Are you a drum person or a cymbal person

I'm more of a cymbal person.

Typically, I play a 4 piece kit. For cymbals, a pair of hats, a splash, and 3 rides. Or a ride and 2 crashes for the blues gigs.

I could definitely get on with more cymbals though. Perhaps another ride, crash, or a swish/china. That, to me, would be more fun than a kit full of toms.
 
My kit has four drums and four cymbals, which I call a 4x4. The kit I play at church has four drums and seven cymbals. I have owned way more cymbals than drums during my drumming career. So I suppose I am a cymbal person. Peace and goodwill.
 
Drum person? Cymbal person? Nah. Me, I'm more of a people person.

That is, I enjoy hitting people with sticks.
 
Well my kit is a 6 piece, but there are 17 cymbals on it... I'll just leave it at that.
 
Like an earlier poster said, I'm more a music person than one or the other. However gear doesn't bore me :) I am using hats, 2 crashes and a ride. Sometimes I stack a bell on top of my 17" crash and a 10" splash on top of my 19" crash but I am trying to reduce the amount of stuff I use.

I used to have a monster of a kit - it had 3 bass drums, 14 toms and in excess of 30 cymbals. It ended up looking more like Mike Portnoys old Siamese monster but it was never intended that way to start with. The only picture I have of it is after I flogged some of the cymbals due to having a gambling addiction. Flogged a 22" Zildjian oriental china for £50 just so I could fund a rebuy poker tournament which I crashed out of after an hour :-(

Anyway long story cut short. When I came back to drumming this year - you all advised me to strip back small. Which is what I've done. I took some extra cymbals with me to a gig last weekend - remote set of hats, extra ride, splashes, chinas etc. Guess what?? I confused myself silly - I couldnt find use for any of the extra stuff maybe except for the China for one hit in a 3 hour set!

Smaller kit has helped me keep time better as I'm not trying to rush to fill everything out with every cymbal I have. Small kit has matured me and I wanna stay that way. :)
 
I would like plenty of both but since my playing these days is limited to rehearsal and recording of my own material, my setup has changed a bit. The move to include tom mics in addition to my usual 4 mic setup has also influenced things.

Fewer cymbals, spaced a bit further apart and raised higher above the drums. Nothing real drastic but it helps with isolation and makig room for the mics. If I can't solve the snare buzz issue I may need to lose the 8" tom as well. I really don't want to do that as the 3up/2down setup is so comfortable for me but the studio is just a different animal.

That said, I do have a modest selection of cymbals to choose from. 3 flavors of K rides, and a sweet ride. 16/17/18 K crashes plus a few Armand and Sabian crashes. 13 and 14" K hats and a set of 14" New Beats.Drum wise I just have a second kit and an Acrolite and 13" Steel Mapex Piccolo. So, A cymbal man I am it would appear
 
For me its will always be about the cymbals. As Buddy Ruch said "A drum is a drum is a drum" Good heads and tuning can always (if not damaged) give a good drum sound but a cymbal, if not altered is permanent. I always feel that my paticular cymbals speak to me and are living, breathing beings. Alright, drums do that to me also but cymbals are just shinier......I'm sticking with cymbals-Ufip's make me crazy because they don't shut the hell up-like my 6 year old.
 
Cymbals. Crap drums can sound good, crap cymbals are, 99% of the time, going to sound like crap.

Besides, nothing more satisfying to the ears than the sound of a beautiful cymbal. Can't be beat.
 
I'm more of a cymbal person. I could live with crappy drum set, which right now I have a pretty crappy one.But it sounds decent with good heads and tuning. But I couldn't live without good cymbals. I just skipped all of the crap beginner cymbals because I just can't stand the sound of any of them.

And cymbals just interest me a lot more. There is a huge variety of them and I like to learn about all of the different brands and types of cymbals out there.

I guess I am starting to get more into snare drums slowly though. I couldn't care less about toms because I just don't use them too much. But snare sound is important to me because I use it in most of my fills and pretty much everything I do on the drums. I could live with just a bass drum, snare drum, and cymbals.
 
Devils Haircut said:
I believe that pro level cymbals are more crucial than pro level drums. For example, a mid-range kit can sound great... but mid-range cymbals sound like mid-range cymbals, period.

That being said, I love drums that sing. I think drums are nicer to look at too.
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/\ This.

I use mid range drums, cos with quality heads and tuning they sound wonderfull, and just what I want. I play top quality cymbals because they sound just that, and to my ears at least mid and low range cymbals dont cut it.

Unless you are a highly skilled cymbal modifier/engineer there is little that can be done to a poor cymbal to improve it whereas even low end drums can be made to sound good with heads and tuning, and the right drummer.
 
WhoIsTony? said:
I love me some drums.... especially some Gretsch drums

but cymbals just do something to me that I cannot explain

... especially this guys cymbals

https://www.youtube.com/user/jmbettis/videos

he makes them in his garage.... yeah... he's the real deal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PKnYlwY_Wg
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Just to pile on. Wow. I've heard of him (and Matt Nolan) but to watch him go through the process is amazing. I know, OSHA would not be happy that he's not wearing safety goggles. :) But it's like he's becoming the cymbal.
 
I have never thought of myself as a cymbal person, but now that I think about it I typically have 1.5x more cymbals set up than I do drums. So my 8 piece kit had 12 cymbals set up. My 7 piece had 10 cymbals set up. Whats strange is that when I go drum shopping, I always gravitate to wanting more drums. I never go to the store to look at cymbals. Strange.
 
I guess cymbal since I have more hihats than I do toms. But at the same time I hate dedicated crash cymbals because I feel they lack diversity (I'd rather have a crash/ride).

But then again the music I play doesn't use a lot of toms or crashes.
 
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