It’s all about matching your skin to your conga drum shell

As much as I love exotic, hand made modern or vintage wood conga drums and appreciate the massive amount of work and talent that goes into each individual drum, the fact of the matter is that most people can not afford one.

Many people often make the mistake of thinking they need new drums when in fact they only need to better match the skins they are currently using with a new high quality balanced skin match. Almost always in any case I have recommended new skins the people come back and say it has made a world of difference. for the better.

Interestingly enough, many of todays modern mass produced shells made in Thailand are put together so well that if you can get the right skin set up on your drum, it really can sound fantastic. It may never sound as good as a high end artisan hand made drum or be as special but you can make your drum sound fantastic none the less.

What is really going to matter the most in getting optimum sound on almost every drum, is the choice of skin you use. And of course your playing technique but that goes with out saying.

It’s my personal belief that it does not matter where the drum was made. Of course I like, love and support single artisan hand made drums as you all know. And I have written much about why they are worth every penny that is asked for them.
A solid shell or hand crafted shell is always going to be superior in many ways to a mass produced shell.

I am not arguing that point. But what I am saying is a top of the line highly desirable Matt Smith drum with the wrong skin is not going to sound good. I know as I have mis-mounted and put the wrong skins on drums before and they sounded terrible!

And a Mexican old school drum or Thai sourced conga drum can indeed sound great with the right skin!
Great drum + great skin = great sound. Great drum + bad skin= bad sound.
Average drum + great skin= great sound!

Many folks sell great drums thinking the drum is bad when in actuality, all they need to do is switch to a different skin.

Most people think it is the wood making ALL the difference in the sound. It does of course play a very high 50% (more or less) part especially the thickness of the wood, weight, wood type and the density. But if the shell has the proper ratio of size and weight, if the top width and bottom width are correct *(which every manufacturer has down pat now), then what is going to make your sound (besides your playing technique) better or worse is the type of skin you use and the thickness of the skin.

The match! It’s all about the correct balance of the right skin to match the drum. I contend that any drum can be made to sound much, much better by finding the right skin balanced to off set the inherent qualities of the shell. If you put a thin steer skin on a large Junior Tirado mahogany drum (as I mistakenly did some years back), it’s not going to sound good. It’s going to be ringy as hell.

But it’s not the drum. it’s the skin. If you put a bleached white cow skin of about 2.0 mm on the same Junior ( which I did), it’s going to sound wonderful. Its tough to make thin small shells that are smaller and light weight (like LP CP) sound great because there is just not enough mass to resonate. But any of the LP drums from Matador range on up can sound great with the right skin. Same for Meinl and other Thai made drums. The photo below shows my LP classic with thick steer skins on them. Super great sounding.

It’s not as crucial to me to have the skin be perfect even thickness al the way around like it is on a djembe but I do prefer if it is. An even skin is going to sound better.

The Thailand manufacturers (basically all the major brands), pretty much throw the skin on the drum, it is about speed of mounting. They use water buffalo because it will indeed endure humidity and is very inexpensive for them. Furthermore, they last a long time and can be stored with out problems. From a manufacturers point of view these are the best possible choice. Some (at least 2) companies here in Thailand (where I am living now) are now offering cow skin products on a select model. I played the Tycoon and they were “over processed”.

Vintage drums are great as are older specialty drums. However the glue they were using 40 or 50 years ago does not compare to the wood glue or marine glue we have today and it often fails. Many times the hardware, side plates and lugs don’t hold up either on older drums. Especially with people using thick skins and cranking hard.

The type of skin you choose depends on many factors. Your playing style and what you hope to achieve. For example do you want a loud bright drum to play in a salsa band or do you want a warm tone for recording?

Maybe you play folkloric rumba and you want a certain full tone and high pitched slap? Mule is great for that but it can also be hard on your hands.

As I mentioned if you have a ring wood or shell you might need to balance it with a thicker dryer skin like a bleached white cow.

The thinner the skin the more it will project but also the more after tone or ring it will have. The thicker the skin the more solid tone you will have and the slap his harder to project under normal circumstances.

The skin thickness also plays a factor in your overall sound. For my playing style which is a little bit of everything I like mule or camel on the quinto, steer on or cow on the conga and tumba..depending on which drums we are talking about, Both mule and camel can be hard on your hands if it is even a little bit too thick.

My thickness preferences for thailand made wood drums are usually 1.4-1.5 mm for quinto, 1.8mm-2.0 mm for Segundo and 2.2-2.5 for tumba. But it is really hard to say that this is for you or anyone else and again it varies from drum to drum. Unfortunately you will have to experiment to find out what formula works best for you. There is a current popular trend to go really thick on the quinto then crank the drum way way up high.

It’s a really cool sound and I have tried it but changed back to thinner. Why? Not only does it pull the drum out of round, on older drums like the SOS it can pop the side plates off! And even if you don’t feel it in your hands your joints will take a beating. Different strokes for different folks!

On fiberglass drums these days I tend to go slightly thicker all the way out to balance the ring. When I was playing in bands before I would keep them on the thinner side for projection.

Some people say that the amount of oil in a skin plays into the sound as well The dryer skin again being “deader” or dryer and the oily skin “wetter” but I personally do not have an evaluation on this yet.

Mule, is great for slap and good for tone. Can be ringy if too thin. Also, many people sell mule and it’s not mule! I have 1.6 mm mule on my LP quinto and it sounds great!

Steer is very good all around for slap and very good for tone. Not great on ringy drums unless it is thick. The Siam Oak (whatever that really is?) sound great with steer on them. As do Ash wood drums and American Oak.

Cow good all around general skin

Calf only on bongos for me

Bleached cow (white) when the shell drum is ringy

Camel great slap and great tone, hard on your hands and joints when thick

Water Buffalo good all around but not great at any one thing other then shelf life. Not good when thick and tends to be muted.

goat is best left for djembes

horse I have on djembe and never heard on congas