Drying the wash and adding more woody stick definition -  18” EAK Modification.

This EAK was sent to me by brilliant Sydney drummer Hamish Stuart, with the request of increasing the stick to wash ratio without changing the general character of the wash.

The basic hammering strategy was to loosen the overall tension a little and add some areas of differing tension to disturb the even flow of soundwaves (as they travel back and forth from bell to edge) and hence reduce the wash. The challenge was to only hammer as much as necessary to achieve the desired result, without adding too much trash.

I didn’t want to change the tessitura too much by either taking off too much weight from lathing or surface treatment or from a large change in overall tension.

I added a very slight edge flange by hammering the bottom around the entire circumference, about 4 cm’s in from the edge. A few other bands of hammering were added at different radii. The bottom to top hammering ratio was roughly 65% to 35%. Two hammers - a larger faced flattish hammer and a smaller hammer were used

I let the cymbal rest a few days and then listened to the original soundfile and fine tuned the wash with a little more hammering.

Then I sent the cymbal off to be grit blasted on the underneath only.

After another rest, I adjusted the ‘texture’ of the bottom surface and did a little more fine tuning with the larger faced hammer, until I was happy with the quality of the wash and the percentage of stick to wash ratio.

The barking seal was primarily caused by an area of uneven thickness near the bell, a result of a rolling and/or lathing issue at the factory (quite a common issue with many cymbals). I reduced some of the thicker sections near the bell by extensive hammering top and bottom, marking the areas I wanted to hammer heavily with red chalk and the areas to shy away from with yellow chalk.

Apart from improving the hollow section, the greater evenness in thickness of the bronze near the bell helped to reduce a few of the more dissonant overtones.

This is a very tricky modification because you’re essentially stretching and thinning the bronze at an ‘internal’ location and the subsequent shape balancing is challenging.

The first round of hammering focussed on addressing the irregular thickness near the bridge with subsequent shape balancing after the fairly extensive hammering.

The second round was more of the same, with some additional bottom hammering around three marked circumferences. The bottom hammering was ‘setting up’ the increased profile.

The third round of hammering smoothed and fine tuned the shape of the profile and the area near the bridge.

21” Vezir Ride Modification -

This 21” Agop Vezir ride is a modification which I did for a Brisbane drummer.

The idea was to bring out the stick a little, fix a ‘barking seal’ problem and to ‘clean up’ the overtones (I interpreted this to mean balance the tonal spectrum of the wash).

Raising the profile would alter many of the sonic characteristics as desired. Such a modification should reduce the wash and facilitate a nice ‘kah’ stick sound, raise the tessitura and reduce the spread. After the final round of hammering, the profile was increased by about an inch. I measure the profile by placing the cymbal on a thick piece of safety glass and measuring from the bell hole to the glass surface. In this case, the measurement after the final round of hammering was 2 and 1/2 inches ... that’s a pretty high profile.

Before & after soundfile of above  modification

Before & after soundfile of above modification

20” Turkish Ride Cymbal Modification -

This modification was done for a Perth drummer.

The idea was to make it dryer and a bit darker and bring out some of that ‘dragon’s breath’ in the wash.

I completely re-hammered the cymbal by using the radial spokes method and hammered each spoke equally top and bottom, before hammering another spoke on the opposite side of the cymbal.

I also hammered some clusters of 5 or so hammer strokes at spaces of about 40mm apart in a circle about 50mm in from the edge. These were hammered from the bottom only and served to dry the wash a little and add some extra complexity.

I raised the profile by 7mm and this helped to dry the cymbal further and create a more prominent stick. It also helped to bring out some nice mid to mid high frequencies in the wash, which should help achieve more of the ‘dragon’s breath’ in the wash.

Finally, I lathed the cymbal, reducing the weight from 2041g to 1814g. I was happy with the overall tension after hammering and so took off fairly equal amounts top and bottom.

Before & after soundfile of above modification