Paiste makes Slipknot's Joey Jordison black cymbals

Swiss cymbal kings Paiste has teamed up with masked-drummer Joey Jordison to create 'Slipknot Edition' Black Alpha cymbals. Essentially, these are Alpha series cymbals primed with Paiste's own ColorSound coating. As you might expect from the name, and the hard metal endorsee, they're black-as-hell.

The Slipknot Editions have been personally chosen by Jordison and are based on his own 2008/2009 touring set-up. So it's a 20" Metal Ride, 17", 18" and 19" Rock Crashes, an 18" Rock China, a 14" Sound Edge Hi-Hat, and a 10" Metal Splash, all emblazoned with a gold Slipknot logo, that are first off the production line.

Paiste was the first cymbal company to apply colour to cymbals, and the ColorSound technology promises to protect and enhance the metal.

Apart from the blackness, it's hard to tell how Black Alpha cymbals will differ from anything else on the market (until we review them of course). Actually, who cares? They're black. And cool.

Tom Porter worked on MusicRadar from its mid-2007 launch date to 2011, covering a range of music and music making topics, across features, gear news, reviews, interviews and more. A regular NAMM-goer back in the day, Tom now resides permanently in Los Angeles, where he's doing rather well at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).