Well i know i've taken a bloody long time, but here it is at last, the Red Lancewood whistle that is going back on tour.
The Ringed Gidgee whistle that i promised earlier came to grief under my milling machine, so i had to start again from scratch. Also i am looking for three more people to take part in the tour so if you'd like to give it a go then send me a PM with your details and i'll slot you in. Hope you enjoy it, Brad .
Okay, well here's the final tour list/order:
1 brewerpaul
2 wvwhistler
3 fancypiper
4 flogging jason
5 Thomaston
6 Tommy
7 Mr.Nate
8 Aanvil
9 Ted
10 narrowdog
11 Jemtheflute
12 Borderpiper
13 breqwas
14 Ctrl Alt Del
I'll being posting the whistle to brewerpaul on Monday morning, and i cant wait to see what you all think of it. Also i intend to start a whistle tour on the mainland of Europe shortly so if there's anyone out there who lives on the continent and wants to give one of my whistles a try, then please pop me a PM with your details, thanks Brad.
OK here goes:
Iwas on vacation whent he whistle arrive so it sat inmy mailbox for close to ten days after brewerpaul sent it to me. His review is excellent and I don't think I can add to it at all.
The whistle is beautiful and comfortable to hold. There was a bit of a problem with the workmanship on the fipple ramp but nothing that detracts from the performance. The remaining workmanship is akin to art. The tone was lovely and playing required my retuning my breathing. It takes much less of a push to get this D to sing. Second octave notes were easy to hit and sometimes too easy in the the terms of accidentally pushing it up a level. It is not an overy loud whistle and I found it prefect for playing outside on the deck or in the house. It doesn't play well in breezy conditions unless you turn from the wind. Ocassionally it seem to suffer from build up in the fipple but that could simply have been my doing and not a fault of the instrument. The box it comes in is handsome and is quite well fitted. All in all it's a beautiful instrument that I wouldn't mind adding to my collection, but the price tag is a bit on the "ouch" side and even more so now that the US dollar is doing poorly. ( I believe it was $245 Australian dollars)
fancypiper, it's on its way to you via Priority Mail.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
"All the world's a stage, and most of us are desperately unrehearsed." - Sean O'Casey
It got here Thursday and I am looking forward to giving it a workout.
It certainly has a different tone than what I am used to. It is the first wooden whistle that I have had an opportunity to play as I only have metal and PVC whistles.
you asked me to join the tour, but I don see my name on the list, or am I looking at the wrong place?
Sorry Arnie, but i set up a seperate thread for the European whistle hoping it would simplify things . Here's the link and your definantly on the list http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... highlight= . Jemtheflute currently has the tour whistle so it's on the way, look forward to hearing what you think .
Its been recently drawn to my attention that the tour list attached to this thread doden't match the tour list i posted with the whistle, oops again , so i thought i had better post an updated tour list. Here it is:
1 brewerpaul
2 wvwhistler
3 fancypiper
4 flogging jason
5 Thomaston
6 Tommy
7 Mr.Nate
8 Aanvil
9 Ted
10 Sidhe
11 narrowdog
12 Jemtheflute
13 Ctrl Alt Del
The whistle is on it's way to flogging jason, I posted it this noon.
I am sorry that I kept it overtime, but I had to visit the hospital with a Crohn's disease flare and just got back.
I didn't have the opportunity to give it the workout that I wanted to, so this review is based on a solo, very limited playing time.
Mmmm, real eye and finger candy! Beautiful wood with a nice feel, except I want to place my thumb in the tuning slide gully.
It is slightly louder than I prefer, but not overpowering, but the top D and high B is close to being too loud for my ears, but it probably would better than hold it's own in a large session.
The whistle has a different tone than any of my metal and pvc whistles I have. Back in the dim recess of my mind, I vaguely remember a C woodweasel I played and it has a similar woody tone.
With a little adaption/learning breath control, I was doing high a and b rolls without dropping the octave as I did on an early Sweetheart D rosewood model I used to own.
The case is another piece of eye candy with a nice snug fit with the latch and hinges.
I am getting WhOA again, but too much month at the end of the check just now.
Thanks for putting me on the tour, I wish my health had permitted me making a session in order to check the tuning better, but it seemed to be dead on and parallel with a nice "blue" Cnat. with the OXX XOX fingering.
Well...now that Tropical "p.i.t.a." Fay has passed I can write my opinions without the power being interrupted!
OK, so...the whistle is a real beauty. It's only asthetic flaw is a little rough spot around the fipple plug....no biggie. It's lightweight and comfortable to hold.
The Tone: Very nice. It's sweet, warm, and organic with a nice woody resonance and light chiff. With moderate playing it maintains this tone evenly up to the high B. When you really lean into it the mid to upper register gets a little cleaner and more focused. The high C and 3rd D take a little extra oomph but maintain a lovely tone despite the obvious increase in volume. My only complaint about the tone is with the bottom D and the E somewhat. They're really soft compared to the rest of the range and they don't hold up well when I lay into it. They still sound nice though.
Playability: I found it to play very easy with a med-light backpressure(the pressure also felt very balanced with the tone it produced). It handles speed and ornamentation very well. The only drawback with it was that it didn't have that "pop". I prefer a more dynamic sound with my ornamentation. I did find that I really liked the way it expressed ornamentations with slow airs and laments though.
Tuning: Just fine. There weren't any large variations between notes or octaves. Every note could be brought into tune with breathing if it was a little off.
Overall: A very nice whistle. I think it's well suited for solo or small groups. It would almost certainly get lost in a large session(but bring it anyway so you can show it off to your buddies!).
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. Here's the link and your definantly on the list 
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