The basic guidelines for selecting the right drum cymbal for you are as follows.
1. Budget-How much can you afford to pay? All of the major cymbal makers have a wide range of cymbal lines to choose from. Always try to spend as much as you can afford on your cymbals. Unlike drums were you can make even a cheap drum kit sound good with the correct heads and tuning you cannot change the way a cymbal sounds. Cheap cymbals will always sound cheap no matter what you do.
2. Your style of playing-How do you play your cymbals? Do you hit hard, soft or somewhere in between? The basic rule here is if you hit hard buy a heavier cymbal. If you play softly you can basically choose any weight you want and not worry about breakage.
3. The style of music you play-The general rule here is again heavier styles of music require heavier playing so go with heavy weight cymbals for hard rock and metal. For pop and lighter rock you can use medium weight and for jazz and light styles of music you can go with thin cymbals. Keep in mind that a mixture of several weights of cymbals is often preferred by for different sound textures by many drummers.
4. What sound qualities are you looking for?-Most importantly is how do you want your cymbals to sound? Are you looking for a bright cutting sound or a dry dark tone? Many many tones and sound qualities are available. Normally the brightest tones will come from polished cymbals, the medium tone comes from the regular finish cymbals and the driest tones come from the unfinished for unlathed cymbals.
Remember always spend as much as you can afford on your cymbals and take care of them. They will last a lifetime if you do.
Cymbalism Music (www.cymbalismmusic.com) provides drummers huge collection of top cymbal brands like Meinl cymbals, Istanbul Agop cymbals, Bosphorus cymbals, Alchemy cymbals and Wuhan cymbals as well as electronic drums and cymbals by Ddrum, Pintech, Wirges and Visulite. It also offers high quality Keyboards, Guitars, Drum bags, cymbal cases etc too.
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