John E. Johnson, Jr.

Meinl's Soundcaster series is one of their top lines. They are B20 bronze, with elegant hand hammering and lathing, and the surface has one region near the bell that is hammered but not lathed, while the outer region is hammered and lathed, so you get three playing surfaces including the bell (which is not hammered or lathed). It comes in the Brilliant finish, and is a sure fire attention-getter both in looks and sound.

The bell of a cymbal is much more than just a place to suspend the cymbal from. It contributes a lot to the sound. The larger the bell, in general, the more musical it sounds. A cymbal without a bell sounds very dry. A typical cymbal has a bell that spans about 25-30% of the cymbal diameter. In this 22" Meinl Soundcaster Custom Mega Bell Ride Cymbal, the bell makes up nearly half the diameter across the cymbal. This results in a very unique ride sound, and it also gives "Bell Riders" a huge surface to work with.

The Meinl MB10 series is one step away from the B8 in terms of copper content (it has 10% tin instead of 8%). This heavy 22" ride cymbal has a bright ping with a modest wash and would work very well in any rock setting.

The ReZo line for Zildjian is relatively new, and there are more than a dozen models ranging from a 10" Splash up to a 21" Ride. They are beautiful cymbals to look at, and in my opinion, one of the best sounding models they have ever created. The ReZo has a combination of hammering and lathing, but the lathing is spaced with regions of finely lathed and heavily lathed surfaces. The inner portion of the cymbal is thicker than the outer region. In this review, we look at the Zildjian 19" A Custom ReZo Crash Cymbal to accompany the 20" ReZo Crash review also published.

Cymbals date back thousands of years, and Asia was part of that history. However, their extensive use in music really did not get going until the 17th century AD, and even then, they had a hard time, with composers leaving them out of their music. In the 20th century, their use exploded with the advent of swing in the 1930's, bebop in the 1940's, which then developed into jazz in the 1950's. And, of course, modern classical music uses cymbals extensively. Many of the cymbal companies that exisit today opened their doors for business in the 20th century, Meinl being one of them (1951). What is called the Chinese Cymbal that is used in jazz and rock music today started out with Zildjian developing one for Gene Krupa, and which was called a "Swish" or "Pang". Now, they are all pretty much just called Chinese cymbals. Although they can be very large, this particular one is only 16" in diameter.