Moperc Wooden Timbales

[MedinaNYC]

Wondering if anyone has played a set of these and if so, what your impressions of them are. You can see a picture of them on the Moperc website in the artists photo album. Pacha from the Afro Cuban All Stars plays them. Faustino, any opinions on them?

thanks.

[Anonimo]

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[MedinaNYC]

Hey Leedy, thanks for the information. Insightful as always.

[Ernesto Pediangco]

The Mo Perc wood shell timbales is nothing new. They copied the crude Lp style tuning system abd added to laminated ply drum shells. Any set of concert toms from drum set manufacturers will produce the same range of sound but have a more refined tuning system. Toca brand used to make these too but demand was low...so is re sale value on wood shell tims. Thr crude L bracket lugs were a poor design to start with, they tend to fold in ward and bends mental shells and delaminates wood ply shells. The crude Lp style tuning bolts are heavy and just crude ! It amazes me people consider this so authentic when its just poor designs from a crude era and few builders are puttinbg our a refined Latin drum. Too much junk on the market now. A reasonable oprion is to find a heavy duty laminated tom tom and cut it in half. Having shells that are only 1 inch diference in diameter for single headed timbales is not needed. Just tune to the interval you desire. Wood shells tims get very little use in most context. I paid $ 25 per shell for the ones I own, they are maple ply Gretsch & Ludwig shells w/ vintage 50's hard wares.

[Ernesto Pediangco]

A simular wood shell timbale set is available at Rhythm Traders in Portland,Oregon ( see the web site ) There are Asian made, same as most Latin drums ( Oxymoronic ). They have the same timbale rims,tuning system & stands as you'd expect from Asian imports. So if you must have a wood set...this is an affordable option. How ever, you could easily build a set your self and use what ever tuning system hard wares & mountings / stand you want. I always use drum shop spare parts & left overs from other sources for these kinds of projects. As much as I like Mo Perc congas & bongos, i think its lame to make a wood copy of a cheap old style timbale w/ lame hard ware design. They make their own stainless steel parts but they are copied from old designs & Asian imports, Too bad, what a wasted oportunity !