Why ya' gotta be so dark?

It's nice to have seen Marshall see the writing on this wall. They were starting to crank out really good combo amps in the last decade or so. But I mixed a professional blues band and the guitarist shows up with a 2x10 Fender Princeton amp that he modified and I swear that little amp ripped my face off! I had to put a baffle up in front of it because he was too loud at "2". Amazing.

I love the sound of the Fender Princeton. Not sure how the guy mod'd it but those things are typically only 15 watts - not your standard "face ripping" tool...
 
I love the sound of the Fender Princeton. Not sure how the guy mod'd it but those things are typically only 15 watts - not your standard "face ripping" tool...

Not sure what he did, either. But the band was great. The harp player had his own Fender Bassman and a bullet microphone and got the tone. He modded his output so it was extremely hot. It wouldn't have been so bad if you could dial in some low end, but it was literally that hot Fender mid-to-high-range sound now piercingly loud. For the whole first set I shut the amp mic off. After I put the baffle up, everything was fine - I stuck a Shure Beta 52 mic on the cabinet and eq'd in some low end and got him pretty growling. I'm thinking maybe he modded his transformer and it was cranking out more than 15W...
 
I think the basic argument is that if you can play, not what you play the dishes. Probably shoulda 'just said that now, eh? Once again, I'm doing at this point that you start doing the work, not vice versa. But yes, I agree that the various stories about what the music calls for, but if you can not afford it, you should not think, you can not let it happen without it.
 
I think my basic argument is, if you can play, it shouldn't matter what cymbals you play. Probably shoulda' just said that outright, eh? Again, I'm making this point that you make the gear work, not the other way around. But yes, I agree about having different stuff for what the music calls for, but if you can't afford it, you shouldn't think you can't make it happen without it.

Personally, I do think that the cymbal matters.

I remember back about 10 years ago when I got my first Constantinople (with rivets) and on the first gig I played with it I'd been playing on my Thigpen flat ride for the head of the first tune and went to the Constantinople for the first solo and as soon as I touched the Constantinople the bass player yells "Yeah"...........

Some cymbals are just magic in the right situation.

I think that the focus on cymbals that some of us have is because in jazz -- as has been said before -- the ride cymbal really is our primary instrument.

(But Bo, I definitely agree with you on making things work... When I was 18 I used to play jazz trio gigs with one cymbal and hats -- a K Dark Crash and an old set of Zildjian A hats -- because that's all I could afford!).
 
my 2 cents

pingy high pitched As cut through a big band and blend well with the brass

the dark wash of a K or some of these Bosphorus and Istanbul cymbals just sonically mesh better with a small acoustic combo.... more of an earthy woody tone

... and no drummers started freaking out over the sound of a ride cymbal pretty much until Tony, Elvin set the bar so high with their Ks

that being said .... my all time favorite ride cymbal sound on a record is Roy Haynes on the Chick Corea record Now He Sings Now He Sobs.... where I am almost positive he is playing a Paiste Formula 602 flat.... always sounded like Roy was playing a piece of glass to me
 
my 2 cents

pingy high pitched As cut through a big band and blend well with the brass

the dark wash of a K or some of these Bosphorus and Istanbul cymbals just sonically mesh better with a small acoustic combo.... more of an earthy woody tone

... and no drummers started freaking out over the sound of a ride cymbal pretty much until Tony, Elvin set the bar so high with their Ks

that being said .... my all time favorite ride cymbal sound on a record is Roy Haynes on the Chick Corea record Now He Sings Now He Sobs.... where I am almost positive he is playing a Paiste Formula 602 flat.... always sounded like Roy was playing a piece of glass to me

Curse that Tony and Elvin!
 
I play with a Big Band frequently here in Toronto and we play a variety of different size venues. My preferred ride for the majority of these gigs is a 20" reissue Paiste 602 Medium ride. It has enough stick ping to cut through with enough wash so it doesn't sound one dimensional. It is also one of the best crashable rides out there. The bell is very nice as well.
I also use reissue 602 16" and 18" thin crashes and 14" 602 SE hihats. I have used this setup since these cymbals were reintroduced and they work great for my Big Band gigs and my Pop/Blues/Classic Rock gigs.
 
I've gotten to play on a lot of 50's and 60's K's. While I didn't like most of them, the cymbals
that were great were just that! I have never played on any older K that had as much wash
as the K cons being produced today. Maybe just my experience. I recently played on some
of the brand new Kerope's being introduced and didn't hear any comparison between the older
K's I've played and these new cymbals either. I like darker cymbals with some wash but not
too much. I checked out the K cons and dismissed them for that reason...but hey, cymbals
are very personal and if it works for you, great! I buy cymbals that sound good 20 feet away
and further. If it sounds great in the audience I can deal with how it sounds to me...but this
brings up an important point about cymbals maybe....

On my gigs we never do close miking. 99% of the time nothing is miked as we play small and medium sized venues. So I want sounds that sound good at a distance. IF a drummer is always being close miked I suppose the "close up sound" is very critical.

Out of the cymbals out there right now for jazz I lean towards the Istanbul Agops I've heard but don't own any. Just my personal preference.
 
I've always been drawn toward bright, clear cymbals that have character. I think Paiste's Dark Energy line are some of the most perfect cymbals anyone has ever made because there's a complexity in the sound, but they're not so dark that they become a pillow of "tah" behind the rest of the music. Sometimes that's an appropriate sound, but it's nothing that I play with any regularity.

I think what's worse than having someone in a big band with big, pillowy cymbals that get lost is when someone brings their K Constantinople Medium-Thin Low to a rock or country gig. I mixed a tune in school that might have been a Medium, but that cymbal stuck out like a sore thumb and it sounded terrible.
 
Interesting. I have two crashes in the usual lineup, a rather "bright" 18, and a low and dark (but still loud due to size) 21.

Both are technically A's, but they're old and have completely different characters to them.

I wouldn't like a setup that was limited to only bright or dark choices.
 
As I looked back over this thread, it's interesting to note how far cymbals have come, especially considering the fact that they first started out life as shields in battle. I saw both of the "300" movies and those brass shields are historically the cymbals evolutionary first step. I suppose Zildjian was the first one to say, "what if we made these lighter and more musical-sounding so when the soldiers beat on them they were even louder to intimidate the enemy?"

And the comedian in me is picturing King Leonidas asking "can I get some rivets installed in mine?"
 
I have, let's see, eight rides to choose from, that will cover ANY requirement (they're all quite different from each other believe it or not).

24" Giant Beat
22" Dark Energy Mk 2
22" Traditional Light
20" Formula 602 Medium
22" Twenty Masters Dark
22" Formula 602 Modern Essentials
20" Formula 602 Medium Flat
18" Signature Flat
 
It's all about for the timbre for me- my 20" HHX Omni with a super-heavy center and high profile is decidedly not a jazzy cymbal to me. Luckily I have my Dark Spectrum hats and my Dark Energy ride which are relatively heavy AND dark cymbals, so I get enough projection in the jazz band. My other 2 rides I use in the jazz band (about 15-18 people) are a 21" HHX Legacy, which is very thin- I wouldn't dare use it as a big band ride, and I usually crash it unless we're in a very quiet section, and a 19" TRX Icon Medium Crash I got the other day. Wonderful smooth & hammered character, but the heavy-ish weight and size give it enough projection.

As for the "big, thin crashes" so prominent in metal/rock- speaking for myself, articulation is not needed on most wash-ridden parts, one usually wants the quarter note crashes to stay under the texture of the melody or focus, plus the timbre sounds a bit more natural than an Extra Heavy Mega Power Crash. Of course, these cymbals are usually present (and IMO work best in) a more open and 'natural' band, more Animals as Leaders or Karnivool than Periphery or The Faceless.
 
In my mind it's more about the acoustic space. Voicing things the same way you mix live or recordings. The more things going on, the narrower each voice needs to be in order to be distinct. Not so much a matter of "cutting" which tends to invoke brightness and with everything trying to be bright there's a ton of high end clutter and nothing actually cuts through. Rather it's a matter of taking up less acoustic space. So a drier ride without a lot of overtones or trash creates a distinct sound in a large mix.
Conversely, in smaller settings that thin sound ends up sounding, well, thin. So a broader or richer sound is more pleasant and fits into the more open sonic landscape.
I have a Gibson 335 and a Fender Stratocaster. In my old corporate band, the Gibson sounded like mud, but the Fender sounded like a guitar playing the various parts I did. But when I used to do blues trio stuff, the Gibson sounded more majestic.
Last month I did a classic rock thing that had a bunch of people playing and a loud bass player. I brought a 7x13 bubinga snare I'd recently gotten thinking it would cut though and still sound big. After the first set I swapped it out for a 5" deep snare that had a narrower sound. Which cut though without having to pound it.
My primary ride cymbal is a Cie Vintage that has a fair number of overtones but isn't excessively dark. It's a phenomenal blues cymbal. With a barrel tip stick I can get enough definition without overpowering the mix. Although it wouldn't work for really loud or '90s rock unless it was mic'd up. It's more shimmery than trashy and doesn't gong at all. I find that a lot of dry rides build up a lot of low gong wash. Which is just as bad or worse than a trashy wash. At least the drummer can hear the trashy wash and back off or move up onto the bow.
 
I have owned 3 pro level ride cymbals in my drumming life, all at the bright and pingy level- a 20" Earth Ride (no longer with me and I really wish that is was) a 20" K Custom and a 22" Z3 Medium Heavy. The type of music that I play and the volume of the rest of the band mean that even these can struggle at times. I love a washy ride, but they are not for me live. I love a big crash too. 20" minimum! My regular live snare is a 14x5.5.

I'm not sure if any of that means anything, but its the way I roll.
 
Couldn't agree more - horses for courses (and cymbals for music.... thank you, thank you...try the veal)

I own a set of K Cons, a set of Keropes, a set of 602s and some one-off cymbalsmith creations. They are all great in their own right, and all very musical cymbals. I have spent countless hours listening, watching and searching for the magic dark smoky jazz ride (as have many others), but a lot of the music I play just doesn't call for it. Agree with those who have commented about the frequency considerations, rather than just the sound of the cymbal itself. Drummers (more than some other instruments) must consider this, since the available tonal range on your average drum kit spans from a very low HZ rumble through to high HZ white noise and everywhere in between.

I find that the 602s are, at worst, extremely usable for all shows, and at best absolutely perfect. My ear gravitates towards the darker sounds when they are isolated, but funnily enough, towards a brighter sound in context. Even with the K Cons - I heard a 22" Medium Thin High the other day that was absolutely special, and I swear by my MT Low...

To put it in context, have a listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iduhQqLaP9g

It's by "The Jazz Drums!", and I found it very enlightening (also, this video may have been posted somewhere here before, but is again relevant in this particular context). See what you think...I was gobsmacked that my ear preferred the Mel Lewis Agop cymbal(s) to the darker tones of the others (including those that I own that were represented) I do acknowledge, however, that the particular Stan Getz bop/cool era jazz track used in the video probably lends itself more to rides that have that higher pitched fundamental tone...worth a look regardless :)
 
It blows my mind that this thread has been running since March of 2011! I'm old ;)

And here I am, still no A-type ride cymbal, but I'm using my 22" K Light Ride for everything, and my 20" K Custom Dark Ride when somebody needs a little brighter. Ironic that I use the cymbal labeled as "Dark" as my go-to when you need "bright", eh?

I've been contemplating getting a few Pitch Blacks, but I am afraid.
 
602's are the cheese..

Too damned scared to lay a stick to one.

I hit a Giant Beat once........had to get them. Then I hit a 2002........had to start acquiring them too. In fact, I'm still on that journey as we speak. Can only imagine what follows if I start lending my ear to 602's.

Can you have too many cymbals they ask?.......No, it would appear you cannot.
 
My two best rides for big band stuff (a big, powerful big band at that) were an A 20" Ping and a 20" K Heavy, which was by some margin my favourite. It has wash and ping, with a nice musicality to it.

Bizarrely my darkest sounding ride is an old Paiste 3000 20" !
 
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