TigerBill's DrumBeat Community Forums for Free Expert Advice on Drums and Percussion.

For the past week or so, I've had the chance to try out a set of Diril cymbals:

22" "jazz" ride (2500g)
18" crash (1300g)
14" hi-hats (810g/920g)

Long story short, these are extremely nice cymbals, to my ears very much in the tradition of Turkish, hand-made cymbals. Diril makes a variety of cymbals - these are the "jazz" model, which as the name indicates are crafted with jazz players in mind.

• 22" ride: The two things that impress me the most about this ride are the overall low pitch, and clear stick sound in relation to the wash. Listening back to the sound files I've made, it puts me in mind of Peter Erskine's cymbal sounds of the 1980s and 90s. The bell is an "integrated" bell, not a separated bell sound like one hears from other cymbals, and the overall bell sound is quite full and musical. I'm used to a bit more separation in my bell sounds, but the more I play this, the more I grow accustomed to it.

The wash on this is wonderful - very rich and lush. This particular ride is fairly new - only a few months have passed since it was on the lathe, as I understand it - so it still has some "settling in" to do, and I suspect that the cymbal will dry out a bit as time passes. There's an expression, that a cymbal "plays lighter" than its actual weight, and I'd say that fits this cymbal. It has a nice bit of wobble on its edge, and the feel is comparable to my other 22" rides, which 100-150g lighter than this one.

The feel of the cymbal under my stick is outstanding. One of my biggest criteria regarding musical instruments is my comfort level as the player - a cymbal can have a wonderful intrinsic sound, but if I'm not comfortable playing it, it's useless to me. This ride is very comfortable to play, and as it settles in (and the metal relaxes), I only would expect this to improve with time.

I own a number of wonderful ride cymbals, from a variety of cymbal makers (Paiste, Agop, Zildjian, Skiba, Bettis), and this ride compares quite favorably to all of them.

- sound file: 22" Diril ride

• 18" crash: Excellent. I could stop there, but I'll say that this cymbal is reminiscent of, and compares favorably to, my 18" Bosphorus thin Traditional crash. Not only does it sound great for drum set work, but I think it would be wonderful as a suspended cymbal for symphonic work, as it responds very nicely to mallet rolls. It rides adequately, although if I were to look for an 18" "left side ride" from Diril, I'd probably look for something just a little bit heavier.

EDIT: I've been able to hang onto the cymbals longer than originally planned, so I was able to use it on a symphony gig today. It performed beautifully as a suspended cymbal. The other players in the section agreed that while my 18" Bosphorus Traditional Thin has a bit more body, the Diril opens up beautifully.

- sound file: 18" Diril crash

• 14" hi-hats: These are very nice as well. As light as they are (especially the bottom cymbal), they're definitely intended as jazz cymbals. I'm used to a heavier bottom cymbal (both of my 14" hi-hat sets feature cymbals in the 1200-1250g range), so these took a little bit of adjusting on my part - not the fault of the cymbals, just a reflection of what I'm accustomed to. The sound is great, tho - perfect for small-group, straight-ahead jazz.

- 14" Diril hats

Just for fun, I did another sound file, replacing the bottom Diril cymbal with a heavier (1260g) bottom cymbal taken from my set of 14" Zildjian New Beats. This really is a winning combination, with a much stronger "chick" sound. If I wanted to use the Diril hats for something other than jazz work, I'd probably opt for a heavier bottom cymbal than the one that came with this set of cymbals.

- Diril cymbals with heavier bottom hi-hat cymbal

Overall, I'm quite impressed by this set of cymbals. I'd feel comfortable using them for most of the work I do - everything except really loud situations, which in fairness this model of Dirils isn't really designed for. As I mentioned in reviewing the ride cymbal, this set is relatively young, and based on my past experiences with brand new cymbals, I would only expect them to improve as time passes, and as they get "played in."

Sound files were recorded with two stereo OH microphones, with no EQ or effects applied, with the exception of the ride cymbal file, which was recorded with one OH microphone, no FX/EQ. Sticks were a set of Vater 7A "Manhattan" with wood tips.

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Edited by James Walker (Sun Mar 08 2009 06:14 PM)