Manufacturers, brands, skins, maintenance, stands, sticks, michrophones and other accessories for congueros can be discussed into this forum ...... leave your experience or express your doubts!
I have two of those old school LP New Jersey fiberglass congas a black on and a white one. One cool thing about them, they are really light and portable. Two they are really strong. Three they sound real good.
and Omelenko is right, I just saw an album with Ray Barretto with a set of them.
I wish mine were as nice as Omelenkos, but they are used, my white one was $75. But on the plus side they are strong and beat up, so I never have to baby them.
Sakuntu wrote:Congamyk, Aren't the rims on Classic II's the original comfort curve design? Fill me in if I'm missing something.
Yes, the rims ARE NOT THE SAME as the original classics. It's a new design that is junk. It isn't comfort at all.
Mike wrote:
The Matadors COST more...
Perhaps now, but some years ago, the Matadors were cheaper (and I don´t mean less good, congamyk :;):
That's the point of this whole thread. The "new" LP classics ARE NOT the same as the original classics, the new are a cheap copy. And these "new classics" are cheaper in price than Matadors which tells me the Matadors are better drums.
Just a personal thing, the drum is of african origin; wood was the prefered material for its construction and still is, for it being so close to mother earth. I remember a statement some one made that in the year 20, 500 paleontologist and anthropologist will dig up many things of plastic and will think that Ronald McDonald was a god. :laugh:
I have a white LP (palisades) tumba bought in 1974 that owns the space to the left of my Ardiente quinto and conga. With a JCR mule head on it, and its lightweight, gig-scarred fiber glass shell, it may very well be the first thing I grab in case of fire.
OLSONGO wrote:Just a personal thing, the drum is of african origin; wood was the prefered material for its construction and still is, for it being so close to mother earth. I remember a statement some one made that in the year 20, 500 paleontologist and anthropologist will dig up many things of plastic and will think that Ronald McDonald was a god. :laugh:
Paz Olsongo
Ironically, the staved drum, the conga we know today, was permitted to be played by cuban slaves specifically because the argument could be made that is was not an african drum due to its very construction. African drums are made from solid wood, typically, a drum made of staves was seen as not being african so it was permitted. necessity is the mother of invention eh?
Really? I've never heard of that before. Where did you rea dthat? I always just assumed that they had plenty of barrels in the caribbean due to the prolific consumtion of rum and commerce during the slave trade. I know in Cuba they shaved down the slats to make conga, but I always assumed that's just because that was what was available. PC
Nolan Wardens History of the Conga Drum, pg 11. Where he is paraphrasing the work of Fernando Ortiz.
CONSTRUCTION AND MODERNIZATION The first, and most important, change in Afro-Cuban drum con- struction that led to the develop- ment of the tumbadora was the use of stave construction, similar to the way barrels are made. This change, according to Ortiz, was an adapta- tion to distinguish these drums from their African counterparts. During Spanish colonial rule in Cuba (and during the U.S. military occupation of Cuba from 1898 to 1902) African drums were often banned. However, since these drums were no longer carved from a single piece of wood, they were not considered completely African. This change was an act of survival that allowed blacks to continue playing these drums with less persecution. The drums main- tained, however, their African shape, sound, and tuning method.