Professional Emin Percussion Fish Skin Riq Tef Tambourine Def Drum EP-004-B

This is a very fine instrument,Sala Muzik rules !

I've had a few other RIQ drums, with synthetic heads, including the one made by Remo with their "look-alike" synthetic fish-skin head. I quickly became disappointed in my purchases (didn't like their sounds), and fortunately I was able to sell them all (at little loss to me) on-line to someone else.IMHO, a natural skin has the best sound, and in a RIQ fish-skin is the most traditional and even better sounding than goat-skin. I was so happy to find this RIQ that has a natural fish-skin head! But EVEN BETTER was my surprise in inspecting it upon arrival - it is TUNEABLE. The photos and description on the manufacturer's website do not make any mention of it. Given my total satisfaction in a fixed-head Tombak that I bought from this maker before, I was willing to take a chance on this RIQ, believing it was also fixed-tuned. But it IS TUNEABLE! Each of the 5 (what appear to be pins) that hold in the jingles are actually bolts that are un-threadded in the area of the jingles, but have threads hidden up inside the head area, and around the bottom of the rim those bolts terminate in Allen-head adjustments. The drum didn't come with a wrench, but I have a "Universal Hand Drum Multi-Tool" by Cruz Tools, and it does have the exact size Allen wrench needed to adjust this RIQ.The workmanship, fit and finish on this drum are FIRST CLASS, the mahogany frame and it's finish are flawless. The fish-skin head is perfect, no defects in it, no spots thicker than others, it's almost translucent thin and has the best sound of any RIQ I've seen. While I'm happy that I can tune the drum if I need/want to, the drum came in PERFECT tune right from the artisans who made it! The jungle are also finished to a high polish and are perfectly round and bur-free, and make a sound that is very pleasing to the ear as well.The tuning as it comes from the maker is perfect to my ears, deep impressive dum and sharp cutting tak. So many sonic possibilities from this drum, it will take me the rest of my live to master it! VERY HAPPY with this purchase.And as an added bonus, the included case is a top-notch unit that will provide the best protection to the drum. This is a case that is actually BETTER than the admittedly superb quality of the frame drum cases you can get from Meinl or Schlagwerk. It comes with life-time heavy duty zippers, and strong padded carry handle. But that's not all, it also has an outside pocket of generous proportion. And it has two beefy chrome-finished D-Rings that allow for the attachment of the included heavy-duty padded shoulder strap (also not apparent from the manufacturer's photos nor described on their website). And that shoulder strap fits easily in the outside pocket of the case, so it doesn't need to be inside the main compartment with the drum (where it could possibly damage the fish-skin). You most definitely will be proud to show off this case, it's an impressive "free-bee", you won't need to buy a better one (like you do for most of the cheap "free" cases that come with most frame drums). I wish Emin Percussion would include a similarly good quality case with their Professional Daf EP-009-B and Turkish Zilli Bendir EZB-201 drums.The quality and care in the making of it make it easily worth twice the asking price. If you are sitting on the fence, just buy one before they go out of stock for months again. (had to wait and bide my time before one became available)You can buy ANY drum from Sala Muzic / Emin Percussion and know that you will be getting the very best there is, and that you will get much more than your money's worth - I'm now a happy owner of four of their drums. I have bought from both their Amazon shop, and direct from their website, each time I've received prompt friendly service and email communications in cogent English (even though they are located in Istanbul, Turkey), and regardless of where you order your drum they will ship from Turkey in professionally packaged, well padded boxed that even a tribe of gorillas could kick around and not damage the drums inside. SUPERB company and group of artisans to do business with.