ever bought however, I might not have known that. However, I do really like your explanation of why people who have session whistles still often play cheap whistles some of the time. It's really hard to explain that and I might copy your comment the next time someone asks me.
I have done this to all my whistles and my god this is totally top class information. I've done it with very extra care on my two Feadog whistles, one is a pro. And it even improved that too.
Great tip, thanks! By the way I tried it and I found it does two things. One, it lowers the volume and two it more or less compresses the sound and seems to create a more forgiving instrument.
Yes i agree. I think so too
Great stuff! Thanks! Happy holidays! 🌞🎅🏻🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
After months of struggling with cheap imitations, I finally spent a few dozen dollars on a REAL instrument and then everything became smooth, nice, delicate and pleasant. My advice: money = quality (more money = more quality !!!)
What did you get? :)
Thank you for your video. I am surprised by the way you added poster board tac to the whistle and also impressed by the improved sound. That is great. Jerry Freeman has been tweaking generation whistles for years and the main thing he was showing me was that he used the blue tac on the inside of the whistle in that hollow zone behind the area where the air comes out before hitting the splitting blade. I do that also and have noticed it decreases the possible overtones from vibrations in the plastic which I have noticed. I may have to try what you are doing because I just got a Bb model and it still has some overtones that I would like to improve. From looking at the splitting blade it looks pretty good so I do not want to try to improve it. I will have to check the email he sent me but there are a few things more that he does to tweak these units. Yours sounds very good. I wish I could see a clear photo of the area that you put the blue tac and then painted over with the nail polish.
What I do is when I fancy a whistle in a certain key I buy a cheap one to try it out and if I like it I then buy a more expensive whistle in that key. I did buy a generation Eb and it was awful because the mouthpiece was malformed inside and it was untweakable. I got it from amazon and I sent it back for another one which sounded great. I do prefer a good whistle and the ones I end up buying are the whistles by Wild which are fantastic.
I think that’s what happened to mine too.
My solution was to make my own, but it was a very steep learning curve that would not be for everybody (or even a significant number of bodies). I'm almost at the point where I'm happy with what I make, but I'm still tweaking. I'm making even temperament whistles (ie classical scale) and to be honest all the mass produced stuff sounds like rubbish to me now. For example making narrow bore whistles and even using the same tube for D and Eb whistles is just cost cutting that goes a bit too far. It's good that there's cheap stuff for people to try out and learn on, but you really can get a much better whistle for only a little more money (like $100 instead of $10). To put it another way, you can't polish a ...
If you buy a more expensive whistle you get interchangeable mouth pieces each with a different whistle sound .....more money but worth it ! Eg. Howard...
Absolutely agree. Price differences on most products are 99% marketing these days. It is a tube with a tapered mouth piece, for god sake. I bet to make one yourself would be just as good as any mass produced one. There you go! nice video for you. Make one from scratch and then upload the video of you playing it.
Thanks. I've also got a couple of session whistles now and I think they are great, but this video was to show that if you don't have the cash, you shouldn't worry that you necessarily "need" one.
Is the blu tack on both the inside, and the outside of the fipple? On the other tweaking vid in your van I wasn't able to tell either.
Ah, it's on the outside. I actually just discovered the Cutie Pie has also found this trick, but I didn't know about that at the time. Her video shows it a lot more clear: ua-cam.com/video/ACM9yoMjG5k/v-deo.html&ab_channel=CutiePie
Thanks a lot, and hello from 🇨🇦
@@kimweidotcom Yes I found that out yesterday but I can tell you I DO NOT AGREE with her(Cutiepie) advice on using PVC tape to possibly seal any micro air leak. I tried it and the cheap plastic Generation mouthpiece cracked along the seam. I will agree with her about using a wax or petroleum jelly. I was lucky to be able to glue tie and cover it with electrical tape because the crack kept spreading along the seam. I was fortunate to be able to seal the crack for the time being.
I personally think if someone, if they are a beginner, was to buy a Generation whistle, they should start with Bb instead of any other keys. From what I have gathered, with the Bb whistles, there is still quality control over it, so it sounds decent, whereas it's a hit or miss with the other keys. Of course, it's a different matter if one already has experience with tweaking cheap whistles, I suppose. I actually ordered a couple of Bb Generation whistles but due to the current political climate, the shipping service is on hiatus so I need to wait or pay extra for the courier. When it comes to high D whistles, I think I'd always recommend Clarke Sweetone (I love my pink Sweetone!) or Feadong Pro as a cheap option.
Buying 4~5 Generation whistles and using the best and tweaking it is a fine idea, but I think there's also room for debate then why not just buy a whistle worth 30~40 pounds to begin with? You could just buy something from Tony Dixon or Susato from the get-go, and those are guaranteed to sound better.
I think the verdict is that Generation aren’t that consistent. Everyone has a different story from “the ones I bought were great” to “never again! Mine was terrible”
I think I was really comparing the tweaked cheap one to something more in the £100 range. I haven’t really found anything I like in the £20-40 range but I suppose some people have done.
Save some money and buy a Kilarney brass D, you will never want to put it down. No matter how you mess with a generation or similar it is still a generation. I have the Killarney D and I simply never want to put it away. Perfect tone all the time.
Even better money saving tip. Buy one Generation D whistle and learn the breath control to play it, and not over-blow it as is done in this video.
Hi Brian. I disagree. I now have a couple of session whistles - a Lir and a Dixon, which are great but I still love the sound and feel of my collection of tweaked Generation whistles and often go them them first for a recording, even for the BBC.
I can assure you I'm not overblowing the whistle - it's important to mention that for those watching who would be wanting to compare the two whistles. My other tweaking video shows me playing an untweaked Generation with no issues - this one was just a bad one which could not achieve high notes well with any breath pressure offered.
@@kimweidotcom Been playing Generation whistles for over 50 years now but since I'm getting up there I figured I'd treat myself to a nicer one before it's too late😂. Would you recommend the Lir as I've had my eye on them for a while now.
Or you could solve the generation problem buy tossing them in the trash and never buy one again.
Ha ha. I have to say, I love mine. Rather tweak than trash.
Absolute rubbish,, been playing penny whistle for over 40yrs,, yes this can help make a nasty cheap whistle sound a bit more bearable but to compare it to a makers whistle of a couple of hundred quid is an insult, btw there are some decent penny whistles to be found that won’t break the bank, £15/20 ish range
To get the best out of Generation whistles you need to know how to play them. The person in this video is quite evidently over-blowing them. I can easily make my whistles sound like this by blowing too hard into them. This "tweak" probably creates some more wind resistance, giving more back-pressure, meaning you could blow harder without the note stating to "bobble" and break.
Generations have that "classic" sound of a tin whistle. They also have that easy/light playability that many of us also look for in a whistle. Are £200 or more whistles generically "better"? Not really, they're mostly simply different. Most expensive whistles are louder, have a stronger first octave, and a much louder second octave. It has to be said, some expensive whistles are not all that good or consistent. You really don't guarantee anything by paying more.
So, would I tell everyone to play only Generation whistles? No, I don't even do that myself, and other people may have other requirements or preferences. I've acquired other whistles suited for different environments (eg. playing outside, or on a particularly windy stage), but for a sweet, light blowing, chirpy "traditional" whistle, I think a Generation is hard to beat.
I guess it must be a matter of personal preference. I am really happy with my Generation whistles and just recently, yet again chose to make a recording for a client using a Generation D rather than my £100 session D. But I feel you've taken the title of my video somewhat literally. If that's the case, perhaps it would be better off to change it to "Never Buy An Expensive Tin Whistle Before You've Tried Tweaking Your Cheap Whistle With Blu Tack." My motivation for this video was that I felt quite upset by the fact the some people on lower incomes might be lured into thinking they can't learn the whistle with a £6-10 whistle because the one they bought happened to be a bad one. Hope that clears this issue up a bit.
I'll also add a couple of sentences to the description just to clarify that I'm not intending to slam high end whistle makers:
I've added this: "I'm not saying this will make your whistle 'as good' as a really expensive one, but it will certainly make it good enough to play professionally on...
This video is specifically to help people on a budget. I also have great whistles by Tony Dixon and Lir, both of whom make fantastic whistles for a higher price."
@@andrewwigglesworth3030 I completely agree that un-tweaked Generation Whistles are just fine... most of them... but I prefer the tweaked sound. Of the 7 I've ever bought this is the only one I could not get a clean sound from. I attempted to tweak the mouthpiece from it and it didn't work. Something's wrong with it. If this was the first whistle I'd ever bought however, I might not have known that.
However, I do really like your explanation of why people who have session whistles still often play cheap whistles some of the time. It's really hard to explain that and I might copy your comment the next time someone asks me.
I have "cheap" whistles and they doesn sound as bad as yours.. 🙃