Saturday, February 04, 2017

Holy Grail

At a recent gig: on the left is
the 17", on the right is the 20"
UPDATE: Since this was posted I became a C&G dealer myself; visit Cymbalistic.com to see what I have in stock. There are videos of every individual cymbal for sale, and everything on the site was personally selected by me for sound and playability. 

I've been paying some visits to the Portland company Cymbal & Gong recently, and needing to write a full-fledged profile of the company. Until I get that done, here are brief reviews of a couple of cymbals I bought— it's very hard to be around C&G's products without buying them. The company is run by Portland drummer Tim Ennis; working with a Turkish cymbalsmith, he has K-type and A-type cymbals manufactured to his specifications, and he applies a variety of patinas to them. Full details on his products coming soon.

17" Holy Grail Crash - 1067 grams
Holy Grail is the name of this line, and aptly so. I never thought I could get so excited by a 17" crash. 1067 grams puts this in the thin category, with traditional, uneven lathing as you might see on an old A or K Zildjian. Patina is a very rich antique bronze— again, like an old K— with some green accents. And the cymbal plays like an old K. Have you ever played a 50-60 year old cymbal that has seen thousands of gigs? That's the way this cymbal feels; by itself it seems slightly dead, with a slight funny twang. Played on the drumset with a band it sounds incredible; it's a very responsive, fast crash, but it's also a shockingly good ride cymbal, with great definition and no riding up. And it has a great bell sound.

Jazz drummers today seem to feel anything smaller than 22" is a joke, but this is a true bebop cymbal— the sound from all those 50s albums. Best cymbal I've ever owned.

Cymbal & Gong seems to really excel at these crash cymbals, because we played a number of them at their headquarters (Tim's house), and a number of them sounded great.


20" Custom Ride - 2023 grams
Custom is not a line of product, it's a catch-all name for short runs or one-offs to a variety of specifications. I would categorize mine as a light medium ride, which is lathed like an Istanbul Sultan or Bosphorus Antique— unlathed bell, unlathed band in the playing area, fully-lathed bottom. And it has a similar sound to those cymbals, which is difficult for me to define. The upshot is that it is a great-sounding K-type cymbal, which plenty of definition, that crashes beautifully, and has a really nice bell sound. This one has a beautiful hand-oiled finish that gives it a very deep bronze color; he had another similar 20" with a matte green patina, which was rougher, more aggressive-sounding, and a beautiful honey-colored 19" that was a little higher-sounding, very tight, and slightly more refined.

Here's my friend Stephen Pancerev playing those cymbals. The 19" is on the left, and my cymbal is on the right:



Tantalizing tidbit: Ennis has just returned from a trip to Turkey, and I did show him one of my 22" Paiste Sound Creation Dark Rides before he went. We'll see if it captivated his (and his smith's) interest enough to order up a few copies...

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