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Tuning and Maintenance for Toca Bongos

Tuning

Toca Bongos come with high-grade bison skin heads matched in thickness to the size of each drum. Your drums will need to be tuned, as they do not come pre-tuned from the factory.

When tuning bongo drums, they should be pitched as close to an octave apart as possible. The most popular tuning is A octave, but this usually depends on the type of skins. Plastic heads are available for certain models of bongo drums, but animal skins are preferred. There should be a thinner skin on the small drum and a medium skin on the large drum.

To obtain these pitches, you should first determine the size of each drum by the diameter of the playing surface. With a tuning wrench, start with the rod closest to the center block. Moving in a circular motion around the drum, (use the Toca Logo as your guide to remember where you started) give each nut one half turn in a counter-clockwise direction until you've gone around the drum once completely. Tightening in half turns is recommended for applying even tension to the head, (if the head is very loose, more turns can be used to get the head to produce a tone). Continue this process until the desired pitch is reached, always keeping in mind to visually inspect the collar of the head for even tension. Remember that an animal skin head is not perfectly even like a plastic head. Therefore, bongo drums with animal skin heads will never be perfectly in tune, as the skin may be heavier on one side than the other.

There are many different tuning possibilities depending on the playing situation. We recommend the following tunings, which can be achieved by using a piano keyboard.

Macho B - D two octaves above middle C
Hembra A two octaves above middle C

Maintenance

It is a good idea to slightly loosen your heads after playing. Going in a circular motion, give each tension nut a half turn clockwise to loosen. Do this, working your way completely around the drum twice. This simple procedure will help to lengthen the life of your heads.
During the manufacturing process, (before skin heads are mounted to the drums) heads are soaked in water to make them pliable for mounting. Due to this process, some of the oils are depleted from the heads. To achieve the best possible sound, we recommend rubbing a small amount of hand lotion containing lanolin into your drum head, once they have been tuned. This will make the skins sound better, increasing volume and tonality, because the skin can relax to vibrate better.
Occasionally the tension rods will squeak when tightening or loosening. This occurs when the lubricant between the nuts and washers dries up. If this occurs apply some lug lube.
You can keep fingerprints off your shell with a chamois polish cloth.
When putting on a new bison conga head it is a good idea to turn the head upside down and fill the inside with 1/2" of cold water. Let soak for two to three hours. This will make the head more pliable and will make it seat on the bearing edge. Tighten the head until there is no valley on top and it is even all the way around. Let sit overnight and tune with method described above.

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