Istanbul Agop 18" Cindy Blackman OM Crash

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.