Istanbul Agop 18" Cindy Blackman OM Crash

This crash, being on the thin side, is quite sensitive so you do not need a lot of force to fully activate it. Regardless of that, it creates an assertive crash sound which helps to cut through the mix. Its frequency spectrum covers mainly the high and mid-high frequencies as if you have applied a high-pass filter. The decay is relatively fast as you would expect from a thin crash and the look is just unique.

Ich bin mal aus dem Proberaum raus um etwas zu holen, derweil hat mein Sohn ein wenig am Schlagzeug gesessen und ich konnte es einfach nicht fassen, wie genial dieses Becken ist. Warm, voll, nichts Schneidendes ... toll. Dennoch explosiv, auch mit der Hand wunderbar zu spielen.
Habe einen ganzen Satz Agop SE / Jazz und über die Jahrzehnte auch schon diverse Becken der großen und der kleinen Alternativen in dem Sektor gehabt, aber dieses Becken wird immer herausstechen.
Es war tatsächlich mein erstes online bestelltes Becken - vielleicht Glück, aber in dem Fall: Ganz, ganz viel davon!

I didn't like this cymbal at all when I first got it, but over time it has grown on me, and now it's one of my favorite cymbals, and one I'll never sell.

In fact, if I could only own ONE cymbal, this one might be it. On a mini-kit it can serve as a crash/ride and the only thing you need, and on a full kit it's a fantastic main crash that you can also play some alternate ride patterns on.

The thing I didn't like at first is that I thought it had a somewhat "cold" sound character. But what won me over is that it is so absolutely playable, responding well to all kinds of hits, and so incredibly dynamic: It does something musically useful all the way from the softest hits to the hardest. Most cymbals have a much more narrow sweet spot in their dynamic range.

On very soft hits it produces a nice dark atmospheric "whoosh", and on harder hits it gets increasingly bright and explosive, without ever saturating. It really feels like the harder you hit it the more you get out of it, there's no "compression" at the top.