9 Best Low Volume Cymbals | 80% Quieter, Still Real Bronze

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The cheap route to a quiet kit — rubber pads that drop over the drums and cymbals you already own.

Not everyone wants a second set of cymbals. This Vic Firth pack covers 10, 12, 14 and 16 inch drums, a 22 inch bass drum, plus hi-hat and two cymbal mutes, all in non-slip pure rubber. Drop them over your existing heads and cymbals and the room goes quiet without you buying new metal. It is a fraction of the size of a full cymbal set too — the pack is listed at 1 kg and packs down flat.

Know the trade-off before you buy: it is feel. Rubber takes the bounce out of your sticks, so a pad session trains your hands differently than a cymbal does. Owners consistently say the drum pads themselves quiet things well and hold a natural enough bounce for daytime practice. The bass drum is the weak spot: the kick mute still lets a fair bit of low end through and the floor carries it. So a late-night session in a flat above someone is not what this is for.

Durability splits down the middle across the set. The drum and cymbal pieces hold up to repeated use, and one owner even reported the set surviving being submerged in a flood and still sounding right after cleaning and drying. The weak point is the bass drum pad, which in at least one case came unstuck from its foam backing within about a month. Handle the kick piece gently and this is a genuine bargain for switching an acoustic kit into a practice kit and back again.

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Eight moulded pieces that mute toms, snare, cymbals and kick in one box.

This set beats the Vic Firth pack on the parts list. Evans includes 12, 13, 14 and 16 inch tom and snare mutes, a 14 inch hi-hat mute, a 16 to 18 inch cymbal mute, a 20 inch ride mute and a bass mute that spans 16 to 26 inches. That is a wider spread of sizes, so it is the set to look at if your kit is not a standard four-piece. The whole box is listed at 5.2 pounds, which is about 2.8 pounds under the Zildjian LV348 cymbal set.

What people like most is that the pieces simply work — mutes drop on, volume drops, and the kit stays tuneful. The cymbal and hi-hat pieces come in for particular praise because they clamp onto the metal and let you actually hit it, so your rebound survives better than it does on a flat rubber pad. A drummer who bought them for a young player with no volume control found they made the difference between drowning the band and actually hearing the rest of the group.

Two things to weigh. First, fit is size-dependent and unforgiving: a 14.5 inch snare pad on a 14 inch head is a real mismatch, and the 14 inch hi-hat mute has been a loose fit on non-standard 13 inch hats. Measure before ordering. Second, the cymbal mutes have been reported to leave a dark residue on the metal — fine on a practice kit, less welcome on a good set of bronze. The smell from the start is also on the strong side for the first few days.

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Nine perforated stainless cymbals, a bag and a pair of sticks in one box.

Piece for piece, nothing else here covers this much of a kit. The ULUOBO pack walks out with a 14 inch hi-hat pair, 16 and 18 inch crashes, a 20 inch ride, 6, 8 and 10 inch splashes and an 18 inch china — nine cymbals in stainless steel, plus a free cymbal bag and drumsticks. ULUOBO rates the set up to 60%-80% quieter than traditional cymbals, and the edges are polished smooth so your sticks are not catching on burrs.

The sounds are uneven across the range, which is the fairest way to describe it. Drummers with twenty years behind a kit rate the hats, ride and 18 inch crash highly and use them on hybrid recording setups. The splashes are the weak link — described as clangy and better used stacked than played alone — and the china rings a little shrill. The ride is good but leaves you wishing for a 22 inch with a bigger bell, which is a taste question rather than a fault.

Volume is where expectations need managing. These are quieter than standard cymbals but they are not a silent set, and one buyer found them close enough to a full cymbal to send them back. Realistically this is a daytime, ground-floor, tolerant-neighbour set. The stainless finish also picks up fingerprints and stick marks quickly, and the black finish’s long-term look is unproven. For the spread of sizes and the extra pieces, though, this is a lot of cymbal for a beginner building a quiet kit.

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One pair, 13 inches, for drummers whose hi-hats are the only thing still bothering the neighbours.

Not everybody needs a whole set of cymbals. If your crashes and ride already live under control and it is the constant chick-chick-chick of the hi-hats that carries through the wall, this Zildjian L80 pair does the job on its own. Zildjian rates the L80 line 80% quieter than traditional cymbals, and the pair is listed at just 16 ounces — light enough that swapping them onto a stand takes seconds.

What is telling here is why people buy the pair instead of the full pack. Several owners already own the Zildjian lows and simply want a 13 inch hi-hat to round out the setup, rather than a 14 inch that fights their existing hats. The response is the usual L80 story: articulate under sticks, brushes and mallets, and a feel close enough to real bronze that your hand does not have to relearn anything.

One practical note worth flagging. A hi-hat is sold as a matched pair, so confirm this listing is a pair before checkout — at least one buyer received only a single cymbal and had to go through the return process. Set that against most buyers, who find the volume very low and the stick feel right on the money. If all you need is a quiet pair of hats, buying the pair on its own is the neatest way to spend here.

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Sabian’s smaller Quiet Tone rig: 13 inch hats, a 14 inch crash and an 18 inch crash ride.

Sabian’s QTPC502 is built around the classic small practice layout — 13 inch hi-hats, a 14 inch crash and an 18 inch crash ride — and it leans hard on the feel instead of the peace and quiet. Sabian markets it around true-to-life response and sustain, so you do not have to change how you play. The alloy is described as tough enough not to dent or break, and it comes with a two-year warranty and a 90-day Drumeo trial.

The tone is the part that surprises people. Buyers who have played both this and a Zildjian silent set describe the Sabian as cut with a crisper edge, comparing it directly rather than in the abstract. Somebody who bought it for a partner reported the sound dampened by a good margin while the quality held up — the trade-off you are making is volume, not craftsmanship. It is a practice cymbal, and everyone who plays it says so.

The obvious limitation is coverage: there is no ride in the classic sense and no separate china or splash, so if you play a lot of ride patterns you will want the bigger QTPC504 instead. The 18 inch crash ride does both jobs, but a crash that doubles as a ride always asks for a compromise. One buyer found the crash on the splashy side and planned on going up a size. For quiet gigs and rehearsals where three cymbals cover the kit, start here rather than with the four-piece QTPC504.

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The step-up L80 pack, for drummers who want the full Zildjian low volume voice across the kit.

If you already know you want the L80 feel and you want it across the whole kit, this is the pack rather than the 13 inch hi-hat pair. Same 80% quieter rating as the LV348, same articulate response with sticks, brushes and mallets, but listed at 8.3 pounds for the set — about a third of a pound heavier than the LV348.

The story that keeps coming back is how convincingly this behaves like a real cymbal for something with holes punched through it. The perforations cut mass and volume, and once you are used to the look, the rebound is close enough that you can work on stick control and transfer the results straight back to your gigging set. In a basement without any soundproofing, this is the setup that lets you play full strokes while the family carries on upstairs. The 16 inch and 18 inch crashes come through at different pitches, and the 14 inch hats sizzle open and tick when closed — small things that matter when you are practising dynamics, not just hitting things.

Two things to plan for. Long-time players find the 18 inch serviceable as a crash but thin as a ride, so add a 20 inch ride into your thinking. And for the quietest possible sessions, these are still louder than pairing equivalent drumheads with Remo Silentstroke — this is a low volume cymbal, not a silent one. Buy it for practice feel and apartment-level noise, not for total silence.

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A four-piece set built for tone first, with volume reduction as the bonus.

Evans does this differently from everyone else on the list. The dB cymbals use a spiral-perforated volume reduction pattern punched into a nano-plated stainless alloy surface, and Evans claims a chime and resonance as articulate as many full-volume sets with 80 percent less noise. The four cymbals run 14, 16, 18 and 20 inches, and they are designed to be sonically balanced with Evans dB One drumheads if you are building a whole quiet kit.

The sound is what buyers keep coming back to. Clean, clear tones with a real stick response is the recurring theme. Drummers who have played the big four-piece quiet sets from the other brands describe these as a genuine step up in tone rather than a compromise. The 20 inch ride earns particular affection for its bell, and the 16 and 18 inch crashes carry a decent sustain. One drummer found them a touch louder than the alternatives but preferred how much more they felt like real cymbals — a trade-off plenty of players would happily make.

The dissenting view goes straight at tone rather than build. Some hear the whole set as variations on a ride tone rather than distinct crash, ride and hat voices, and the hats get called clangy by the least forgiving ear. Set that against the physical spec: the set is listed at 5.73 kg, substantial but manageable on a stand. It suits a player who judges the cymbals by their tone and bell definition, not just the decibel drop.

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Sabian’s four-piece Quiet Tone setup — 14 inch hats, two crashes and a 20 inch ride.

This is the quieter, more complete Sabian. The QTPC504 gives you 14 inch hi-hats, a 16 inch crash, an 18 inch crash and a 20 inch ride — everything you would find on a performance kit, in Quiet Tone alloy. Sabian markets it on true-to-life response and sustain, a bell tone that stays defined rather than muffled, and alloy described as tough enough not to dent or break, backed by a two-year warranty and a 90-day Drumeo trial.

Sound is where it earns its place. Buyers report the volume coming down by roughly 60 percent compared with a real cymbal while still sounding like a cymbal rather than a mute. The perforation runs full across the surface, which cuts the splash dramatically. Players who mount them on an electronic kit by swapping the mounts find them durable under hard hits — in one case with no dents after heavy use, set against a Zildjian L80 that had marked. Rehearsal rooms and mesh-head pairings are the natural home for these.

The limit to know is the hi-hat. More than one drummer finds the hat in this set thin and weak next to the crashes and ride, which then makes the snare and toms feel loud by comparison. If you play a lot of hat work, that imbalance will be the thing you notice first. On the whole this is the set to buy if you want a full four-piece lineup from a brand with a two-year warranty and a case in the box.