How to Clean Your Cymbals

Are your cymbals dirty? Are your fingerprints on them or they have black or white dots? Well, here I present a review of some products that can clean them and some tips to get you cymbal shinier as they were new.

Here there are a few tips for clearing your cymbals for a concert or just for keeping them nice.

First of all, the cymbals are made of copper, silver, bronze and others, all of them are metals, so if you use to clean them water and you don’t dry them carefully you will obtain a green cymbal, yes, a green cymbal. This is because (in the cymbals with high percent of copper) the copper oxide is of that color, unless you want to change their color I will warn you not to use water, or in the case you wash them with water is better to dry them VERY WELL! And in a long period of time that oxide will make thinner your cymbals.

Some people use lemon and vinegar to clean their stuff, the steps are:

1. Cut a lemon in two halves and squeeze one half onto a cymbal, then rub the lemon juice with the lemon on the entire surface. Also get a pot scrubber and work the lemon juice and you will notice that the cymbal gets shinier. Do this on both surfaces.
2. Do the same with the vinegar but if you want to keep the logos be careful when you use the pot scrubber or don’t use it on the logos, leave them dirty.
3. Finally, wash them with warm water, but like I said before, dry them VERY WELL!

Maybe this method is effective but is really aggressive to the cymbals (you use an acid with a metal), apart from dirt it can take out fine layers of the metal, and in the future it will change their sound. Naturally lemon and vinegar are not the best cleaners.

The other option is the liquid called Groove Juice. This time, this liquid is made for cleaning cymbals. It is sold in many music stores for this use. This product won’t do anything bad but can take the logos very easy and is not effective for all cymbals because is a general product. However, I think is a good option to try because it won’t hurt your cymbals.

Another option is the cream called Brasso that is thought to prevent the metals to being oxidize. This product can clean your cymbals and protect them from oxide, most people say it works great, better then the brand’s cleaner. It leaves a thin film of oil that doesn’t let the metal be tarnished. This product removes the protective wax coat of some cymbals like Paiste.

To finish off, the best option and a guaranteed one is to use the brand’s cream or liquid for this use. It will never affect your cymbals and it should clean the at least a little, the second option is to use Groove Juice that is a nice product and both are made for this use!