Cuban cajones - Construction Issues

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Postby guarachon63 » Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:15 pm

I'm not 100% satisfied with the sound, I think because of the maybe too thick batter head, it sounds a little bit too "slappy", if you know what I mean.....open tone is missing!


I felt the same way about a big caja that I made once. Not "boomy" enough. But if the wood is too thin then the sound gets kind of soft. Whenever I took mine to rumbas I always tried to position it with the sound hole in a corner, which helped to project the sound alot. But still would have been nice to have a "go anywhere" caja.

Señor Altmann, how satisfied are you with the sound of yours?

PS: Sound aside, it is a beautiful box, but I have to admit I raised my eyebrows at the insertion of the snares in the bass cajon. Of course we all have our tastes, but my experience has been that the snare sound on the caja is not typical of the Cuban cajon sound but rather more common in Peruvian and Flamenco.
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Postby guarachon63 » Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:23 pm

Berimbau wrote:
My understanding was always that on the Cuban cajon the wooden head was supposed to be strongly adhered to the shell to give purer bass and tone sounds closer to those from a conga drum. Flamenco and Peruvian cajons were made to be a bit less refined, loose screws, added snares, inshort, far more funk and noise.
But is this asessment accurate? I do know that old drawers would be used in the Habana solars for yambu, and those things had to sound REAL funky. Ditto any codfish or candel boxes.


I seem to recall from the Ortiz "Los Instrumentos" books a description of how the candle and codfish boxes were dismantled and the wood soaked then left to dry in the sun (?) and then re-assembled and horse-glued together. So if I am recalling correctly there were from the early days attempts to get a tighter, more resonant sound. But I for my taste the Fat cajones over-do it.
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Postby tamboricua » Wed Sep 13, 2006 5:43 pm

guarachon63 wrote:I seem to recall from the Ortiz "Los Instrumentos" books a description of how the candle and codfish boxes were dismantled and the wood soaked then left to dry in the sun (?) and then re-assembled and horse-glued together. So if I am recalling correctly there were from the early days attempts to get a tighter, more resonant sound.

Hola Guarachon63,

I'm aware of some "barriles de bomba" artisans in Puerto Rico that still do that technique you just described.

Saludos,

Jorge Ginorio
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Postby Berimbau » Wed Sep 13, 2006 6:56 pm

Yes Ortiz did speak of Afro-Cubans "re-assembling" those boxes for a bit tighter fit/sound. Ned Sublette reiterates this in his fine book. But what IS the desired sound? Or is that sounds, as there may be no consensus on this?
Now I, too, found the Fat Congas box a bit too refined for my taste, and so I got a Meinl. Both are great instruments, but what I needed was something in between these sounds.
After reading About the Munequitos visit to Fat Congas, I was determined to take matters into my own hands to get the sound I wanted out of an instrument I already owned.
First I carefully removed the existing wooden head on the Fat Congas box, well maybe not THAT carefully, I used a stout wooden broom handle to push that puppy off of it from underneath! Next I screwed a thin piece of door skin (still a bit thicker than what Fat Congas originally used) onto the box.
WOW!!!!! What a GREAT sound. Nice boomy djembe bass tones, clean open tones, just a subtle bit of buzzing sound, and a crisp slap that goes right through your nerve endings! Makes me wonder if their new "Munequitos" model sounds as good as mine? Anyway, I also feel much happier having a cajon with a horizontal orientation.
Now does anyone want to buy my new Meinl? It never left the house..............................................


Saludos,



Berimbau
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Postby ralph » Wed Sep 13, 2006 9:08 pm

OKAY...soaking the wood and letting it dry, i've heard of the concept and the use of weathered plywood on cajones, it this soaking of the wood considered weathering?

I'd like to know how the wood changes in soaking it and then using it?

Jorge, do you know why artisans use this technique in barril construction?

Cajoneros?
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Postby Thomas » Wed Sep 13, 2006 10:50 pm

PS: Sound aside, it is a beautiful box, but I have to admit I raised my eyebrows at the insertion of the snares in the bass cajon. Of course we all have our tastes, but my experience has been that the snare sound on the caja is not typical of the Cuban cajon sound but rather more common in Peruvian and Flamenco.


It wasn't my intention to build a typical Cuban Cajon, but to build a Cajon for unplugged Pop with deep bass and a open tone with the sound of a snare drum ...just to imitate a drum set. I think the next ones will be more traditional then.
All the best,
Tom
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Postby OLSONGO » Thu Sep 14, 2006 5:54 am

Hermanos, keep in mind the placement of the hole,
I have found out that by placing the hole on the side and high, it gives me more bass and a deeper tone, also this allows for the front with the door skin, and the back for the peruvian, spanish snare feel.
I am stilll experimenting, will keep u up on what happens. At times I like the traditional, but also like to be creative and develop my own ideas is part of the evolution of man.

Paz OLSONGO
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Postby Thomas Altmann » Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:37 am

Cajoneros:

As I had intended to build a cajón set suitable for traditional Cuban Rumba, I designed each of the boxes accordingly. My quinto sounds exactly the way I wanted it, and better, and so does the tumba/caja. For what I am doing, the caja is a dream. That bass is full sounding and cuts through every band (tested!). It's like those bass drums they used in the beginning of the eighties :) . That's what I wanted to hear. If I wanted that drum set surrogate, I would keep using my girlfriend's tiny Peruvian cajón of the Schlagwerk brand.

The thick front board is great for the bass sound, and I'm proud of it. Everybody says you'd have to use thinner wood (like the one I had used for the quinto). I feel that would take that bass quality away from the caja. It would only get more overtone and attack, more than I'd want to hear.

As for the open tone, this is one thing I decided to sacrifice. If you look at the drawings in Ortiz's book, you see that the player plays on the side of the cajón with the left hand. I have a photo from Cuba where somebody plays like that. The sides of my caja don't give a lot of sound, because I decided to keep the caja transportable. If I had wanted the higher pitchd open tone, I would have build the whole thing deeper, and maybe use a thinner panel on the sides. But mind that this box has to carry a person sitting on top of it! The thinner the walls are, the more you have to work with reinforcements, which again inhibit the sound.

I feel, to place the hole more towards the side would be a good idea, if you wanted an even fuller bass tone. I achieve the best sound by hitting the batter more off-center, not opposite the sound hole. But the centered sound hole gives more punch. Therefore I'm glad I made it the way I did. Originally I had even considered to place the hole in the bottom board, because that's what Ortiz described, and that's what Steve Tierra wrote about. But it's just fine the way it is.

The only thing I have to alter is to change the felt stickers under the "legs" for rubber. The longer (and harder) I play, I'm constantly slipping backwards with my box. Also, I like to sit more down if I play congas, more than some other congeros (sitting higher), and if I want to combine the caja with conga playing (which I will probably do often), the height of the seating surface is slightly to high for me; so I would consider building the caja box lower. I would have to see how that looks; to keep the relations of the dimensions, I would perhaps have to build the whole thing smaller then. I was going a lot by the looks, by estimation etc. But I experimented a bit with the front board, having both a thinner and a thicker one at disposal, and testing each of them, using double-sided adhesive tape instead of the final glue.

Greetings,

TA
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Postby tamboricua » Thu Sep 14, 2006 8:58 pm

ralph wrote:Jorge, do you know why artisans use this technique in barril construction?

Ralph,

By soakening it in water the wood expands again and seals leaving no air spaces or cracks. Jesus Cepeda employs this techinque when making barriles.

Saludos,

Jorge Ginorio




Edited By tamboricua on 1158267531
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Postby korman » Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:19 am

After reading this discussion, and seeing FatCongas website with their sound samples, I decided to build a cajon myself. Though I don't know nothing about playing bata, I chose the bata style design, looking for something different. I also wanted a cajon because it's weatherproof and doesn't require any tuning - just grab it and play!

It only took me half a day to build, but I had the sides machine sawed at the plywood shop, and for them I used laminated plywood, which does not require any varnishing or painting. For heads I used 4mm birch plywood. Larger head is 25x25cm, smaller 15x15cm. Sides are 1cm thick laminated birch plywood, 60cm long.

I am very pleasantly surprised by the result! The drum is very versatile - can be played bata style across the lap on both heads or tan tan style on the larger head and side, or djembe/conga style upright on the larger head. Even udu like sound effects are possible by playing with the sound hole. Only I'm not yet fully satisfied with the sound of smaller head which I'll try to re-glue.




Edited By korman on 1158305167

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Postby ralph » Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:28 pm

tamboricua wrote:By soakening it in water the wood expands again and seals leaving no air spaces or cracks. Jesus Cepeda employs this techinque when making barriles.

Saludos,

Jorge Ginorio

thanks Jorge, I figured the characteristics of the wood would change, I just couldn't put my finger on exactly how....u da man...
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