Hand-hammering And Re-created Cymbals

Luke Flowers from the Cinematic Orchestra will now also be playing my cymbals. He visited me this week when the band was touring Europe and left with almost 2 full setups of cymbals.

Not many, I work on a cymbal until I'm happy with it and that can take a LONG time.

A French drummer sent me this Paiste 2002 20" Ride and asked me to re-create it into a (lighter) jazzy ride. The sound he had in mind was somewhere in between a regular jazzride and a flatride.

So (amongst others) I decided to considerably downsize the cup. As Paiste 2002 is made from B8, a soft alloy, dramatically downsizing the cup is possible, given enough hammering. It also involves hammering the rest of the cymbal, but that was necessary anyway to alter the sound of the cymbal towards a jazzy sound.

I still have to make an "after" soundfile, but meanwhile here's the "before and after" picture.

Here is the BEFORE AND AFTER CLIP

Yes, a 505 is just as good for that.

Here's an old 22" Avedis I've just finished re-creating. It was sent to me by a US drummer

Originally the cymbal was a 40's transtamp at 2649gr, sounding fairly aggressive IMO and everything but clicky. The idea was to make it lighter, more jazzy and darker but with a better stick definition.
The finish had to be a regular type of lathing, not a patina finish or banded lathing like some of my other work.
I've totally re-hammered and re-shaped it and lathed it down to 2330 grams.

Here's a before and after soundclip....

It now looks like this:

Not darker but more "crunchy".

I used large and small hammers on this cymbal, but only the small hammermarks are clearly visible. As you see there are thousands of them. No factory does as much hammering; not even in Turkey.

With the small hammer I can also work in much more detail. It takes very, very much time, but my aim is to make better cymbals than what is made in the factories.

Clips (and a few pics) of cymbals which I made from cracked cymbals are HERE

Thank you !!!

Just re-created an Istanbul Agop Sig 22", here's a BEFORE AND AFTER clip.

Here's a really old and very thin nickelsilver 22" Meinl Romen Mark ride which I recently re-created into a complex crashride for a Dutch drummer.

Nickelsilver is a generally a poor sounding alloy, but for some purposes it can be interesting.

Here is the BEFORE AND AFTER CLIP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyBcSaQHZDo

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All of those cymbals are re-created from Zildjians, Ufip and Paiste.

The crash on the left is my 16,5" Mellow Crash which I made from a Paiste 602. You can find a pic and clip on my website in THIS folder.

I've just sold the18" Crash on the right to a British drummer. I made it from an 18 K Ride. It is no longer on my website.

The ride is my 20" Dark Heavy Ride 2880gr which I hammered from a Ufip. You can find it in THIS folder.

The very loud almost chinese sounding cymbal on the right below the crash is my 18" Ripple Trash which you can find in THIS map.

The 14" hihats and the splashes are modfied A customs, They are not on my website yet.

I have built the snaredrum myself from plies of high grade Finnish Birchwood which I have glued together into a shell. I also made the tubular lugs myself.

Hope that answers your questions ?