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Clean Cymbals Are Your Friend
You’re not the only drummer who’s ever wondered how to clean cymbals. With them collecting dust, finger prints, stick smudges, and Cheetos dust from your bandmates (sorry bub), it may be a good idea to clean the old cymbals.
Groove Juice Takes The Cake
While there may be no best way of cleaning cymbals or one product, there are certain cleaning products like Groove Juice cymbal cleaner, which has been a staple in the drumming industry since the mid ‘90s.
With some latex gloves on, all you’ll do is spray on the cleaner evenly across your cymbal (start with the bottom of the cymbal and then move to the top of the cymbal). Also, it’s recommended to clean one side at a time.
Then use a soft brush, especially if heavily soiled. You can opt to use a paper towel or soft cloth along the grooves of your cymbal, but I do want to mention the bottle says “No rubbing, buffing or polishing”, so be careful with that elbow grease.
Make sure you are evenly distributing the cleaner within all the tonal grooves of your cymbal with the brush. Next, wait 30 seconds and then rinse with warm water and wipe clean with a new dry cloth. That’s all and then you are good to go! You can pick some up for under $20 normally. Here is a link to some on Musician’s Friend.
No One Size Fits All “Best Way” To Do It
While the Groove Juice is a highly recommended way to clean cymbals, there are some other products/ways we can look at. Fortunately, other cymbal manufacturers and companies make cymbal cleaners, so you have a lot of choices.
Cymbal Manufacturers And Cleaning Products?
There are a TON of other cymbal cleaners and some of the biggest cymbal companies like Zildjian cymbals, Paiste cymbals, and Sabian cymbals also make their own cleaner.
For Zildjian cymbal cleaner, make sure you are also wearing some sort of gloves (going forward, just remember this). We want to make sure no finger prints are being left.
Shake the bottle, then apply the cleaner (generously) around the cymbal (you can start with the bottom and save the top of the cymbal for last).
Take a clean cloth and as we talked about with the Groove Juice, you’re going to wipe around the cymbal, making sure to get in the grooves of the cymbal.
It’s also probably a good idea to do a circular motion as you are making your way across the whole surface. Also, be sure to get around the edges of the cymbals. This is where most of your fingerprints will be from touching them, cymbal chokes, etc.
There may not be many smudges with new cymbals, so you can always wait a few weeks until they start to show up. It’s still not a bad idea to keep them clean instead of waiting a long time.
After you’ve hit every spot on the bottom of the cymbal, you’re going to wipe away any excess cleaner that there may be (all you’ll need is a thin layer of the cleaner on there). Then, grab a new dry cloth (or fold the one you have – it’s just important not to use a damp cloth that has cleaner all over it).
You’ll wait about 10-15 seconds with this one and then you can wipe it all off with the cloth. Repeat this process with the top of the cymbal. Easy peasy with this one and no water necessary.
The Sabian cymbal cleaner is very similar to the Groove Juice in that you’ll spray the cymbal and wait 20-30 seconds. With this one, you don’t need water either. Just take your cloth and wipe away the liquid.
Be sure to take it easier when rubbing around that precious Sabian logo on your cymbal (and that goes for all cymbal logos). I say this because I’m a Sabian guy, but I also love Saluda cymbals.
With the Paiste cymbal cleaner it is a bit different. It is recommended to water the cleaner down well and you’ll also put it on a cloth and then wipe down the cymbal that way. They also recommend that you don’t rub this one in.
As far as which one is the best, that is definitely debatable. I have heard drummers swear by Groove Juice, which is why it’s the #1 recommended by me. There are SO many choices though, that it can make it difficult. Just make sure you follow the directions and recommendations.
Other Tips/Alternatives:
Another idea on how to clean cymbals is by using household items or even perishables. Lemon juice and Lime juice are apparently used by many drummers.
With these, it’s the same method as the Groove Juice. Just cut a lemon or lime in half and squeeze the juice over the cymbal. Wipe the cymbal down and then use warm water to get the juice off the cymbal and then wipe dry.
Dream cymbals recommends cleaning cymbals with lime juice and I know that they have a pretty big following.
You also can use household products such as pledge or windex or vinegar. These you would simply spray on, wipe your cymbal and then you’re golden. You can opt to use warm soap/water if you want.
I can personally attest to the windex usage. I had recently used it to remove oxidation from my cymbal (another good thing to be aware of). I’m actually really ashamed that I didn’t check my cymbals regularly, but they had gotten wet through my cymbal bag.
If you ever notice a green/blue tint on your cymbals, it’s because air and moisture have caused patina (oxidation) and it’s actually eating away at the surface of your cymbal.
We can slow this down and you shouldn’t wait too long to clean your cymbals (smudges can be really hard to remove and also can cause this tarnish due to the oils in our fingers). Think about how a penny will start to discolor over time. This is the same concept.
Anyway, I used windex and a finer bristle brush. I wouldn’t recommend using a wire brush as this could scratch up your cymbal (really any household product with an acidic base).
Your cymbal is also prone to oxidize faster in the future once it already has happened. The grooves on the part of my cymbal I cleaned this patina off are pretty much gone now because this reaction ate away at the cymbal.
It is a known fact in the industry that brilliant finish cymbals (think Zildjian A) are easier to clean than traditional finish cymbals.
Brilliant cymbals undergo more during the finishing process of cymbal making and that levels out more of the tonal grooves. Also, these cymbals are normally polished to a glimmering shine.
You can still clean traditional finish and other types of cymbals and I have done so because all of my cymbals are non-brilliant. So, it’s not impossible, just may take some extra elbow grease!
Something else I want to bring up is that a lot of drummers don’t clean their cymbals. They say that it changes the sound of your cymbal and you should let your cymbals age like a fine chardonnay.
I have rarely cleaned my cymbals over the years and have only noticed oxidation on one cymbal. Apparently the years of grime/dust/etc build up on the cymbal and the tonal grooves add uniqueness to the sound of the cymbal.
While I’m not fully on board with that idea, I’d say cleaning them if you’ve gone so long will probably change the sound of them for sure. So, just be prepared for that!
One last thing I wanted to mention was cymbal polishes. Cymbal polishes and cleaners aren’t really the same thing, unless it’s a cleaner/polish in one.
If you want to clean your cymbals, get an actual cleaner or get the 2-in-one.
The Sound Of The Cymbal Is Up To You
So, whether you clean your cymbals with cymbal cleaner or household products, it seems you do have a lot of choices as there have been so many different things used by drummers.
You could also not clean your cymbals and let the sound develop over time. As I said, I have cleaned my cymbals, but also have gone a long time without doing so.
I think the most important thing is just keep an eye on how they look over time and make sure no patina (oxidation) occurs. Store your cymbals in a cymbal bag in a less humid environment and that’ll help a lot.
Clean Cymbals Forevermore
So, now you have an arsenal of ways on how to clean cymbals if you’d like. If you do choose to do this, your cymbals will look brand new, but also be grime and dirt-free.
What have you found to work with cleaning your cymbals? Leave a comment and let me know!
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Until next time!
– Evan C.