Can You Hear The Difference Between Cheap and Expensive Cymbals? - Ft.  

I have a Wuhan handmade 12” China but it doesn’t fit in any of my stands

I thought about getting one a while ago just to fill up some empty gaps in my kit, but decided to wait and get a sabian holy china instead. One of my better drumming decisions👍

I don’t really have any cymbals

I have to wait until Christmas

I still own a 16n inch china, love it

Yessir

only the best! if you want a china, you go for the china-est sounding china!

1 on the kit, 3 broken in the cymbal bag.

I want to like your comment but its at 69 likes...

hey zack

Lol

You should be honored that my Wuhans were in your presence...

Its just to remind you of your roots, man!

😂

Hahahaha it ain't fair is it @DavidR ?

Yes it is, and it’s awesome…I have a 19” Paragon and it’s awesome, and yes, very similar to that old Wuhan sound!

I have the 20" Paragon which is very bright, but I also want the 19" as well!

I had no idea about that! The 19" Paragon was one of the first chinas I lusted after haha

Indeed, he had several of them. That was when he played Zidjians. It didnt have a screen print logo on it. Chinas seem to be the one thing Western cymbal makers can't make well. That are usually too loud and too "kangy".

@@codesent2125 The 20" is based off of a zildjian low china

There's no better cymbals at that price point unless you get a crazy deal on some secondhand high-end pies. Dream and their Bliss series are excellent as well.

@@jamesmcmackin8773 agreed. They actually punch way above their price point IMO.

@@Rberg1105 It'd be nice if they hadn't gone slightly up in price point, they really used to be dirt cheap, but they're still an excellent value as long as you're cool with medium-thin weights.

@@jamesmcmackin8773 Real drummers carry their rigs while they play, and appreciate lightweight cymbals.

@@chalocolina3554 Ah yes the marching drumset, for all the real drummers

I was going to post this exact comment! I’m actually onto my second 17” crash from Wuhan because honestly you can’t beat its’ sound for the cost. I have it up against other crashes that are almost twice as expensive and it holds its’ own

Absolutely. I bought the Wuhan Western Cymbal pack through Cascio Music on Reverb and the hats & crash were exceptional; I've had A's that didn't sound as good and that's not hyperbole. The ride sounded good but it was heavier than I am used to and since I'd seen the Wuhan Western line had multiple versions of each cymbal I asked Cascio if I paid the shipping to send the ride back to them could they send a light or medium/light ride instead. They were really cool and said no problem, and the ride they sent was perfect. The best ride I ever had was a 20" K Custom Dark Ride that I stupidly sold and no, the Wuhan is not as good as that K but it's a great ride for recording. The 456 line set isn't bad either, I bought it off Amazon during a big sale. They're not the exact dual finish lathed/hammered model like these guys had but they are really good intermediate cymbals. Definitely better than the Sabian B8Plus's I learned on.

I concur with both these comments! They are really great cymbals! And they are so affordable!

Or Wuhan Koi series. Amazing stuff.

My thoughts exactly. I was thinking go with the (B20) Wuhan Traditionals. Brass vs high end B20??. I dunno, just doesn't make much sense to me, kinda disappointing. Oh, and his favorite sounding Wuhan cymbal was a B20 China, go figure

I agree. Of all of them, I thought the hihats were the most serviceable. For cheap cymbals, they sounded like you could get by with them. The ride left a lot to be desired.

I agree, very bright!

Exactly what I heard there too. First thing I'd replace would be the ride.

Yep, the ride was barely there, the hats actually worked pretty well, the crashes were too thin, and the China was surprisingly nice!

Sure but imagine any jazz show with some clangy b8's, shit would sound sorry asf

No, they really wouldn't

Wuhan New Traditional Brilliant Splashes are awesome!

@@weschilton Thick crash cymbals are generally terrible

I agree. I have a 16" and 18" Med-Thin crashes from Wuhan that I use for backups and they sound much better than the 547 rock series.

The traditional line is killer specially the 20” medium ride

I'd rather save and add a good one to 4he other good one I have than go buy 5 or 6 trash just to have every size etc.

@@masterofsparkshwy6974 It’s what I’ve done. A friend had a New Beat top I had to have and got it matched to my bottom heavy. To this day I have never had a combo like this. HH top may have been a fluke, but oh what a fluke.

@@mat4410 that's what I have 14" new beats, really like em.

I'm finally starting to see that after getting some high-grade crashes and seeing/feeling/hearing the difference. I'm finally convincing myself to spend some money on hi-hats

I started on B8s. Honestly budget cymbals are really good in today's time, especially if you are learning. Until you learn proper technique, you may be more prone to cracking cymbals. Better to Crack a B8 than an artisan

Those do sound nice! Ive had a few, but they dont last long... Figured Id give these a shot!

I agree with this comment! Ive had my wuhan b20s for over a year, and they are still going strong. Gig with them consistently. Crashes, hi hats, and splashes are all good. Not the ride though. And they are super cheap!

Yes!

My B20 Wuhans are up and running after around 100+ rock gigs and counting.

Wuhans won't break unless your technique sucks, David. Lmao

China's though right? These crashes and hats are awful. The ride is an okay crash cymbal. The China cymbal sounds good though. I have a 20" Wuhan china and it always ends up back on my kit. I love it.

@@arbogast4950 same thoughts for the cheap ones, the china sounds good and the ride makes a good crash cymbal, while the crash had some awful overtonen but decent initial sound when hit, their mic setup is good though maybe thats why the hats in my opinion sounded decent

@@arbogast4950 yo have you bought the All new Wuhan koi series cymbals ?

@@ArrowThrills no I haven't. Im content with my Aax and A customs..... for now anyway 🤣

@@arbogast4950 gonna echo what you just said about the china, I got a 22" stagg TCH (it's basically a rebranded wuhan) and genuinely failed to find a good enough china to replace it with. It just sounds too good to me, and it's quite sustainy (which I like) since it's so large. Only 'downside' is that you gotta watch your velocity when playing it, it's very loud. Absolutely outvolumes my AAX med crashes if I hit it hard. I can definitely find other great chinas but none of them sound as perfect as these wuhans to my ears, especially when recording. Of all the chinas I found the sabian paragon to be the most similar.

Koi series I'd say is only marginally better than the NTs though.

Should have gone A Custom 🤷

Sabian are amazing

I think I went through that exact progression 😂

Paister 602

I got 14" new beats but I love Sabian.

Bro can you upload a video of you playing on those cymbals ? I would like to hear the sound of the cymbal stack

i've done the same thing to an old 12" as well. sounds just like stax. I actually prefer the sound of a 16 or 18" wuhan china over the more expensive stuff due to the wuhans typically having a much quicker decay than the high end chinas. That 6" splash on here doesn't sound bad at all though.

Agreed. I've got an old DH 22" rock ride I've had for around 11 years and it sounds perfect to this day

This comment stunned me, i know nothing about cymbals but i have this aexact one and enjoy it better than my cheap sabian

Same. I have a couple of Stagg crashes and they both work well for me. They're not premium but sound exactly as I wanted. Helps that I could go into a store and try them first mind you.

100% fully agree with this.. play styles were completely different, and almost felt like they were trying to sway opinion one side or another when they were playing. I cannot for the life of me understand why the bell of the ride was compared when one of the two choices didn't have a bell to speak of.🤷‍♀

Totally disagree ... the cheap ones disappears in the mix and they have no resonance. Expensive ones have this washy full resonating sounds that gives presence and depth ....

@@xavkoston16 very true, but I preferred the short higher snap and less resonance from the cheaper ones with the music. I liked the expensive ones by themselves by far, but with the music I liked the short snappiness of the cheap ones.

The whole Koi line has me intrigued.

Just watched a video of the Kois, I am pretty impressed with the sound considering what they are.

@@CaptainZombeh yeah and they're fairly cheap too

I have a Pearl 500 Wild crash I bought for $35 new in 1991 when I was a kid and it's made it's way into more than one recording session and the one cymbal people have asked to borrow for sessions. It's a little too bright for my current set up but it's one of those cheap oddballs

I'd agree. A friend had the 101 ride. It was decent all around. I ended up using paiste (505 if I remember correctly) for Ride for years. They had nice big bells to hit.

My bands set is a vintage 74 ludwig. A 14 snare, then 13,14,15 and 18 Tom’s, the 15 and 16 being floor stand Tom’s the 13 and 14 on the rack. Then we have (I don’t know the sizes) modern pastie 1 crash, 1 8”splash 1 ride and hi-hat. Then we have another Zildjian hihat on a 74 ludwig stand with a modern drop clutch, Zildjian splash, bell and Zildjian 2nd ride. Remo emperors non coated on the Tom’s and coated on the batter side snare. Plus we have a Db tuned chime set, 3 roto Tom’s tuned to octaves of the 13, the 15 and the 18” Tom’s, a cowbell of course, various wood blocks and shakers, and a mounted Tamborine. Using 9 mics to record. L,R and center small diaphragm condenser over heads, then a mic for each of the drums. The snare and the 4 Tom’s are also miced seperate from one another. And the kick of course. We USED to have another 14” Tom next to our 14” inch that was twice as long in length. I usually tuned it a half step down or up from the other 14 inch. Got annoyed at tuning it, micing it and the space…… the drum set wraps around you in 3/4th of a complete circle… what’s that 290 degrees? 8 cymbals all together. I think I missed one. We have 2 splashes, 2 rides, 2 hi hats, a bell and THREE crashes… I’m not even the drummer nor does our drummer own that set. I own half the kit and the guitarist owns the rest lol!!!! We had to learn tuning and setting up and pretty much all we know about drums because when we kicked our old drummer out our new drummer never played drums before in his life! He’s actually a NATURAL and really good but as the bassist, guitarist, singer, keyboardists, other drummer, the writer of most of the songs and the GEAR head for both the drummer, the guitarist (he doesn’t know any guitar care including string changes but he plays incredibly lol) and I ALSO have to be the sound guy, the recording and the mixing technician at that too….. luckily my guitarist is the one who spends the most money. I ask him for something, he gets it, I learn it and maintain it. And we just call up our drummer to hit the skins because I can’t be behind a drumset, singing and playing bass while watching all the recording tech at the same time….. I head up to practice before anyone is there and tune everything, do all the little adjustments and make sure my guitarists pedal levels and settings are correct. Get everything booted up so when they get there they aren’t standing over me waiting and watching. Kind of sucks I’m the guy that all that falls on but I DO love that (I work audio video conferencing in trade so very similar to live sound) I also don’t really trust anyone to do it the right way or my preferred way. I am self taught in everything. I don’t tune drums the correct way but by ear. I don’t know the techniques or process but somehow I manage to make out very well. I have an incredible ear and am an extreme perfectionist when it comes to music.

It's a lipstick on a pig situation. You can make some cheap cymbals sound kind of okay if you know what you're doing, but you pretty much can't make them sound like nice cymbals.

This is evidenced by Lars Ulrich's work on St. Anger. Legend has it, he actually did use a trash can lid on that album. Not only that, but to show off his ectreme drumming cabalities he used the trah can lidd as snare drum!

@@perpetualgrimace agree but I would say most of us overestimate the sounds that we are making in the context of the music. The drums are so digitalized nowadays, so compresed etc and listeners just don't care whether you use an a custom crash or a cheap zbt crash. That's just my opinion though and I do have many beautiful sounding cymbals. Too bad my bandmates don't take notice or don't care f I use a K custom session ride or a flat ride or a 100$ Dream bliss ride...

@@firesafetymore I love the st Anger snare sound but I think the production and mix were a trainwreck. You can clearly hear the parts kf one song were recorded on different sets in a different studio etc..

@@shalaq Not true at all. No amount of compression can make a zbt sound good, in fact you'll wind up heavily EQing your overheads to work around it and the whole drum sound will suffer. Gotta get the right sounds at the source! It's true that listeners with untrained ears may not hear a huge difference, but that doesn't mean there isn't a huge difference. And for what it's worth, your dream bliss ride undoubtedly sounds miles better than the zbt crash/ride I started out with. Not all cheaper cymbals are equal!

I hope this comment gets seen. The Koi series from the Cardinal Percussion relaunch of Wuhan are fantastic. While they are more expensive, they are still half as much as a set of K Cons. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qGOI9KG0cSI.html

Probably because you are used to a lot of samples with a high degree of compression or a cleaner sound which the cheap ones sound close to. Compare K cons to A customs which have a much faster response and minimal overtones you’d probably like those better. K’s or dark cymbals add a lot of overtone or smokiness which fills out and gives much more body which suits some styles of music and usually feels much more expressive for the drummer.

Tell me you don't jam to Meshuggah without telling me you don't jam to Meshuggah Lol

yeah, it's only really brass cymbals that are awful, anything B8 or B20 are decent.

uhhhh....

Orion in Brazil and Krest Cymbals come to mind

Just when you thought a Wuhan didnt sound trashy enough! haha