Manufacturers, brands, skins, maintenance, stands, sticks, michrophones and other accessories for congueros can be discussed into this forum ...... leave your experience or express your doubts!
Well, after much thinking, I bought a 3 set of Patato Fiberglass congas (2 congas, and one quinto) from Ebay at $650.00. What a price, huh? I'm only worried that I won't be able to get a nice low tone on one of the Congas, if I tune it low (to substitute for the Tumbadora). Whatever, if I can't get the sound, I'll find a Patato Tumba down the line.
I won't be needing my set of quinto, conga, and Tumba of LP Wood Classic, which were recently hand-picked by Giovanni Hidalgo for a gig I did with him here at the University of Massachusetts. So, you know they got to be good. The only thing is that the Conga has a broken head (so you will have to replace it). The quinto has an Evans Tri-head Skin, and the Tumba has a natural skin with a nice low tone.
I'm selling my wood set at $850.00 for the set of 3 them. If anyone is interested, please email me at rgb@polsci.umass.edu
Put a very thick head on one of the congas, and it'll function better as a Tumbadora. I did that for a while before I finally purchased my Galaxy fiberglass Tumba. Last yearI was at a lesson at Nicky Marrero's(Fania All-Stars) and he used a super thick head to make a conga sound more like a 2nd tumba.