Meinl Percussion is a manufacturer of

percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

s based in Gutenstetten,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. The company’s cymbal production is one of the "big four" manufacturers of cymbals, along with Zildjian, Sabian, and Paiste. In addition to cymbals, Meinl manufactures a very wide range of percussion instruments including

bongo drum Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

s, cajons,

conga The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest) ...

djembe A djembe or jembe ( ; from Maninka language, Malinke ''jembe'' , N'Ko script, N'Ko: ) is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bambara people in Mali, the name of the djembe ...

güiro The güiro () is a Puerto Rican percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines (see photo) along the notches to produce a ratchet (instrument), ratc ...

s, pandeiros, and

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called " zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, tho ...

History

The "Roland Meinl Musikinstrumente" was founded in 1951 by Roland Meinl. Initially the company produced

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

s, beginning the production of cymbals only in 1952. The first Meinl cymbals were cut out of large metal sheets, hammered, lathed and drilled by hand by Roland Meinl himself, who subsequently transported them to the

Neustadt an der Aisch Neustadt an der Aisch (officially: ''Neustadt a.d.Aisch'') is a small town of around 13,000 inhabitants in the northern part of Bavaria (Germany), within the Franconian administrative region Middle Franconia. "Neustadt an der Aisch" (mapping), ...

railstation on the luggage carrier of his bike. In the 1960s about half of the production was exported to the United States together with German-made Tromsa drumsets. The first employee, Gustav Strobel, was hired in 1964 and worked for the company for almost 40 years. At about the same time Roland Meinl began to import affordable music instruments from Japan, being one of the first

Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

importers in Europe. He later began to import Tama and

Ibanez is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, ...

instruments.Brief company history
(Version May 6, 2006 from Internet Archive) In 1974 Meinl was the first cymbal company to offer pre-pack cymbal sets. Meinl's initial cymbal production focused on low-budget cymbals, and it wasn't until 1984 with the "Profile Series" that Meinl started to really focus on professional-level cymbals. The first Meinl pro series was the "King-Beat Series", introduced in 1976. In 1990 Meinl introduced the "Tri-Tonal Series", their first signature series developed with

Billy Cobham William Emanuel Cobham Jr. (born May 16, 1944) is a Panamanian–American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was inducted into the ''Mode ...

. The series was discontinued a year later. In 2006 Meinl began the production of the "Mb10 Series", made out of B10 bronze alloy (90% copper and 10% tin), making them the only company to produce cymbals out of four different bronze alloys (B8, B10, B12 and B20 bronze). On December 4, 2007 company founder Roland Meinl died at the age of 78.

References

External links

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Drum! Magazine's visit to the Meinl Factory
{{Authority control Percussion instrument manufacturing companies Cymbal manufacturing companies Companies based in Bavaria German brands Musical instrument manufacturing companies of Germany

History

See also

References

External links