Is changing the heads worth it?

[Juaort]

Hi Scavard. I’ll be mounting these on my LP Gen 2 set. I got these after watching Dandy Rodriguez playing them on his set. They sounded great, so I decided to try them. He mentioned that he was very skeptical about using plastic heads on his Bongos, but after trying them he was sold. So he now uses the low collar heads. They were a bit more expensive then the regular Skyndeep since they have to be special ordered. It look almost a year for me to get them.

Juaort

[Juaort]

Here they are all mounted up. Remo Low Collar Bongo Heads. Not tuned yet, will try them out later.

[Siete Leguas]

Looking good, Juaort! Tell us how you like 'em!

[Juaort]

I’ve always been skeptical of the plastic heads. After putting these in my set, I’m now 50/50 on them. Im still looking to get used to them, specially tuning them. So I’m still adapting. The Hembra sounds great. Pretty deep base with no ring to it. The macho is not giving me that high and pop I get from regular skins. The feel is also different but I anticipated that since their plastic.

[scavard]

Looks great!

How much more did the rims come down after tuning them?

[Juaort]

I would say 1/4” or so. That’s the look I like in my bongos. Not to high cause you don’t want to hurt your hands. But not to low that to me looks sloppy.

[Siete Leguas]

The Hembra sounds great. Pretty deep base with no ring to it. The macho is not giving me that high and pop I get from regular skins.

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing, Juaort. Have fun with them!

[scavard]

Hey guys,

I finally managed to also change the hembra to a cow skin sent to me by Isaac. It sounds and looks great and I'm really enjoying it. Still needs some time to break in though

To answer the original topic question once again - yes, it is worth it to change the stock heads.

Anyway, I guess I am still struggling with the proper tuning. My hearing in context of recognizing pitch or intervals is not that great, so I would like to ask what pitch do you tune your bongos to? If you do it by ear and don't know exactly, could you try and identify the pitch with a tuner please? It seems I tuned the hembra to D4 and macho to F4 - which now seems not that far apart. How much higher should I tune the macho?

I believe that if I set for a specific pitch combination, I will get used to it and tune it correctly in the future without the tuner. This is how I learned it for my congas eventually (give or take)..