Skin Thickness Characteristic

[Kaban]

Greetings People,

I have a question about the characteristic of skin thickness; won't thick skins muff your open tones? Will the sound be quite, thumpy? Can someone who has thick skins on their drums tell me what to expect? Please

Thank you,
Kaban

[RitmoBoricua]

Greetings People,

I have a question about the characteristic of skin thickness; won't thick skins muff your open tones? Will the sound be quite, thumpy? Can someone who has thick skins on their drums tell me what to expect? Please Thank you, Kaban

Thickness is relative. Do you have a thickness measurement in mind? Also you
have to consider drum type (quinto, conga, tumba etc) and yes indeed the player.
Quite a few variables including what you perceive as sounding good or bad.....

[RitmoBoricua]

Greetings People,

I have a question about the characteristic of skin thickness; won't thick skins muff your open tones? Will the sound be quite, thumpy? Can someone who has thick skins on their drums tell me what to expect? Please Thank you, Kaban

Thickness is relative. Do you have a thickness measurement in mind? Also you
have to consider drum type (quinto, conga, tumba etc) and yes indeed the player
makes a big difference.Quite a few variables including what you perceive as sounding
good or bad.....

[Kaban]

Point taken, I was thinking of a 3mm cowskin on a 11.75 conga? Has anyone have experience with something like that?

[Mike]

Should be no prob, just look for a fine cow or mule hide.

[rhythmrhyme]

one good thing about slightly thicker heads is they will reduce overtones a bit.

They do tend to reduce the volume of tones and bass notes, but they make slaps easier to play in my experience. lots of people like thicker heads on quinto's for soloing in rumba, they have more "pop" and when tuned way up the tones seem to come back out with thicker heads - although they have a bell like quality. I've also heard it said that as a general rule head thickness increases as the drum gets smaller - but this has not been consistent.

I prefer a thicker head on my "center drum", it makes the head easier to control and slows down overtones. Works best on a drum that has good projection so as to not reduce the overall volume too much. thicker heads take quite a bit longer to break in but seem to last longer.

a couple pennies worth of ruminations.

RR

[jorge]

I have an 11.75" SOS conga with a pretty thick +/-3 mm translucent bullhide on it. It took about 5 years of regular playing to break the skin in and now it sounds great. The tone of a thick skin is generally stronger than that of a thinner skin but was initially very slightly muffled with more overtones than it has now. The slaps are easier and sharper but not necessarily louder or more mellow sounding with a thicker skin. Once broken in thicker skins generally give a fatter tone with more sustain than a thinner skin on the same drum. Thicker skins may last longer as well, if the bearing edge is not too square. The downsides of a thick skin are that 1) it is easier to deform the traditional SOS rim or crack the shell by tuning too high and unevenly, 2) it hurts your hands more when you play it hard and frequently, 3) it takes a lot longer to break in than a thinner skin.

And 3 mm is not necessarily very thick. As mentioned in other posts, there are many variables at play here not just thickness. The same skin on my 13" tumba would have been a little on the thin side. The translucent bullhide is probably more dense and harder than an opaque cowhide might be, and more likely to hurt your hands. One variable not often discussed is how many years it takes to break in a good skin so it sounds just right. Too bad all the plastic skins I have heard sound so horrible, you would think 21st century engineering would have allowed more rapid development of that technology.

Edit: RR you beat me by 3 minutes but it looks like we are in agreement.

[JohnnyConga]

Here it is nice and simple...thick heads go on the tumbadora then medium thick for the conga and thin for the quinto...period...

[JohnnyConga]

PS...also with "proper" technique you should be able to get a sound out of any drum no matter what type skin is on the drum...you may want to consider 'mentoring' on the drum...I am available for you if you need the mentoring...Thank you...

[rhythmrhyme]

Here it is nice and simple...thick heads go on the tumbadora then medium thick for the conga and thin for the quinto...period...

And here in lies the inconsistency

The drums I have from Isla are exactly the opposite - the head on the requinto is probably a full quarter inch thick, or more Sounds good though... I have a thicker head on my LP Giovani requinto and when Giovani played it he had nothing but good things to say about the sound and set up.

So, I'm confused! I've tried to float this question past the board in the past and couldn't get a consensus.

BTW Johnny, I'm lovin' your radio show! on the board again today to pick another episode
Dang, just went in and I can only play the last 2 episodes I was going to book mark that page to share all those great tunes with my buddies!

[jorge]

What sounds best to you as you are playing may not necessarily sound best to someone listening to you from 10 or 50 feet away. A thick skin on a quinto typically sounds full and good as you are playing, but sometimes doesn't project as well as a thinner skin would. The thinner skin on a quinto may actually be louder and sound great to people out listening to you play but lack tone and body to your ears as you play. Likewise a very thick skin on a tumba may have less overtones and more bass fundamental tone up close but may not project as well at a distance as a thinner skin on the same drum. Overtones typically don't carry very far. Of course a microphone and sound reinforcement will amplify the sound that hits the mic, generally up close, so that can change the whole dynamic. Overtones do get picked up pretty well by most mics. Also, as JC said, technique makes a big difference. A drum and skin can sound terrible with one person playing it and sound great when another person plays it.

[Thebreeze]

I have to say that too thick a skin on a Tumba will muffle the nice Bass Tone you want from it. I just sold a friend of mine a Patato Tumba 12 1/2" with a thick skin on it ( about 3.5 mm ) and the first thing he told me when he hit it...." the skin is too thick ". This does not mean that he has to replace the skin since there is a very nice technique that allows you to thin out the skin to your liking. It's like this.....
1. Take the head off of the drum and put it on a table .
2. Use a small round palm sander with about 80 grit sandpaper on it and sand the inside of the Head in a round circular motion for about 1 minute and then feel the skin's thickness with your fingers. Try this repeatedly until you get it thinned out to your liking. One thing I do is draw a grid of checkerboard on it with pencil, and sand until the grid is gone, then I draw another grid and continue doing this about 4 times. The grid allows you to make sure you sand the entire head uniformly. That will easily shave off about 1 mm of the head. Plus....the inside of the head will be nice and smooth for better resonance.
This is a method that you can do to any skin you feel is too thick, but do not want to replace it.

[jorge]

3.5 mm is not outrageously thick for a 12.5" tumba. Play the drum. Tune it up every time you play it and down every time you finish. Play it alone as a tumbador in rumba, bembe, bomba or other folkloric music, not just a low drum in a pair of salsa congas. Bring it to rumbas and let other people play it as much as possible. Listen to the drum when other drummers who really know how to play are playing it. Some thick skins become great, some don't, but you can hear how it is changing with breaking it in. If you like the skin but just think it is a little too thick, play it for a few years it will sound much better and the skin will probably last the rest of your life. If you don't like the skin, replace it with a new skin. Sanding the underside of the skin makes it thinner in the middle which does not optimize the sound. I have tried it several times on different drums many years ago and it never worked like I wanted it to.

[rhythmrhyme]

nice... bring it peeps!!

I'm really interested in learning more about players opinions and experiences on this topic

[Thebreeze]

jorge said....."Sanding the underside of the skin makes it thinner in the middle which does not optimize the sound."
I don't understand how sanding the underside makes the skin thinner in the middle unless whoever sands it does not do it uniformly. You have to make sure that you do it " UNIFORMLY " so that the entire surface of the underside gets sanded equally. I have done this several times with different heads to date and I can only say that I have had great results. We all have different experiences and results so while someone has bad results, others have good results.