It’s been a few years since we last looked at any Dream cymbals and particularly anything from the Bliss range.

Just to recap, the Bliss line features:

Surface: micro lathed by hand

Bow: low gentle bridge

Bell: small, articulate, clear

Weight: thin tapers at edge

Hammering: hand hammered before and after lathing

Stick: woody round attack

Wash: lots of full spectrum wash, quick decay

As you’ll have seen from the title, these review cymbals are all paper thin models. This means on the weight/thickness scale of crashes, they fall pretty much at the bottom. What I would therefore generally expect as a ball-park sound-wise is, from the larger models, a wide maybe darkish sound with a big spread after the initial strike. From the smaller models, I would expect a more (to very, depending on the size) in your face kind of attack with lots of definition and a short decay.

What actually happened in terms of sound, based on these particular cymbals anyway, was that it struck me there were three notable levels or sub-groups apparent in the sounds available;

The 22; it was big fat, almost gong like, with a wide spread and a little rough and trashy. If you also like watch cymbals wobble after you’ve hit them, this one is for you.

The 20 down to the 16; slightly more full in the mid-range area but more powerful sounding because of this in relative terms to the 22, providing a focused sound and a bit brighter too.

The 15 and 14; probably what I would expect from really thin smaller crash cymbals, light and fast with emphasis on the higher end. The 14 actually sounded like a splash to me and certainly played like one too, albeit a little physically heavier because of the size.

These cymbals were everything I remembered about about the last batch I looked at.

The nature of these paper thin models is that they won’t be for everyone by virtue of both their sound and physical attributes.

Given that they are thin – actually, really thin – the sound some of them give may not suit all types of music. However, having said that, I think the 16/17 up to the 20 models have a little more mid-range body than the other examples which may broaden their appeal a little more. I’d say they were quite clean sounding cymbals in that respect.

If you’re a hard hitter, you’ll probably need to avoid these as you’ll either crack one of these or bend it inside out, neither of which are very practical. But, for the right drummer in the right setting, there probably will be something in this line for you. They’re also reasonably priced too.

For more, check out – dreamcymbals.com/products/cymbals/bliss

David Bateman