Cymbal Dynamics - 2B or not 2B?

TMe

Senior Member
Recently I've stepped up to playing 2B sticks and everything's going great, except...

If I use medium-weight cymbals that respond well to 2B sticks, I find the cymbals have a huge latency when I try to play them lightly for quieter songs. When I hit a cymbal and it takes a while for its sound to peak, so the cymbals always sound late, creating a dragging effect that sucks the energy out of the rhythm.

Is there any solution for that, other than adding more (lighter) cymbals to the kit? I'm trying to keep the kit small, to minimize the footprint of my kit.
 
The nature of the beast. Thick cymbals are loud and can take the beating, but open up slower. Thin cymbals are the exact opposite. 2B and light cymbals doesn't sound like a good combo to me either. On a somewhat relate topic, Guitar Center has plenty of examples of what the cymbals look like beaten with thicker sticks. I generally find them by filtering the view to only include cymbals in "Excellent Condition." Pretty sure they think a squared-off K is nothing more than an effects crash!
 
2B and light cymbals doesn't sound like a good combo to me either.
I'm switching to 5B's for quieter songs, but I am able to play fairly lightly with 2B's. (A newly acquired skill.)
The nature of the beast.
Yeah, I guess I'll just have to break down and add a fourth cymbal stand to my kit, so I have a quicker cymbal for the quick-and-quiet songs. That sucks. I don't want to eat up 2/3 of a small stage with my kit, like some drummers.
 
This sounds like a great opportunity to practice striking a bit before or after the beat...and I hope everyone has such opportunities for the rest of their lives!(I know I will!)...and can apply to all strikes...not just cymbal.

Orchestra pit guys really master this ability.

A great way to intro yourself to it is to treat the cymbal strike as a flam...though I don't suggest continuing to feel it that way once you get the gist of it...as being able to place it where you want without having to have that flam feel is really powerful.

When doing this on a cymbal I feel the actual 'point of strike' as being when the cymbal throws my stick back to me(feels like you are lifting a sound off the cymbal as opposed to pushing the sound through the cymbal)...where I vary the amount of time before I allow it to be thrown back depending on the placement I want

Greatest of luck!
 
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This sounds like a great opportunity to practice striking a bit before or after the beat...
Sounds like a plan. I already do that, slightly, so now I just need to exaggerate it a bit more and get comfortable with it. Mind you, I'm not sure if anyone else would even notice, but it sounds odd to me and throws me off.
 
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