My first soaking ...

[Boston]

Hmmm, well as you all know I got a shitty cheap set of stagg congas, 10" + 11", and they've sounded crap, ringing and all sorts.

Anyway, spent weeks tuning and re-tuning, got the 11" sounding nice pretty quickly and tuned to G nicely. Trouble has been I've just never managed to get the 10" to stop ringing, no matter how careful I am with evenly tuning em etc. The natural fit of the head, i.e. how its been originally mounted is kinda lop sided and one point on it was a nightmare as that part of the skin was visibly thinner than the rest. So, today, after reading somewhere, most likely on here about re-soaking heads, I gave it a whirl, and stripped the 10" down, and put 1cm of cold water in the upturned head and left it for just over an hour, until it was pretty soft and pliable. I remounted it, but at this point wasnt sure how much I should be tightening it up. After some head scratching I decided to initially tighten em up so they werent dipping, waited half hour, tightened em some more. Carried on like this for 2 or 3 hours, making sure they were tightening down evenly, thankfully, losing the old rim crease. As they gradually dried out I found them tuning up much better and a damn sight more evenly. I'd also taken the opportunity of mounting a 2" wide strip of foam about 6" down from the rim on the inside of the drum (I used the foam you get as those cheap camping mats).

Another thing I noticed was the way the skin changed colour. Previously, it was 75% whitey cream, but the other 25% was thinner, more see through and had the appearance kind of like when paper gets grease on it. Since the resoaking and mounting only about 45% has the thicker, whiter appearance, I'm presuming its because the skin has been stretched more (the collar is sitting lower down the body).

I'm thinking i'll let it be for another couple of weeks, have a few monkey banging sessions, then repeat the soaking process, see if I can get the entire skin a more even thickness, as it certainly seems to have helped.

Anyone got any warnings or anything that I should take into consideration, I'd love to hear from you.

[KING CONGA]

Boston sorry to hear about your dilemma. Unfortunately many times getting rid of the ring/overtone is next to impossible on the lower end congas, please no offense . Many times it's not so much the skin but the drum itself. It’s not uncommon that on occasion some drums out of a batch come out that way. Another thing you could try if putting on a skin that is a little thicker, that will help some, just hard to tell how much. Just for R & D keep us up to date on your experiment because it sounds like you’re making some progress, gook luck.

[akdom]

Hi there

Cheap congas do not sound good.

So you have to ask yourself where you want to go with your set. If you want to continue playing, then use the drums you have for training, no matter the sound and look around for a good bargain on second hand drums.

It is never good to soak skins once set. They get fragile. If you decide to do so anyway (in your situation, it seems to be OK since you were not happy with your sound), soak the skins, mount them, gently stretch them so they are even and let them dry fully. DO NOT stretch them every 30 minutes. Soaked skins are very fragile and may get over stretched and then burst eventually after a few days or weeks.

My best hint for you is to purchase good quality skins, a bit thicker than the ones you have. Change the skins.
BUT, if your drums are poor quality, they might not hold the stress of tuning thick skins. Most of the times, the hardware cannot hold the tension and hooks twist and plates bend and might damage the shell.

It is worth the try anyway.


Good luck.

B

[Boston]

Thanks guys .....

Just got in from work and they havn't split or burst, which is a plus I suppose lol.

The sound has definately improved, however I'm not sure whether that is due to the soaking or the foam inside the drum, but better is better ....

I do appreciate where you're all coming from in terms of these being the bottom end of the market congas, I originally bought them shortly after buying some bongos because I was enjoying the bongos so much. Because of the size I doubted I would be taking them 'out and about' to festivals and such, unlike the bongos, so thought I'd be able to get away with some cheapies ..... lol, how wrong could I be.

I now realise that they will become a part of me and I will get some decent ones soonish, possibly just after xmas. But in the meantime I have to make do with these damn things

I hear those of you that say I should just crack on and not worry about the sound and just practice technique, but I just can't seem to get into it at all, the tone problem is too distracting. Its hard to know whether you're doing anything right if the sounds all wrong. The bongos i'm learning easy and getting stuck right in.

Anyway, I think i've made some headroom with this 10", going to give it another couple of days to dry thoroughly, then i'll loosen it off and have a final tune up.

Would it be a good idea to now rub some sort of oil or something into the skin i've soaked, now that its dried ? if so, what would you suggest thats available in the UK (not the conga capital of any world lol)

Thanks people, you're the best ...

[afrocubarico]

BUT, if your drums are poor quality, they might not hold the stress of tuning thick skins. Most of the times, the hardware cannot hold the tension and hooks twist and plates bend and might damage the shell.

akdom,
You hit it right on the nail about thick skins and inferrior hardware. They simply do not go together.

Boston, if your drums are not of good quality with thick hooks/rods, I would suggest a thinner mule skin. More than likely however, you may still get a level of ringing. Also, try not to tune your drums so high, keep them tuned lower in hopes of a fatter sound. Good luck.

afrocubarico