Conga Tuning Guide/Thoughts!

[drbongo42]

Some thoughts on Conga Tunings...

The Covid 19 pandemic gave me plenty of time to experiment with different conga tunings and I thought I would share my thoughts/findings for anyone who is interested in the topic and/or has their own approach to tuning Congas and Bongos. There is a great article written by Alex Pertout which discusses tuning in detail and gives an extensive list of tunings used by famous conga players which I would recommend reading – The Conga Drum (2008)

There are basically three different approaches to tuning congas:

Tuning each individual drum to its most resonant pitch

Tuning the drums to recognisable musical intervals but not to specific notes

Tuning the drums to specific musical notes

1. is the approach most beginners take and it can produce very good results if you have drums of different sizes and/or with different types/thicknesses of head - as this will produce a range of distinctive sounds/pitches. This won’t work so well if you have drums of the same size and skin type/thickness as they will sound too similar. It also means that unless you get very lucky the actual intervals between the drums will not match those commonly used by professional conga players on recordings or at live events and thus you will struggle to emulate the rhythms/melodies they play.

2. Is probably the most common method used by more experienced conga players. This involves tuning the drums so that the musical interval between them is e.g. a perfect fourth or a fifth apart. This is often done by singing a familiar tune or matching the pitch of the drums to notes played on a piano. In most scenarios this works well and makes sense if you are using traditional rawhide heads, because the pitch of the drums may well change during your performance if the temperature and/or humidity levels change. In theory if the heads are of a similar type and thickness they should expand or contract at a similar rate so that although the actual pitches are changing the intervals between the drums should stay roughly the same. The downside to this is that the way your drums sound will change from session to session and it won’t be easy to reproduce a specific pitch/sound if required.

3. Is the method used by most professional congas players. This has been true for many years, however with the development of synthetic conga heads it makes a lot more sense for all players to consider. Tuning to a specific set of notes allows you to reproduce the same pitches/sounds every time you play and if you are using synthetic heads they will generally stay in tune once they are worn in, as they are generally unaffected by temperature and humidity. Rawhide heads do sound better in my opinion, but with each new generation of synthetic heads the difference gets smaller and in combination with their tuning stability I think they are the best choice, although they are still ridiculously expensive because of the smaller turnover compared to drumkit heads. Most professional have their own preferred set of notes and if you read the article I referenced above you will see there is no standard tuning which the majority of players use. They each have their own preferences which gives their playing a unique pitch and sound.

However, tuning a drum, like a conga or bongo is not as straight forward as tuning a string on a guitar. Most professionals will tune their congas by ear to their preferred pitches using a piano or pitch pipe. Because the sound of a drum decays quickly it is harder to match the pitch then with sounds that last longer – so for this reason they often strike the drum then sing the note it makes and then compare that to the piano. Traditional guitar tuners do not work very well with such short sounds but there are now tuners and apps designed to measure the pitch of drums. If you have ever analysed the waveform of a conga drum recording you will have seen that it in fact produces a range of pitches, the one we generally hear is the fundamental note – the deepest and loudest note. But depending on the drum shell and the thickness/tightness of the skin one of the higher overtones might be the loudest and this can throw you off quite easily. I generally use the Drum Bot tuner and/or the Drumtune Pro app on my phone and I find both of these give reliable results, especially if there are other noises going on around you.

I find that one of the best ways to experiment with new tunings without having to constantly get your spanner out and start cranking is to record all of your drums individually using open tones, heel, toe and slaps etc and then to import them as samples into a digital instrument like the Roland HPD20 or any keyboard/sample player. You can then change the pitches electronically to try out different combinations of notes to see what works best for you. There are limits on what pitches you can realistically get from your drums depending on its diameter and the thickness of the head, but most drums have a tuning range of at least a fifth between the lowest and highest notes it can produce a nice resonant tone at. The pitches you ultimately decide on will depend on the number of drums you have and the style of music you play. I generally find that lower tunings work well with older more traditional styles of latin music and higher tunings work well with more modern dynamic styles. This is probably because of the limitations of tuning lugs/rims and rawhide heads used back in the day as well as the relatively lower volume of the music.

Although for gigs I generally only use two or three drums at home I have room for a six drum setup in my music room. They are all made by Tycoon: I use two quintos, two congas, two tumbas and a set of bongos all with Remo Fiberskyn/NuSkyn heads. Remo conga and bongo heads are about twice as expensive as Rawhide/Evans and they are constructed with one thick piece of mylar, as opposed to two thin pieces of mylar with a centre patch sandwiched in middle on the Evans heads. Remo also produce a much wider variety of sizes although it can still be hard to find the correct sizes if your congas are not made by one of the major suppliers like LP, Toca, Pearl or Meinl etc. If you are a beginner, I would try to avoid buying a new 10’ & 11” set, for the same price you can probably buy two used full size 11”, 11¾” or 12½” drums from ebay, it doesn’t matter if they are different colours – they will sound better and be easier to play. You can also often find Remo conga heads on ebay used or just opened and they are a lot cheaper than buying them new. But be sure to check the sizes before ordering. Anyway let’s get onto some actual tunings for different numbers of drums.

6 Drum Setup & Bongos.png

These are the tunings of my 6 drum & bongos setup. These pitches work well for the individual drums in terms of pitch and resonance, and they provide a variety of useful intervals which are vital for reproducing common rhythms and voicings. This setup provides three perfect 4th intervals between different pairs of congas as well as on the bongos. There are also two 5th intervals and two minor 3rds. This allows me to play traditional latin rhythms as well a jazz/fusion and pop/rock music using different combinations of drums. It is important to point out that I would rarely use more than three drums whilst playing an individual tune, but this setup allows me to switch to a different set of three for each tune depending which pitches/notes work best. In reality it isn’t practical to take this many drums to a gig or recording session in terms of transport and/or room on the stage/recording studio unless you are a top line professional with the relevant transport/support. I have found that for smaller gigs and/or jam sessions just taking the Roland HPD20 and plugging it into the PA system gives me access to six drums & bongos, without the mic’ing/feedback issues and the added advantage of being small, portable and giving me the ability to shift the pitch of all of the drums up or down a semi-tone or two between songs. But it isn’t as much fun to play. So here are some smaller combinations to try...

5 Drum Setup.png

4 Drum Setup.png

3 Drum Setup.png

2 Drum Setup.png

I would love to hear any feedback on this guide as well as other peoples’ approaches and preferred tuning combinations etc. There is no right way to tune your drums and much of this is very subjective in terms of taste as well as the specific dimensions of your drum the type of rims, lugs and heads etc. But I wish someone had explained all of this to me years ago so I at least had a starting point to explore from instead of stabbing in the dark for many years...

drbongo