The sound of cymbals..........

[zanash]

Just read this and thought how much it mirrored my thinking. How about the rest of you ?

http://www.neilmcbride.co.uk/cymbals.html

[GrahamN]

Well, I see the 'M' in the name, but not the 'GT'. Clearly a doppelganager! ;)

And yes cymbals are difficult - little or nothing can get the clarity required to reproduce the initial attack, yet the tonal accuracy to get the decay. Too often it just turns into a tizz.

Similar thing with the piano - too often systems that do a fair job on the percussive attack have to combine this with a scything and grossly unrealistic harshness.

The question each of us has to answer for ourselves is which aspect do we compromise if we have to.

[domfjbrown]

Plus CD just doesn't "do" cymbals full stop - the decay is digitally noisy and unconvincing, probably due to nonlinearities in the DACs - it takes a very very good digital system based on CD to make even a decent stab at cymbals IME.

[GTM]

Graham..

It's not me honest !! :D

Anyway... I don't entirely agree with his dustbin lid comparison.. I understand what he's trying to convey.. (ie the basic sound of a cymbal due to the fact that it's a metal plate).. but I've never heard a cymbal sound like a dustbin lid. Of course you can get cymbals that are close to that sound..but they are "effects" cymbals .. a normal cymbal will have a far longer decay than a dusbin lid, (which will only give you a thin metal clanging sound -most cymbals are lathed so don't sound anything like that), with a far richer harmonic structure.. which changes with volume and decay.

Cymbals are very diverse sounding ..everything from a quick sharp bright splash... to long swelling dull wash.. clean pings to dirty rattles.. Only custom hand made cymbals vary in any significant degree from eachother these days... modern manufacturing and computer lathing techniques see to that.

GTM

[wadia-miester]

I' must be a very lucky guy, only on all but the shitest (is there such a word as that?, fek it, we'll use it anyway) recorded stuff, I have 'Real' sounding cymbols as I remember them from my skin bashing days(weather a sharp smash or just the merest brush, or long drawn out shimmer), not hard or Tizzy or glassy, must be lucky I guess :) WM

[zanash]

Mine are pretty damn close to..... now

I've had several systems in the past that really just didn't do cymbals just a tizz tizz sound. I think most of the culprits were the speakers , and I've had some horror speakers !
The worst maybe were a pair of RAM bookshelf monitors....but I had no stands and I had them on bookshelfs like the name suggested!

[michaelab]

I've just never bought the "CD can't do cymbals" myth. They sound pretty darn like the real thing in my system!

Michael.

[davidcotton]

Originally posted by wadia-miester
[B] only on all but the shitest (is there such a word as that?, fek it, we'll use it anyway) B]

I do believe the word is "shittiest" :D :JPS:

[Robbo]

I am very sensitive to treble distortion, and one of the reasons I bought my dpa gear was that it is amongst some of the only bits of kit that could get cymbals right to my ears. both the CD player and amps have excellent treble.

Robbo

[kermit]

well , considering cymbals are supposed to be really difficult to reproduce (see original post) , there seems to be an awful lot of systems out there that do them realistically .
mmm food for thought?

[zanash]

Kermit I think your right.....to an extent. But
if you look at all music systems rather than just the esoteric end that we inhabit, I think you'll find that a geat portion cannot repoduce cymbals nor much else accurately.

[jay]

Personally I couldn't give a rats how the cymbals sound if my system isn't playing music. Once you get music, then you can look at cymbals, drums, etc,.

Jay

[Robbo]

Jay,

I agree with you, but If the cymbals sound like dustbin lids and tear your ears out, then it isnt playing music to my ears. I dont see why it should be unreasonable to expect both decent fidelity and a healthy dose of PRaT.

Cheers,

Robbo

[jay]

Originally posted by Robbo
Jay,

I agree with you, but If the cymbals sound like dustbin lids and tear your ears out, then it isnt playing music to my ears. I dont see why it should not be unreasonable to expect both decent fidelity and a healthy dose of PRaT.

Robbo

Hi Rob

That's cool :D

We're talking the same stuff. The music comes first and if that means the cymbals are high and the bass is low then that's just great.

Jay

[zanash]

Jay...... it can't be playing "music" if the cymbals arn't right.


sorry missed something here.... if the instraments are off tonally, or the decay is wrong.....this effect is going to taint every other nuance and sound heard.

[GrahamN]

Zanash - jay is giving the "flat-earth" party line. I don't want to start a war here, but I have never understood their inability to hear "music" even on a lowly system. I think they're mainly talking about speed of attack, and this is just about all they're sensitive to. As a valve amp owner you (like I) may not understand their problem (e.g. I'm currently listening to "jazz record requests" from the R3 web-site at 32kbps, through my PC and meagre headphones, and the sound quality is dreadful, but there's load of music there). I find reproduction of the timbre, and its shape in time, of instruments one of the biggest problems with enjoyment of recorded music - and speed of attack is just one aspect of that timbre.

Edit to add: If anyone wants to explain what they really mean by "my system plays music" (I know what I mean - but it's quite obviously different) I'd be interested to hear (but I'm not interested in just hearing trite witicisms)

[zanash]

Yes thanks.....it just rattled my cage !

[jay]

Hey chill folks!

Hi Zanash - apologies if I've rattled your cage, honestly not my intention. Music can be "right" for me if the cymbals aren't "right". That may not be the case for you and that's fine I have no problem with that all.

Hi Graham - hmmmm, OK. Anyways, I don't classify myself as flat or round because I think they're both impt to enjoying music. I'd like to suggest that we're all on this continuim with completely flat at one end and completely round at the other. Let's face it "most" of us are in the middle! In terms of priorities for me I really enjoy "experiencing" a musical event - can I get the tune, is the band playing together, etc. I notice that more than the accuracy of cymbals or drums, etc. That's not to say I don't value them at all because I do.

Jay

[michaelab]

Nice reply Jay - for a minute I was wondering whether we were going to have our first flat vs. round flame war:

:force:

..thank god that sense prevailed (for now at least :slayer: ). Hmm, looking for an excuse to use some new smilies...moi??

Michael.

[Robbo]

In terms of priorities for me I really enjoy "experiencing" a musical event - can I get the tune, is the band playing together, etc. I notice that more than the accuracy of cymbals or drums, etc. That's not to say I don't value them at all because I do.

I know exactly what you mean Jay. the best systems I have heard just seem to sound 'right'. with these systems, you simply end up being involved in the music and stop analysing bass, treble etc as somehow the whole performance just gels together.

Cheers, Robbo

[wadia-miester]

Originally posted by GrahamN
I find reproduction of the timbre, and its shape in time, of instruments one of the biggest problems with enjoyment of recorded music - and speed of attack is just one aspect of that timbre.

Edit to add: If anyone wants to explain what they really mean by "my system plays music" (I know what I mean - but it's quite obviously different) I'd be interested to hear (but I'm not interested in just hearing trite witicisms)

Graham, valid question, as I feel you will get a dozen or so different answers, although a simple one is only required, a musical system, is complete, in that it draws you into the emotion and involvement of the preformance, whilst keeping the Realness of the event, be it Studio produced or Live stage/ concert hall, all the things like timbre/slam/dynamic's/stage/image/timing and groove, are 'Melded together' forming a musical bond, that is just there, it may not be the most pin point accurate or ultimate openness, or even mega groove, but it does connect, giving the Music, and that is it, in the world according to garp, we can discuss, propose theroy/counter theroy until mana turns to dust, but regardless of cost/equipment and/or placing, as soon as you hear those first notes, you KNOW weather a system either has it not. WM

[Jeremy]

I think that if anything, HiFi makes Cymbals, even on crappy systems sound a lot better then they do in real life.

Now at least a good handful of you must have been in a room with a drummer. I myself am a guitarist and have played with a few drummers over the past few years and the Cymbals are the most horrible noises created when your in the same room or on a stage. I dont know anything that creates such a deafaning, unbearable din such as a drummer hitting cymbals...

Now if hifi reproduced THAT sound it would not be listenable at all! Even live recordings take away the loud crash that makes any other musician shout to drummers to SHUT UP when trying to tune their instrument. :D

Thank god for HIFI making cymbals listenable!

[GrahamN]

Originally posted by Jeremy
drummers....tune their instrument. :D

Sorry.....logic error....does not compute :D :D

I don't actually agree that a cymbal sounds horrible, although I agree good reproduction doesn't really aid easy and or background listening.

I guess having asked the question, I need to answer it myself. I think the thing I'm most sensitive to is hi-fi's sins of comission above sins of omission, i.e. I'd prefer for it not to introduce obvious distortion than to fail to capture the genuine leading edge. And I really don't want to be reminded with every note that it's coming from a magnet and a bit of paper, rather than a bit of wood and dead cat. Shoving a load of tizz around strings, cymbals, piccolos etc does more to destroy the enjoyment of music for me than any loss of dynamics/attack. Of course I want both.

So my priorities that contribute to musical enjoyment in descending order are:
1) Lack of tizz around highish-frequency notes
2) Vanishing speakers
3) Dynamics
4=) Clarity
4=) Spatial layout
6) "Timing"
So for me the sound of a cymbal addresses 1 and 4, so is a fairly good test - although a violin section is a tougher test for me, as a) I'm more familiar with its sound and b) it is a far more dominant sound in the music I mainly listen to.

But IMO the real life in music comes from the performance - a great performance on a crappy system will give me more enjoyment than a crap performance on the best system in the world - and this is where I do get sensitive to timing and subtle dynamics. There is of course a spectrum here - some will much prefer stunning performances recorded in the 1920s over good ones from nowadays, even though the sound is rubbish, and others will only be happy with the top quality recordings from Reference Recordings or Chesky or... - but I'm somewhere in the middle, give me a very good performance from the last 30 years and I'm happy.

This is veering more to the "ambinence" thread, but I made and interesting observation last night: I've been waxing lyrical about how fantastic this new amp is, but after being at a concert of Haydn played on period instruments last night, I came home and played something similar...and it was soooo far off - mainly in the clarity and cleanness of the instrumental sound, but there was still a little tizz around the strings.

I'm not sure whether the attributes of a system that plays classical superbly well will also be equally good at playing jazz, rock or dance/techno - I can't see any reason why not - but I'm pretty sure than the compromises required to meet a budget will result in a different system lower down the food chain.

[zanash]

GrahamN.......wish I'd said that.

Could not agree more !!

[bottleneck]

Originally posted by Jeremy


Now at least a good handful of you must have been in a room with a drummer. I myself am a guitarist and have played with a few drummers over the past few years

yaaay another guitarist! :D

please post lots more.

:D

Chris

[GTM]

Originally posted by Jeremy
I think that if anything, HiFi makes Cymbals, even on crappy systems sound a lot better then they do in real life.

Now at least a good handful of you must have been in a room with a drummer. I myself am a guitarist and have played with a few drummers over the past few years and the Cymbals are the most horrible noises created when your in the same room or on a stage. I dont know anything that creates such a deafaning, unbearable din such as a drummer hitting cymbals...

Now if hifi reproduced THAT sound it would not be listenable at all! Even live recordings take away the loud crash that makes any other musician shout to drummers to SHUT UP when trying to tune their instrument. :D

Thank god for HIFI making cymbals listenable!

Pah !! .. you guitarists and your oversensitive ears !! :D

I have to say.. as a drummer.. (part-time recreational only!).. I couldn't dissagree more... It is true that a lot of drummers only seem to think that cymbals should be hit as hard as possible under all circumstances.. but the sign of a good drummer is less to do with timing than it is to do with dynamics... Until I took some lessons from some professional drummers.. I always believed that the differering levels of the various bits of the kit like you hear on recorded music were all obtained by the engineer in the mixing stage. I now know that with good drummers at least that is most definitely NOT the case.. I've heard many a pro.. giving a workshop and they sound exactly like a recorded and mixed drum kit does on an album. I've no idea what particular brand and model of cymbals the drummers you played with used.. but I would say that combine cheap cymbals with an inexperienced/average(ish) drummer and the usual result is one hell of a racket in the cymbal dept. However... I have to stress that cymbals only sound like a "deafening unbearable din" when they're..

a) too cheap and nasty to do anything but go loud, (cheap being a relative term as good cymbals are damn expensive).
b) being played by a mediocre drummer..(even rock drummers play the top end of the kit with dynamics.. at least good ones do).
c) combination of a) and b)

However, having said that .. there are some cymbal sounds that you hear on recordings that are only possible due to the eq'ing of the recording engineer.

GTM