UPDATE: Bumping this to the top of the blog— the Nov. 7-9th Germany meets are coming up, and I’ll be posting details soon. For now check out some of the cymbals I’ll be bringing— and that will be going away, if you’re not in Germany, and you don’t buy them first!
CYMBALISTIC: All right, I’ve been a real slacker getting new cymbal videos posted, so here are a ton of them all at once! I’m heading to Germany again in November, so I need to stock up a little bit.
…by the way, I’m bringing cymbals to Germany again in November— I’ll be showing them in Berlin and Dresden on the 7th-9th. So: many of these will be going away, if you see one you like, get it soon…
This new round of cymbals are mostly on the thinner side, and they’re great— in selecting them, I was on the alert against them being too-splashy, too-washy, difficult to control— common failings of thinner ride cymbals. Playability is always my first concern, along with sound, because they are interconnected.
22″ Extra Special Janavars
These have been my flagship cymbal for several years now— players love them. We have three of them, between ~1850-1950 grams— very light for a 22″ cymbal, but still very playable. One has a Holy Grail patina and has a full and lovely sound, the others are funkier, with the usual heavy patina and three rivets.
20″ Extra Special Janavars
The other story is that we have several really solid jazz 20s— great first cymbals of that type, or just for a nice upgrade to a friendlier cymbal. These 20″ Extra special Janavars have the regular Holy Grail patina, and are more standard middle-weight jazz rides.
22″ Holy Grail – American-style
The last several of these we’ve gotten have been in the 2000s gram range— a pair of them from last year were nasty Art Blakey-style bruisers, that needed a heavy patina to make them behave. This new round are a similar weight, but a whole different thing— nice, controllable, full sounding light rides, with a relatively clean sound, and moderately aggressive tonality as I expect from this line. I got one for Cymbalistic, there are more at Cymbal & Gong.
20″ Holy Grail – Turkish style
We’ve been getting these, too, in lighter weights, and I think they’re great— similar niche as the 20″ ES Janavars, but with a softer tonality, mellower bell sound. Again, totally solid main or second ride cymbals.
Oh, there’s also a funkier 21″, with rivets and a heavy patina:
15″ Custom hihats
These were a factory misfire— they screwed up an order of Revival series cymbals, with the wrong kind of hammering, no matter, because we get some cool one-off cymbals out of the deal. These are rather dark/nasty, with a cutting high end, solid foot sound. Tim @ Cymbal & Gong has labeled them “Survival.” I may ask them to make more.
And more! Take yourself on over to Cymbalistic and check them out.