Solid 1-piece cedar shells good?

[Whopbamboom]

Guys,
Any opinions on batas with wrench-tuned lugs, and whose shells are carved from one-piece cedar?

[blango]

Cedar, if its tropical, is the wood of choice. they do sometimes split as they adjust to the climate.

As far as the hardware, id have to see it.

Tony

[OLSONGO]

All fundamento batas should be carved from a whole piece of
wood, and to my understanding red cedar is the choice wood
no metal parts at all. The wave can be of any creation that will work, the skin has to be goat and the Iya or the biggest of the batas requieres a center dot of bees wax on the big head .

All those drums with metal hardware are not batas, so there is a misnomenclature. I saw one called Timba conga ??

Paz Olsongo

[Whopbamboom]

Here's a picture of what I saw:

Attachment: http://mycongaplace.com/forum/eng/uploa ... rbatas.jpg

[pcastag]

Metal hardware dos not mean the drum is not a bata, it is merely a drum that cannot be used as a fundamento, there are many bata drums that are not consecrated caled aberikula, they can be traditionally made and woven or can have metal hardware.
PC

[Whopbamboom]

I am interested in quality of construction (won't fall apart), and great sound. The santeria-specific things are not in my interest, and I mean no offense when I say that. I do not practice santeria. But I am interested in the drums themselves as a musical instrument, and so I am looking for information in that regards.

[pcastag]

Those are nice looking bata, they have the same typical hardware as the sonocs, not the best but fonctional. As far as the shell construction solid wood is preferable for sound, as long as they do not crack due to shrinkage or pressure from the lugs. I have a set of sonocs made from cedar staves, and the softness of the wood has caused some minor problems areound the lugs due to pressure from tuning. If those are the same as the ones on e-bay 800 is a fair price, guy probably paid 300-400 for them in Havana.
PC

[Whopbamboom]

So if I'm looking for solid cedar batas, I should maybe look for rope-tuned ones instead of lug-tuned ones?

[pcastag]

Not necessarily, rope tuned are really a hassle to tune, especially if you live in an area where the weather changes a lot. I would only suggest rope tuned drums for fundamento, there really isn't any other reason to have them except for esthetics. Those drums look nice, I think they would probably sound great, I'm just sayng that you would probably want to be careful when tuning, you might want to put some backing plates behind the lug plates if they dont have any, especially on the bottom bolts.
PC

[OLSONGO]

Yes solid wood drums are notorious for cracking under high pressure, I have a friend who makes solid wood drums and he assured me that the drilling, tunning and change in weather will eventually develop splits in the drum.

Paz Olsongo

[Whopbamboom]

Thanks so much for the info-- I'll probably just go for some Isla's next year.

[OLSONGO]

I know that to many drummers is of no concern if a drum is called a bata or other name. But the bataleros that I know don't want to be associated with the hardware drum, and yes they have a name for it as Pcastag mentioned aberikula.
So why call it what it is not. But America always has had this thing with names.
So I basically hold my respect to a very old tradition and to what it means to some bataleros, the playing of the true bata.
So for them to tune a rope bata is part of the whole picture.

Paz Olsongo

[pcastag]

A roped tuned bata that is not fundamento is still aberikula, I really don't see any difference, my teacher in Havana has two sets of fundamentos hanging in the same room that we took our lessons in playing on wrench tuned sonocs, he never really made any big deal out of the sonocs not being bata. What he did talk about was playing fudamento as being a big difference from playing aberikula, whether rope tuned aberikula or wrench tuned. And yes, pulling the drums is a big part of the tradition, one of my first teachers, a guy named skip who plays with puntilla and el negro in miami, made us sit and watch as he and abraham pulled puntillas fundamento, just so we could see what it was like.

PC



Edited By pcastag on 1185076167