Zildjian A cst or K cst Hybrid

XAiracobraX

Junior Member
So I am new here, hoping to get some help. My nearest music store is about a 2 hour drive each way, I live in the middle of no-where. So, I have listened for days to cymbals of all brands, models, sizes, on the internet and have narrowed my crash cymbal search to the following sets.

1. Zildjian 16" and 19" A custom crash.
2. Zildjian 16" and 19" K custom Hybrid crash.

For some reason those sizes sound the best to me. I mostly play worship, rock, jazz-y, and alternative music. I like both, but the K customs hybrids more. The question is: will they mesh well with my zildjian A cymbals--refer to signature? And are they appropriate for those styles of music?
 
Don't own any K Customs, but I pair a few A Custom crashes with the same hats and ride often.

Yeah, the kiddies play nicely with one another. I think they blend very well together.
 
K Hybrids are great as are A Customs. If it were me, I would opt for the Hybrids. I think they have more sounds available than the A Customs. Both lines are great though, and they should be able to co-mingle. I own 13 1/4 Hybrid Hats and I could not be more pleased. I have used the most of the rest of the line on backline/rentals, and I can't think of one I don't like. I have not used the splashes though.
 
I own Zildjian A Customs and K Customs, not the Hybrids. I love the A Customs for rock and funk and the K Customs for mostly Jazz and country. I tried liking the K Custom Hybrids, but they were just a bit too harsh sounding for my liking. I was able to get the K Customs to blend, balance and just be nicer to each other, lol.

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Dennis
 
Audiotech- Looks like a K Hybrid at the bottom, right corner of your DW... The Hybrids are brighter than the K Customs, but I still think they have more range than
the A Customs. Your setups are beautiful. My wife has a purse collection that rivals your cymbal collection. But, if I had your cymbal setups she would likely be a black widow. I just made myself sad. Aw.
 
Audiotech- Looks like a K Hybrid at the bottom, right corner of your DW... The Hybrids are brighter than the K Customs, but I still think they have more range than
the A Customs. Your setups are beautiful. My wife has a purse collection that rivals your cymbal collection. But, if I had your cymbal setups she would likely be a black widow. I just made myself sad. Aw.

You're right. Actually that little 11" Hybrid splash was the first K Custom I ever bought. I thought back then, as I do today, that it's one beautiful sounding splash. The thing is, I also like the sounds of the A Customs more than I do the A Custom Rezo series and that's a Zildjian 18" A Custom Rezo china prototype cymbal on the right side of my bubinga kit. In my own little mind I make sense, it's trying to convince others of that, lol. I really just let my ears lead me.

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Dennis
 
Looking at setup(s) below it seems people don't mix, like they are mostly all A customs, or All K. So is it weird that I am wanting to mix K custom hybrids with 14" Avedis Mastersound Hi-hats and a 21" sweet ride?
 
at one point I had 3 19" crashes:

paiste twenty
zild K cust hybrid
zild a custom

I sold the twenty and the hybrid

The twenty had colourful overtones that sounded
somewhat disonant to my ears and the hybrid sounded
harsh in comparison the A cust which
had a really pleasing warmth with plenty of shimmer.

The 19" a custom is an awesome crash as is the 18" and 17"...and 16"

my vote is for the A customs
 
Looking at setup(s) below it seems people don't mix, like they are mostly all A customs, or All K. So is it weird that I am wanting to mix K custom hybrids with 14" Avedis Mastersound Hi-hats and a 21" sweet ride?
I don't think it's weird to mix the Zildjians at all. I play New Beats with a K Crash/Ride, a K Ride, and a pair of A Custom crashes. Seems to me that all Zildjians start out as the same ingots and get worked exactly the same way right up until the cold working starts (hammering and lathing), so there's a commonality to them no matter what line they end up belonging to.

Same could be said of Sabian; it's pretty hard to find Sabian-only players that don't have some mix of AA/AAX/HH/HHX and Vaults.
 
Looking at setup(s) below it seems people don't mix, like they are mostly all A customs, or All K. So is it weird that I am wanting to mix K custom hybrids with 14" Avedis Mastersound Hi-hats and a 21" sweet ride?

WHAAT?? No, man, Audiotech's setups are awesome, but also very personal. I'd say that is a lot more common to mix cymbals than having all of the same series. :)

You now have A Mastersounds and a Sweet Ride.. I'm sure that either A Customs or K Hybrids will blend nicely with them.

For instance, Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters used to play A Mastersounds, Sweet Ride and A Custom crashes. Nowadays his main crash is a 19" K Hybrid.

Personally I don't care for 16" crashes. And if you don't mind me making a suggestion, I'll advice you to look into some A Series Medium or Medium Thin Crashes. They're very very versatile, I love my 18", works for everything. :)

Cheers.
 
I agree Audiotech's setups are indeed absolutely awesome. I have checked out 16" 18" A series crashes, but the ones I heard had a tinge of "trash" sound to them, but that could be the way it was miced. But I will check them out again, in the store. I guess I really need to just take a day trip and hear them in the store. Listening to places like mycymbal.com and the sound bytes from GC online do not suffice.
 
Looking at setup(s) below it seems people don't mix, like they are mostly all A customs, or All K. So is it weird that I am wanting to mix K custom hybrids with 14" Avedis Mastersound Hi-hats and a 21" sweet ride?

Don't worry about mixing! My hats are 14" Sabian Artisan over Zildjian K - sound awesome. I play a 19" K Custom Hybrid Crash with an 18" Sabian HHX Legacy Crash and 22" HHX Legacy heavy ride and 12" Evo splash and It all works perfectly.

I really really like the Hybrid 19" crash, but was a little underwhelmed by the 16" and 18". The Hybrids are quite high pitched cymbals and quite quiet, so while that makes the 19" perfect, I thought the smaller cymbals suffered (though great if you are in a controlled environment where you want to lay in to a cymbal without scarring people).

If I were you I would go for the 19" in K Hybrid and the 19" A custom. I think that would give you loads of interesting options within your drum parts.

You won't go wrong with any of the cymbals you are looking at!
 
Looking at setup(s) below it seems people don't mix, like they are mostly all A customs, or All K. So is it weird that I am wanting to mix K custom hybrids with 14" Avedis Mastersound Hi-hats and a 21" sweet ride?

Where did you get that from? Two kits from the same member? I told you I mixed in the very first response. A Custom crashes with MS hats and a Sweet Ride too, no less. Man, I dunno why I bother. ;-)


I guess I really need to just take a day trip and hear them in the store.

Bingo!!

Make a day trip out of it. You can get a general idea of tonal qualities online, but at the end of the day they are compressed sound files and you're never really gonna know the characteristics of each cymbal until you start hitting them.
 
I wouldn't advise anyone to Not mix cymbals if it's the sound they're after or are limited to the number of cymbals you can purchase. I usually start with hats or rides and build around them. For me it's easier and sonically more pleasing to basically match within the series. As of now I probably have more than 75 cymbals including rides, crashes, splashes and effects. Among these I have 5 distinct series, Zildjian As, A Customs and K Customs. My Sabians are the Hand Hammered and HHX series. Here at my home studio I mix and match, but always go back to the match sets because I find that they work better together without hearing one or two sore thumbs in the set-up. Same basically goes in the studio. I play a lot of different genres of music and can usually find what fits best with what style.

If you check out what cymbals are in each particular series, say the Zildjian A Customs, You'll find that there are A Custom crashes, Custom Projection crashes, Custom Medium crashes and Fast crashes. These are all choices that can be made and still remain within the A Custom confines. They even have about 6 different rides. Add to this each size will have a particular sound. This same scenario works with most cymbal manufacturers and actually makes my cymbal purchasing a bit more streamlined. Nothing is ever in stone, you have to go with and trust your ears.

Dennis
 
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"Where did you get that from? Two kits from the same member? I told you I mixed in the very first response. A Custom crashes with MS hats and a Sweet Ride too, no less. Man, I dunno why I bother. ;-)"


.......some days Pocket, you make it worth my coming here....all by yourself.
 
Nothing wrong with mixing at all, but I understand AT take. Tonight, for an outdoor island gig, I have picked out 13 1/4 K Hybrid hats, 16 A Custom Projection crash, 17 Paiste Signature Fast Crash, 20 K Custom Dark Ride, 10 Paiste Signature Dark Energy Splash (although now that I think about it I will use an 8 A Custom Splash instead. The Dark Energy is new and I am trying to sell it as such.), and an 18 Zildjian A China Low. Tonight will be newer rock and dance music. This setup sounds perfect for me for what I need it to be tonight.
 
Well thanks for your help guys. Sorry I am so ignorant, I have been playing for a while but never got to hang around other drummers much. So I went to GC over the weekend cause they were having a sale, and I played the A customs right up against the K custom Hybrids. Both my wife and I liked the K customs Hybrids better. Which is surprising as usually she can't tell a difference. The A customs sounded nice, the hybrids just had a bit more color, a larger tonal range, and could go brighter. So I bought the K custom hybrids.
 
Congrats..very nice cymbals and very bright for K's..I bought a set of hybrid hats but took them back due to sounding so similar to my Paiste sigs..very bright and glassy..IMO
 
So I am new here, hoping to get some help. My nearest music store is about a 2 hour drive each way, I live in the middle of no-where. So, I have listened for days to cymbals of all brands, models, sizes, on the internet and have narrowed my crash cymbal search to the following sets.

1. Zildjian 16" and 19" A custom crash.
2. Zildjian 16" and 19" K custom Hybrid crash.

For some reason those sizes sound the best to me. I mostly play worship, rock, jazz-y, and alternative music. I like both, but the K customs hybrids more. The question is: will they mesh well with my zildjian A cymbals--refer to signature? And are they appropriate for those styles of music?

I own the 16 A Custom crash and it's one of my favorites from the A- custom pack, responds quick and has a really nice tone...Also have a A Custom 18" and a 17", the 18 is nice as well, the 17 sounds a little darker to my ears and actually pairs up with my new 18" K Constantinople.
But out of those the A custom 16 is my main banger. I know you've heard plenty of online samples but here's a cymbal video I made a few days ago. All I can comment on is the A-customs...

http://youtu.be/fTKrC9BVV0Q
 
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I prefer A's for crashes or splashes and Hybrids for hats or rides
 
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