ISLA PERCUSSION - Discussion, Quality, Experience, etc

[Anonimo]

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[Jose Marquez]

After reading this thread off and on for a few months I must say I was a bit worried cause I also placed an order for some drums with Mario and didn't hear from him for a bit. I finally heard from him a few months back. He said he had a family emergency and literally had to close up shop till he returned. We kept in communication here and there on the progress of my drums, but in good faith I decided to pay off the remainder that I owed anyway. A couple months later I'm happy to report that my drums arrived yesterday and look and sound amazing!!

Mario said he appologizes to everyone who has been waiting, "life happens" and Isla is back on track and ready to pick up where they left off

[Congadelica]

Photos please, I love mu Islas but feel the pain some of you guys have gone through. life happens

[Jose Marquez]

[bongosnotbombs]

Very very nice congas. Mahogany is a very beautiful wood with an excellent sound. Actually I just received an iya bata drum from Isla myself yesterday. I'll be posting pics later on when there is better light, it's raining now.

[tigre77]

Very sexy! The drum, the stone floor, the background, todo. Enjoy.

[pcastag]

Yeah man! Looks nice, I hope Mario got his business sense together, takes time to rebuild a reputation.
PC

[SpEd]

beautiful... looks like some nice grain matching, and the rims look a lil lower to start... enjoy them man... I know I do mine

[Mike]

I don´t want to be a spoiler,
but in photo #2 the skin looks strange to me,
there are some wrinkles and unevenness too.
Can you confirm that or is it just optical illusion?
Perhaps the drum has not been tuned up yet?

[Anonimo]

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[KING CONGA]

Congratulations Jose, you’ve got a beautiful set of drums. I am sure that they sound as good as they look too. That is some sweet looking wood, it looks gorgeous.
It's a tough business but I do hope that Mario does better overall.

[Mike]

in photo #2 the skin looks strange to me,
there are some wrinkles and unevenness too.
Can you confirm that or is it just optical illusion?
Perhaps the drum has not been tuned up yet?

That is called Nitpicking ,The drum look good enjoy them .

Would not call it like that, I´d rather prefer an answer by Jose Marquez if you don´t mind.

No doubt they are very fine drums. But I think one can really expect top-notch
skins by top drum artisans. Only looking good does not mean much!
I do know Isla drums sound fantastic though.

[Ozone1]

I have four Isla drums that four years old that sound as good as the day I first played them, only better! I to felt that the finnish was rushed, maybe something to do with the
cost of the drums compared to other drum makers at that time ? As a professional painter I know how to finnish different types of wood. Oak is one of the easiest to finnish the open grain hide imperfections and you can get a good finnish with two coats of poly . Popular is different, closed grain
makes harder to finnish . I have applied at least 7 coats of poly to my drums hand sanding between coats to remove brush strokes and imperfections
vacuuming the dust of then using a tack cloth to remove more dust then apply anther coat of poly, they now shine like LP's finnish that they pay
someone overseas pennies to to do! You would not want to see the bill of what it would cost if I would charge you by the hour to do the work I did
to my Isla's
My Islas are not cracking at the stave's because of the so called glue lines that can be sen on other custom drums as well

[Jose Marquez]

I don´t want to be a spoiler,
but in photo #2 the skin looks strange to me,
there are some wrinkles and unevenness too.
Can you confirm that or is it just optical illusion?
Perhaps the drum has not been tuned up yet?

It looks worse than it is because of the discoloration of the skin and the lighting. The skin is very thick and hasn't been broken in yet, but the deep tone is even throughout when striking the head in any section

[Anonimo]

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