Cymbal Sounds

I got a call from a drummer buddy the other day and he was psyched.  While putting together a new cymbal set-up he heeded my advice, well not really my advice but anyway, and decided to mix the sound spectrum placing Zildjian K’s in the ride and hi-hat position and Zildjian A’s on the crashes.  “It sounds great and mixes well” was his response.

What he is talking about is his cymbal sound spectrum.  A lot of drummers don’t pay much attention to this fact, but the great ones do.  It works like this.  As an old engineer friend of mine once related to me about mixing drums;  when mixing drums in the sound spectrum think of placing them on an imaginary bookshelf.  You put the kick and floor toms on the bottom shelf, snare in the middle and cymbals on the top.  I just took his sound advice, no pun intended, and applied it to cymbal acoustics.

Generally speaking you want your crashes to be on top of the ride and hats when it comes to drum set sound.  Your foundation cymbals, the ride and hi-hats are part of the solid groove to your sound; the crashes are actually accents in your playing.  So by using a brighter cymbal for those accents you get a different sound than your foundation brass. 

Now my buddy, a great heavy metal drummer, decided to switch the idea up and use brighter cymbals for his rides and hats and darker cymbals for his crashes.  Generally this is the same idea and it accomplishes the same task.  It separates your sound spectrum and helps your drums fill different head space in the EQ. 

 All manufacturers have different lines of dark and bright cymbals.  If you can give it a shot, mix up those choices and see how you can create your own cymbal sound spectrum.