by James McKaskle » Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:45 pm
I have two quintos: requinto-wood with skin head (Lp's World Percussion series) which I bought for $170, and a fiber glass body/head quinto (Toca's player series) which I picked up for $130 during Mars Music's going out of business sale. I also bought a large remo Djembe for about $200, some small percussion instruments, and a 48'' Sabian gong with stand and mallet for $730 during that sale. Ahh, student loans!
Anyways, the two quintos have drastically different tones. The requinto has a very deep, growling resonance compared to the Toca quinto. Infact this LP as a serious bass tone for quinto! The toca seems to produce more ringing overtones when tuned to pitch, but generally is more clear sounding in the open tones. The LP seems to be louder and blends in more with djembes when I take it to drum circles. I don't like the blending because I'd like to stand out more in that situation, but it is 20-30 lbs lighter! It's smaller, not as much metal, and doesn't have the metal stress band around it (what is the proper name for that?) But what I really like is the variety of tones I have at my disposal. I tune the Toca to segundo pitch and the requinto to quinto pitch, and it works great. Being a classical guitarist by training, so much emphasis is given to tone control, and stress on sounding as clean as possible, but at the same time, being able to produce varieties of tones to suit the music. To become master of the guitar, not to be mastered by it, which happens when you invest in cheap guitars. But it seems with tumbadores, the kind of variety in "tone types" is best accomplished in variety of makers and price ranges. How bad is it for a an accomplished conguero to play student congas? To what extent can technique have mastery over the quality of the conga?