Gregg Juke wrote:Hey Rex,
What kind of hand-hammered cymbals are you sporting there? They look shiny and nice... fairly dark-sounding, are they??
GJ
Short Story: They are K Constantinoples.
Long story: I bought a 20" Light Ride with three rivets (Memphis Drum shop special - made for them) then a 22" Medium Thin High and a 22" Medium Thin Low. There are zero decent drum shops around here so I was forced to go the Memphis Drum Shop / Cymbals Only.com route and listen to samples. It was pretty eye opening and I spent about a month listening to just about every sample of every Bospherous, Istanbul, Zildjian they had. It was weird but I have to say, with really good headphones it was a really accurate representation of how the cymbals actually sound. I thought I would probably be disappointed or return at least one of them but they are all exactly what I was hearing. The guy at Cymbalsonly.com is especially cool. A really really nice guy to deal with.
I was hoping to be swayed with the Bosphorus or Istanbul which are all great sounding but considerably cheaper than the K's, but dammit; the k's are exactly what I want to hear from a nice jazz ride. I also had an old K light ride that I bought 20 years ago from the old editor of Modern Drummer. I put it for sale on ebay and it went for quite a bit. I never thought it sounded that great, but apparently it is a pretty sought after cymbal so that helped offset the cost.
Anyway, they sound amazing. Perfect combination of stick definition and overtones. I am really really in love with this set. The Med Thin Low is super dark and the Med Thin High is a bit brighter so its a really nice contrast and I swear its like they are pitched in musical intervals, like switching from one ot the other is moving a fourth or fifth. Just incredibly musical cymbals.