Originally Posted By: LONEHOWLYep, open reeds dont have the tone, they have a high pitched, "siren" type sound. Sort of a "one layer" sound. Latex howlers have the rich, layered, smooth tones your looking for. Diapragms are even better in the right hands, better barks etc than say a Power Howler.
I understand what you mean by "quacky buzz" now..depending on the howler and how you blow it, you can either get it or not. Its mostly technique imo. Its a buzzy, mostly "flat" sound. See it all the time, and thats the way most guys demo howlers.
Some guys use lips to contact the reed, and others use thier teeth (or tooth). Using your lips, and just puffing your cheeks and blowing half-azzed air into the call will make a flat, buzzy howl. If you are a lip caller like that, roll your lips over your teeth, and blow from your diapragm, and put some real air into the call, vary your air pressure up or down etc. and put some emotion into it. having your lips rolled over your teeth lets you put more pressure on the reed. If you are a tooth caller, your going to get a sharper sound out of the reed, with none of the "flat buzz", by keeping tooth pressure on the reed. It keeps the reed under pressure, not letting it vibrate as much. You get the sharper, higher pitched sounds that way. Kinda hard to explain I guess?
Personally, I put some voice into my howls, I kind of bark or growl with my voice a bit as Im blowing into the call. Just a habit I picked up long ago.
What I hate seeing people do on a open reed howler is barks...almost nobody can do em nowdays...everyone just blows a short burst of air into the call, with the "puffy cheek" technique, and it actually does almost "quack" or just "buzz". Thats not how you do it. A lot of howlers, you cannot even get a proper sharp bark on em...and especially if your using a small open reed distress call like a lot of guys do. The techniques above will help with that.
Most open reed howlers either have a square slot air channel (Critter Call Magnum) or a round air channel (Dan Thompsen Red Desert). The square style is able to get more pitches and variations, but sometimes needs to be pretty wide and deep to get good raspy barks. They are generally the easiest to blow, simply because of aerodynamics, they pick up air faster. The round style generally is a bit more tricky to control, but you can get good deep raspy barks on them if you put a tooth on the reed, press down on it and put a short burst of air into the call, then let off the reed real quick. Timing is everything there, but imo that technique gives the best barks. Same technique on the square style, but for me, I like the round style better for that. Reed thickness counts as well.
If I was going to go out and buy a production howler right now, Id buy the new Foxpro howler that has the open reed and the Power Howler type mouth piece that is interchangable. I think it also comes with a diapragm too.
This is all jmo.
Mark
EDIT..sorry for the rambling lol.
This is a very informative post that a lot of us can learn from, so I say ramble on any time!!!! Thanks for the info...what do we have to do to convince you to make a few youtube videos about technique????
I get what you are saying, and probably one of the most frustrating things about calling with any kind of mouth call is trying to describe what exactly the guy using it is doing. It's not like you can just take a video of what is going on because that part is all covered...but it can help a lot for most guys if they can hear the sound. At least the student caller has a sound that's correct as a target to try and copy.
I really like hand calls, there is just something about calling up an animal with a mouth call. It could be compared to the difference between killing a deer at 300 yards with a benchrest accurate rifle {electronic call} and hitting one at 15 yards with a recurve, watching him run another 50 yards and fall over...I guess either way he's dead, but it just isn't the same for me.
I totally get the technique thing...and I also believe that technique is the most important thing with any call. Nothing makes the sounds for geese like a tube call, nothing gobbles perfectly like a Haint. Even a simple duck call, easy as they are to learn, can be messed up by "laughing" into the call. Thanks again!!!!