Re: Been thinking of going down to only one crash...
Well, i wouldn't need it for the big sharp dry metal ping thing(because my AAX Metal will not be going anywhere, just into the cymbal bag for storage), so it gets a lot easier to find what i seek.
A good friend of mine has this amazing vintage 18" Zildjian that would do it. He got it for next to nothing from a thrift shop back in the pre-eBay era, bundled with a five piece kit, and a bunch of sweet hardware and other vintage Zildjian cymbals. I think he paid aboyut $50 for everything, the fucking bastard.
It is seriously one of the coolest cymbals i have ever used. Unfortunately, he knows it, and guards the thing with his life.
But it is great, like a really heavy crash, but with a certain amount of thickness so it pings really well if you aim for the bell. It can do the jazzy washy thing, or the rock ping thing, or you can lay into it a bit and it crashes with a really nice sort of frequency to it. Very nice sounding for all three. It is about the closest to a "perfect" cymbal i have ever met.
So it is definitely possible. I suppose i will have to figure out where i can get $300 or so that doesn't need to go towards bills or food and go shopping.
I have just been listening back to drums and stuff that i have recorded, and i don't see any point in having two crashes in addition to the ride. Same thing as the tom thoughts that i had a couple months back. If it doesn't come across recorded, i am thinking i probably don't need it. The more shit i can get rid of, the easier to record the kit gets also. More cymbals is mostly just more white noise bleeding into everything and fucking up the compression on the snare mics and shit. Crash on the left, crashy ride on the right, and it would retain the stereo field of crashes, and be a lot easier to work with from a recording standpoint to boot.
I would also really like a nice pair of hi-hats for a change, but that is way on the back burner for a while. The ones i have are way too fucking loud for how and what i play these days. Hell they were way too loud for what i used to play too. On that powerviolence band's recording they drown out the fucking snare.
Of course that has a lot to do with the shittiness of the borrowed snare and the lo qualityness of the recording, but even still, they are fuckloud hi-hats.
But yeah, listening back, it is largely the cymbal sounds that i am unhappy with. Not so much the tone of them, but the volume for sure.