Let's face it. Buying mouth calls is a crapshoot. They can't be "factory tuned", and even if they could, their sound quality is largely a function of the abilities of the guy who is using them. Up until I started making mouth calls and learning the "tricks of the trade", I suspect I spent many hundreds of dollars buying calls from various call makers trying to find that one call that was the "holy grail".
Over the years, I came close a few times,...finding that one call that was totally awesome. Unfortunately, when I ordered more of that same call, I rarely got one that would duplicate that awesomeness. In fact, more often than not, the supposed same call would sound nothing like the original. I ended up with a pile of mouth calls that sat in their little boxes in a drawer,....none of them quite good enough for me to confidently take to the woods.
On a whim one day, I decided I was going to take some of those calls and modify the reed cuts to see what the results would be. What I found, after some trial and error, was that almost every call I had that I wasn't happy with could be modified,..."tuned", if you will,...to make them sound better.
A sharp pair of scissors and a little ingenuity will often find that "turkey" in any call. Here are a few quick pointers for those that have a drawer full of calls like I did and may want to experiment a little bit:
1) Very small changes is the reeds of a call can make a big difference in the sound it will produce. Using your scissors, make small changes and work towards bigger changes,...don't just start hacking away at a call.
2) Start out cutting only the longest (top) reed first. Secondary reeds can be cut, too, but too much cutting of the secondary reeds will often deaden the sound of the call. I have found that small "nicks" in the secondary reeds are sometimes needed to improve sound quality.
3) Each call may sound better with a different cut. In other words, just because you like a particular call that has a V-cut, combo-cut, ghost, batwing, or whatever,....the next call may sound better with an entirely different cut. Don't assume that you want to make the same cut design on every call.
4) Once you get the hang of reed cutting and the effects on sound characteristics, you will probably want to start out with calls that have no cuts at all and go through your cut progression to find that turkey in each call.
