streching the skin and tunning question

[Kallaumari]

Hi everyone again, have had this question since i started making djembes.

I guess like most djembe makers i have popped a few skins in the tunning process. I'm recently working on a djembe that i luckly got from mali and wouldnt like to pop the sking again neither leaving it too untense.

could someone please advice on how much to strech the skin... how should it sound....how to know when to start aplying the mali weave or if only with the sets of verticals a you can achieve a fine tunning...

Here are 2 pics of it after shaving and while tunning


good vibes
Josh

[Rhythm House Drums]

Nice looking drum... Looks like maybe it was sanded... I don't see that too often.

A lot of people say tune it one diamond before it pops... however some djembefolas like their djembes tuned lower... they say it is a more natural sound of the drum. It's totally preference. If you like the way it sounds.. stop tightening it. If you hear another drum that is tighter and like the sound and want to crank yours some more, do it. Good thing about doing your own reheads is that even though it takes a while, it's not so expensive if you go to tight... then just remember how that sounded before it popped and dont go quite so tight next time. What type of goat do you have on there? Thick, thin, Mali, Guinea?? I've popped a few Ivory Coast skins... I think because the spine is so thick, trying to get the sides of the drum as high pitched as the spine pops it. I've stopped using Ivory Coast skins. I like Senegal skins... and have always been a fan of thicker goat. With thick Senegal skins... it's going to take a hell of a lot of pressure to pop one. If it sounds good to you... it's good. Get someone to play it that has really good technique and get their opinion. You shouldn't be able to push the center of the skin in with a finger but just a tiny bit. (tiny bit is an expression of a complicated mathematical equation... basically if you want to go there.. put a straight edge on the top of your drum from rim to rim.. then using your finger push the center of the skin... if it moves a tiny bit you're good... if it moves more than a tiny bit... you might still be good... play it and see if you like the sound.) Sorry.. but really it's all about sound. I like mine fairly tight, but I get thick skins so I can keep 'em tight and not worry about them breaking. Just remember to pull diamonds slow. If you try and pull a whole row in a night and your drum is already producing good tones and slaps... you'll probably pop the head. If you go around 1/4 wait a few days, go around 14... etc... you'll probably be able to go all the way around without it popping. After I pull a few diamonds, I'll tap the top ring with a rubber mallet to set the skin down... this also helps to not over tighten.. but can cause a problem if your skin is week and already really tight. I headed my first drum 6 times in a 3-4 months. You really can't find that breaking point till you've reached it a few times.... best bet is to make sure you remember what he drum sounded like before you pulled that extra diamond. First one I popped because I kept cranking it up... I had a feeling it would pop soon because it just sounded stressed... higher pitched than it should... like it was hurting... I wanted to go two diamonds higher and see what would happen and POP... Just play with it... if it pops, a skin is only 25 bucks or so.

[Dennis103]

If you tap your djembe with just your finger tips right at the edge of the skin, you will get a 'pure' high tone, as pure as you can get with a djembe, and you don't need to be good at making tones or slaps in order to get consistently the same high sound out of it.

You can record this note, either from your own djembe when it is the way you want it, or from another djembe that you want to tune your skin up to. Keep the recording as a reference for later.

[Kallaumari]

Thanks RhythmHD and Dennis103, i would like to reinstate the question... right now the skin does sound tight but the slaps still do not sound as "pure" as i would like.... only thing is that i dont know till when to stop streching.. i mean... i can strech it all the way to the pop hahahaha but thats what i want to avoid. more or less this is the 30th skin i've streched...

On regards to what RhythmHD says about comparing it to its previous sound or to another djembe... i do have a Ghana djembe with the skin already sounding quite well.... the mali djembe i just got and sanded it myself .... The skin is a mexican female goat... went to the slaughter house and got it myself .... I like it more that way cus you can choose the more thicker skins.... and can mount them fresh... one day after the slaughter....also i have found that one can "connect" with the animal by touching and cleaning the skin after you have removed all the filthy from it... to be honest i have never sent my drum for reheading.. i've always done it myself but it has been quite a while since the last... so i can say i've lost practice :S ....

anyway... I'll try thre finger thing and will let you guys know if it worked...

Thanks

[Dennis103]

Thanks RhythmHD and Dennis103, i would like to reinstate the question... right now the skin does sound tight but the slaps still do not sound as "pure" as i would like....

Question is: can you expect the slaps to sound the same as on the previous skin?

Skin needs 'playing in' - which I understand to mean that the beating the skin takes, will make it more supple in the place where you play, and that suppleness translates into deeper tones and purer slaps with fewer metallic overtones such as a new skin has. A new skin is still very stiff and sounds brittle, or more like a tin can, a played-in skin becomes more musical and loses the harshness of the slaps.

This is of course assuming good playing technique - which itself is not uniform: one (advanced) player will get a different sound out of the same djembe as another advanced player.

The dance teacher that I play dance accompaniment for at this moment, if he plays his favourite djembe, with cow skin, you can actually hear a proper chord, two separate tones sound at the same time when he plays a slap, making a minor third, its incredibly musical.

Following from the above, and in agreement with it, is the tip I heard once, to crumple up the skin a few times hard when it is wet, (or wring it out) in order to 'break' it. It supposedly would help towards playing-in the skin faster. Whether it works, no idea, but it sounds logical.

Happy drumming,
Dennis