Supernatural 22″ Universal Ride Cymbal

Supernatural Cymbals is one of several small companies that have emerged during the past few years, who are based in Turkey, and who still make cymbals the way they have been made for centuries (except for the electric motor that turns the lathing machine). The cymbals start out as cast bronze discs, which are heated, rolled, cut into the desired diameter for the cymbal, hand hammered, and hand lathed. There is no machining at all. The results are quite distinguishable from machine hammered and lathed cymbals. It is not that one way is better than the other, but rather, you now have several additional choices in sound, and some of them are due to the old world ways of producing them. Here, we review the Supernatural 22″ Universal Ride.

This is a medium-heavy (more towards the heavy) cymbal, and it has a clear ping that always stays well above the wash, but also, the wash is intense if you ride it hard, with a long sustain, typical of hand hammered cymbals.

Because the bell is also heavy (thick), it plays loud and is extremely musical. The cymbal is a bit too heavy to be used as a crash, but that really depends on the venue. If you are playing in a stadium, any cymbal regardless of how thick and heavy it is, can be used as a crash.

The spectral analysis of a single ping has peaks at 350 Hz, 460 Hz, and then dips down between 1 kHz and 3 kHz before rising again to a maximum at 10 kHz. The precipitous drop at that point is typical of what we are seeing with ride cymbals. Then there is another spread of peaks in the 15 kHz – 30 kHz range, before declining to 40 kHz. The relatively flat response (compared to some other cymbals) between 300 Hz and 10 kHz gives it a neutral sound.

The ping declines in loudness at about 0.12 seconds, after which there is a slow attenuation (decay).

Click HERE to listen to an audio sample, which will include crash (when appropriate), ride, and bell sounds (these are 24 bit, 176.4 kHz wav files, so be sure your sound card is capable of handling these high resolution sound files).

If your sound card cannot play the high resolution file, click HERE to listen to an MP3 sound file.

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