Tone woods

[taikonoatama]

This snare gallery has a list of woods on the right, many of which have good descriptions of their tonal characteristics. I'd imagine there'd be some issues in directly applying this to congas, but interesting nonetheless.

http://www.drumsolo.cc/snare_drums/snare_gallery/snare_gallery.html

~Taiko



Edited By taikonoatama on 1181852527

[Whopbamboom]

Thanks for posting that drumsolo site! Great photos, very informative on the woods as used in the drums.

[Whopbamboom]

Further reading on woods (as used in guitars):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonewood



And, does anyone know of how river/lake-salvaged old wood (stuff that's been underwater a hundred years or more, with the trees themselves being 300+ years old)might sound in drums or other musical instruments??

[bongo]

I know that the shell (wood type/fiberglass) has a factor in the sound of the conga, but it is my experience that skin type and thickness has an even bigger effect.

Take off the thin water buffalo hide and put a thicker bull skin head on a ringy LP fiberglass drum, and you will have an entirely different sounding drum.

Or heck, get rid of the shell entirely and you've got those new portable congas, whatever they call them.

It is a good point that mahogany is a softer wood and yet much admired for its sound quality. That's why douglas fir or pine has similar qualities I think, or that cedar used by Bauer. The wood is tougher than you may think, many houses are built from them.

Spruce is not a dense wood at all, it is light weight and considered a soft wood. Yet it is THE choice for the sounding boards of violins and pianos. Stadivarius used it in his famous violins, along with maple.

So some of us seem to be thinking along the same lines here ... there is more to this than just the hardness and density of the wood. It is being used as the drum shell, not as a clave.




Edited By bongo on 1181862271

[bongosnotbombs]

So some of us seem to be thinking along the same lines here ... there is more to this than just the hardness and density of the wood. It is being used as the drum shell, not as a clave.

Fair enough, but it is known that soft materials
dampen the volume of sound. Pine is adequate as far as
tensile and compressive strength for houses, but is too soft be have any kind of surface durability for drums, it would dent. Pine is also often quite knotty.

My uklele is spruce top with mahogany sides, many guitars are similar,
I don't know about violins.

Again with guitars and such one wants sustain, so I feel softer woods are
appropriate. They probably produce longer wavelengths.

Drums want amplification and a shorter sound with is produced from harder surfaces. But not very hard woods, congas still want some sustain.

In regards to the new travel conga's they do not have a wood body resonator, which is the point, they are meant to be kind of quiet arent they?

I think it would be interesting of someone could find a chart of the relative hardnesses of woods.



Edited By bongosnotbombs on 1181877032

[taikonoatama]

I think it would be interesting of someone could find a chart of the relative hardnesses of woods.

"The Janka (or side) hardness test measures the force required to embed a .444 inch steel ball to half its diameter in wood. This is one of the best measures of the ability of wood species to withstand denting and wear. It is also a good indicator of how hard a species is to saw or nail."

I think this particular chart is intended for a comparison of woods used in flooring, which is why it mostly lists harder woods - I would expect there to be a whole lot of softer woods that they just wouldn't put on here, that would appear below the mahogany at the bottom. Oak and maple are certainly hard woods, yet even they are in the bottom half here.



Edited By taikonoatama on 1181925873

Attachment: http://mycongaplace.com/forum/eng/uploa ... rdness.gif

[bongosnotbombs]

That is an awesome chart Taiko!
Just to add a bit more of what I know about the properies of sound.

Hardness allows sound to bounce off a surface easier, less damping.

Density allows sound to travel through something easier.

So the ideal wood would have the best combination of these for sound, disregarding other factors like long term stability, checking, weight, durability etc...

One would think density ad hardness go hand it hand, but it doesnt (ie, lead. soft and dense, like my brain! )

[Whopbamboom]

Well, I think the "ideal" wood type would be different depending on the application (i.e., live amplified performance, live acoustic performance, studio recording, etc.) In fact, that seems obvious.

My suspicion is that some of these woods are not being used in congas simply because nobody's ever built a conga from them (quite possibly due to low availability or lack of desire to experiement with expensive wood). And therefore, perhaps some truly world-class congas have yet to be built.

I'm really enjoying this discussion, as I hope to be able to eventually commission a custom set out of wood that I have chosen for my drums. But in the end, perhaps the human ear wouldn't be able to tell a significant difference in sound between some of these wood types??? I don't know. As a percussionist, I believe that every little change you make will have an effect on sound at some level. But I also realize that some differences in sound are so minute that it really doesn't effect anything in the big picture.

For me, I will just have to try to make the most educated choice after doing my research.



Edited By Whopbamboom on 1181935443

[Whopbamboom]

Hardness allows sound to bounce off a surface easier, less damping.

This might explain why some congas are "brighter" than others. But could this also lead to a "ringy" conga?

[bongosnotbombs]

It has always been my understanding from experience with bongos that ringing is due to uneven tension of the skin of the head of the drum.....................G!

[Whopbamboom]

A little more about the Janka scale:

http://www.theflooringlady.com/janka_scale.html

http://www.hampshirehardwoods.com/hardwood-hardness.aspx



And, here are a few more pages with woods hardnesses listed (most are from flooring places, and they tend to list the woods that they carry):

http://www.surfpick.com/hardness/

http://www.realoakfloors.co.uk/janka_hardness_scale.php

http://www.woodsthebest.com/wood/jankaWoodHardnessScale.htm

http://www.countyfloors.com/about_janka.html

http://www.brazilianhardwood.com/products/janka.php

http://www.thehardwoodfloorguys.com/janka.html

http://www.seattlefloor.com/hardwoods.php

http://www.hardwooddirect.com/hardwoo....ale.asp

http://www.builddirect.com/Article....11.aspx

[Whopbamboom]

Another great site for anyone who wants to hand-select the wood for their "ultimate" conga set:

http://woodworkerssource.net/onlinewoods/

[Whopbamboom]

This one may also yield some useful info:

http://www.globaltrees.org/downloads/reso_educ_01.pdf

You'll have to use the magnifying feature to be able to see it well.

[blango]

A few random thoughts here...

resin producing woods, like pine, fir, cedar, redwood, (spruce??) etc. are not favored due to leaching of the resin over time. They are all conifers, producing cones, as opposed to flowers.

also, hydrophilic woods like mahogany may lend themselves to a more dry sound.

I think the tone woods have a clear unified resonance, with clear overtones.

I was lucky to play a set of Sky's solid walnut drums (thanks Kevin!), they had a long sustain, or ring, but it was very clean and didnt sound at all like the ringiness of an oak drum. I rather liked the sustain, as clean as it was, and i think those tubs would be great in a big Salsa setting.

It all depends on the sound one wants - its so subjective.

But for me, i want to sound like the old school cuban cats who were playing Caribbean cedar, or the fania sound of mahogany.

Mahogany is very rare and unsustainable, grows in isolated groves, and is not commercially farmed due to its need for its specific habitat. American Cherry is a good alternative.

- Cedar, like redwood, is resistant to fire, insect, rot etc. (due to presence of tannic acid)

Quarter sawn is always more stable, but conifers often have an even softer hartwood - so one needs a large tree to get quarter sawn staves out of it.

Angiosperms, or flowering trees, are more apt to providing quater sawn staves.

- the drying of the wood is also key, as far as stability.

Random, i know;)

Tony



Edited By blango on 1182104122

[Tonio]

Not to parade on this great thread but,
I think the hands and skin has more effect in the tone of drums more than anything.
With that said, I do not disagree that to an exent the drum shell's wood characteritic does partake in the overall sound from the drum. I also think that the belly shape and hardware come in second to the skin used-mainly type and thickness.
Lets not forget the room that its played in also.

Now back to the scheduled program.

T