Pearl Travel Congas - A Review

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Pearl Travel Congas - A Review

Postby drbongo42 » Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:01 pm

Bought some Pearl Travel Congas a while back and I thought I would post a short review...

I chose the Pearl Travel Congas over the LP version after trying out both - the Pearl versions just sounded a lot better - not sure whether this is because of the fact they use Remo Fyberskyn heads instead of Evans or because the bottom of the shell is closed off rather than being left open. Either way the tone on the Pearl version was richer and had more sustain on the open notes. The slap on the LP version was also very thin compared to the Pearl version. I decided to buy the quinto and the tumba models - mainly because they where only 60% of the price of the conga model - presumably because that is the most popular one. The quinto tunes up to middle C nicely, but I had to tune the Tumba up to the G below middle C as it just doesn't resonate well at any lower frequencies. They sound pretty good given they only have a 3" stave shell. The open tones are rich and sustain well, the slap really pops - perhaps the only weakness is that the bass and heel/toe sounds are weak in comparison - but this is to be expected. They don't have the volume or depth of full size congas but they are certainly good enough for learning, practising and informal jam sessions etc. I think they would be fine at a gig if you had them mic'd up through a decent PA where you could boost the volume and bass end easily. I didn't buy the official stands as they were about the same price as the drum each. I went for two budget heavy duty snare stands and the official pearl joining arm which is perfectly stable if you play seated. In reality I regularly use them at home (and in the car when it is late at night) with the quinto on my lap and the tumba on the seat to the right - without using the stands. I also bought a cheap snare drum case rather than the official one which fits both of them head to head with a thin seat cushion in between them. So the whole setup including stands and cases cost a little over £400. The only downside I can speak of it that the tuners are on the top of the rim and protrude slightly (unlike the LP version) which means you have to be careful not to catch your thumbs or palms on them - as long as you rotate the drum this is relatively easy to avoid... 8)
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Re: Pearl Travel Congas - A Review

Postby Chtimulato » Thu Sep 21, 2017 7:10 pm

Thanks for the review. I wanted once to buy them, the set of three, because of their obvious advantage (room and weight) but I noticed that their price + the stands would match the price of a regular conga set. So I eventually bought a pair of Giovannis for about the same price...
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Re: Pearl Travel Congas - A Review

Postby drbongo42 » Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:51 am

Update - added the 11.75" conga and then decided to try some rawhide heads on the travel congas instead of the supplied Remo Fyberskin heads. I used three heads from a set of tycoon master pinstripe drums - the Fyberskin fitted these fine, but the rings on the rawhide heads were a little bigger than these - which means they just fit under the edge of the travel conga rims rather than tucked nicely inside. However they sound much better with the rawhide heads - a dryer stronger tone and brighter slaps. The biggest improvement was for the 12.5" Tumba size - with the Remo head the sound was very thin and it was difficult to tune it to anything lower than a G3 - with the rawhide head I was able to get it down to an E3 comfortably. So if you can find rawhide heads that fit and/or can make your own heads then I would definitely recommend trying it over synthetic heads :)
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