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Posted: **Mon May 02, 2005 3:25 pm**

I recently bought a Meinl Marathon Classic conga. I've noticed that there is a slight "ping" of high overtones after I do a closed slap. I figured out that the overtones were coming from the shell by taking the head off and tapping the body of the drum.

It seems like most congas have this problem to some degree. The overtones are fairly soft and die off quickly on this drum. Old Gon Bops are the only drums that I have discovered to have a perfectly clean sound. Unfortunately, I sold off my Gon Bops about 10 years ago due to carpal tunnel problems.

Has anyone tried modifying their drum to dampen the overtones? Did you find anything that worked? I was thinking about applying tung oil to the inside of the shell. Would that be a really stupid thing to do?

Posted: **Tue May 03, 2005 8:45 am**

Have you revised your tuning of the dums? Sometimes skins need to be broken in so to speak. If its not your tuning causing these overtones, are you using fibreskins or synthetic skins?
If so, a common occurance of ringing is found with these skins.
Also known to happen on some rawhide skins.
An easy way to fix it is to apply a small piece of 'gaffa tape' underneath the skin. (on the opposite side to which you play it.)
Sometimes 2 small pieces placed over each other in the shape of a small 'X' works well if 1 piece is not enough.

Gaffa tape can be found at any decent drum shop or P.A/Lighting/Sound Engineering store. Used alot on stages.

See how you go.

Edited By ABAKUA on 1115110103

Posted: **Tue May 03, 2005 4:15 pm**

Thanks for the advice, Abakua. I had a water buffalo head on the drum. I just replaced it with a mule skin from Funky Tradition. I'm still hearing the ping.

I doubt putting tape on the head will fix it, since tapping on the shell without the head on it produced the same overtones. The sound comes from the shell continuing to resonate after the slap.

Interestingly, I played on some LPs last night (Palladium, Giovanni, Aspire) and they made a similar ping. Maybe I was spoiled by the sweet sound of my old Gon Bops.

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Fixing metallic ping