congaplace.com

I'd like to briefly (or not so briefly) discuss the various types of skins that are (or could be) used on conga's. Hoping to learn enough here to be able to start choosing my own skin types for my own needs...

I know that there are several types used, including:

--Asian water buffalo
--Calf (very young cow)
--Kip (young cow)
--Cow
--Steer (castrated male cow)
--Bull (potent male cow)
--Mule (offspring of male donkey and female horse)

How about other skins, such as Ass (male donkey), Jenny (female donkey), Hinny (offspring of male forse and female donkey), Burro (small donkey), or Horse, or Bison/Buffalo (North American)??? Anyone have any experience or know anything about skins from those animals?

And, in terms of thickness-- I realize that there will be differences between skins from animals of differing ages, or between skins taken from different parts of the animal (belly vs. back). But, in general, how would these various skins rank in terms of thickness, etc.? (I don't mean "the best", I mean-- what's generally thicker than what)

Input?

Hope that helps,

Tony

What a great summary, Tony!

But can you clarify what do you consider medium and medium-thick for congas in terms of milimeters?

Those new Gon Bops bongos are using horse skin on one
of the drums, my guess is macho.

Currently I use a mule on one of my bongo hembra, it works extremely well.
Almost better than anything else.

For congas I've been going with what Tony provides me with,
which is very good.

I don't like water buffalo for anything, I don't like the texture, I like my skins
kind of smooth.

A friend relayed to me that Matt Smith dislikes mule for congas, he believes it
places a lot of stress on the hardware.

Thick is good, but there is a possibility of too thick as Tony is suggesting.
You can bend lugs and rims depending on your drum hardware and sometimes
you can't tighten the skin enough to get the tone you want.

I can't believe how much I just earned and got confirmed from Tony's post.
Thanks Tony,
Dave

CongaDR, thanks so very, very much for posting that. It's the kind of info I was looking for.

How about on drums 13" and larger? (super-tumba, Bomba, etc.)

Tony

http://congadr.blogspot.com/

Hola Tony,
Have to agree about tumbas/enu !! Oddly I have a LP classic (custom finish) that I used a BC skin on the thicker side thats doing OK. More so than my Isla-still needs working on though. I may have to use one of those thick skins you sent me.

BTW , digging the skin for quinto !!

Great info on your post.

T

congaDR wrote:
My honest opinion, out of the 15 or so drums ive played over 12.5"... only one sounded ok, with any skin - it was an old Toca from the 70's made of solid stave red Oak, 13".

Ive played Fat congas, Valjes, Islas, Gon Bops of many ilk, Lps, Ritmo's, Juniors, skin on skins... all had sound 'issues'... every single 'super' tumba. Not so super...

In the last few years, the largest drum i play is a 12.5", unless im playing Bomba! (shorter large tumbas dont seem to ring as much)


Why then do Bataleros use fardella on the often larger than 13" Enu of their Iya i ask you? ..they would like to leave the ringing up to the bells!!

Tony

http://congadr.blogspot.com/

Brother T!

Nice to hear from you, hope you are well.

A branded Isla steer skin would also do a fine job, no?

Tony

congaDR wrote:

Why then do Bataleros use fardella on the often larger than 13" Enu of their Iya i ask you? ..they would like to leave the ringing up to the bells!!

Tony

http://congadr.blogspot.com/

This is a very good point, many trap drummers I know also tape or somehow muffle their drums, I've done it
to some bongo hembras to just get a super dry sound, cheaper than switching skins....

the symphony bass drum and kettle drums I played in junior high all had tissue taped to the heads somewhere..

conga players seem to be really averse to taping drums for some reason, just a little piece on the bottom
of the skin is all it takes...

Hola Bro ! Nice to hear from you too, Hope you are doing good as well.
Though we be getting OT - Mario did send me a replacement. The branded one was nice and dry, but had problems with tuning, since the brand was sooo big, it caused certain lugs to behave like a "branded cow" e.g.hard to balance. Couldn't get it to have the right pitch all around.

T

congaDR wrote:Brother T!

Nice to hear from you, hope you are well.

A branded Isla steer skin would also do a fine job, no?

Tony

Anyone have experience with bull skins?

Fat Congas used those, and I've heard from more than one source that the Fat Congas sounded excellent. Volcano also offers bull in addition to steer and kip.

I believe Volcano gets skin from BC (Bill Confer) in Texas, much like Fat Congas and Isla.

If you think about it, I doubt if there are many Bull skin available. Steer maybe. There can only a few bull (potent male) in a pack, the rest are castrated for dominant tenior of pro creation of cows. So the wranglers would need some kind of generation rotation to keep the pack (group of cows) in check. with technology there maybe new ways to acomplish (insemination?) the pro creation. So maybe even fewer bulls are around? Just guessing on my part there would be more steer than bulls.

T

I am looking at an unmounted skin from Fat Congas, I can't see much difference
between it an the cow skins from Tony it is resting on.

Except the skins from Tony are unprocessed, the Fat Conga skin has been planed
and is exactly the same thickness all the way around, I'm going to put this on my
Gon Bops project, I guess we'll see how it sounds.

Hey BNB,
in the COW side, any one individual cow can be different than another. Each specific "type" has their own uniqueness, yet each
group of animal could be differnet based on where they are from and how they live, eat etc.. no?

Add that uniqueness to species and sex etc. It can be superfluous just to ponder the stuff.

Like we all say, you gotta feel it, look at it etc. Kinda hard to play it unmounted, however Just like a drum itself, but the skin IS a big factor

T