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

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

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

Graham..

It's not me honest !!

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

 

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

 

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!

 

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

Michael.

 

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

 

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

 

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?

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

Hi Rob

That's cool

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

 

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.

 

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)

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

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