I've got a few hi-hats .... all Sabian
18" AA Sick Hats (my newest addition and man I'm lovin' them)
??? 18" hi hats Harry? Holy cow. I thought Bo was nuts. Aren't they heavy enough to mess with the hi hat spring return action? I mean you obviously like them. I never even thought to dare to go that big with a hat. I need to get out more.
I NEVER owned anything other than a 14" hi hat. That sounds nuts when I proofread it. I still have my first great set of hi hat cymbals that I bought with my first credit card (that I maxed out at a music store, Zaphs in Center City Phila. 1 rainy spring day in 1977). I worked at a bank in Center City Phila. PNB lol. They gave me a credit card, idiots. I was 18.5 then lol. 14" New Beats, brand new, which I still have 42 years later? Holy crap. I got Rototoms, an SM 58 mic, and I forget what else that day.
I had some crap hi hats that came with my first set of drums I got for Christmas in 1968...MIJ gold sparkle Stewarts.... that I blocked from my memory. I have no memory of any cymbals with that kit. Until my next kit, brand new 1976 Ludwig "Hollywood" in bowling ball blue that I got from profits from the sale of illegal items to my friends in HS. The next year I got a credit card and therefore better hi hat cymbals. I had gotten a great 20" Zildjian medium ride and an 18" Zildjian crash from Benny Cintioli in Phila. from my beaten father for Christmas 1971, which I was absolutely ecstatic about. I picked them out, and my parents hid them until Christmas. But I would steal them and conceal and walk them to a nearby apartment complex laundry room to play them. Then I would return them after playing them. Ha ha ha. I was SO hooked on great sounding cymbals, I would kill for them.
I am so done buying drums, but cymbals...I will rarely indulge. Maybe a set of 15" hats, they would be next I guess.. Or do I dare consider 16's?
Playing-wise, I love the effect it creates when the snare hand randomly hits the closed hi hat on one of the 16th note subdivisions (other than the backbeat) during a beat. The hi hat adds so much complexity while totally staying out of the way of everything. Fills that won't work on toms...like one thought of during a vocal...can work on the hi hat. I friggin love the access it has. It goes anywhere, where IMO, toms don't, can't. Toms are very heavy. Hi hats are light, like fragrance on a warm spring breeze. They go anywhere. I love the hi hat.