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I've read that you should un-tune your congas after playing to save the heads.... every chance i get, i stop to practice a ryhthm. it may be for just 5-10 minutes, but it's usually several times throughout the evening. having to tune and un-tune them would be quite a bit of trouble and could take up precious practice time. is this really necessary????

Name: J. D.
Email: jdguidry@hotmail.com

NO. People that do that never play. As long as you keep them in tune it shouldn't be a problem. Although leaving your congas under a fan or where the temperature always changes can affect the tune.

Kingguaguanco
Email: kongavibe@aol.com

Don't worry! You can un-tune your congas at the end of the day. In general if you leave your congas always tuned sooner or later you will have to tune them again. This will bring you quickly to the end of the screw and affect the skin's quality. Skins are climate sensible but ten minutes or even few hours its a safe period for your congas. REMEMBER: use lug lubricant occasionally and tune the congas down at the end of your playing day: you will extend life and quality of your head.

When I know I'm not going to play my conga for a while (a day or two), I will loosen the head and allow it to relax. If I know I'm going to be playing it over the next day, I usually keep it tuned up.

There are two ways of looking at this problem: 1. If you keep your conga tuned-up, you can always just grab it and bang away whenever the impulse strikes you. On the other hand, if you are always tuning and de-tuning, you get a lot more familiar with your conga and understand its character.

BTW - both TOCA and LP literature will tell you to de-tune after playing. And I agree with CongaMan - keep your tuning lugs lubricated.

Best Regards, Eric

I see this thread is ancient, but I'll add my observations because I like to. I have a materials engineering background, so this analytical crap may appeal to somebody.

When you tune up your drum after a 'rest' of the heads, say for a day or more, notice how much you've turned the lugs. Let's say it's a full turn (360 deg turns on all lugs). Let's also say you leave them there for 2-3 days.

First, over this period, you'll probably have added in an 1/8 turn on the lugs to get the head up to snuff on tone. So THAT alone should tell you what's happening to the head.

Second, if after 2-3 days you relax (detune) the head, then come back later an tune to the same pitch you had before, you should also notice it now doesn't take a full turn to get back to the same tuning you had previously!!!

The conclusion: natural skin heads continue to stretch out when left under tension, and when allowed to relax for a few days, will shrink. Lots of materials do this--actually, as far as I know, ALL materials do this--it's called 'creep'. But in the case of synthetics, it probably takes so long and is so small an effect, folks don't notice it much. I don't know that--I've never used a synthetic head.

how much should one un-tune? only until the sound isn't good(not too loose) or very loose?

I also detune my congas after playing, period. (So no discussion about that...)
Well, as I like to experiment with different tunings with my 4 congas (although often I play just 2 of them at once) I untune the following way:
turning loose the screws until the head gives in to thumb or hand finger pressure.
Mostly, there is a dull tone connected to that degree of the skin´s looseness. Thus, the drums don´t produce a really proper open tone anymore.
Sometimetimes I even hit the drum centre with a fisdt to make sure it´s really loose.