[djembefeeling]

The greedy cookie monster - all mine!

[batadunbata]

Wow, great finds Dougafola, they look like they all play well.

Here's my djembe, I believe it's made from Dugura. It measures 12.5" x 24".
It's a bit rough by today's standards (not sanded inside, outside imperfect) but it has a spiral carved bowl and sounds good to my ears. It's vintage and was affordable, so I feel lucky to have it.

It's my first wood djembe, and still my only full size djembe.
Note the rope and coins I used to wedge the verts outward to tune it up It's temporary, but it works.

12.5" x 24" (Dugura?) Malian style - note coins and rope wedging verts out for tuning
DSC05297_20percent.jpg (55.99KiB)Viewed 6517 times

Closeup of grain with light showing off chatoyancy of the wood
DSC03753_20percent.jpg (57.19KiB)Viewed 6517 times

[Dugafola]

looks great Bata. do you know approximately how old?

the 2 big malian shells i posted above were both used. the lenke one with fat leg is known to be at least 17-18 years old at least and then the hare with the tacks was purchased off Michi and that was probably cut around 06-07 maybe. he bought it during his last trip to africa.

[djembefeeling]

Both of your new drums have the proportions I like in djembes. I guess both sound awesome!
The rubber feet also look great. How are you doing them, where do you take the rubber from?

[batadunbata]

Djembefeeling: Thanks, good to hear about the shape. Do you have any Djembes posted?
-This Djembe's still not quite fully tuned yet, even with the diamonds I unskillfully added, and the rope/coins wedged in (they helped), but generally it sounds dry with a chewy bass. (20 lbs, medium thick shell)

Dougafola: what's the third one? (maroon brown, orange/blue rope), and the fourth? (warm dark brown, green rope), and the fifth? (chocolatey brown, camo fleck rope)
-I don't know the age of it, I'm guessing at least 15 years, but it could be older(the nylon rope was faded all the way around the drum, on the outer surface, so what was black and red is charcoal grey and pink).

[Dugafola]

Dougafola: what's the third one? (maroon brown, orange/blue rope), and the fourth? (warm dark brown, green rope), and the fifth? (chocolatey brown, camo fleck rope)
.

orange rope = 14.5" ivorian lenke shell i bought from DSD in 2014 maybe...whenever they got their first batch of ivory lenke shells. it was the pick of the litter (for me anyways)

green rope = 14.75" ivorian iroko shell with metal work by yiriba thomas. i got it from Andy who used to sell drums out of Utah in 2010

camo fleck rope = 14" malian lenke that i bought off of matt hardwick as it was one of his personal shells that he had stashed over the years. i got in 2009, but it actually came in a shipment in 2007. this is also my smallest diameter drum.

all rope and rings etc from DSD as it's about 2 miles from my house. i do my own heading work.

i think i'm set for life!!! i really love all my drums and couldn't really imagine parting with any of them.

[djembefeeling]

Thanks, good to hear about the shape

Sorry to tell, but I meant Dugas shells...

Do you have any Djembes posted?

http://www.djembe-feeling.de/djemben.htm

all rope and rings etc from DSD as it's about 2 miles from my house. i do my own heading work.

And they say we do not live in paradise anymore, but you do.

I think i'm set for life!!! I really love all my drums and couldn't really imagine parting with any of them.

I bet you'll have two more in 5 years. Imagine how it feels to sell djembes, you love all the shells, and you have to part with them repeatedly. People usually want exactly the djembe I am playing myself at that time. It's a lesson in letting go

[batadunbata]

Dougafola:
Thanks, I suspected the one with the orange rope was Lenke, but wasn't sure, it's so purple I thought it might be Hare.
I never would have guessed Iroko for the green rope one, wow that's dark. Looks great!
And ditto for the camo fleck rope being Lenke - whoa thats dark brown Lenke. Does it sound any different from average lenke, to your ears? I've noticed medium tone (orange and red) lenke sound different from light tone (yellow) lenke. Yellow sounds more like Hare, less dampening and warmth, more bright.
Gorgeous color, like I said, it looks like chocolate, very nice.

Djembefeeling:
"...a lesson in letting go"
-that sound sounds like a helpful way to go with it Djembefeeling. But I can understand it would be a challenge to let go of so many. But it enables you to share nice drums with others, and spread the music and spirit.

Ah I misunderstood what you meant by "both", that makes sense now that I read it again. No worries, I prefer clarity, how else can we learn?
This drum has the same proportions as the drums on your site, except the bowl is Malian, not Guinean, so it has no ledge. (The photo angle distorts the shape, so the bowl looks shorter and the stem looks wider.)

[Dugafola]

Dougafola:
Thanks, I suspected the one with the orange rope was Lenke, but wasn't sure, it's so purple I thought it might be Hare.
I never would have guessed Iroko for the green rope one, wow that's dark. Looks great!
And ditto for the camo fleck rope being Lenke - whoa thats dark brown Lenke. Does it sound any different from average lenke, to your ears? I've noticed medium tone (orange and red) lenke sound different from light tone (yellow) lenke. Yellow sounds more like Hare, less dampening and warmth, more bright.
Gorgeous color, like I said, it looks like chocolate, very nice.

both of those lenke shells project really really well. as good as any lenke drum i've seen/heard. one of my friends in guinea told me that lenke can sometimes not project as well but overall it's a very consistent wood, more so than jalla but not like hare. i've never seen a hare shell that doesn't sound like hare.

i usually only apply a single coat of coconut or orange oil in between skins. i think both of those particular shells came from well seasoned blanks.

[batadunbata]

Thanks for that info on their projection, it makes sense, since the darkness indicates pigments and other chemicals, which generally harden wood, and fill the micro air gaps. But your testing it is more proof than any theory, since it's possible that soft wood can be dark, and hard wood can be light.

What about the Iroko, it's darker than I've seen Iroko, is it any different from other Iroko regarding projection, tone, resonance? (I'm guessing it projects more, has a fuller bodied sound, and maybe more resonant tones, but I don't know since the chemical composition in Iroko seems significantly different than other woods - the tree exudes latex rather than translucent sap)

Interesting about the consistency of woods, that gels with what I've noticed about Hare, but I didn't notice Djalla being noticeably inconsistent. I've heard fewer Djalla djembes though. Compared to Lenke (red/orange) Djalla generally seems to my ear to be brighter, harder, clearer and less warm and less full bodied. Compared to Hare, it seems softer with more defined tones and less projection. To me it's value is in it's tonal articulation which is unrivaled.

[Dugafola]

What about the Iroko, it's darker than I've seen Iroko, is it any different from other Iroko regarding projection, tone, resonance? (I'm guessing it projects more, has a fuller bodied sound, and maybe more resonant tones, but I don't know since the chemical composition in Iroko seems significantly different than other woods - the tree exudes latex rather than translucent sap)

that piece i got from Andy when he ran Irietones in salt lake city, utah. my good friend teaches there and actually found the shell for me in 2010. i guess there were a handful of really big iroko shells tucked away in a corner that had been there for a year or 2. SLC is super dry/arid so it probably helped the wood cure a bit more. to my ears, it sounds just as iroko should...just bigger and louder since it's almost a 15" diameter head.

Interesting about the consistency of woods, that gels with what I've noticed about Hare, but I didn't notice Djalla being noticeably inconsistent. I've heard fewer Djalla djembes though. Compared to Lenke (red/orange) Djalla generally seems to my ear to be brighter, harder, clearer and less warm and less full bodied. Compared to Hare, it seems softer with more defined tones and less projection. To me it's value is in it's tonal articulation which is unrivaled.

i've never met an old(er) master who claims that hare is their favorite wood for djembe. however, alot of the ballet drummers in conakry that i worked with in the past use hare for the projection and brightness.

[the kid]

I'm pretty sure Fadouba Oulares djembe was hare, what he was using in Italy good few years ago. Not too modern meddium tuned.

[Dugafola]

I'm pretty sure Fadouba Oulares djembe was hare, what he was using in Italy good few years ago. Not too modern meddium tuned.

cool. but is that cause that's what he had? or was that his personal drum that he liked to play? he may have actually played hare on the Fadouba DVDs. i should check the photos. i have the video of the CD recording. i know Sayon definitely is playing hare.

either way just an observation. bassidi kone is here right now and he's got a nice hare piece with him but it's for sale. namory keita is also here and his personal drum is lenke.

[the kid]

Yea who knows if he had a favorite drum.

[djembefeeling]

This wood discussion makes me nervous, somehow. Can you really tell the wood from the quality of the sound? Perhaps I don't get it because I never systematically tried to find out. But on the other hand: for more than a decade now I get deliveries of shells from David Mühlemann, who used to live in Conakry, but is back in Switzerland recently.

I always got three different woods - lenke, hare, and African red wood. His djembes do roughly have the same shape. In all of those deliveries were one or two favorite djembes, with an exceptional sound quality. I do not tune a djembe for high or low. I tune it until I think it speaks in it's own voice, until the skin resonates beautifully with the wood. Sometimes they don't until you really crank them, in rare cases even that doesn't help.

Only in some of those deliveries I found what I am really looking for in a djembe - a beautiful balance of tone and slap, and perhaps even the bass. That I found is so hard to find. I couldn't notice that those qualities are limited to one of those woods, though. Sometimes my favorite was a lenke, sometimes a hare, sometimes an African redwood.

Perhaps those qualities you describe, bata, slip my attention because I am looking for other qualities, perhaps you are just more sensitive and have better hearing (do you have absolute hearing, BTW?). I always like it when a djembe speaks with it's own voice. Over the years, I had many different favorites. Taste changes and develops. Even within days, depending on my mood. But I could never tell different qualities of sound of those woods, because it is good luck finding a djembe that speaks with it's own voice. So I couldn't compare lots of them with one another. So my impression is that a lot of speculation is in this discussion.