Cajon advice?

[Mike_E_McGee]

I'm thinking of picking up a cajon to bang around on (frustrated guitarist). I like the look and price of the Meinl pickup cajon, but looking at the reviews on musician's friend the pickup is a piece of crap...of course I have no way of knowing what that user hooked it up to.

 

I found a few videos of it on youtube, but all the videos I've found show the cajon mic'd externally. That's raising a red flag for me.

 

Has anyone used it? Can you share your experiences? Is there another model you would recommend? I'm completely new to percussion (beyond thumping the body of my guitar, stomping my foot, and occasionally finger drumming on the steering wheel). Still, I'm not looking for something entry level, I want something that's gig worthy. Having a built in pickup with 1/4" out would be a MAJOR plus (I'm out of xlr's on my p.a.)

 

Any and all advice appreciated, thanks!!

 

edit: Valter Percussion seems to make just what I'd like, but at a price I can't afford.

[Eyehearya]

Can't help ya Sham but I'll be watching this thread closely, 'cause I gots The Wants for a cajon too..

[heshben]

I have the LP Mario Cortes cajon and in my opinion, it has the best sound out of all the "stringed" cajons I've played, especially the Meinls. I played a Meinl at Sam Ash once and I broke the knob off by turning it, maybe have been a fluke though I have yet to play a Fat Congas stringed one yet but I have played their Cuban Bajo cajon and if you're going for more bass that one is quite amazing.

 

As far as getting one with a pickup goes I can't help with that. But I'd rather get a better quality cajon without a pickup than sacrificing quality of sound for that feature.

 

*edit* In fact, you should buy my cajon so I can buy this

 

http://lpmusic.com/Product_Showcase/Whats_New/soul-cajon.html

[heshben]

I also just found this which may solve your micing problem

 

http://lpmusic.com/Product_Showcase/Whats_New/cajon-mic-system.html

[D Carroll]

Go with LP. I spent a long ass time trying out as many of them as I could, and meinl's all sounded pretty bad. I went with the LP aspire, and it's great.

[Mike_E_McGee]

That's two votes for LP, and two votes against Meinl. I listened to the LP sound sample and was not impressed, but some youtubes made it sound a bit better. I value real musician experience over "clips" any day of the week. Please chime in if you've played these or any others.

 

I'm leaning towards that Soul Cajon, but I won't be ordering until Monday or so (waiting on fed taxes still).

 

And thanks guys!!

[Mike_E_McGee]

Just thought I'd share the advice given to me on another board.

 

Woodskin out of Australia comes highly recommended by Bob Brozman.

 

Schlagwerk out of Germany was mentioned as one of the best by Frank DeFranceschi.

 

I ended up working out a deal with Valter Percussion. He's giving me a "Custom" cajon with adjustable snares, adjustable soundport, built in Mic system, and bag for a price I can live with (including shipping to the states from sweden). The Valters seem to be a little more on the kick/snare sound than the more traditional cajones. That's exaclty what I'm looking for.

 

Is this going to be any better than an LP? I have no idea. It is more expensive for certain...

 

Wish me luck!

[RumStik]

Good luck. And...don't forget the rules: pics and clips or it didn't happen.

[mcferg]

I followed Shamus' lead and contacted Valter. I ended up getting the "BigBox", which is a bigger cajon, bigger bass, adjustable sound port and built-in mic, and a bag thrown in shipped to the US for what is, based on what I've seen, reasonable for the highest-end cajons, and I'm REALLY hoping that's what this is...I will post my results here, but I'm a few weeks away from actually receiving it.

[Hope Drums]

Check out the Bordeaux cajon by Toca. It's oversized, so it has a deeper tone. The looks are killer and sound is awesome! I bought one and use it live every Saturday at a coffee house gig, not mic'ed and it is loud enough to be heard in the mix against amp'ed acoustic guitars.

 

The only down side is if you decide you want a bag, their $80 one is the only one it'll fit in :-(

[mcferg]

I am anxiously awaiting Shamuspizzbutt's review. Even if you can't give us the full deal with clips and pics, what are your thoughts? Do you feel that the extra cash you had to fork over to get the cajon shipped from Sweden was worth it?

 

I just received word from Valter that my mic-equipped big box is going out today. As I've gone back and watched and re-watched the videos on the Valter Percussion site, I continue to be blown away by the sound of these instruments. I, too, love them for their bass/snare sound. Since I'm looking for, more or less, a substitute for rock drums as accompaniment, this is exactly what I need.

 

My hope is that it works out the way I expect - I wish there was same way to audition the darn things!

[Mike_E_McGee]

McFerg, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

 

I'm blown away. Initially I thought it was a little quieter than I was expecting. Turns out I was hitting it like a sis. It can be downright thunderous! I plugged it into my PA, and all hell broke loose.

 

I am having a little trouble recording it. The snares are quite obvious to me sitting on top, but aren't quite as distinct on my recordings (very possibly my crappy mics). I did a test run plugging the xlr right to my zoom H4 and again was not impressed (though it sounds fantastic through my pa...go figger).

 

I have 0 percussion experience so I can't rank it properly, but I have no buyer's remorse. I'm very happy with the sound and quality.

 

He's changed his allen wrench design to a little push then turn knob you can see on the side. The second set of snares go from not touching the front, to barely touching, to 5 more degrees of pushed into the front. With them out of the mix you get a nice dry bass, put some tension on them and you get rattle out of the bass.

 

The adjustable port on the back when all the way open gives it a nice resonance. There's a touch of linger on the bass. Close it a little and that dries up as well as lowering the frequency.

 

It's going to take forever for me to get competent on this thing, but it's so much fun to put on some James Brown, and try to keep up!!

 

Here's a (very) short clip I recorded this evening:

 

wty5zsiT7PI

 

 

 

 

edit: I just realized that I never mentioned that Valter didn't like the sound of the Custom with his mic system. He'll keep tweaking it, and he bumped me up to a Big Box as well. That there is the larger jammie. Did I mention I'm very happy with my cajon/Valter Percussion??

[mcferg]

Thanks for the post. FWIW, I think the sound of the recording is not bad at all - how was the sound for that recorded? I'm most interested, obviously, in how it sounds out of the built-in mic system, as that, for me, is partially the whole point of the thing.

 

I figured that I'd keep the sound port more closed when plugged in, and more open when going pure acoustic (I'm guessing you get more volume out of it if it's unplugged when the soundport is open).

 

I love the snap and the separation. As I mentioned before, my crappy Meinl cajon has NONE. The snare rattles constantly.

 

It's funny - I first approached Valter about a mic-equipped custom, and he steered me toward the big box as well. He said he'd been experimenting with them, and definitely liked the sound of the big box best. I was very tempted to get one of the whitebox/blackboxes, and, in fact, that would have been my preference. However, I started thinking about the occasional backyard jam I might have that has no amplification, and I thought a true wooden cajon would perform better under those circumstances.

 

Like you, I have little percussion experience. I'm buying this for recording, but, more so, I'm buying it for other people to play. I have an acoustic act that I pretty much control the artistic directly of. We play about 90% originals, all of which I wrote. In order to fill out a full gig, we throw in a few covers, which are of my choosing and arrangement. This type of "artistic control", if you want to call it that, comes at a price - and that price is providing all of the gear.

 

This isn't really just about me being a control freak, though. I want to be prepared to replace the percussionist at any time, because this is not a full time thing, and sometimes life gets in the way. My current friend/percussionist expressed some concern about a cajon with a fixed snare. He actually plays the Meinl primarily with the snare completely off. I'm convinced that the sound will be so noticeably better, he'll adjust. I also think the ability get a truly dry bass with the fixed snare will make a difference, too.

 

If that was too much rambling, my apologies...

 

Now that I see you have the same cajon I'm getting, and I like the sound on the video, and that sound didn't really seem to live up to how good it actually sounds, I can't wait.

 

Thanks again for posting the clip.

[brettmassey49]

I know that this is an old thread, but I thought I would reply anyway. I have a S-Series La Peru cajon from Kopf Percussion. I really like it. I shopped around for a month before deciding on this one. I think that it is worlds above any other cajon that I played.It has poplar sides and tops with two playing surfaces. I bought directly from their website http://www.kopfpercussion.com

Oh, also it has a padded/upholstered seat on the top.