There may be some misinterpretations of my intent. I am not out to get Paiste; rather the contrary. I repeatedly referred to Paiste having original ideas and refining the making of their cymbals to produce consistency. The Niko McBrain videos do nothing to dispel my perceptions of Paiste.It clearly is on a high roll, inventing unique alloys and making cymbals efficiently and with superior consistency. Niko, holds up an absolutely dead flat plate of some patented bronze alloy, that was clearly cut out of a sheet( not 602) and refers to a trip hammer as "hand hammering". Not the best advertising agent. Sorry, Niko; the last part of your name needs revision.

You can't patent B20 bronze, so that one he's holding isn't B20 nor likely is Formula 602 because if it were , Paiste would have trumpeted the B20 origin all over the airwaves and print media and to boot, up until Formula 602 came out their existing sheetcut cymbals sucked. Who used them? ---school bands and budget minded beginning drummers. Formula 602 was different somehow and Paiste knew they had something they could run with and they weren't about to let it get confused with the luddite cymbal industry.

Paiste,unfortunately, developed a defensive and persistent beat around the bush attitude, about the origins of their cymbals. Why don't they just yell out and say, in a big loud voice: WE DON'T MAKE CAST B-20 CYMBALS ; WE HAVE SOMETHING BETTER. You know why?

--because a disproportionate number of drummers have B-20itis and they are unfortunately selling their cymbals to drummers, with B-20itis. What's B-20itis, you ask? Well it is what Jon ,clearly has. It's a cymbalholic subdisorder, which is characterized by a belief that quality in cymbals is implicitly related to a standardized bronze alloy formula and that somewhere in that formula a mysterious secret is held and that it is cast in bronze.. There should be a wiki page about this.

The cymbal Niko is following through the process isn't a 602. What I was providing was evidence that the blanks arrive as flat disks. Can we at least agree on that?

Once again you are conflating different series and alloys. The patented PSA (Paiste Signature Alloy) is something I've given a link to before. Do you need the patent number to believe that there is such a thing? Here you go: PSA (Paiste Sound Alloy) patent 4809581 granted March 7, 1989 filed: July 13, 1988.

PSA isn't B8 (aka 2002 alloy) and isn't a B20 alloy (used in the 602 Series and Sound Creations). Those are all different series and alloys. You appear to be confusing them. I've never heard anybody else confuse them like you seem to.

I can't tell that a round flat disk is sheet rolled in a fairly low resolution video. How can you tell? Can you let us know your evidence and methods of reasoning on this? Or is it "obvious" because all Paiste cymbals are sheet rolled?

I wasn't conflating anything. The videos were posted as some sort of evidence of something , I presume --- that Paiste, is currently using prefab discs, for a certain line, I guess-----I'm not 100% sure , why , actually).I do see that they are talking about , a specific model. The videos just kind of advertise that Paiste makes cymbals, from high tech patented metal discs and then they press a cup into them after heating them up with a torch and that even a regular bloke can run a trip hammer machine and pat people on the back and that there are two guys that check them over with rulers and hit them too, as well as the machine and then they trim them on a lathe and hit them to make sure they sound good. They certainly don't enlighten me about too much about anything. There isn't anything in them that indicates that Paiste is following any cymbal making methodology, that resembles the hand making of cymbals, in the fashion that A. Zildjian, K. Zildjian, Sabian, Wuhan and any number of other Turkish factories are known to use and Super Zyn, Ufip, Zanchi, Bellotti and others are presumed to use based on the physical evidence of the finished product. There is evidence that a prescribed , controlled, high-tech manufacturing process, aimed at physical and sonic consistency is being used. Why don't they show a picture of the bronze being mixed and poured and talk a little more about that; it is just " patented"

The disk in N.M's hand did not come out of a mill. A bronze disk that has been milled out of an ingot or billet or whatever does not look like that. They are not shiney, they are not flat, they are more often than not cracked around the edges. This is clearly a piece of very flat , shiny metal, with crisp ,precise edges that came out of ; well, a giant cookie cutter.

Here is what goes on at a couple of small, traditional , cymbal factories, where they cast and roll bronze; [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut_tgtBt36g[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jKInKiJzUk[/ame]

For those following this discussion at home, here is a crate of Amedia blanks newly arrived from Istanbul. This is the sort of blank you expect to see with manufacturers following the Turkish cymbal making tradition:

[img]http://black.net.nz/cym2013/amediablanks.jpg[/img]

The cup or bell can be pressed in and the hole drilled, as shown here, or they can be ordered flat so the bell can be put in to your own taste.

Again for those following the discussion at home, if you read Pinksterboer (The Cymbal Book: Chapter 8), you will see that he distinguishes between these cymbal making traditions: the Turkish style, The Swiss German style, the Italian style, and the Chinese style. Recommended reading (although it is getting a bit out of date now) if you want to understand a bit more about these round metal objects we play.

Thanks for the links to the Turkish method Calfskin. We are in agreement that the Turkish style and the Swiss style are different. In fact, I suspect that we are about 95% in agreement. But I'll leave others to trawl through your essays and my essays and decide for themselves.

*edit*

Calfskin, I might owe you an apology. I didn't say much when I posted the Paiste videos other than that I was adding references I had mentioned but not posted before. That's what the bit at the top of the post with the videos was there for:

But just to make things crystal clear, evidence of this:

and this:

was the only purpose of the videos being posted. Just that they aren't "spun" into shape (as far as I can see from the video -- you may disagree) and arrive in flat rounds which then have a bell pressed in, a hole drilled, and are hammered into shape (not hand hammered -- on a machine).

Again, my apologies if you were misled and tried to find much depth and meaning in the posting of the Paiste videos and Zildjian ads which wasn't there. They were simply delayed references. It just took me some time to drag the references up from the vaults.

And hopefully you can forgive me if I caused you to spill lots of virtual ink deconstructing any possible evidence for other things in those videos. You and I actually agree on what they show and don't show, I think. Not spun and arrive in flat rounds which then have a bell pressed in, a hole drilled, and are hammered into shape (not hand hammered -- on a machine). That's it for the videos.

And finally, I put 27th of July but the posts are from the 25th of July. Mumble. Reading glasses.

Oh, and what I find is an interesting factoid. The patent on PSA has expired. I make it as expired in 2006, but it's not entirely clear to me because of the complexities of jurisdiction, changes in length of patent, etc.

The word "patented" is gone from the Paiste website (not that I've looked at 100% of the locations). It's just "proprietary" now. As opposed to ZHT which is "Zildjian's signature B12 alloy".

Same old same old on the marketing front. :D

I've got a 1985 modern drummer mag here with an article and factory tour on paiste. Do you want me to scan it and put it up?

I think I am free of B20itis - I like my Paiste 505s a lot. Even if they are stamped and all.

[img]http://www.gratisimage.dk/thumb-6341_4FE782AF.jpg[/img]

Regards

Jon

I was a little worried! I once had a Paiste 404, ( seemed to be Phosphor Bronze??----perhaps Aluminum Bronze). It was a very odd colour. When I put it up for sale, it sold in an instant, which surprised me .

and then there is this. In the year 2000( or thereabouts); I wrote a letter to Premier Canada, inquiring if Zyn cymbals were still available because I had seen some new small hi-hats at a drum shop in Toronto. I received a letter back from the president of Premier Canada, informing me that they had just discontinued them( they have since been reintroduced as a Chinese made product). He went on to say that they had been produced by a major cymbal maker for Premier, were pitched at the entry level and were similar in style to the 400 series Paiste cymbals. Since however, Premier( he didn't say whether it was Premier or Premier Canada), had just recently been awarded the distributorship for Paiste, they had decided to discontinue Zyn. I wonder who was making those?

anyway; I think I am out of ink and apparently 602 cymbals were at one time finished in Germany, so could be stamped Made in Germany and that is what was really required. For anyone intersted, I will try to find the time to post some microphotographs of fracture points on various cymbals----also where there are inclusions , if I can find any at the point where the metal cleaved.

I have never seen anybody suggesting that Zyns (in all the original kinds) were made anywhere else than England. They are also stamped with Made in England. Zyns, Super Zyns and 5 star Super Zyns.

There are stories (if you care to read on the great british forum mikedolbear) from people that were there or had family that was about some of the craftsmen being italians.

Stories. No proofs.

But noone I saw ever wrote about the cymbals or even the blanks being imported.

Have you any reason to think that 404 isn´t CuSn8 - most if not everybody else seems to, including "The Unofficial Paiste Wiki". 404s seems to me like 505s but with less if any hammering.

Stambuls, on the other hand, were Nickel Silver, thus having a weird colour - and they also sounds weird to my ears.

I fully accept your point about not having an axe to grind - but it seems to me your are airing quite unorthodox opinions about the materials and origins of old cymbals. Why is it you don´t agree to the most common perceptions as regards to the materials?

I would like to see your views backed up by hard facts - until then they are to me only speculations and guesses.

Jon

Well, I guess a letter from the president of Premier Canada, clearly indicating that Zyn cymbals were at the time of discontinuation, not made in England, is pretty useless as an indicator that in the years shortly before that, they were not made in England. He didn't say, they were NEVER made in England. I received the letter, I think in 1999, end of story.

The 404 I had , was a peculiar , very coppery colour. I have had Phosphor Bronze in my hands in the past and all I can say is that the cymbal had the same colour as the Phosphor Bronze , I was familiar with. The cymbal was an odd silvery orange colour----very different from any other cymbal I have looked at, in a clean state and it had a very high pitch , long sustain, and almost searing quality , which was also unlike any cymbal I had heard up until then ,or since. It was at the opposite end of the spectrum , when it comes to colour from say a Zyn, which has very little yellow colour at all. Zyns , also changed colour over the years, going from a more classic bronze tone , to almost silver and then in the latter years, more of a yellow. It would seem that the alloy used in the sheet bronze or brass , of their composition ,changed a number of times between the early 50's and the 90's( I don't know when they were actually discontinued but the implication was sometime in the late 90's). The 404 I had was really not much like a Zyn, except for it's brilliance of tone, which is also characteristic of a good Zyn.

As I have indicated, I have looked at the crystal structure of a number of cymbals microscopically and it has clearly indicated some very interesting features , that lead me to some ideas about those cymbals, which I have assembled with other information and with a small amount of information I gleaned from some communication with Hugo PInkstoerber. I toss these out to you as seeds. Take of them, understand of them, whatever you will, they are now yours. I don't really care what you do with them.

Thanks Mark. I've got two scans but I don't know where they are from:

http://black.net.nz/cym2013/insidepaiste.pdf

http://black.net.nz/cym2013/paisteservice.pdf

Are these from that Modern Drummer article? The factory tour sounds quite different.

By all means scan and put it up if it isn't too much trouble. I actually have very little by way of scans but I do try and archive things when I come across them so that they are available for the future. I had forgotten about these two I've got until you mentioned an article.

And for everybody who has old paper copies of letters and any other documents, photos, etc., scanning and putting them up on VDF is a good thing. Documenting the past for future readers is what this site is supposed to be all about.