Sabian 18" HHX XPlosion Crash Cymbal  From Sabian

HHX Series Cymbals put out rich, simmering tones. Super-sized hammering and an exclusive Tone Projection feature add bite to project the musical sounds of HHX Cymbals through everything from pumped-up grooves and thickly textured tracks, to guitar-heavy, high-end wailing. HHX Cymbals combine the best of two worlds, traditional tone and modern projection.

Hand-guided large-peen hammering creates the complex, modern-dark tone of HHX, while many of the most popular models– like Evolution and Legacy – receive hand-hammering using peens and anvils that have been hand-shaped in the Vault.

• Sabian metallurgists combine measured amounts of copper, tin, and silver to create centuries-old recipe for Sabian B20 bronze alloy
• Molten-hot B20 bronze is very carefully hand-poured into pots, and once cooled, yields already-musical B20 bronze castings
• B20 castings are meticulously hand-separated by weight and prepared to remove all impurities
• Castings are fed through a large rolling oven up to a dozen times, involving a crew of 5 men who must work with choreographic precision under intense heat
• During the entire rolling process, blanks must be rotated carefully to create a molecular weave for strength and durability
• As castings become cymbal blanks, custom-built machine tools are expertly hand-operated to press bells into blanks, drill holes in center, cut down to size and bump for approximate shape
• A combination of hand-guided machine hammering and hand-hammering is used to shape and form each cymbal, adding musicality, complexity, and bright tone
• Lathe craftsmen operate specially retrofitted lathes, thinning cymbal to desired gauge while adding crucial tonal grooves
• Cymbal must be trimmed to exact size and the edges buffed for smoothness
• Each individual cymbal is hand-tested and hand-weighed in the Vault by Vault sound specialists, a critical process
• Each individual cymbal is placed on a shelf to age, allowing the frantically active molecules to slow down and stabilize
• Each individual cymbal is once again hand-tested by two Vault specialists to ensure they fit the parameters of the series and model