On 4/9/2017 8:53 PM, -MIKE- wrote:
As a drummer and woodworker, I've avoided the cajon like the plague
because it's just another gadget that will be piling up the corners of
pawn shops and used music stores like the eleventy-zillion djembes that
preceded the cajon.

Thanks for the construction tips. That makes sense.

As for the rest, I've also been a musician my whole life, keyboards
mostly. But I've also always been a "drummer"; drumming on everything
(except drums). I tap on desks, doors, appliances, the steering wheel of
my car, garbage cans, bottles, various body parts, you name it. I search
for the "sweet" spots, listening for different tones. Odd? Yeah, I know.

Being a keyboard player with a home recording setup, I now have access
to an absurd number of increasingly-convincing sampled sounds; notably
including drums and percussion. Even got myself a dedicated pad
controller - a vast improvement over trying to program percussion on a
keyboard.

But I'm finishing out my sixth decade this year, and I find that I want
to try some new things, one of which is adding some genuine percussion
to my recordings. The samples are pretty great these days, and are
recorded better than I'm likely to do at home. But the parts I play live
have a little more variability to them, replacing some of the
"perfection" with "feel". I like that.

Over the last couple of months I've acquired a set of Bongos, a Darbuka
and - yes - a Djembe. The Djembe is already on a recording. Adds a
touch of realism, even though my playing is still inexpert. That's
another great thing about these computer recording setups; I only need
to get the part right *once*. So far it's the Bongos that I seem to
have the most natural affinity for.

Fad or not, Cajons have been around for a long time. I first became
aware of them quite a while back on a Ruben Blades record. I like the
sound, at least on record. My attempts in the music store have not been
inspiring - yet. But I happen to have a bunch of pieces of prefinished
1/2" Birch ply courtesy of the discard pile behind a cabinet shop near
my house; enough to build a cajon. I figure a few hours work should
yield a cajon for just the expense of a piece of 1/8" ply. I can
probably even get a broken snare from my drummer, if I decide to put
snares in.

If it sucks, or I suck at playing it, there's not much loss.

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