We can speculate all we want about the behind the scenes shit that we'll never know about concerning Vinnie switching to Paiste, but I'm inclined to believe that maybe:
1. It's as simple as Vinnie makes it sound. He probably doesn't have his head in MD, Drumhead, drum or cymbal company literature, etc. or have time to worry about what other cymbal companies are putting out. With his Zildjian blinders on, he probably did stumble across some Paiste's in a warehouse somewhere (Drum Doctor) that had a great feel and sound. Why would he make that up?
2. Also, it's widely known how CONSISTENT Paiste cymbals are. If the cymbals he has sent to him from Zildjian weren't cutting it on a consistency level, that's a problem. Vinnie sounds like he got tired of picking through a bunch of Zildjians to find one that didn't sound like a gong to find a good one. Zildjian's consistency and the cymbals that are deemed acceptable enough to send out of the factory nowadays are questionable to me as well as other players that remember what a Zildjian crash cymbal used to sound like. Not knocking the 17" A Custom though. That's a thing of beauty, always.
I personally use cymbals from all different manufacturers and judge what I'm going to spend my money on by the way it sounds, although in the past couple of years I've leaned toward Paiste myself. I've said before on this forum how the new 602's sound like GAWD created them, and have personally found that (And I've said this before too) my 2002 crashes record phenomenally and feel great under the stick too. AND, if I break one, I can order one online, go to the store, phone in an order to Drum Shop X, and be 99% sure that the cymbal coming to me is going to be damn close to what I just cracked. IMO this is not the case with Zildjian or Sabian. This is even more important on Vinnie's level, where every time he sit's at the kit he's probably recording an album, shooting a DVD, playing in front of thousands, being watched and judged, all while trying to be comfortable enough with his gear to make the best possible musical statement he can make. Not fighting his gear, settling for sub-par, or spending his time being unhappy with what's supplied. Imagine Vinnie calling up his old company and having them send a set of cymbals out to him while he's in Europe for 10 dates-the cymbals might be the right model and what he asked for but might sound like shit. Maybe this has happened a few times. Wouldn't you want something that's the SAME all of the time, or, pretty damn close?
Now that we're finally hearing it straight from the horses mouth, why does it have to be speculated any more than it already has? I really enjoyed that fact that I got to hear him talk about the "why". I can't believe 7 and a 1/2 minutes of truth coming from Vinnie made some of you feel...well, I don't know how you feel, but it sure sounds like it was a put-off to a couple of you and I have a hard time seeing things from that angle.
