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Dumbec


KuruPrionz

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Over the years I've bought and sold a variety of drums and percussion and mostly, sold them again.

 

Recently I've acquired first a Remo dumbec which seems to be of unified plastic construction. It sounds really good. It's fun to play. Full disclosure, I am not trained in the magic of the great Dumbeki and their wonderful music.

I'm primarily a guitarist but I do play finger style - dumbed has a huge range of tones if you don't beat it.

 

I love how covering the bottom opening with your hand shifts the pitch lower and putting your fisted arm up inside makes it go lower still - up to a point. Then is shifts to a much higher pitch that is more difficult to persuade.

I didn't really explore it properly but that seems to be the sweet spot - quickly shifting from low to high.

 

Thoughts? I welcome all feedback this is a super fun thing for me.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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And, last week I found a fancy ceramic dumbec at the thrift store for $7. It appears to be a genuine Middle Eastern dumbec. There was a small tear in the skin, which is tied onto the drum.

I don't know how to replace a head like that properly so I put a piece of Gorilla tape on it and it sounds good. Sacrilege, I know. If I still lived in Fresno I could probably find somebody to fix it. This will get me by for now.

 

The two dumbecs are pitched differently, it will be fun to get to know how they fit on recordings.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I cannot find anything about a dumbec. Are you talking about the Darbuka?

 

Edit: Okay. Dumbec is the Western name for the Darbuka. I have thought about getting either a Darbuka or a Tabla. The Tabla may be the most complicated percussion instrument I have seen.

This post edited for speling.

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I cannot find anything about a dumbec. Are you talking about the Darbuka?

 

Edit: Okay. Dumbec is the Western name for the Darbuka. I have thought about getting either a Darbuka or a Tabla. The Tabla may be the most complicated percussion instrument I have seen.

 

It's funny but I picked up the Remo at the thrift store and immediately got the sounds that I've heard so many times. That aspect of it is very friendly. I used to have a tunable one but it wasn't designed well and used a western style hoop that stuck up past the head. It's important to be able to play close to the edge of the head, that's where those sharp popping tones come from.

 

I've tried to play tabla and I can 't seem to get those amazing sounds. I would need lessons probably. Love the instrument.

 

The one that got away is a tunable 20" head Remo djembe I used to have. I should have kept it, that sounded amazing. I love the udu as well but I'd like a plastic one with a built in microphone. They aren't very loud and they are very fragile. The sales guy at Guitar Center told me over half of the udu that they received were broken and they weren't going to order any more of them. Ceramic pot, easy to bust it up. I sold mine, too difficult to mic it.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblet_drum

 

"The goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, tabla, tablah, tableh, toumperleki, tumbak, or zerbaghali,[1] (Egyptian Arabic: دربÙÙØ©â / "Romanized": Darbuka) is a single head membranophone with a goblet shaped body used mostly in Egypt and is considered the National symbol of Egyptian Shaabi Music,[2] also in parts of the West Asia, North Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe."

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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You must live in an interesting area to find things like this in a thrift store.

 

Bellingham is a college town, there are 4 colleges here including a state university. Out of about 92,000 people almost 30,000 of them are students.

They come and they go, when they go some of them donate.

 

There is a large retirement community as well. People pass on and their progeny come to town to work out what to do with their belongings. Some of that ends up at thrift stores too.

I'm not a hoarder, although I am an accumulator. I try to flip things as often as possible and I do donate myself.

 

All that said, I used to find amazing things in Fresno when I lived there. Larger population but maybe not as dynamic or vibrant in culture. I really think the key is to look often and only buy stuff that you know you could get your money back out and then some. Or something useful, like gig bags. I got a nice padded Roadrunner electric guitar bag and a padded Ibanez bass bag yesterday for $7.50 with tax.

 

Recently I picked up a pair of DCM Corp TimeFrame TF400 hi-fi speakers for $10 at Goodwill. I had to solder a speaker cable to one of the lugs since the threads were broken off but they work perfectly and sound really, really good. I bought a 100 year old flamed koa ukulele there for $5. It needed a few minor repairs but I sold it as-is for $500. In Fresno at Starvation Army I found a Gurian guitar that needed repairs for $70, got almost $1,300 for it.

 

It's a hobby but I like hobbies where I either make some money or save a lot. One time I found an Audio Technica microphone in the tools, It had tape goo on it but it cleaned up nice and sounds good. Condenser mic made for live vocals - $3. One of my best mic stands started life as a Gibraltar cymbal stand, I added a dual mic bar instead of a cymbal and it's great for mic-ing acoustic guitar - $12.

 

I could go on. Get out there and look around, people have stuff!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I live in a town of 5000. A big step up from the town that I grew up in. It is one county over and the town is 1500. Most every decent band has to pull musicians from several counties.

 

Born in Fresno CA, was probably around 200,000 when I was a kid, now more like 300,000+. Moved up here to Bellingham - 70,000 16 years ago and now 94,000.

I did spend a couple of year living in a teepee out way out in the foothills, there was a 5,000 sized town 6 miles on foot that I went to once a week to check the post office and get groceries.

 

Something's lost and something's gained no matter what you do. I'm happy here, it's a beautiful area and the summers are fantastic. No venomous reptiles up here, the foothills outside of Fresno had plenty of rattlesnakes.

 

Except for teepee time, I've been a thrift store buzzard more or less my whole life. The stuff people donate blows my mind sometimes...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I've been looking at the Meinl bass dumbeks (I've always seen it with a "K"!) lately. Tempting...I love middle eastern music and it seems like one could do a lot more than that with one.

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I've been looking at the Meinl bass dumbeks (I've always seen it with a "K"!) lately. Tempting...I love middle eastern music and it seems like one could do a lot more than that with one.

 

Cool stuff Max!

 

I just took a look at one listed on MF. I like it, they've got a simple way to change heads and tune the drum. I love Middle Eastern music too but I don't play anything authentic except maybe country even that might be questionable.

A wide range if influences are always sneaking their way in!

 

Dumbecs (or however they get spelled) simply sound great and are very versatile drums considering how essential and simple they are.

I'm afraid the ceramic one I got at the thrift store is going to need to find a happy new home. I tried to save the head with the tear in it but it's not going to work out. I don't have much in it so there's nothing lost. Being ceramic and fairly thick, it's heavy and fragile. I love the plastic Remo but once the head dies the drum dies with it. I used to have a brass one with lugs and a rim but the design was incorrect or the head wasn't recessed deeply enough - you couldn't to rim shots without striking the metal rim, which could be painful. I'll flip out of the ceramic one and keep an eye out for a nicer, more modern one that I can service myself. A small djembe would be fine, sort of the same thing in a way.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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