Ron Vaughn Percussion Log Drum - Tenor - Product Information
The Ron Vaughn Percussion Tenor Log Drum features a powerful Russian Birch body with a Solid North American Black Walnut tonal top. This tenor log drum features two tongue, C natural and E flat, and measures 8.5" x 8.5" x 40".
Ron Vaughn Log Drums
The bodies of Ron Vaughn Log drums are 100% genuine Russian Baltic Birch, and the playing surfaces are all 100% solid North American Black Walnut. All Ron Vaughn log drums are assembled by hand, using hand-lapped, flush fitting acoustic joints throughout. No screws or synthetic fasteners are used in the acoustic joints and assembly of these great log drums. Authentic Ron Vaughn log drums are 100% made today by Ron and his crew at Ron Vaughn Percussion, USA.
These remarkable drums are a direct part of the instruments that have come from Ron Vaughn for well over 40 years, and can be heard in live concerts, and on film sound tracks and recordings of all kinds throughout the world. To achieve best sound in performance, these drums should be played horizontally on a very solid surface. They can also be fully performance mounted using Ron's stainless steel log drum FlexMounts, with high-density foam insulating cradles. Choose from a level playing surface, or one that gently angles the drum toward the performer. For flat-surface performance, there are four high-density acoustic insulating foam feet mounted nodally along the bottom surface of each drum.
Play Ron Vaughn log drums with Ron Vaughn log drum mallets for best results, or play with hands for superior mixed sounds, (your chops depending!).
Notes from Ron Vaughn about Log Drums
Ron's Log Drums are available today in their original S.A.T.B. form, design, and full bodied sound. All of these drums are made in the USA by Ron Vaughn Percussion.
"Log Drums should be as simple as possible in their construction, like their real-log native relatives", Ron Says. "Pure Log Drum sound is dark, rich, mellow, and full. When you play a good log drum, even softly, you can feel the sound on your body".
Sound is always what matters, with instrument longevity in close consideration. When you're picking out log drums to buy, here are a few things that may be helpful for you to know. These aspects, qualities and methods have proven reliable since Ron began designing and building instruments in the 1960's. They've proven reliable over time through the construction of thousands of Ron Vaughn blocks and drums of various kinds. Ron Vaughn Percussion relies on these principals yet today, with innovation and improvement always in mind.
Log Drums and Log Drum Sound
Today when you say log drum, that term means different things to different people. Ron Vaughn Percussion log drums are ancestors of their two-pitch native drums made from logs. The sound of Ron Vaughn log drums is deep and rich in the Alto, Tenor, and Bass drums, and posses a rich singing quality in the Soprano drums.
Ron Vaughn log drums are NOT the multi-pitched smaller drums that can usually be held in a player's lap. These 'lap' drums often have four, or six, or even eight pitch tongues in a single drum. While they can be fun to play and sometimes have a tongue or two that sound terrific, they don't have the needed physics to produce great sound. And, these lap drums are where you more often find beautiful, exotic wood used for the tonal surface that simply can't produce good sound. There is a fair amount of confusion in the instrument world about exotic woods and good sound. Spending a few hundred dollars for a relatively small piece of wood that has extraordinary beauty is no guarantee of superior sound, whether it's a log drum, solid drum shell, or any other sound producing acoustic body. When a film score or orchestral score calls for log drums, composers most often intend the ancestral sound of native log drums. Just ask them.
To deliver great sound, (not good sound), log drums should be as simple as possible in their construction, like their real-log native relatives. Pure log drum sound is dark, rich, mellow, and full, similar to and yet different from a fine authentic temple block sound. Today it can be challenging to find these sounds in recordings and concerts as players and conductors are often brought up in an aural world of high impact plastics, or woods chosen for reasons other than pure sound, i.e., price, or exotic, beautiful looking woods that don't contain the tonal 'genetics' to provide a beautiful log drum sound. And, while high impact plastics can be an almost unbreakable, practical substitute, it completely lacks the richness and fullness of sound and tonal color offered by genuine instruments that so enrich recordings and performances of all kinds.
Log Drums as luggage
In an effort to make log drums easier to handle, sometimes builders of log drums have attached handles directly to the log drum bodies. Sometimes the sides of the bodies are carved out to use as finger/hand gripping areas. At best, these pieces of handle hardware, or additional cuts along the sides or into the ends of log drum bodies have nothing to do with the drum producing excellent sound or artful aesthetics, but rather sacrifice overall drum sound for the sake of utility. Not a good trade if you love log drum sounds and want the richest ones you can find.
Log Drum Body Joinery
Log drum bodies are beautiful sound chambers, and when balanced with the right weight and well-matched playing surface, the sound can be extraordinary, and should be. Throughout the past 50 years, and still today, log drums have often been built more like kitchen cabinets or drawers instead of musical instruments. This happens most often when percussion companies who sell log drums don't actually make their own instruments, but have them made by commercial cabinet or wood working shops. The geometry of complex cabinetry joints such as inter-locking finger joints or dovetail joints don't favor high quality acoustic sound production, or long-term trouble free performance over years of time. As these joints fully dry and are exposed to changing seasons, temperatures, humidity, and cartage, they expand and contract. In a kitchen drawer, some of this is OK. In a musical instrument, these shrinking and expanding complex joints easily create audible ticks and buzz when the instrument is played. Using screws and other fasteners in the construction of an acoustic body often causes this same unwanted 'tick and buzz'.
Log Drum Tonal surface construction
The tonal surface or playing surface of a log drum is another place of critical material and construction choice. Screws and fasteners have often been used in the past, and sometimes today, to assemble the tonal or playing surface of a log drum to the log drum body. The primary reason commercial manufacturers use screws and other fasteners is to gain production speed and save costs in labor during assembly. If you want a good instrument that will produce lasting, high quality sound, this is not a good trade-off. This is why you don't find screws used in the body of a Stradivarius instrument.
Ron Vaughn Log Drums
The bodies of Ron Vaughn Log drums are 100% genuine Russian Baltic Birch, and the playing surfaces are all 100% solid North American Black Walnut. All Ron Vaughn log drums are assembled by hand, using hand-lapped, flush fitting acoustic joints throughout. No screws or synthetic fasteners are used in the acoustic joints and assembly of these great log drums. Authentic Ron Vaughn log drums are 100% made today by Ron and his crew at Ron Vaughn Percussion, USA.
These remarkable drums are a direct part of the instruments that have come from Ron Vaughn for well over 40 years, and can be heard in live concerts, and on film sound tracks and recordings of all kinds throughout the world. To achieve best sound in performance, these drums should be played horizontally on a very solid surface. They can also be fully performance mounted using Ron's stainless steel log drum FlexMounts, with high-density foam insulating cradles. Choose from a level playing surface, or one that gently angles the drum toward the performer. For flat-surface performance, there are four high-density acoustic insulating foam feet mounted nodally along the bottom surface of each drum.
Play Ron Vaughn log drums with Ron Vaughn log drum mallets for best results, or play with hands for superior mixed sounds, (your chops depending!).
Notes from Ron Vaughn about Log Drums
Ron's Log Drums are available today in their original S.A.T.B. form, design, and full bodied sound. All of these drums are made in the USA by Ron Vaughn Percussion.
"Log Drums should be as simple as possible in their construction, like their real-log native relatives", Ron Says. "Pure Log Drum sound is dark, rich, mellow, and full. When you play a good log drum, even softly, you can feel the sound on your body".
Sound is always what matters, with instrument longevity in close consideration. When you're picking out log drums to buy, here are a few things that may be helpful for you to know. These aspects, qualities and methods have proven reliable since Ron began designing and building instruments in the 1960's. They've proven reliable over time through the construction of thousands of Ron Vaughn blocks and drums of various kinds. Ron Vaughn Percussion relies on these principals yet today, with innovation and improvement always in mind.
Log Drums and Log Drum Sound
Today when you say log drum, that term means different things to different people. Ron Vaughn Percussion log drums are ancestors of their two-pitch native drums made from logs. The sound of Ron Vaughn log drums is deep and rich in the Alto, Tenor, and Bass drums, and posses a rich singing quality in the Soprano drums.
Ron Vaughn log drums are NOT the multi-pitched smaller drums that can usually be held in a player's lap. These 'lap' drums often have four, or six, or even eight pitch tongues in a single drum. While they can be fun to play and sometimes have a tongue or two that sound terrific, they don't have the needed physics to produce great sound. And, these lap drums are where you more often find beautiful, exotic wood used for the tonal surface that simply can't produce good sound. There is a fair amount of confusion in the instrument world about exotic woods and good sound. Spending a few hundred dollars for a relatively small piece of wood that has extraordinary beauty is no guarantee of superior sound, whether it's a log drum, solid drum shell, or any other sound producing acoustic body. When a film score or orchestral score calls for log drums, composers most often intend the ancestral sound of native log drums. Just ask them.
To deliver great sound, (not good sound), log drums should be as simple as possible in their construction, like their real-log native relatives. Pure log drum sound is dark, rich, mellow, and full, similar to and yet different from a fine authentic temple block sound. Today it can be challenging to find these sounds in recordings and concerts as players and conductors are often brought up in an aural world of high impact plastics, or woods chosen for reasons other than pure sound, i.e., price, or exotic, beautiful looking woods that don't contain the tonal 'genetics' to provide a beautiful log drum sound. And, while high impact plastics can be an almost unbreakable, practical substitute, it completely lacks the richness and fullness of sound and tonal color offered by genuine instruments that so enrich recordings and performances of all kinds.
Log Drums as luggage
In an effort to make log drums easier to handle, sometimes builders of log drums have attached handles directly to the log drum bodies. Sometimes the sides of the bodies are carved out to use as finger/hand gripping areas. At best, these pieces of handle hardware, or additional cuts along the sides or into the ends of log drum bodies have nothing to do with the drum producing excellent sound or artful aesthetics, but rather sacrifice overall drum sound for the sake of utility. Not a good trade if you love log drum sounds and want the richest ones you can find.
Log Drum Body Joinery
Log drum bodies are beautiful sound chambers, and when balanced with the right weight and well-matched playing surface, the sound can be extraordinary, and should be. Throughout the past 50 years, and still today, log drums have often been built more like kitchen cabinets or drawers instead of musical instruments. This happens most often when percussion companies who sell log drums don't actually make their own instruments, but have them made by commercial cabinet or wood working shops. The geometry of complex cabinetry joints such as inter-locking finger joints or dovetail joints don't favor high quality acoustic sound production, or long-term trouble free performance over years of time. As these joints fully dry and are exposed to changing seasons, temperatures, humidity, and cartage, they expand and contract. In a kitchen drawer, some of this is OK. In a musical instrument, these shrinking and expanding complex joints easily create audible ticks and buzz when the instrument is played. Using screws and other fasteners in the construction of an acoustic body often causes this same unwanted 'tick and buzz'.
Log Drum Tonal surface construction
The tonal surface or playing surface of a log drum is another place of critical material and construction choice. Screws and fasteners have often been used in the past, and sometimes today, to assemble the tonal or playing surface of a log drum to the log drum body. The primary reason commercial manufacturers use screws and other fasteners is to gain production speed and save costs in labor during assembly. If you want a good instrument that will produce lasting, high quality sound, this is not a good trade-off. This is why you don't find screws used in the body of a Stradivarius instrument.
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