can we discus congas?

[slap happy drums]

Kona , your drums are gorgeous.

 

this is from my last encounter w/ Valjes ,

 

 

They're feeling much better now , the crack used to be big enough to let light through.

Sad to see broken Valjes.

Man I'd love to own a full set , what great tone.

[rayboomboom]

So with drum sets, the given is pretty much that 80 to 90% of the tone comes from the head selection and the rest from the shell material and hoops. I don't want to debate that here since this is a conga thread. Since Slap and others have played more hand drums here than I have, does this hold true for congas, bongos, ect. also? Does head selection have more to do with the sound/tone of a drum than the shell material?

 

Also, what is better a thin head or thicker? I guess I should say, what in general is more desirable? Sorry, that almost sounded like what drum set should I buy:facepalm:

[slap happy drums]

I ran this by a Quantum Physicist once , he said I had an "Interesting" take on it......he said interesting , not wrong.

So here's what I've learned through logic , trial , and what I once feared was my own brand of fictional science.

 

Let's put on our imagination hats , ready?

When the drum is struck , millions of little sound waves shoot out in every direction , think of them like little arrows.

 

As the sound waves travel through the drum they will follow their given trajectory until they encounter the shell or run out of energy. If the sound waves hit the shell (most do) they then ricochet off of the shell wall , the dynamic of that reaction is dependent on the density of the shell , if the wood is soft then some of the waves can actually penetrate into the wood and the whole shell will vibrate , some of the waves will bounce off. When dealing with a harder wood more of the sound waves will bounce off and way fewer will be absorbed into the shell.

 

This causes a hardwood and a softwood drum of the same size w/ the same type of head to sound different.

 

The head choice effects the very nature of of the sound waves that will be doing all the moving and bouncing and yes , penetrating.

Think of thin and bleached as a clean light sound that gets heavier w/ thickness

Think of furred as the clean light sounding heads twin brother that had to grow up out on the streets , more character rougher sound , it likes other drums a little more than it likes other conventional instruments.

 

The real difference between furred and bleached is dermis. The bleached head has had several layers of skin removed in a chemical bath (lye + ?) in the process the hair falls off too , dry it out and you're left with a bleached head

Furred head : Remove goat from skin. Done

 

Both wood and head types have their place and purpose , it's all about preference and usage.

 

Hope that helps a little.

Hoe it doesn't offend any real scientists with gross inaccuracies.

 

 

Oh yeah the most common and iconic hand drum sound for our culture is a med thin bleached head.

 

For many others it's a thin furred stretched almost too tight on the solo drum , accompanied by a thicker furred head on whatever is being used as a Bass drum.

 

Another rule of thumb from Africa Goat for your hands , Cow for your sticks.....However Congas will use Calf Skin , LP HandPicked being my favorite conventional head (honestly never used a regular skin on a Conga....someday) for Bongos my favorite head is the fiberskin , bongos have no need to avoid the overtones caused by synthetics , so I stand behind the fiberskin on Bongos , mine have been on my Bongos for something like 13 years.

 

Sometimes we do fish skin , the best and stinkiest of all.

[Jerry_L]

I have a Meinl tumba that I got from my sister's former boyfriend that sounds awesome. Blows my LP Aspires away, though that's not much of a comparison.

[rayboomboom]

So Slap you like the fiberskin heads for bongos. Didn't know they made them. I'll have to look into them cuz I've had the larger, (mombo is it?) head loosen in humid weather.

 

Have you ever tried xray heads (heads made from recycled xray sheets)? I've seen them used usually on the smaller drum (don't remember that ones name).

[konaguy]

Kona , your drums are gorgeous. this is from my last encounter w/ Valjes , [They're feeling much better now , the crack used to be big enough to let light through. Sad to see broken Valjes. Man I'd love to own a full set , what great tone.

 

Yes - being wood - some drums do crack and I've heard of and seen a few cracked Valjes. But, you know, it's only wood and it can be repaired.

 

My Cracked Conga Story (short version ):

I noticed a crack in one of the staves of my Valje supertumba this last Spring. I asked around a lot - mostly on the web - to get the best advice on how to repair it. That started the process of refinishing "all" my Valjes. The repair went nicely. It was actually in the stave not between staves so it was much easier to repair. I just took some good quality wood glue and let it sink into the crack - filled it up and it looks great. In the sanding down process of all the drums I noticed small cracks here and there. The Canadian Woodworkers advice was to use the runniest Super-type glue I could find and let it drain into the cracks......it will hold like iron they say. It all seemed to work great. Then I decided to use a water-based Varathane (Diamond Clear Coat Gloss) for a finish. Water-based is easier to use than oil-based - one reason is if you screw up on a coat with water-based you don't have to take the finish back down to the wood to fix it - I liked that reason. Another reason was the drum wood is porus and I wasn't using a pore filler to get a High-End Gloss finish. However, the drums do have a nice shiny hard finish with the 7 plus coats I gave each drum.

 

Thought I'd let ya'll know a little of how the re-finishing project went.

[slap happy drums]

Nice story , your drums are showing the love.

 

I hope to someday own some Valjes or old Gon Bops , till then my Tocas will do.