FN Cajon

I came across the cajon a few years ago . I was interested in finding a percussion instrument that I could use use in my band (The Freddy Nelson Quartet) which was simple to transport and sounded good.

I saw some cajons on youtube and thought they looked good so I desided to build one .

I recall the first ones I built were good but were quite heave and the thick front plate I used needed a good beating to get a decent sound .

I started making the Mk2 . I scalled down the timbers and made the second cajon much thinner especialy the tappa. That cajon sounded much better and was a lot easier to play . The thin front meant that I did not have to hit the thing so hard to get a good volume and the thiner sides gave more resonance and made the instrument lighter.

It was looking and sounding good but I felt I could still improve on the early modles .

The next cajon I built had an internal snare . I decided to use a drum snare. I constructed an internal frame to fix the snare to so that it rested on the top corner of the playing surface .

I now had a cajon which was easy to play and produced both bass and snare tones.

This third cajon had a great sound and was very easy to play. I included the cajon in some of my recordings and found the best results came from positioning a mic just above the sound hole at the back of the cajon. Too close to the hole and the mic reacted badly to the wind presure coming from the sound hole and too far away lost the presence. A little experimenting and I found the right position for the mic.

The cajon sounded really good along with an acoustic bass and guitars .

Next I tested the cajon out in the street . We went busking in Newcastle and the volume of the cajon was ample even in a busy street.

After that we took the cajon out to gigs. This time we placed a bass drum mic inside the cajon to give it a boost in a live setting. A little eq and the cajon sounded great.

I made a couple more adjustments to the construction of the cajon and eventualy came up with the FN Snare cajon which produces a good deep bass tone, a crisp tight snare sound, is simple to play and holds it\'s own in any type of playing environment.

I then offered some of my cajons for sale on ebay and they started to sell . At that point I went into larger scale production set up the website www.thecajondrumshop.com and continued to expand the range of cajons.

I am now making and selling about 10 cajons per week and I have expanded ther range as you can see on my site