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Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:11 pm
by Ernesto Pediangco
leedy2 wrote:Just have to laugh look like some just don't get it. To play a drum you just need to bang it have a good masacote and to hell hardware , rims and most of all the look . Look does not matter it can look ragady beat up as long as a good sound comes out qnd yu know what you are doing. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well we could all use junky drums & spend time & $$ repairing them forever, but if I choose to invest into an instrument many hundreds of $$$, I want them to be trouble free & dependable as well as sound perfect for my needs.When I buy a modern product, I should expect the problemns I had to repair in previous models to be corrected. It is a competitive market & many products are serving our needs. Who ever has a superior product, may have me as a customer. I know musicians who often loose $$$ by changing brands or repairing instruments. That's $$$$ that could have been used for the family & children. Also...if American products hope to compete with imports, they better be up to standards not just make an adequate item but a better item. Why are custom builders content to build flawed designs any way. Be progressive and be oriented to improve your product for the benefit of the customer. I personally will not invest into something I think is high maintenance that will cost me more time & $$$ to fix later. Its an issue of quality for the $$$$$ . These are the tools of our trade and a vehicle of our expression. I feel I deserve a great instrument if I desire to invest $$$$ for them. Canadian made Mo Percs, do not have these issues and deserve a look by potential buyers of Latin drums. Volcano makes excellent products for the high end $$ range. Meinl is my favorite Asian made brand for less $$ than Lp & Pearl products. Gon Bops of California still makes the best American made Conga's even though the timbales are only equal to other Asian brands & the bongos are OK but not super special, just nice. Sol percussion made fine products & I loved the Bongos Akbar designed & built that were better than most.

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 3:08 pm
by vinnieL
So it is your opinion that Ritmo and SOS are inferior drums?

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:32 pm
by docarroyo
Ernesto P. What you may consider a flawed design has stood the test of time for over 50 years. Your ideas are just concepts that you have not even as far as any one here can tell even produced a proto type. How do you know that they are superior to what the master drum makers of yesterday and today are producing. What you or others may consider flawed, I and most of the professionals percussionist I know love for the tradition and esthetics as well as function as simplistic as it is. There have been many new ideas over the years to modernize the congas and bongos, Top tunning Gon Bops and now LP, Turnbuckles used by Echotone and Columbo, Inovative hardware on congas are not new. Congeros always return to the tried and tested hardware of tradition. Repairs and maintence is required on all instruments pianos need tunning, guitars set ups, new strings, woodwinds corking, I could go on for each and every instrument. If you have the perfect instrument design make a prototype share it with the rest of the world of course register it first so no one steals your ideas. As far as Jays and Matthews creations go you the first and only person I have ever heard refer to them as inferior or flawed. I know them both and can tell you each drum recieves thier attention and care. I guess you must consider Junior Tirado drums flawed also while many cherish them. I do not want to start anything but your opinions are agrevating me to the point of diareah. I also agree with Cuco(Leedy) no es la fletcha pero el indio, check out the rumberos in Cuba and the rest of the third world countries who cant afford new drums. They play wooden boxes and plastic buckets and much of the time sound better than alot of cats with NICE drums. In the end are you checking out the design or playing the drum and listening to the sound. In other fields older instruments are more revered than new ones and command higher prices, guitars and violins for instance. When new designs come in those field they go just as quickly. Tradition sometimes or more than not over powers the new in most areas, rotary engine VS pistons, the rotary is a better concept and ENGINEERING,less maintenace easier to fix but we know how that went. Just my opinion.

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:38 pm
by vinnieL
:roll: :roll:

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:32 pm
by yambu321
Jay, Matthew, and Tom, are Today's the very Top Artisans. Junior Tirado was Legendary.
Akbar is great as well. There's always things to say about anything and everything.
I must confess that my 27 year old LP Generation 2's with L&H Percussion's kip and calf skins Sound Off The Hook
and after all these years with travels throughout the Pacific there are still no cracks and look new. Amazing.


It's all Good!
Ladies and Gents, Choose Your Weapons Of Choice. :mrgreen: :D


A big Shout Out to VinnieL. Call me Bro. :D
Charlie. 8)

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:37 pm
by Jerry Bembe
I agree that the current and past great handbuilders of these fine instruments have used the best of technology and tradition available to them. I agree that there is room for innovation but finding fault without presenting a solution is counterproductive. I have my opinions but I do not wish to criticize a person's gear of choice because I consider this to be a personal attack. I do not wish to be attacked personally so I refrain from this activity of attacking these personal areas.

It is like the ole' Golden Rule (but I am flawed like anyone else). No judgement and let's move on and agree to disagree. We have heard enough criticizm and let's see the proof if there is any.

Nuff said.

Enjoy drums and drumming, they are a gift from God and should be cherished.

Peace

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:50 am
by ABAKUA
I can only echo docarroyo's comments....

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:19 pm
by vinnieL
Charlie I sent you a pm

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:47 pm
by Ernesto Pediangco
docarroyo wrote:Ernesto P. What you may consider a flawed design has stood the test of time for over 50 years. Your ideas are just concepts that you have not even as far as any one here can tell even produced a proto type. How do you know that they are superior to what the master drum makers of yesterday and today are producing. What you or others may consider flawed, I and most of the professionals percussionist I know love for the tradition and esthetics as well as function as simplistic as it is. There have been many new ideas over the years to modernize the congas and bongos, Top tunning Gon Bops and now LP, Turnbuckles used by Echotone and Columbo, Inovative hardware on congas are not new. Congeros always return to the tried and tested hardware of tradition. Repairs and maintence is required on all instruments pianos need tunning, guitars set ups, new strings, woodwinds corking, I could go on for each and every instrument. If you have the perfect instrument design make a prototype share it with the rest of the world of course register it first so no one steals your ideas. As far as Jays and Matthews creations go you the first and only person I have ever heard refer to them as inferior or flawed. I know them both and can tell you each drum receives their attention and care. I guess you must consider Junior Tirado drums flawed also while many cherish them. I do not want to start anything but your opinions are agrevating me to the point of diareah. I also agree with Cuco(Leedy) no es la fletcha pero el indio, check out the rumberos in Cuba and the rest of the third world countries who cant afford new drums. They play wooden boxes and plastic buckets and much of the time sound better than alot of cats with NICE drums. In the end are you checking out the design or playing the drum and listening to the sound. In other fields older instruments are more revered than new ones and command higher prices, guitars and violins for instance. When new designs come in those field they go just as quickly. Tradition sometimes or more than not over powers the new in most areas, rotary engine VS pistons, the rotary is a better concept and ENGINEERING,less maintenace easier to fix but we know how that went. Just my opinion.

Ahem....My point is....bending & warping parts defeat the purpose of a tuning system, especially when a drum owner may have to do repairs to these flawed parts. I have no reason to accept what some regard as age old designs. Model T Fords are old designs too, but I would not trust my life or career to them when improved performance & dependability is available from the progress of industry,and it all comes down to intentional design to improve on flaws. Denial only stagnates improvement. It is a buyers market. If it is obvious to me that a design will cause me problems in the future...I will simply look at other options. A good drum shell cooper may not be a good hard ware designer but can copy simpler hard wares & tuning system designs but that is a dis service to the potential owners of the instruments. Repairs should never be nesesary to these parts except from damages unrelated to normal use. That's my point. Congueros have many options. Top tuned models existed in the past but were not well designed versions, there were always weak points to incomplete designs. But...look at all the damaged drum shells caused from the tuning system parts damaging adjacent drums. Is this acceptable to you ? Industrialist have controlled the direction of automotive...so its not a fair comparison in engineering. But...even traditional tuning can remove the cause for drum shell damage due to colliding drums & parts. Its just that no one tries or customers blindly accept the flaws that you call tradition. That sounds defeating from the start. This is why import drums dominate American made industries in so many categories and why Latin American goods seldom evolved to be of acceptable quality to north American markets. Quality issues *. But look at Brazilian Drum companies...they have high quality, advanced designs and are raising the standards of even low end products. Quality designs trickle down to less costly models when it is more common place. If Brazilian products remained crude & non standardized head sizes etc. The would not have grown in the market & other companies would have replaced them. Custom builders I would hope would lead the progress not follow ?

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:56 pm
by Ernesto Pediangco
Ernesto Pediangco wrote:
docarroyo wrote:Ernesto P. What you may consider a flawed design has stood the test of time for over 50 years. Your ideas are just concepts that you have not even as far as any one here can tell even produced a proto type. How do you know that they are superior to what the master drum makers of yesterday and today are producing. What you or others may consider flawed, I and most of the professionals percussionist I know love for the tradition and esthetics as well as function as simplistic as it is. There have been many new ideas over the years to modernize the congas and bongos, Top tunning Gon Bops and now LP, Turnbuckles used by Echotone and Columbo, Inovative hardware on congas are not new. Congeros always return to the tried and tested hardware of tradition. Repairs and maintence is required on all instruments pianos need tunning, guitars set ups, new strings, woodwinds corking, I could go on for each and every instrument. If you have the perfect instrument design make a prototype share it with the rest of the world of course register it first so no one steals your ideas. As far as Jays and Matthews creations go you the first and only person I have ever heard refer to them as inferior or flawed. I know them both and can tell you each drum receives their attention and care. I guess you must consider Junior Tirado drums flawed also while many cherish them. I do not want to start anything but your opinions are agrevating me to the point of diareah. I also agree with Cuco(Leedy) no es la fletcha pero el indio, check out the rumberos in Cuba and the rest of the third world countries who cant afford new drums. They play wooden boxes and plastic buckets and much of the time sound better than alot of cats with NICE drums. In the end are you checking out the design or playing the drum and listening to the sound. In other fields older instruments are more revered than new ones and command higher prices, guitars and violins for instance. When new designs come in those field they go just as quickly. Tradition sometimes or more than not over powers the new in most areas, rotary engine VS pistons, the rotary is a better concept and ENGINEERING,less maintenace easier to fix but we know how that went. Just my opinion.

Ahem....My point is....bending & warping parts defeat the purpose of a tuning system, especially when a drum owner may have to do repairs to these flawed parts. I have no reason to accept what some regard as age old designs. Model T Fords are old designs too, but I would not trust my life or career to them when improved performance & dependability is available from the progress of industry,and it all comes down to intentional design to improve on flaws. Denial only stagnates improvement. It is a buyers market. If it is obvious to me that a design will cause me problems in the future...I will simply look at other options. A good drum shell cooper may not be a good hard ware designer but can copy simpler hard wares & tuning system designs but that is a dis service to the potential owners of the instruments. Repairs should never be nesesary to these parts except from damages unrelated to normal use. That's my point. Congueros have many options. Top tuned models existed in the past but were not well designed versions, there were always weak points to incomplete designs. But...look at all the damaged drum shells caused from the tuning system parts damaging adjacent drums. Is this acceptable to you ? Industrialist have controlled the direction of automotive...so its not a fair comparison in engineering. But...even traditional tuning can remove the cause for drum shell damage due to colliding drums & parts. Its just that no one tries or customers blindly accept the flaws that you call tradition. That sounds defeating from the start. This is why import drums dominate American made industries in so many categories and why Latin American goods seldom evolved to be of acceptable quality to north American markets. Quality issues *. But look at Brazilian Drum companies...they have high quality, advanced designs and are raising the standards of even low end products. Quality designs trickle down to less costly models when it is more common place. If Brazilian products remained crude & non standardized head sizes etc. The would not have grown in the market & other companies would have replaced them. Custom builders I would hope would lead the progress not follow ?

Re : Building prototypes. This is my intention to reproduce in stainless steel, what I already build and tested in steel. How ever, I must protect my designs since they are also part of a patent worthy system. If I reveal my numerous designs, products and improvements to the drum industry, I will be riped off & copied before I can gain from my work. This has already happened decades ago & some years ago, & are in several catalogs as a result. These progressive ideas were not on the market previous to my communications and public use of my home shop examples used and seen by sales reps, or letters I sent to companies in these regards. Drummers & percussionist have already gained from my influence. Now...I am more guarded. Superior Conga crowns are already available and first presented by Fat Congas. They used 1/2 round profile stainless steel that is a special extruded profile once used in bottling companies as rails in mass production . Sol, New Gon Bops, VGA & Volcano use the in conventional style but do not used crude stamped V's but a stronger more comfortable rod to form V's. The fastening system is conventional and I have an alternative design that follows the logic of self aligning tuning system that corrects problems and is part of a universal retro fit to all existing drums & older defunct brands that do not have specialized replacement parts available. it also has a wider application to other industries that use similar systems but where failure of parts & alignment issues may cost hundreds of thousands of $$$ to repair & replace and lives could be at stake. My criteria is higher than yours. But the resulting designs are just a smarter system & better made parts of cost effective, strength to weight ratios that are not any more expensive than the custom shaped tuning hooks & tuning systems now being used. They are simply not limited to old design limitations and uncorrected problems. Why are some people so opposed to improved function & maintenance free dependability that do not cause shell damage to instruments ?? If American innovators do not do it now, Then other sources will in time...its a logical progressive improvement ! I prefer to keep it home grown in the New World of the Americas. If I sub contract out sourced parts / materials etc. It will be in Latin America not Asia. Is that a bad thing ?

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 5:27 pm
by pcastag
We await your designs. Until then lets just say you sound a bit........ critical.

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 5:29 pm
by Ernesto Pediangco
vinnieL wrote:So it is your opinion that Ritmo and SOS are inferior drums?

I love the drum shell construction of both SOS & Ritmo. But they share crown designs & I have had to repair rivets that broke off the V's , warped & bent crown rims, bent saddles on the lug plates that caused the hook threads to be damaged from malalignments caused by the bending & warping parts. Also, I repaired out of round top drum edges caused by the fact that the Alma ring only made contact w/ some of the staves, not uniformly contacting & bracing each stave. If the alma rings were not flat stock but a more rigid square stock of same weight and counter sunk into a groove that holds the alma in place & uniformly bracing each stave, this would sucessfuly support the roundness of the drum and still allow natural expansion & contraction of the wood shell. Notice how wood barrel coopers cut a groove into the inside barrel so the lid is locked into a perfect circle and maintain a seal of the contents inside. This groove also keeps the staves locked against stresses that pull harder on staves w/ tuning lugs mounted which is where the upward tension pulls the staves & some times cause staves to separate or crack in the weaker soft grain of woods like oak that are naturally laminated w/ hard winter growth rings & more porous soft summer growth rings. Many softer tropical trees grow so fast all year long that the woods do not have the stronger dense winter growth rings ( like Asian / Siam Oak or Philippine Mahogany. These woods are more prone to natural & tension caused flexing and cracking. 100 year old wood sewer pipes had a V groove / tongue in groove stave construction that was very strong & locked the staves more securely than using pins or biscuits. In the case of using glue with tongue & groove, more adhesive surface areas strengthen the shells with out adding wider , heavier shell staves. I worked w/ Benny Sotello ( RIP ) who was a skilled cabinet maker / cooper who constructed the best 2 [ply staves shells I ever examined & played. Using heart woods on exterior & cross grained cheaper grade woods on interior, producing a stronger more uniform density stave w/ superior strength to weight ratios, used modern dependable adhesives, Fat Conga style crowns & lugs that could be guaranteed for life. The strong yet not heavy shells, resonated more in all tone frequencies. The only drum shells I see that approach this quality is Volcano shells fro Tom Alexander in Hawaii. A bright tonal drum can be muted to sound more like traditional congas simply by the care in selecting the drum head and species of hide used. By comparison, Lp's Paladium models which were inspired by drums made from Ritmo & SOS, have been over built, made to thick, too heavy, have heavier hard wares etc that all combine to limit shell resonance. It was the opposite direction to go in my opinion. How ever , improved Lug designs from Lp have been copied by all Asian brands. SOL, Ritmo, MoPerc & Timba use a lug saddle similar to old Gon Bops and this saddle is not braced enough to hold its original position on the shell plate. Timba did add more clearances to eliminate metal on metal damage to the hook threads and has room to add a nylon bushing as well to assist the function of the tuning system. Modern Gon Bops uses Asian style U saddles instead of the original Gon Bops or Valje style lug plate saddles. Meinl & Remo make the best rubber bumpers to protect shells. Simply using proper sized washers eliminate the protruding edges that cut into other drum shells. Sandwiching a nylon washer between 2 steel washers functions like a smoother bearing so less friction wears against crucial moving parts. I simply add a clear nylon tubing to my hard wares for a nice looking protective bumper that protects shells and is easy to allow tuning. I will add a picture as example of this from 1992 ? The crown is a low profile Stainless steel w/ 1/4 rounded top edge since st the time, the 1/2 round stainless was unavailable. Examine the shell, crown, lugs and protective covers on the hooks. All that is missing is a bottom of drum protective boot that allows more shell resonance.
Sotello congas2.jpg
Congas by Benny Sotello formerly did work w/ Fat Congas. ( 1992 ? ) Ernesto Pediangco

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 6:09 pm
by Ernesto Pediangco
pcastag wrote:We await your designs. Until then lets just say you sound a bit........ critical.

I have never seen any one else address these issues that I speak of. It is constructive criticism where problematic issues have become apparent by observing the reasons drum hardware or shell fail under normal conditions & some times from abuse. Some drums have some corrections added after decades of ignoring the problems but no one has done a comprehensive re design of the entire instrument & tuning system issues. Enhanced sound, functionality & dependability is my aim as I am in the process of creating my own drum line, patent worthy tuning system that retro fits the entire drum industry of contenporary & vintage brand models. Drum set, Latin & Parade field drums & orchestral drums all share basic principles & some differing applications. I am designing the happy medium of all these drums from the hard wares & tuning system and mating them to shells of all types. People have preferences to shells as personal likes & needs. But the tuning & mounting systems & drum head designs are my focus now for documenting my intellectual properties. My hard wares will be available to all drums that I can tool up the assembly templates for that require specialized configurations and of course...the standardised sizes. My own tuning hard wares eliminate the Hook shape and is more directly in line w/ self alignment parts., There are specifics I can not share. My intention is to simplify parts but be stronger & trouble free and user friendly and eliminate sharp protrusions or any weak links that fail in other designs. I was successful in previous made test. And I never showed them. Latin drums are crude & can not be compared to traditional inst. like a violin. But even Latin Timbales are not as refined as the American made timbales that are in arrested development since crude Asian made models have flooded the market and is not a desirable product for drum companies today. Cheap Asian models already exist, they simply contract a copy to be made and add a company logo. New generation percussionist are buying whatever the market dictates them to buy. They have no need to insist on a better product if they are oblivious to the shortcomings of what is commonly available. My product designs are the top class pro models but the designs will carry over to a lower price range as well. My lower class will have improvements beyond the top lines available now. Everything raises as a result. The proceeds are shared w/ my own mission statement / Non Profit Org. that is part of my biz model. The industrial arts, performing arts, creative arts & education w/ vocational training plans are as designed as are my instruments * . I hope you and yours...may one day benefit as a result.

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:49 am
by vinnieL
I'm reminded of Dr. Z's work on the forum a while back :D

Re: SKIN ON SKIN's Please comment

PostPosted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:01 am
by ABAKUA
vinnieL wrote:I'm reminded of Dr. Z's work on the forum a while back :D

4th person to say that! LOL. :lol: Does my head in reading his posts. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Click here for a laugh: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=31877 Ah the memories.... :lol: :lol: