Chiff and Fipple Forums

McNeela Instruments has a whistle called the Wild Irish Whistle. It looks nice but I haven't seen any reviews online. Has anyone here tried one? If so, how does it play (octave jumping, volume, anything else of note)?
Thanks.

Mike

I've not tried one, but it does look like a nice piece of kit. Seems like a very reasonable price before shipping is factored in, too. I am also curious to hear others' opinions of it. Here's a link, for those who may be interested.

I think is just very very new. Not many people would have one yet. I just had an email announcing it come.

Looking forward to hearing this one if you would play for us when you get it!

Looks like one of the many Sindt/Killarney-style whistles out there now. It does look like the barrel is a bit thicker than the Sindt/Killarney standard, although that may just be a thicker all for the tubing rather than a wider bore. It also may just be harder to tell because of the all-black finish! McNeela has a few instruments that are essentially mass-produced overseas then finished/tweaked in-house, I'd be willing to bet that this is the same way.

The sales copy is a bit over the top, and I'm personally not a huge fan of the black finish (what's wrong with just the regular metal color?) or the little design, but if it plays nicely that's a decent price for a Sindt clone.

bigsciota wrote:The sales copy is a bit over the top, and I'm personally not a huge fan of the black finish (what's wrong with just the regular metal color?) or the little design, but if it plays nicely that's a decent price for a Sindt clone.

I'm not a fan of the black finish, either. It looks gimmicky. That thing about "guaranteed to turn heads at the session" - is that really what anybody wants? I don't. If I get an infinitesimally small smile at something that I've managed to put into a tune, that's plenty for me.

Also, I haven't gone onto the McNeela site for a long time - is it me, or has it got almost unusable because of the massive number of pop-up adverts? It took me 10 minutes to get to the Wild Irish Whistle because I had to shut down about 2 or 3 adverts per second. It was unbearable. I'll give it a miss in future, I think.

benhall.1 wrote: Also, I haven't gone onto the McNeela site for a long time - is it me, or has it got almost unusable because of the massive number of pop-up adverts? It took me 10 minutes to get to the Wild Irish Whistle because I had to shut down about 2 or 3 adverts per second. It was unbearable. I'll give it a miss in future, I think.

I use an adblocker, and it tells me it's blocking 21 ads and popups. That's a little excessive I think.

Greenfire wrote:

benhall.1 wrote: Also, I haven't gone onto the McNeela site for a long time - is it me, or has it got almost unusable because of the massive number of pop-up adverts? It took me 10 minutes to get to the Wild Irish Whistle because I had to shut down about 2 or 3 adverts per second. It was unbearable. I'll give it a miss in future, I think.

I use an adblocker, and it tells me it's blocking 21 ads and popups. That's a little excessive I think.

I completely agree.

I have to let my ears speak here.
It's not like the Clarke/Generation/Oak/Walton/Feadog basic whistle design hasn't been copied 100 times, so now it's happening to the Sindt/Killarney basic design (because it's a great one!), but that doesn't mean a new whistle coming out at just a little higher than 50% of the cost of the Killarney, means you're getting a Killarney at a lesser price. You certainly aren't. Listen to them carefully. To my ears, the tonal richness, clarity, control and general musical quality of the Wild is clearly below the Killarney. Especially the second octave. The Killarney sings magnificently in the second octave. The Wild gets by OK. Huge difference.

The video of the Wild whistle being played by Robert Harvey illustrates a key difference on every note: the Killarney has sharper more clearly defined notes and the long musical phrases on a Killarney sound more like a series of tonally rich and clearly defined notes, than they do on the Wild. The Wild in effect slurs and buffers the notes a little. Sorry, but to a musician worried about performance quality, live performance and recording, this is a HUGE issue! The difference could be a result of the type of mouthpiece/tube type combination, the bore size chosen being less then as ideal as the Killarney's for the key of D, the effect of perhaps a thin wall metal tube on the Wild or other factors, but the result is that (vs the Killarney), the Wild is going to play different, and sound different.

I have to suggest based on that video (and I know that one performance is not an ideal range of experience to base an opinion on, and I'm fine with finding more demonstrations that clear this issue up further), that the Killarney has not been matched by the Wild at all, and the Wild is clearly a lesser quality performer. The Wild looks to be a superior player over some other common lowest-priced whistles out there, but even that topic raises the ire of a great number of players who love the basic models when they find one that works properly.

A new whistle and opinions about it...........here we go again! LOL

It's a pretty basic rule of business that your product has to solve a problem or fill a niche in the market that no one else is currently filling. The Killarney made one of the biggest splashes in recent memory when it came out, and has fairly quickly become one of the most popular/common whistles out there. I think a huge part of that was that, while it was essentially a clone of the basic design of the Sindt, it was both cheaper and quicker to get than a Sindt. That's not to say that it's "just" a Sindt clone, but they are certainly very similar. If you want a Sindt-like whistle for half the cost, and delivered within a week or so, that's what you order. It's a couple clicks online and shipped straight to your house, can't get much easier. Otherwise, you pay around twice as much and wait a little while longer for one from Sindt himself, if you prefer his handiwork.

I'm not sure I really get what niche this Wild Irish whistle fills, to be honest. I'd love to see a maker take that basic design and make a wider-bore version, or a narrower-bore version, or conical bore, whatever! Make it a two- or three-piece, make it all out of delrin or wood or aluminum, I don't know. There are tons of whistles on the market today of all different designs and materials, and for any given whistle you can probably find at least one player that loves its unique combination of sound and playability (and a few more who hate it!). Besides being cheaper and having a "fancy" finish, I'm not sure what this offers over what's already on the market. But I haven't played it, so I guess I should reserve judgement. And as I said, if it's well-made and has similar playability to whistles like the Sindt/Killarney (which it very much looks like), it's not a bad deal for €49.

Greenfire wrote:

benhall.1 wrote: Also, I haven't gone onto the McNeela site for a long time - is it me, or has it got almost unusable because of the massive number of pop-up adverts? It took me 10 minutes to get to the Wild Irish Whistle because I had to shut down about 2 or 3 adverts per second. It was unbearable. I'll give it a miss in future, I think.

I use an adblocker, and it tells me it's blocking 21 ads and popups. That's a little excessive I think.

This is reminding me of when the net was quite new and you had to fight your way through pop up after pop up. I can't even remember the search engine I was using. Lycos comes to mind... Juno? Whatever it was. That, and being able to play a whole tune while waiting for something to download is not an experience I miss.

In the cob-webby corners of my memory I seem to recall running something called ´Lynx´ on a used 286. . .

Bob

Hello all- while my whistling these days is done on a range of low aluminums- Setanta lowD, MK Pro low C/D/E/F/G & Kerry Thunderbird alto A, I’ve gone ahead and placed an order for this new high D Wild whistle. With luck I’ll see it delivered here in the US before the holidays. While I do have several well-used inexpensive Clark/Feadog/Generation style Ds, I don’t play them much at all, so this will be my first pro-grade high-D whistle. Oh, and not one, but two Wilds on this order; I’m getting one for my wife’s’ Christmas stocking. It will be her first-ever whistle, but hey, we could all use a playing partner while in lockdown. ~cheers!

pro-grade high-D whistle

A completely meanlingless description.

I'd be worried about the wildness, it could get dangerously out of control if cornered in a pub