Beiträge von Johan VDS

Zitat

Original von buddler How can you get the "bow" in your cymbal?
Whenever I try, I get some kind of "Wanderfalte" (don't know the English word... sorry :D, it is some kind of fold which moves around the cymbal)

I'm not sure what you are talking about. Basically you just need to hammer the shape of the bow you want. May be you hammer too much in one spot ?

Zitat

Original von seppel
ride becken und hihat becken haben nix gemeinsames. HH sind 2 14er zusammengeklatscht, ride ist 22, frei schwingend. wie soll das zusammen passen?

Everything depends on the musical ideas you have in your head and the style of music you want to play.
If cymbals are just functional to you (meaning they just have to provide rhythm or accents) the character of the individual cymbals might not be so important.

But if you want cymbals that are not only functional but also colour the music, it's very important to compare the harmonics of the cymbals you want to combine in your setup. In this case, if you don't choose cymbals that go well together, the sustaining sound of an open hihat can really fight the tone of a ride, like 2 crashes can fight each other.

Of course you can purposely combine cymbals with very different harmonics if that matches your musical idea. But different harmonics can either fight each other or complement each other. So even then you have to choose very carefully.

My post about my hand-hammered cymbals has found a new home. It has been moved to a NEW part of the forum, where it is now possible do add comments.

Check :
http://www.drummerforum.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=19349

Thanks Tim !

Here's some new ones.

18"Complex Light Ride 1340 gr:

http://users.telenet.be/cymbzd…de_1340gr_(from_Ufip).mp3

20" Light Complex Dry Jazz ride 1870gr:

http://users.telenet.be/cymbzd…from_Zildjian_Avedis).mp3

20" Complex Light Jazz Ride 1850gr :

http://users.telenet.be/cymbzd…from_Zildjian_Avedis).mp3

And finally, a 22" Paiste Signature Power Ride, hammered and lathed into a 22,75" Extra Dark ride, 2820 gr. The very soft B15 "Paiste Alloy" allowed me to make the cymbal 0,75" larger!

[url=http://users.telenet.be/cymbzdrumz/1_RECREATED_CUSTOM_CYMBALS/2_CRASHES_and_RIDES_18_inch_and_bigger/22,75_Extra_Dark_Ride_2820gr_(from_Paiste_Signature_22_Power_Ride).mp3]http://users.telenet.be/cymbzd…nature_22_Power_Ride).mp3[/url]

Zitat

Original von exrapu

yes. because we all hate 'em !!! :D;)

I'd almost believe you

No seriously, I think the problem is just that the B20 alloy of many Turkish cymbals (not only Anatolian) is often extremely hard and by consequence more brittle. But the hardness at the same time makes a great sound.
Also the way the alloy is made in Turkey isn't always consistent. The copper is often gained from old electric copper wire with the plastic sleeve still on when it is melted down. Also the amount of copper and tin isn't always 80 to 20 parts as it should be.
But the biggest flaws are often mistakes in the tempering process. Then a B20 cymbal can become very brittle.

That makes it so difficult to get good darker cymbals. The American B20 alloy is purer and stronger BUT the K's are not hammered by hand anymore while on the other hand the Turkish are mostly still hammered by hand BUT the alloy isn't so consistent.

Do you German drummers only break Anatolian ???

Just letting you all know that I'm back on the forum, but this time in Firmen-news in THIS thread....

CU there!

By the way, the original thread about my work (which has been closed) can be read HERE

Some comments from people who play cymbals I hammered can be found HERE.

...

First of all, sorry for writing in English. I understand a little bit of German but I can't write it myself.

So I am a drummer from Bruges, Belgium, who also hammers cymbals by hand.

I started doing this about 20 years ago, after a long unsuccesful search for cymbals that would match my taste for really dark complex cymbals. No modern factory made cymbal could satisfy me and I couldn't find any old K's.

After some years of trial and error I started to get the feel for it and acquired the ability to change a cymbal to a pre-determined sound.

The cymbals I've hammered can be seen and heard on my webindex page. Mind you, I have hammered most of these cymbals to suit my personal taste (dark and trashy) but I can also brighten the sound or raise the pitch with a different hammering method.

I hammer pro- and also some non-pro-level factory cymbals into much richer sounding cymbals.
Besides creating light complex jazz cymbals, I also hammer heavier rock-oriented cymbals to dramatically enrich the sound.

Some "before and after modification" files can be heard HERE.

Some student cymbals I hammered into professional cymbals can be listened to HERE.

Soundfiles of these next cymbals can be all be found on the site.

This was a Paiste Signature Power ride, hammered to sound like the old 60's Tony Williams ride, but a little heavier:

This was a Zildjian ZBT 20" ride, now a very complex thin professional jazz ride.

This dark complex sounding ride was once a bright Paiste 2002 22" ride:

A 20" Tony Williams (Nefertiti) ride made from a Sabian AA:

A 20" Complex Dry Crashride made from a Paiste 2002:

A 20" Dry Complex Rough Ride, originally a Paiste Dimensions:

Finally a "before and after" pic of a cheap 16" Headliner crash cymbal, now a professional dark thin crash:

Zitat

Original von damage_done
die idee ein becken in ein china umzuhämmern ist geil! ich hab mit nem paiste 302 14" HH bottom experimentiert. umhämmern, 14 kleine löcher gebohrt und siehe da - - -> ein supergeiles sizzelndes trash-china. der sound war mir aber zu hell, da hab ich es mit weißem alufelgen-spray eingefärbt. das dämpft, sieht cool aus und hält die vibration aus.
gruß, david

Brass covered with spray and carrying the weight of 14 rivets...that thing must sound totally dead (apart from the sizzle sound)

Zitat

Original von travis06
Die grossen Hersteller machen es den nicht ganz so grossen wie Istanbul nicht leicht Endorser zu finden. Da steckt auch viel Marketing dahinter.

That's it. The empire of the "Big 3" excells in marketing strategies...not always in the quality of their cymbals.

If you want a rich sounding cymbal, turkish cymbals are mostly better than K' or HH's. Even for heavy music.
If you want a simple "focused" sound, then the Big 3 are better (also Meinl).

Paiste Traditionals are often beautiful cymbals and are hammered better than modern K Zildjians or Sabian HH's.

BUT...Paiste Alloy (B15) is extremely soft and bends very easily. Warped hihats don't close properly and don't "chick" accurately anymore.

I've been sent so many badly deformed Paiste Signature/SoundFormula/Traditional hihats for rehammering into proper shape.

So you have to play them very carefully and make sure they don't get squeezed during transport.

Zitat

Original von damage_done
ich hab mit nem paiste 302 14" HH bottom experimentiert. umhämmern, 14 kleine löcher gebohrt und siehe da - - -> ein supergeiles sizzelndes trash-china. der sound war mir aber zu hell, da hab ich es mit weißem alufelgen-spray eingefärbt. das dämpft, sieht cool aus und hält die vibration aus.

Show us a pic !

Zitat

Original von Nostr4
N niegelnagelneuer PST3 Satz für 120€ abholbar am Montag....hate it or take it?

Never buy brass cymbals, it's money thrown away (apart from a few exceptions).

Brass loses its sound very quickly.

Zitat

Have any brands?

Sidol has a copper polish, also Ca-va-çeul. Don't know if they sell that in Germany.

Zitat

There is the possibility to add trash to nearly every cymbal, but it depends on the material, if it is possible to take it away?

Yes that's correct. In general American B20 (Zildjian and Sabian) sounds the cleanest. I can keep the character clean but change the pitch by hammering it in a certain way. So I can tune the cymbal up or down. But using a different hammering strategy I can hammer it very trashy. Within the trashiness I can choose to hammer it to a high pitched or a low pitched trashiness. So many things are possible, if only you know how to do it and spend a LOT of time on each cymbal (so not quickly hammer or press a cymbal like in the factory).

Italian and Turkish B20 is generally a bit more trashy by nature than American B20, but chinese alloy is the king of trashiness.

B8 alloy is by nature not trashy at all, but I can hammer it trashy. But to hammer B8 in such a way that it sounds trashy AND warm is very much hammerwork. But it can be done ! Just listen to the B8 16" Headliner crash on my website.

Everything needs a different hammering approach !

The idea here is not to scratch metal away but actually dissolve some of the metal in a chemical way. So you need a polish that chemically attacks copper, not steel.

Anyway even with a lot of polishing the difference in sound will be minimal. The trashyness of chinese alloy is very persistent.

Working with the cleaner sounding western B20 alloy is much more interesting. If you learn how to hammer you can do all sorts of things with it. You can make it trashy but you can also hammer it dark without becoming trashy. Or hammer a cymbal brighter.

But most Chinese B20 alloy cymbals will remain trashy whatever you do with them. I can hammer some of the trashiness away, but not all of it. The trashiness is really inside the metal.
So it's best to turn the trashiness to your advantage by hammering the cymbal into a china or something like it.

Or you can cut Ozone-type of holes in it like I did with this Sabian AAX 18".
Before cutting the holes I first hammered the cymbal in a special way, but you can leave out the hammering and just cut holes. Here's a soundfile.
Holes will trashify the cymbal even more but the cymbal will get a wider dynamic range and it becomes a warmer kind of trashiness. The cymbal will open up at the softest touch.

This way your Doppler can become a very interesting effects-cymbal.

Zitat

Original von buddler
How do you polish a cymbal?
I've spent some hours today afternoon (remember the doppler crash I mentioned in this thread?), but the results are... unsatisfying.

Does it shine yet ?:D

I have a 27" Wuhan.

Originally it was much too heavy and it sounded very dry. It had almost no volume at all.
So I hammered and lathed it. Now it sounds like a roaring monster

Zitat

Original von Herr-Vorragend
Auf der Homepage von Sabian hat mich spontan das 18" AAX Studio vom Klang überzeugt

All "identical" models sound different, certainly if they are made from B20 alloy.

So do not buy a cymbal because you like the soundfile, the cymbal YOU will get is not the same cymbal and could sound very different.

So you have to go the shop and test the cymbals there. Buy the one you like, but never order a cymbal on the basis of a soundfile from the Sabian or Zildjian website.

Use a product that is intended to make copper shine (should contain ammoniaque). Not a product for steel.
During the polishing process it will turn black on the cymbal which then you have to wipe off. The cymbal will shine (at least if you spend another afternoon on it:D )

The black colour is in fact a part of the bronze that comes off.

Of course this not the product to use if you just want to clean a cymbal without changing the sound.