Skin thickness for your drums

[vinnieL]

Ok i'm sure the opinions will vary from person to person. I'll ask anyway what skin thickness do you like for each drum say quinto,conga,tumba? I am curious as to what you all chose for thickness on each drum when you order.

[Sakuntu]

I like a thick, hard skin on conga and quinto. (I don't like to feel a bounce -i can't describe it any other way ) and a thinner skin on the tumba (not to thin of course-but something to let the low end resonate)

[Chupacabra]

I just changed the skin on my 10" solid shell quinto last week and today was the final day of the drying and I've tuned it. It's a thick 3/16" (dry) African cowhide and when I slap it it feels like I'm slapping the side of a cement truck but let me tell you, this is an ugly beauty of a skin. The tone begs to be played, the slap is a nice, crisp pop and the bass... well, it's a quinto. After some playing around, the relative pitch and the sound finally match that of the tumba and conga, which was why I had to change it in the first place. They too are solid shells and have somewhat thinner skins, which are also of African cowhide, than the quinto. I have a preference for African cow hides because they tend to give a very rich sound that I like.
I usually order a full hide and cut my own but in this case I just asked them to send me a really nice hide for a quinto and I thought they were playing a joke on me when I took it out of the package! It was pretty nasty looking and it didn't look any better as I shaved the hair off but I followed through anyway and I'm glad I did!

[Mike]

You might want to eliminate nasty overtones, especially on a quinto in a folkloric context, by mounting rather thick skins on them,
that´s right.
On the flip side there is also a beneficial aspect of thinner skins on a quinto, namely that somewhat lively (if not too ringy) overtones
cut through the mix better. Additionally, too thick skins under constant high tension may be harmful for the shell - depending on the quality of the drum´s shell of course.
To give an example: The mule skin on my Gio quinto is not very thick (appr. 3mm), the skin is perfectly smooth and resonates beautifully.

Having that said, I must say I absolutely agree with Sakuntu and Chupacabra, a thick cow skin on a good conga (as on my LP Classic wood, e.g.: appr. 5mm) provides a beautiful sound.

And on those 12.5" tumba beauties: Well, for me their skins sould be not too thin, I like that sweet humming of a formerly well-built ruminant...

[bongosnotbombs]

I agree with a lot of what Mike says.

You might want to eliminate nasty overtones, especially on a quinto in a folkloric context, by mounting rather thick skins on them,

I use to think like this too, especially after reading all the posts on this board,
but the quintos I have now do not have such thick skins, just medium skins.
In my opinion they have a much livelier and crisper sound than very thick skins. Too thick on the quinto
starts to sound kind of dead, and has the potential to hurt your drum when you tighten a thick skin
to quinto tightness.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with having a bomber thick skin on the quinto, I had a really thick skin on
an old quinto of mine, I've just found that a medium skin will work just as good, and I personally like the sound
better actually, easier to play too.

I think it depends on the drum, if you have a drum that tends to ring or something a thick skin can cure this,
if you have a mellower drum, I don't think you have to go thick

[Chupacabra]

I agree with a lot of what Mike says
I think it depends on the drum, if you have a drum that tends to ring or something a thick skin can cure this,
if you have a mellower drum, I don't think you have to go thick

This was another issue that I had with the previous skin and the thicker one seems to have made a drastic improvement.
My friend's Mopercs have medium to medium thick skins and I just love the sound of those drums too, barely any ringing at all!

[No.2-1820]

I find this such an open ended debate these days, I think for the most part I'm in the thick camp, but love the sound of my requinto which has a medium to thin mule on it. In general I think a wider more earthy range of tones is possible with the thicker skins, I'm actually really enjoying the sound of my timba bongos these days which have a medium thin bleached steer on the macho and a medium thick mule (I took off a quinto) on the hembre. My valje conga has a medium and well worn steer that I love and my tumba has a thick steer that is not working at all and will probably be going on the quinto when I get round to it.

I think there's a skin out there for every drum and like the drum itself it's going to be a bit different for each application, but I'm finding that when the right skin meets it's drum you know it right away, sometimes even during the mounting it just feels like you've cracked it.

Be sure to evaluate old skins for potential use before throwing away as well, I've had great results re-using older conga skins on smaller drums, especially bongo hembre's.

Barrie

[Mike]

. Too thick on the quinto
starts to sound kind of dead, and has the potential to hurt your drum when you tighten a thick skin
to quinto tightness.

Couldn´t agree more with you, BnB, even my Gio quinto with its 3mm mule skin goes dead when I crank it up TOO much.
And a 5mm or thicker skin would really deaden the sound.
So it´s a medium skin that does the trick for me indeed. Plus it needs only one turn or so to get ready to be slapped

EDIT: Ooops, I have just seen I was being "late" with my reply, BnB, the other posters were way faster than me!
That´s what comes with old age - shouldn´t have gone for an evening beer , or...?

Anyway, cheers
by
Mike

[bongosnotbombs]

but I'm finding that when the right skin meets it's drum you know it right away, sometimes even during the mounting it just feels like you've cracked it.

That's it right there

[vinnieL]

I'm glad that this is generating some healthy discussion. I had a requinto with a really thick skin and did not like it i always felt it could use a medium skin to bring out it's potential. What about a tumba guys? What do you like on Tumba's and congas?

[Mike]

What about a tumba guys? What do you like on Tumba's and congas?

As I said, a thick skin does it for me. It also depends pretty much on the tuning as well if the sound you get out of a tumbadora with a thick skin is satisfying. If you tune up too high, the sound will be dead anyway of course.

BTW my kids have an 28" tall conga they use as a tumba, and I mounted an old LP quinto skin, just 1.5.mm thick on
it, so that they can produce the open and bass tones more easily and without to much effort.

[pavloconga]

I just changed the skin on my 10" solid shell quinto last week and today was the final day of the drying and I've tuned it. It's a thick 3/16" (dry) African cowhide and when I slap it it feels like I'm slapping the side of a cement truck but let me tell you, this is an ugly beauty of a skin.

Hey chupacabra,
I would love to see what this thing looks like! Can you post a pic?

As far as my preferences on skins, it depends on the drum, but I tend to go for thicker skins. I just love the slap you can get from a thicker skin.
I have a very old school quinto Gon Bop with an original very thick skin. That thing has such a unique sound when it's cranked up..

[JConga]

Well the quinto gets thin skin, then the conga gets medium thick, and the tumbadora gets thicker skin....Johnny Conga

[Mike]

Johnny Conga

Hey Johnny Conga, have you taken on a new identity?
I guess it is due to the log-in problems you have had recently?

Back to the topic: It is the same way way I prefer it: from quinto -> tumba means from thinner to thicker skins.

It´s only that "thin" is absolutely relative..

Regards,
Mike

[No.2-1820]

Interesting, some say the exact opposite, which for me that would seem to make sense, thicker on the quinto for dry cracking slaps and more vibration on the tumba for deeper more sustained bass tones. Although as I said earlier I'm very happy with the sound of the thin mule on my requinto so I guess it's back to what kind of sound you are looking for from your drums.

barrie