Music Gear Review: TRX XLS Series Cymbals

The new CLS™ Series from TRX® Cymbals combines a dark and warm classic sound with their exclusive Retro-Gray™ finish. The extra-thin B20 Bronze cymbals are handcrafted by master cymbal craftsmen and are recommended for jazz, rock and indie/pop drummer sounds and styles.

Besides a big selection of crashes, crash-rides and hi-hats, there are Thunder™ crashes and splashes in various sizes and two different sizes of Storm™ hi-hats with weight-matched top and bottom cymbals.

CLS Series hi-hats have a lighter bottom cymbal for a darker and trashier pre-New Beat sound. There is also the option to add rivets (in the pre-drill holes) to the bottom hi-hat and also to the crash-ride cymbals for yet another effective layer of trashiness.

The TRX CLS Series was developed in collaboration with top European jazz composer/performer Lada Obradovié.

MSRP price ranges are: Hi-Hats: $550 - $700, Crashes: $422 - $455, Crash Rides: $495 - $673, and Thunder Crashes: $240 - $627.

BARRY RUDOLPH is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com