DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17299038
title: Harmonic Frontier Audio - Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D) (Preview Pack v0.9)

description: Harmonic Frontier Audio – Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D), Preview (v0.9)

A high-quality Irish Tin Whistle dataset — designed for AI training, music research, and creative audio projects in folk and world music.

Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D), a preview dataset, created by Harmonic Frontier Audio.It provides developers, researchers, and musicians with a compact reference set, demonstrating the quality and format of the full Harmonic Frontier Audio folk wind instrument dataset series.

 

For citation, see DOI link at bottom of this page



 

🎶 About the Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D)

The Irish Tin Whistle, also known simply as the Whistle or Penny Whistle, is a staple of Celtic traditional music.Its bright, pure tone and expressive breath articulation make it a central voice in Irish folk performance and modern Celtic fusion styles.This dataset captures high-fidelity recordings of a D whistle played by Blake Pullen, covering core techniques such as cuts, taps, tonguing, and scale exercises across lower and upper octaves.

Unlike reed instruments such as bagpipes, the whistle offers dynamic breath control, attack variation, and transient-rich articulations — all valuable data for training AI timbre models and expressive synthesis.

If you find this dataset useful, please consider giving it a 🤍 on Hugging Face.It helps other researchers and developers discover the resource more easily.



 

📂 Contents

Audio Files (.wav)



Recorded at 96 kHz / 24-bit WAV format

Exported as mono

Includes natural breath noise at note onsets (intentionally preserved)

Linear-phase high-pass filtered at 100 Hz to remove subsonic rumble

Fade-ins and fade-outs of 2–5 ms applied for transient consistency


 

Categories in this Preview





Scales & Exercises



D Major Scale – Lower and Upper Octaves

5-Note Scale Exercise

Scale Exercise in D Major





Ornaments



Cuts (A, E, F#)

Taps (B, G)

Tonguing (D, E, G – Lower & Upper Octaves)





Short Tune Snippet



Short melodic phrase from "Scarborough Fair"






Metadata (.csv)Includes structured fields for file name, instrument, category, content, note pitch, vibrato (true/false), BPM, mic position, channels, sample rate, bit depth, recording chain, and dataset version.



 

🎤 Recording Notes



Recorded in a treated studio environment using a single-mic setup:



Main mic: Oktava MK-012 cardioid small-diaphragm condenser

Recording chain: Zoom F8n Pro → Oktava MK-012 → HPF 100 Hz (24 dB/oct, linear-phase)



Recorded at 96 kHz / 32-bit float, rendered as 96 kHz / 24-bit mono WAV files for release.

Levels and dynamics reflect the natural acoustic performance without compression or limiting.




 

🌈 Spectrogram Preview

Below is a spectrogram of the included short tune snippet, showing the harmonic profile and transient character of the Irish Tin Whistle:





 

⚡ Usage

This preview pack is designed for:



Evaluation of Harmonic Frontier Audio format and quality

Testing workflows in ML training, sample library creation, or DSP pipelines

Demonstration for developers exploring expressive wind instrument timbres


👉 Note: This is not a full dataset. The complete Harmonic Frontier Audio dataset for Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D) will include:



Full ornamentation library (rolls, slides, breath variants)

Extended range and dynamics

Additional exercises and musical phrases




 

💡 Full Dataset Availability

This is a preview pack of the Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D) dataset.The complete dataset — including additional articulations, longer takes, and expanded content — will be available for licensing.

For licensing inquiries, please contact:📩 info@harmonicfrontieraudio.com



 

📜 License

Released under CC BY-NC 4.0.



Free for non-commercial use, testing, and research.

Commercial licensing available via Harmonic Frontier Audio.

A formal rights declaration is included in this dataset bundle.




 

📧 Contact

Harmonic Frontier Audio📩 info@harmonicfrontieraudio.com🌐 https://harmonicfrontieraudio.com/



 

🔮 Future Roadmap

This preview release is part of the Harmonic Frontier Audio Celtic Instruments Series.Upcoming planned datasets include:



Full Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D) dataset (extended articulations and phrases)

Scottish Smallpipes in A

Bodhrán (Irish Frame Drum)

Irish Low Whistle

Irish Flute


Over time, Harmonic Frontier Audio will also expand into additional world folk instruments, building the first dedicated catalog of folk/ethnic datasets for AI training, synthesis, and sound design.



 

🗒️ Release Notes

Version 0.9 (Oct. 2025) – Initial Preview Pack release for Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D).See CHANGELOG.md for detailed version history.



 

Citation

If you use this dataset in your research, please cite:

Pullen, B. (2025). Irish Tin Whistle (Whistle in D) Dataset (Preview) [Data set]. Harmonic Frontier Audio. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17299039

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4527-0178