My second longbox from Toby Kock showed up in my mailbox this past Monday.
When we spoke on the phone about the first one, I told him it had to be cedar over butternut. Toby told me that was fine, but he had really been liking cedar over alder. So I told him "Just build me one of those, too".
The alder wood, itself is pretty open grained.........a lot along the lines of sassafras. And it has a holographic quality to it, here and there. Toby's tuning is incredible !! The alder call is a bit more mellow, overall, where the butternut call has a bit more sharpness to the tone. Both roll over with nearly the same "yawk" just the alder starts a whisker lower so the finish is not quite the drop of the butternut. But to the casual, untrained ear.......... I could pass one call off as the other. Remarkable !!
My personal preference.........the butternut over the alder by the smallest of margins. But, noooooo.............the alder call ain't for sale.
