ive been playing the same set of hats for years. they are 50's 14" avedis,real thin and sloshy and weigh the same basically.

i found a 13" avedis trans stamp a couple years ago at a pawn shop, a little on the heavy side. i bought a few "no name" cymbals off of ebay recently. one of them turned out to be a vintage ufip. it is thinner than the trans stamp and i have them paired together. they havent left the hi hat stand since!

ive got a heavy 12" k constantinople that i am currently trying to find a suitable match for as well.

mike

Pretty sure most all of us do this. Drummers have been at this since ... well, since the earliest days of drumming.

Some people keep EVERYTHING stock, and that means not even thinking of mismatching hi-hats. Yes, I know quite a few of those. More of those than "mixers".

I don't do it as a rule, but an early pair of hats from 1970 was a 15" Zildjian top and a Paiste 602 bottom, at the recommendation of Bob Yeager at Pro Drum. I loved those hats - 15" is a great sounding size - but the Paiste cracked. The bottom cymbal of a pair of hats, not played hard at all, and it cracked within 2 or 3 years. It was my first experience with cracked Paistes, and unfortunately, not my last.

Anyway, I don't go out of my way to mix & match hat types, it's rare that a pair of my hats doesn't officially go together.

Bermuda

I hadn't since the '80s with a K top and Z Custom bottom. Like you, I don't generally mix. But something told me today to mix a 2K2 Wild top with a Joey Jordison Sound Edge bottom. It's like the Swiss/German B8 version of the K/Z, as the Wild hat top is sooooo dry, dark and thin and the JJ is sooo juicy and fat!!!!!

Yes, Paistes do crack. So do Zillys, Sabians, Meinls, Cambers, and UFIPs. However, I found that 602's have a particular penchant for cracking... But they sound magical before they crack... I think B8 Paistes are pretty durable (at least in my dealings).

Cool stories to go with those mismatches!!!!

Been using the same hats since 1979. Never thought about mixing......probably cause I like the sound I have and don't have any others to mix with. Cool idea if you have an inventory of hats.

Iwould like a set of 13 inchers, though.

B

When I first did a K/Z set, it was in a music store's bastard inventory. I got these hats for about $50 EACH!!!

But I sat around for hours and hours trying to match hats. This was a leap and a prayer. Maybe the fact that I am an ordained minister helped me...LOL

I did some cold cutting and hammering on 602's a while ago----something I have done with other cymbals too. The 602's seem to be very hard and poorly tempered and have a very coarse crystal structure , which is a bad combination for durability but obviously good for brilliance.. They seem to be more crack prone than the other cymbals, I goofed with. They would even develop lateral cracks along the cut line.Crystals were about twice the size of Zildjian As for instance.