Large Diril Cymbals - Diril Cymbals Europe - Performance by Camille Belin
Here it is a new video by our french artist Camille Belin bashing on big sizes cymbals. Here it's what he says about cymbal sizes:
I’ve been lucky to be with Diril cymbals since 2018 and have sometimes been asked about the large cymbal sizes I tend to favour. Here are some misconceptions about these big beauties that I’d like to comment on:
X large cymbals are too loud
Large diameter= lower fundamental pitch. Unless you go for a super heavy weight, super pingy cymbal, what one commonly associates with an unpleasant super loud cymbal sound is the brash piercing fundamental sound provided by … smaller cymbals, usually. Also, large cymbals do have more ‘headroom’ than smaller diameters, thus providing more room of expression between its quiet and overall maximum singing capacity= you could then adjust your playing of the cymbals to the volume requirement of the band you’re with, for example.
X large cymbals break easily
Not my experience after 6 years of playing large diril cymbals, mostly medium-light ones at it.
As with all cymbals, it is a matter of sensing when you reach the “saturation” point of your instrument, after which it will not sound good, better, louder… and will eventually break. In that regard, it’s easy to consider that a larger cymbal and its headroom is going to be a much better friend against two 100w Marshall full stacks and an old Ampeg SVT monster than the piercing short-sustained explosion of a 15’’ crash. Finally, they are more cumbersome indeed so could be exposed to more incidents= treat them with care, get a great appropriate case for transport.
X large cymbals sustain forever
To each his own, but for a crash cymbal for instance, having it sustaining past the loud explosive crash is something beautiful and creates a cohesive relation between your cymbal set.
X large cymbals are super expensive
They are indeed more expensive, but they provide musical and expression characteristics that are not necessarily there in smaller diameters, at least to my ears, and this might justify the difference in price (although pragmatically the more bronze the more expensive).
Recording gear:
1936 Slingerland Radioking 28x14-14x9-18x15
Antelope Orion Synergy Core
K- behringer b19a
SN- SE v7x
Toms- shure beta 98
Ohs- Lauten LA-120
Mono Room- SM57