Beiträge von Johan VDS

Zitat

Original von bang_marco
Ihr könnt mir nicht erzählen, dass die Dinger sich noch nach vernünftigen Becken anhören.
Also, ich würde mit den Dingern nie und nimmer irgendwas aufnehmen. Dafür klingt JEDES becken nachher nur noch mehr nach einem kapputen Becken als nach etwas, was klingt.
Marco

Actually this is the same thing that was said about the very trashy ride cymbal of Tony Williams when he recorded with Miles Davis in the sixties. Now that ride cymbal is the "Holy Grail" to many jazzdrummers worldwide

Not finding that sound in the shops was also the inspiration for me to start hammering.

@ bang
I listened to your music on your website. It's heavy rock and you play this music very well. Trashy and low pitched cymbals would indeed not work well for the music you play. You need sharp and cutting cymbals.

But the soundfiles of the cymbals you hear on my "website" reflect my PERSONAL taste for dark and trashy cymbals. I basically hammered these cymbals this way because I want to play them myself. I love them this way.

But I can hammer cymbals in a very different way also. I can even hammer a dark cymbal into a bright and cutting one. But the high sound I make will be more complex and rich than a "machine made" high pitched cymbal (like Zildjian Avedis, Sabian AA or Paiste 2002).

Actually, I'm not only asked to hammer cymbals darker. Sometimes people send me old crash cymbals that don't sound brilliant anymore. They ask me to rehammer them so they will sound brighter and more cutting again. So with hammering I can do all sorts of things.

Zitat

Original von bang_marco
Teil finde ich das Ergebnis miserabel. Ihr könnt mir nicht erzählen, dass die Dinger sich noch nach vernünftigen Becken anhören. Also, ich würde mit den Dingern nie und nimmer irgendwas aufnehmen. Dafür klingt JEDES becken nachher nur noch mehr nach einem kapputen Becken als nach etwas, was klingt.Marco

De gustibus non est disputandum

Looks like you didn't use an anvil.

Zitat

Original von buddler
China Hammering? I don't know, how to "fold" it (to get the typical china shape) without damaging it.

It's not folding or bending, it's all hammering. But without experience you indeed risk to crack this cymbal because it's B20. Learn it on a cheap brass cymbal first.

Zitat

Original von RocK
Wenn man nun ein Becken (zB gerade ein Ride) jahrelang an der selben Stelle anspielt, beeinflusst das nicht das Klangverhalten?

.

The effect on the "stelle" where the ride cymbal is played is usually very small, unless you play very hard or with a bad technique. But the vibration generated by playing the cymbal will travel through the whole cymbal, so the tension of the whole cymbal will change through the years.

But generally a ride cymbal is a thicker cymbal and the total amount of vibration caused by playing with the tip of the stick is less than crashing a cymbal. So the sound change of ride cymbals will usually be less and progress slower than that of crash or china cymbals.

Also, almost every cymbal is a bit heavier and thicker on one side. The heaviest part of the cymbal always turns towards you and because of that cymbals are most often played on the heaviest and strongest part.

Zitat

Original von henryartis
......ich habe immer mal wieder gehört, daß Cymbals im Laufe der Jahre ihre
Klangcharakteristik verlieren können! Becken, welche unter extremer Spielweise
benutzt wurden, auf einmal nicht mehr klingen.....oder einfach über die Jahre hinweg ermüden!!
OLI

This is very different for each alloy.

Cymbals that are made from sheet alloy, like B8 (including amateur cymbals like Zildjian ZBT, Meinl MCS, Sabian B8, Paiste PST5 but also professional cymbals like Paiste 2002) can easily suffer from a real loss of sound. Not only the volume can drop but also the brilliance can go away. I'm sure everyone has heard cymbals from this alloy that sound almost dead.
With brass cymbals this is even worse. Cymbals like Paiste 302, Sabian Solar or Meinl Meteor can lose all of their sound very quickly. Brass cymbals are almost always a bad investment. They may be cheap, but still it's money thrown away.

Cymbals made from B20 alloy (like the professional models from Zildjian, Sabian, Ufip, Istanbul, Bosphorus and other Turkish brands, also Paiste 602 and Sound Creation, AND Chinese cymbals like Stagg and Wuhan) will keep their sound and brilliance much better. Simply because B20 alloy is much harder. However, the sound will still change over the years because playing the cymbals causes the tension in the metal to drop. The tension has been put in by the hammering. Also, the patina will cause a slightly drier sound. Still, B20 alloy cymbals will not go "dead", they will keep their brilliance but will only sound a bit more "sweet" and feel more "buttery". Many drummers, especially the more jazz-oriented players like this very much. Only if the cymbals are really played too hard or with bad technique they will go dead or crack.

Zitat

Auch die "nach alter Rezeptur" neu aufgelegten Cymbals klingen lange nicht nach den Vergleichs-Originalen mit entsprechender Patina

That is very true, but an important reason is that these imitations of vintage cymbals are not made in the same way as the old cymbals. The best example is the K Constantinople series. Zildjian claims they are made to sound like the old hand-hammered K-Zildjians...but the modern K Constantinoples are hammered with a machine and are made in a much shorter time !!! It's simply impossible to create this old sound with a machine. So don't be fooled by this marketing strategy !

May be some of you will ask how it comes that most modern Turkish cymbals do not sound like old K's although they are also handhammered. Partly this is because these cymbals are still young and didn't get the chance to lose some tension yet. But the second reason is that nowadays they are mostly hammered into a higher tension than the old K's were. They are simply made stiffer than many old K's. Rehammering cymbals into a lower tension is something I do very often to create a really old sound.

Of course, it's all a matter of taste !

Zitat

Ich habe ein billiges Doppler b20 Crash in 16'', welches mir zu trashig klingt.

But why not optimise the trashy quality of the cymbal ? You could hammer a great china from it, then the trashiness would be very welcome.

Or make a new kind of trashy effectscymbal like I did with this Wuhan cymbal. I was asked to create a new kind of avantgarde cymbal for an American school for contemporary classical music. I was given total freedom to create whatever I wanted. This is what I came up with.
I've called it the "Radial Trash". Here's the SOUNDFILE.

Zitat

But how does polishing affect the cymbal's sound?

Well if you will polish it for a whole afternoon the sound will become a little bit "cleaner" because you will flatten the grooves a bit which takes away some of the sharper overtones.

Zitat

What does "chinese alloy" mean? No "clean" 80:20?

Sometimes it has more tin. It's also not so pure. But it is also processed in a different way. Many chinese cymbals are hot hammered into shape (normally hammering is done cold). Sometimes they are corrected with a cold hammering afterwards, sometimes with machine hammers like you can see on Stagg DH or Furia. So there are several factors that create a different and more trashy sound.

Zitat

Original von buddler

Zitat

My feet definitely don't smell

I don't believe you:D

First of all, those feet look very smelly !!!

That Doppler cymbal isn't pressed. It is a chinese B20 alloy cymbal that was hammered into shape, just like Stagg or Wuhan cymbals (they probably come from the same factory).

It is not because you don't see small indentations that a cymbal isn't hammered. If you use a hammer with a flat surface you will not get indentations. I often do this for certain purposes. Normally a flat hammer will produce less trash than a rounder one, but the trashy sound of this cymbal has other causes.

It is mainly because it is chinese alloy that it sounds trashy. Also the cup is a bit too large for a 16" (many chinese crashes under 18" have a cup that is a bit too large) This gives a bit of extra volume and body to the cymbal, but also enhances the trash and makes the sound less delicate.

You will not be able to really hammer the trashiness away, certainly not with the experience you now have. May be lathing the cymbal in certain areas would help, but I would have to grab the cymbal to know.

Zitat

Original von buddler
Is it possible to hammer certain cymbals more "clean"?
I have a cheap b20 16'' Crash which ist only pressed into form and than lathed. No hammering.
It is real trashy.

What would you suggest to do, to make the cymbal more "clean" and harmonic? Wouldn't there be even more trash in its sound through hammering?
The shape is quite high.

Alles anzeigen

It may indeed be possible to hammer it cleaner but I would have to see the cymbal to know what is necessary.
But if you start hammering the surface you will make it even more trashy. You will probably have to change the shape.

If it is Chinese B20 alloy it will always remain trashy to some extent.

Do you have pictures ? Also a picture of the profile of the cymbal ?

I had hoped to add a final word to my thread but it has already been closed. Edit: Post attached to this thread

I certainly respect the decision of the moderators and I'm glad that some of you have taken the time to listen to my work on my webspace.

I will try to further participate in the forums but my knowledge of the German language is sometimes too basic to understand everything that is being said.

I'm also glad that my work has made some of you happy.

If you want to stay tuned on what I'm doing you can go to the forum of Drummerworld.com. You'll find my thread at the top of the page.

http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15

When Cymbalholic is back online I will be there too.

Hope to see you there !!!

Zitat

Original von mod
- there will be ONE thread in "firmen-news" which can be used to promote any new cymbals, sound, pics etc you made. this should include also discussion and requests around your products.

- for all other topics not related to your business, you're welcome to contribute to the forum and give your valueable advice as usual.

hope, this works out for all of us. what is your thoughts on this?

Of course I'll respect any decision you take. Your idea is certainly more kind than just closing or removing my post like was done on another German drummerforum.

Of course moving my post to "firmen-news" would make people believe that I am a firm, which I am not and certainly don't want to be. Look at the "design" of my website. if I would have very commercial intentions I would have an attractive website, not just an index-list.
Next to that, I don't think that many people who want to discuss cymbals will read my post if it is moved there.

The question is whether forums should or should not give an opportunity to individuals who passionately try to make something very different and unorthodox to speak out freely? Some forums like Cymbalholic, Groovologist or Ghostnote certainly encourage individuals who do something special to show it to the world. Other forums only want the well known brands to be discussed and will immediately silence any individual who tries to do something different or tries to improve things that have been mass-produced.

But if opinions matter in the making of your decision, I would suggest to judge by the opinions of other forum-members, not by mine.

I will respect the decision without any hard feelings !

Zitat

Mir ist das mittlerweile zu kommerziell- könnten wir das in unter "Firmen-News" unterbringen?

aber denke das wir hier im Forum niemals zuvor soviel Eigenwerbung zugelassen haben

Bibbel and Drumstudio, both of you are right, I am promoting what I do. But I am not a firm and I don't want to be. Most of all I am a drummer who loves cymbals and who is unhappy with the machine made (but so called handmade) cymbals from the big "firms" who are trying to make everyone beliieve that they produce artisanally handmade products.

Take the modern K Zildjians or Sabian HH's as an example.
Most of the present day K's are really nothing else than Avedis's with a flatter shape, which automatically creates a lower "darker" pitch. Making a flat shape is a very simple trick to create a "darker" sound (but it cannot create a more complex and rich sound like an old K). The low profile is created SIMPLY by a press, just like the higher Avedis profile is machine pressed. The small amount of hammering the K's and HH's get only makes a small sound difference, the sound is really mostly determined by the machine press.
So the price difference between Zildjian A's and K's, or between Sabian AA's and HH's is artificial !! Aren't THESE the type of "firms" that should be criticized? Although K's are not at all artisanally made you have to pay more for them than for A's ! Zildjian still puts a "K" on their cymbals, JUST to get more money out of everybody's pockets. There is nothing in their manufacturing that justifies the higher price. K Constantinoples are an even bigger fraud. Also these are completely machine made, yet Zildjian simply makes these cymbals visually more similar to an old handmade cymbal. They are really fooling the audience.

Of course the modern Turkish cymbals like Istanbul and Bosphorus are still handhammered and many of them sound very beautiful. But there's a problem here as well.
Because of the high demand for Turkish cymbals the Turkish factories have to engage a lot of unexperienced people to hammer. These are given a basic training in shaping a cymbal but they don't learn the finer skill of really fine-tuning a cymbal with a hammer. so the quality of Turkish cymbals is very unpredictable and inconsistent.
Furthermore, factory cymbalsmiths do not play and listen to the cymbal while they are hammering it. Simply because they aren't drummers or percussionists, so they are really not interested in the sound. Their job is merely to create a certain shape. This applies as much to Turkish hammerers as to personnel in the huge Western factories.
To me that's like cooking without tasting. When I'm hammering, I constantly interrupt work to check the sound. I don't just hit the cymbal once to get a quick idea, but I play all parts of the surface to make sure the tension is correct everywhere and there are no unplayable spots. Of course this is a much more time-consuming procedure than just shape-hammering but I feel it's essential to create really good cymbals.

For me it would be impossible to make a living hammering cymbals in this extremely labour-intensive way because I spend much more hours on a cymbal than the price I ask for it. I do it mainly out of passion. I do ask a reward but I mostly charge only half of my hours.
Next to that I have spent a FORTUNE buying cymbals simply because I LOVE them. Check the amount of cymbals on my website, they are all my cymbals (except for some in the "before and after" section. I admit that my cymbals are for sale, but I know for sure that many of them will never get sold because I hammered these to my personal taste which is like Drumstudio says "diffuser, verwaschener und trashiger".

Now the links to the "before and after" soundfiles should work again.

More before and after modification soundfiles in this MAP.

Zitat

Original von wafi
soundsamples hat er ...

The "before and after" soundfile of these hihats is HERE.

Another modification I did of a Turkish cymbal was a Grandmaster 22" ride, which I had to make more complex, lighter and more Tony Williams-like. Again, here's the "before and after" SOUNDFILE.

And another new bunch of freshly hammered cymbals is added to my webspace ! Rides, crashes, hihats, china's, a perforation trash...

Check them out !

If you want to see a video of me playing a drumsolo ,go to THIS download page and wait for 30 seconds. After that you will be able to click a download button, you'll see. You need Real player.

The video dates from 2002. I'm using my more rock oriented self-hammered cymbals. The drums and the single bassdrumpedal are ADAMS, the hihatstand is an old Pearl, the snaredrum is one I built myself.

Zitat

Original von Interceptor
... hat sie einen sehr hohen kurzen unangenehmen Nachklang.

Possible causes are:

-too little weight difference between the top and bottom cymbal.
-conflict of metal tension between the two cymbals
-warpage of one or both of the cymbals

Hihats should be well checked and matched in the factory to prevent this, but often this is neglected due to the high demands of mass production.

If Zildjian won't give you a new pair I can solve the problem, just drumcymb@yahoo.com me.

Definitely the Zildjian K Quickstep Limited Edition !