Top 7 Metal Drummers Playing Zildjian Cymbals | MetalForge

The metal drummers with verified Zildjian cymbal setups, ranked. Lars Ulrich's A Custom Series, George Kollias's K Custom Dark, Mario Duplantier's layered K/A Custom rig, Jay Weinberg, Raymond Herrera, John Otto, and Jaska Raatikainen — sourced from MetalForge's own gear guides, not guesswork.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which metal drummers play Zildjian cymbals?

Lars Ulrich (Metallica) built his entire cymbal sound around the Zildjian A Custom Series, George Kollias (Nile) uses the darker K Custom Dark line, and Mario Duplantier (Gojira) layers three separate Zildjian sub-series into a single setup. Jay Weinberg (Slipknot), Raymond Herrera (Fear Factory), John Otto (Limp Bizkit), and Jaska Raatikainen (Children of Bodom) round out MetalForge's most extensively documented Zildjian artists.

What is the difference between Zildjian A Custom and K Custom cymbals?

The A Custom Series uses a brilliant, mirror-polish finish that produces a bright, cutting attack — the sound behind Lars Ulrich's and Jay Weinberg's crash setups. The K Custom Series uses a traditional, hand-hammered finish for a darker, more complex tone with a controlled wash, which is why George Kollias and John Otto lean on K Custom for death metal and groove-first drumming where a washy A Custom crash would sound harsh.

Why does this list rank 7 drummers instead of 10?

Every entry on this list requires a Zildjian relationship that's independently verifiable against MetalForge's own gear guides, price-history articles, or drummer biographies — not a generic or conflicting brand mention. Only seven drummers in MetalForge's database currently clear that bar for Zildjian specifically, so this ships as an honest top 7 rather than a padded top 10.

Gear Deep Dives & Articles

1. Lars Ulrich — Zildjian A Custom — the definitive metal cymbal sound. Lars Ulrich has built Metallica's cymbal sound on the Zildjian A Custom Series since the band's earliest days — 14" hi-hats, 18" and 19" crashes, a 20" China, and a 22" ride, the exact configuration that has anchored his setup for decades. The brilliant-finish B20 bronze delivers the bright, cutting attack that drives "Master of Puppets" and "...And Justice for All" without disappearing under Metallica's wall of guitars at stadium volume. Ulrich earns rank #1 as the most recognizable and most extensively documented Zildjian artist in metal.
2. George Kollias — Zildjian K Custom Dark — the death metal cymbal standard. George Kollias built his entire Nile cymbal identity around the Zildjian K Custom Dark line, the thin, dark B20 bronze crashes and hi-hats that give his 240+ BPM technical death metal blast beats a controlled, musical wash instead of washing out into noise. He pairs that dark crash-and-hi-hat core with a 21" Zildjian A Custom Mega Bell Ride, whose oversized bell cuts through Nile's dense arrangements even at his most extreme tempos. Kollias earns rank #2 for the most extensively documented Zildjian setup in extreme metal.
3. Mario Duplantier — A sprawling, layered Zildjian setup across three sub-series. Mario Duplantier layers three different Zildjian cymbal lines for Gojira's progressive death metal — 14" K Sweet and A Custom hi-hats for flexible texture, 18" K Custom Hybrid, 19" A Custom, and 20" K Sweet crashes for graduated accent weights, and a 21" Zildjian Z Custom Mega Bell Ride built to speak clearly under a full mix. That combination gives Gojira's crushing, down-tuned material its tectonic body on "From Mars to Sirius" and "Magma." Duplantier earns rank #3 for the most harmonically layered Zildjian setup on this list.
4. Jay Weinberg — Zildjian A Custom & K Custom — Slipknot's modern engine room. Jay Weinberg runs a dual-series Zildjian setup for Slipknot — 14" A New Beat hi-hats, 18" and 19" A Custom crashes, a 21" K Custom ride, and a 19" K China — mixing the brighter A Custom line for cutting crash articulation with the darker K Custom line for a ride that holds up under Slipknot's nine-piece wall of sound. Weinberg earns rank #4 for maintaining Slipknot's Zildjian lineage since taking over the drum chair in 2014.
5. Arin Ilejay — From triggered Z Custom pioneer to a modern A/Z Custom rig. Raymond Herrera pioneered a hybrid acoustic/electronic Zildjian setup on Fear Factory's "Demanufacture" (1995), pairing Zildjian Z Custom cymbals with a full Roland/ddrum trigger rack in a rig that cost roughly $5,200 at the time and helped define industrial metal's mechanical drum sound. His current setup has consolidated onto Tama Starclassic shells with Zildjian A Custom and Z Custom cymbals, dropping the dedicated trigger rack as modern triggering technology became more compact. Herrera earns rank #5 for a Zildjian relationship documented across three decades of gear evolution.
6. John Otto — Zildjian K Custom Series across Limp Bizkit's career. John Otto has anchored Limp Bizkit's rhythm section on a Zildjian K Custom Series setup — 14" hi-hats, 17" and 18" dark crashes, a 20" ride, and 18" China — since the band's earliest recordings, giving Otto's jazz-trained, groove-first playing a darker, more complex cymbal voice than the brighter A Custom setups favored by many of his nu-metal peers. Otto earns rank #6 for a Zildjian setup that has stayed consistent across Limp Bizkit's entire commercial run.
7. Jaska Raatikainen — Zildjian A Custom — unchanged across a ten-album career. Jaska Raatikainen adopted a Zildjian A Custom cymbal setup for Children of Bodom's "Follow the Reaper" (2000), widely considered the band's defining album, and barely changed it for the rest of the band's 26-year run — adding only a Zildjian K Custom ride for extra atmosphere during "Are You Dead Yet?" (2005) and "Blooddrunk" (2008). That steadiness carried through to "Hexed" (2019), the band's final album before their 2019 dissolution. Raatikainen earns rank #7 for one of the longest unbroken Zildjian setups in metal, trusted essentially unchanged for two decades.

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