Okonkolo Identification

[p.a.dogs1]

I bought a single Bata drum (Okonkolo) with the larger skin ripped for 20 €.

Is anybody able to assign it to a specific brand? It looks similar to this one: download/file.php?id=12721&mode=view

I´m searching for suitable hooks, which should be formed straight instead of curved. As you can see in the second photo: the tension of the originally curved hooks runs quite angular.

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi p.a.dogs,

correct, it's a Cuban SONOC, no doubt.

The adjustment of the iron tuning system to the shape of the batá body is often a problem, not only with Cuban drums. You have to be inventive. If you can't bend the bolt or acquire one that fits better, you can work with washers that you insert under the L-lug. Or you turn the bolt around, with the hook showing outwards (looks ugly, though).

Gruß,
Thomas

[p.a.dogs1]

Hey Thomas,
thank you for your prompt answer. Turning around the bolt I tried immediately after receiving the drum. But it made no significant difference. The photo of kdarshan ...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9292

... shows straight bolts on all drums´smaller ends and on both ends of the itolele. Seems as if somebody took a modification (I don´t think it looks ugly btw.). Maybe I find straight bolts with hooks of less diameter, which are cut directly behind the bending. Another solution could be wedges between the corpus and the lugs.

I have another question regarding the bearing edges (they are not as elaborated as I would make them).

A possible explanation for such flat edges could be that the sounds of an okonkolo are produced preferebly with fingers - in combination with the sound of the wooden corpus (similar to darbuka techniques).

Grüße zurück!
Oliver

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi Oliver,

wouldn't straight hooks make things even worse, or am I wrong?

I have a complete SONOC set. All the edges are like that, and the drums sound better (to my ears) than the LPs, for an instance. Funky looks produce funky sounds
Do what you want, but I would keep it like that. Everything you do to the wood is irreversible.

The technique on the enú side is perhaps comparable to the bongo hembra, if at all. I don't know too much about darabukka technique, but what I have seen does not resemble okónkolo technique. In Matanzas they use finger strokes on the chachá in addition to slaps, while generally in Havana style only slaps are played on the chachá.

More body contact at the edge of the drum head inhibits the vibration of the membrane but adds more of the woody timbre of the body to the resonance, while producing more of a punchy attack from the skin.

Should you have any special questions you want to ask me personally, feel free to give me a call. My phone number is still the same for 30 years.

Thomas

[p.a.dogs1]

Thank you Thomas, nice offer!

I found these:



Their diameter is not 8mm but the length is correct.