Out-of-round

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!

Out-of-round

Postby Kona » Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:35 pm

I'm tucking a new head on this drum. I was going to buy the metal fleshhoop and the round but decided to keep the original metal fleshhoop as it might fit to the drum as good or better than a new one. We'll see.
The head probably came with the drum from GonBops 30 or more years ago.
Here's some photos of my out-of-round drum, head and lug hoop.
I'm thinking my drum is an 11 inch Conga?
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby jorge » Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:01 am

Conga heads don't necessarily have to be perfect circles. One of the best sounding drums I ever played was Regalao's quinto (Afrocuba) which had a beautiful dry tone with very short sustain and no overtones at all. The head literally was egg shaped looking from the top down, much more out of round than your drum. No metal alma inside and the head was stretched down unevenly. And Regalao made that quinto sing!
Not sure what method you were thinking of to "fix" the shape. Don't feel obligated to try to make the head perfectly circular unless the drum doesn't sound good, there is a high risk of cracking the staves when you try to change the shape. And if the skin sounds good and you are just changing it for aesthetics, keep playing it until it breaks or loses its sound.
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Kona » Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:41 am

Jorge
My drum sounds good enough but I though I'd change the head .... maybe a different and new sound for the drum you know. My oval drum with the stretched head is still a real cool drum.

I'm in no way trying to bring the drum into true round. You're right.. it probably would damage it.
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Chtimulato » Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:49 pm

If you like this skin, maybe you can try to reuse it : soaking it and remounting it on the drum.
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Kona » Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:11 pm

Chtimulato wrote:If you like this skin, maybe you can try to reuse it : soaking it and remounting it on the drum.


I'm keeping it the way it is. It still has decent tone. I've tucked a few heads and from what I can see on this one there may not bee quite enough diameter to retuck it. It's a thick one and they're a bit of a bear to tuck at best. Ti have it on the short side would make it very difficult to retuck.
I'll tuck a new head and keep this old head.
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby jorge » Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:27 am

I still don't see why you are changing the skin. The tone usually gets better and cleaner as skins get older and are played more. The slap may lose some of its crispness if you don't continually work on your technique, but really good players can get a real dry and clean slap from the oldest most broken in skins, even if they are not tuned very high.
If the old skin looks like it might rip unexpectedly at a gig, or you are afraid to tune it up to normal playing range, that is a reason to change it before it rips. Some people change skins when they get too ugly, but I only go by the sound and playability. Sometimes I take an old skin that looks like it is going to split (or that has ripped already, or that turned out to be too thin) off a conga and use it for a bongo hembra skin. As long as there is enough good skin left to mount it, that works well, and you don't have to break it in again on the bongo to get rid of overtones. The last argument is from the point of view of the cow, that efficient use of skins does reduce demand, which combined with the vegan movement, does reduce the number of cows (or mules or buffalo etc) that are raised to be slaughtered. Still not enough to get me to go to plastic skins, but compassion plays a role here too.
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Kona » Sun Mar 07, 2021 4:32 am

jorge wrote:I still don't see why you are changing the skin. The tone usually gets better and cleaner as skins get older and are played more. The slap may lose some of its crispness if you don't continually work on your technique, but really good players can get a real dry and clean slap from the oldest most broken in skins, even if they are not tuned very high.
If the old skin looks like it might rip unexpectedly at a gig, or you are afraid to tune it up to normal playing range, that is a reason to change it before it rips.

I guess you may not have fully read my last post. I am keeping this head. I am, however, buying a new head... I'll still be able to swap the new for the old...
And, yes, this old head is getting a bit sketchy on the bearing edge... splitting. So... I am a little cautious when tuning it up.
It's still sounding okay... some good tone. Still a bit of a pop...slap left in er.
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Thomas Altmann » Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:57 am

Dear Jorge,

as to the point of compassion; yes, humans seem to be much more cruel to animals than predators (which are animals, too). Sometimes I am taken by the notion that we deserve every pandemic that will ever come up. Carnivores hunt and eat other animals; that's bad enough, but it's the way this universe is designed. It's the sheer quantity of domestic bred animals consumed by a human overpopulation that perverts this whole affair. I could go on, and I know that many of us would go further and draw radical consequences. However - cowhides are used for shoes and even carpets to a much higher amount than for drum heads. And still the hides are a by-product, compared to the demand of the beefsteak addicts among us. We drummers are a small crowd, and most of us (drum set players) do resort to plastic heads already. Using cow skins might even be seen as an expression of a "no waste" philosophy.

As far as ring and overtones are concerned, I'd like to throw in one aspect: Often it's the overtones that give the drum its character, especially in an ensemble, where they really enrich the group sound rather than being perceived as an annoying ring. Overtones also lend brilliance to the attack, which underlines the slap effect. On the other hand, an old skin that has been stretched and tuned up and down hundreds of times, simply loses its texture and vibration quality. It gets near a chamois. That said, I can tell I've been using thick hembra heads for 20 years and more, while a macho will last maybe 5 to 10 years. And if Cuban drummers don't change their drum heads often, it may rather have to do with scarce supply ...

Apart from that, it's probably hard to get any excessive ring from a mahogany Gon Bops drum :wink:

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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Kona » Sun Mar 07, 2021 4:24 pm

Thomas. I hear you regarding 'crule humans'. I think about it almost everyday .... and see it often. I've said the very same thing as you when you made reference to humans deserving a pandemic. I've often thought that it will probably be a virus or bacteria that will cause a severe die-back amoung humans.
As far as my calfhide and natural hide drums go.... I do often feel guilty about having them. I'm a hypocrite in that regard... no excuse. I do love my drums but I will say I love the natural world more. In fact... I worked my entire professional career in Law Enforcement in the protection of fish and fish habitat. I'm also an avid birder. The best part of my day is when I go for a walk on the forest trails near my home or up into the mountains.
Thank you for your reply.
Sincerely,
Gary
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Re: Out-of-round

Postby Chtimulato » Mon Mar 08, 2021 12:41 pm

In my eyes, there's no incompatibility between respecting nature and using animal skins and/or eating meat.

From another forum, I know a Native American conguero (he's Navajo), who says a prayer every time he has to mount a skin on one of his drums. And he's got quite a lot. He says he does this to thank the animal which provided its skin.
And I know that Haitian vodĂșn drummers say a prayer every time they fell atree, to thank the tree too.
In both cases, the relationship to nature is still there.
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