Generations have long been considered the standard whistle for Irish traditional music. However, they are inexpensively mass produced, and there are issues both with variability from one to the next, and with details that are compromised due to injection molding's limitations. Further, in the early 1980's, Generation replaced their old injection molding tooling, and the voicing changed somewhat. The vintage, pre-1980's voicing is considered superior, and existing examples of good pre-1980's Generations are sought after and prized. It's been the habit of devoted players to routinely try every Generation whistle in every music store they visit hoping to find that once-in-decades "perfect" Generation. Similarly, there has been a long tradition of tweaking to correct the shortcomings and optimize the voicing and handling. Freeman tweaked Generations are expertly adjusted to produce a remarkably clean playing, beautiful sounding, well in tune instrument that's well balanced throughout both registers. They are voiced to match the sought after pre-1980's voicing, which is a little sweeter/purer than current Generations, but with more complexity/reediness than a Freeman Mellow Dog or Blackbird. Freeman tweaked Generations are fully tunable, with the whistlehead moveable on the tonebody to raise or lower the pitch as needed. Tweaked Generations are available in brass or nickel plate in the keys of high G, high F, Eb, D, C, and Bb. The various keys are available individually or in complete tweaked Generation sets of whistles in all six keys.
T**N
Great whistle
Love this whistle, the tone is pure but without a metallicness that I hear in my Feadog. I own a Clark D, a Clark D Sweetone and a Feadog C. The Clarks sound great but are a little breathy, and the Feadog is pure but has a "ring" to it that I don't like, especially in the lower octave. This whistle, is just perfect, and sounds like a much more expensive whistle to my ear. The pitch can be adjusted by sliding the mouthpiece, and it was simple to get it to concert pitch. My electronic tuner shows it to be 90-95% in tune, which is perfect -- I think slight variations give it character.Because this is an F whistle, the top few notes (such as C+, D+, E+, F++) in the upper octive do sound a bit shrill, but I think that is going to happen with any high-F whistle.I may have to get myself a Freeman tweaked D after hearing how great this one sounds.ps. if you want to play the irish whistle solo in "You Can Call Me Al" this is the whistle you need
A**E
Four Stars
Great whistle for the value.
Trustpilot
4 days ago
1 month ago
