 Welcome to the Drum History podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Hugo Pinksterbauer. Hugo, welcome to the show. I'm very glad to be here. So you are the author of The Symbol Book, which for me was like the very first thing I really looked at when I wanted to even think about starting this podcast about two years ago. It is just an unbelievable resource for people who are interested in symbols. I'm glad it still is. When I started writing the book, there was one thing that I had in my mind that nobody else should be able to improve on the book right away. Like, here's a book on symbols. I can't do better than that. So if you write the book, it should be the book and it should be good because I'm used to when I do something, I do something like to the max. If you don't, then you'd better not do it. And that goes from writing as well as for drumming or perhaps even playing the violin. Yeah. And so we kind of talked a little bit kind of in preparation for this about, you know, there's almost too much information for it to be translated into an episode about the knowledge about symbols. So I think we're going to kind of come at this from a how the book came to be, how you gathered this information. And we'll bring some tips and tricks out along the way. But it really, I mean, how do you describe the book to someone who's never even heard of it? Do you call it like a handbook or a resource or just like a history book? How do you describe it? It is just everything you'd like to know about symbols and probably a bit more. I'm absolutely sure that there's tons of drummers who will never read this book because it's just too much information. And it's really you need to be truly interested in the subject. On the other hand, you don't need to read the entire book. And perhaps if you read the chapter that you're interested in, like a chapter on symbol acoustics, why does a symbol sound the way it sounds? Or a chapter on how you can influence the sound of a symbol or the chapter on setups and different ways to think about that or any of the other chapters. Then perhaps when reading it, you might become interested in the other chapters as well. Yeah, that's a great point of how it's broken up where I like it because I actually did it where through a library, I kind of got a digital version of it because for me it was like it was like midnight. And I was working on this zilgen thing and I was like just trying to put all this stuff together and you're by chapter. So there's chapters like the company's historical dates. There's all sorts of things about symbol care. And like you said, there's like the technical stuff like why they sound like that. So you've got a lot of company names that and I've been really looking and researching a lot of stuff for the show. And there's multiple brands that you have that I've never heard of. Let's go to the first kind of broad discussion of how did you put this thing together? Yeah, the thing is I was working as a journalist for Slackware Krant. And probably some, well, a lot of American drummers know the magazine, the Dutch modern drummer say, because they were interviewed by the people from Slackware Krant and Slackware Krant, which means basically drummer's journal, organized lots of festivals in the Netherlands with numerous guests from Simon Phillips and Steve Smith to Trilo Gurtug, Terry Bozio and all these other guys. So I worked for that magazine and I did all of the jazz interviews and some of the other interviews as well. And I was responsible for all the instrument reviews, including samples. And I was really interested in the subject. And as I said about the book, if you do something, you have to do it to the max. So when I started doing drum set reviews, I'd started reading, you know, model drummer reviews and rhythm I think back then and all of the drummer's magazines. The internet was not really there back then, you know, we're talking about 1985 or so. So I started reading that, but I also started working one night a week in a little drum store where I did drum set repairs. Because I felt that that would make me understand more of the construction of the instrument and questions that people have and the things they break and why they break, et cetera, et cetera. So I found out, for instance, that these early, I don't know if they still do that, but really low budget drum sets always came with, you know, a few extra look inserts. And that seems like a nice gesture, doesn't it? But they do that just because these things always break down, you know, you strip the thread and they're gone. It's not a nice gesture. It's just a necessity. Anyways, so I started doing that. I started doing drum set reviews and cymbal reviews and sticks and what have you. And I found cymbals unbelievably fascinating, more so than drums. That was one thing. The other thing was that, you know, I did all these interviews with my heroes, including the men who inspired me to play jazz, Art Blakey. Oh, wow. And that was, to me, that was one of the most memorable events of my life, probably. I heard one of his records when I was 16 or so. And that turned me into playing jazz. Then years later, I found out that the man was just alive, you know? Yeah, sure. And that he was actually playing in Holland. And two, three, four years later, I joined him for a conversation. And it was kind of a hilarious conversation because he was quite deaf by that time. So he told a story about how friends of his had bought him a new drum set. And that they asked him to come down into the garden and they had put his old drum set on fire. And there was this new drum set, something like that. And I said, whoa, that must have been a nice surprise. He said, what? I said, that must have been a nice surprise. And he said, but then he didn't remember what he had been telling. Oh, man. That was really, he was really old at that time. Oh, of course. Playing his ass off. I mean, I'm telling you this story, but it's with the utmost respect. Yes. It's just a funny story. Yeah. Anyways, so, and I met, you know, Steve Smith and Arthur Taylor, one of my heroes and Jack DeGeneres and all these people. And there was somehow a desire in me to do something internationally. So I would not be just, you know, the guy who interviewed them for this Dutch driver's magazine, but, you know, to get out of this little country and do something worldwide. And it was not that I thought of writing the symbol book because I wanted to go, you know, international. But it was just, I found out that there was not a book on symbols. And I thought, well, that's up to me. I'm going to do that. Yeah. So I talked about that. And then I was in touch with Colin Schofield because I used to go to all these music conventions. I was in touch with Colin Schofield who back then worked for Zildjian. And I told him about this plan and he said, well, then you need to come down to Zildjian. And I said, well, I don't have a budget, you know, I'm a part-time civil servant and I'm a part-time drummer and I'm a part-time drum tech and I'm a part-time whatever. And he said, no, no, no problem. We'll get you there. Oh, cool. So the idea was that Zildjian would get me to Boston and then I would write an article on Zildjian. But of course, you know, being a vocational guidance counselor by origin, it was not supposed, of course, to be a Zildjian book or a book about the opinion of Hugo Pinkstabour on symbols or whatever. It should be a book that provides information that allows you to make your own choices. So when they had offered me this, I went to Sabian and I said, listen, I'm going to Zildjian under those conditions. Can I come to you guys too? And I went then to, I went to Pisces and Euphib and Istanbul and Mino. That was it, I think. The main companies at that time. And they all said, okay, so they all got their article and they all paid for the trip and the hotel and whatever you. Oh, that's awesome. I never would have thought about it. That's just cool to know that little bit about it. I mean, it's not like they're paying to have like a slot in the book, but they're just kind of basically saying like, yeah, we want to be a part of it and we understand that you're doing this will help you get there. Because of course, it's important to the entire industry that a book like that is there because I'm really convinced and I wrote a series of books later on called the Tipbook series, much less in depth. Like the single book is, as I just said, a book for drummers who really want to know everything about this fascinating instrument. The other books that I wrote are just like, you should really know this about your instrument. But it's basically the same approach. Why does one guitar cost like $500 and the other $150 or $5,000? How do the different materials that are being used for a guitar influence the sound? How does the shape of the resonator influence the sound? How does the profile of the neck influence the playability and the shape and the size of the frets? And the same for saxophones and clarinet. I probably can safely say that I'm the only drummer who ever wrote a book about violins and clarinet and flutes in Tipbook drums. This is the Tipbook series in Tipbook drums. The chapter on the symbols is about like what 10 pages or so. The symbol book is just looking at 210 pages. So that's kind of a big difference. Yeah, okay. Yeah, but you do have the thing. I like just kind of looking through it here a little bit. I like that it's just very like practical as well. Like mounting like section 7.1.2. It's like angle of your hi-hat. The angle of the bottom symbol is usually adjustable by a tilting mechanism. And then you have a whole description there. If the gap is too small, it will limit maximum volume. It tells you things that you kind of figure out on your own, but you just know that. Carry on here. So you had just gone to all of the symbol companies, which really as we know, that's only a portion of this. By any means, it's not the history of Zildjian, Minol, Sabian, and Peisty. It's so much more than that. How did the rest of it come together? Of course, the visits to these companies brought me a lot more than just the manufacturing process. Speaking about that, I would go to say that the entire process consists of five different steps. The first company would say, well, we're not going to show you step two because that's really... We don't tell people how we do that. When I went to these other companies and they said, well, we're going to show you step one and two. We won't show you step three. So at one point you can just fill in the blanks. And of course, I found out things just by combining bits and pieces of information. I found out things that I was not supposed to share in the book. And I didn't share that because that's of course that's not the purpose of the book. It was kind of fun. They would say, we're not going to tell you. And I said, okay, you don't need to because I already know. So that's about the production. They also, of course, told me about the history of the company, the history of the manufacturing process that they use, but also about symbol acoustics and about testing symbols and assessing their sound. I was talking to the symbol experts of the world. And that taught me a lot. Oh my God, I'm sure. Now, let's pause and just say that this book was written and came out in the early 90s, correct? Yeah. So, I mean, that's going on 30 years old. It's fun. I'm really happy that it's still selling. Oh, yeah. The book, which is in itself really special. I think what still makes it valuable book is that, of course, I mean, lots of things have changed in the sense that when I went to Istanbul, there was just one company, Istanbul. And later on split up and when it became Istanbul, Agop and Istanbul, Mehmet. And then under Istanbul, Mehmet, you had Istanbul, Mehmet and Turkish symbols. And then some people wanted to split and they started their own company. And then now you have like a zillion Turkish companies and brands. And there's loads of people who started making symbols. I mean, and then you have the symbols with the holes and the symbols, the spiral symbols and what have you and new brands and new models and everybody is making like tons of series, which makes it like a very, which makes choosing symbols even harder than it used to be. But the basics, I mean, it's a bronze disc with a hole in the middle and the basics of symbol acoustics and the basics on manufacturing process and the basics of everything that you read in the book are still the same. And the same goes for the books that I did on acoustic and electric guitars or violins or saxophones or whatever. I mean, the symbol is an instrument that goes back to the days of the Bible and before and modern day symbol, as everyone knows, goes back to Zilchian in 1623. It's hard to have an episode and I've done them with Istanbul, Agop and Sabian, obviously Sabian is a special circumstance with the Zilchian thing, but where you can't really talk about a symbol book and companies and symbol anything without talking about Zilchian for that reason, if it goes back to the 1623 and the special alloy and all that. But one thing that I'm actually working on doing right now is more of the, I want to do piste, obviously, but I'm trying to get Euphip as well because they have that different system, the kind of spun system and just learn more about those like the Italian side of things. So did you go to Euphip or did you just piece that together from a different source? No, Euphip, I went there too. It was beautiful. I was picked up at the airport by Luigi Trunci and I think he's still involved with the company. And we went out to have dinner first and work is like the next day. While in Germany, you come into the company, I went there by car, it's like a six hour drive or so and they basically said back then, how was your trip, would you like something to drink and what's your first question? There's no dinner, there's no romance. And these countries are, you go from vinyl to Euphip in maybe a 12 hour drive or so, they're neighbors, but cultures are way, way, way different. Yeah, that is just so different from, and just being in America here, it would obviously be, it's a different story driving from, I feel like you drive from one New York to California and it's still relatively pretty much the same thing. I mean, they're obviously, you're going to different countries, they're different complete histories and cultures and I heard, I did an interview with Andy Zilgen and he talked a little bit about how Sabian, or I believe it was Zilgen and then Sabian owned the Tosco, how Sabian owned the Tosco factory and they, it was just so laid back and there was different, you know, books depending, like, you know, the finances depending on who wanted to read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like bookkeeping and things. I mean, tricky things have changed of course too, but I remember going there in the, there was like probably in the mid 80s or so, late 80s that I started working on the book and we were in the car and I would say, you go, how much was ticket? I said, how much was ticket? I think 400, you know, or so. Yeah. His hand goes into his chest pocket, comes out with a handful of bills and while driving, you know, he hands me the money and I said, don't you need a receipt or so? He said, no, no, no, not necessary. We put him book. Yeah, and there's no like invoice. That was it. I mean, I mean, that's funny. That's so completely different, you know? Yeah. I met all of these people. I'd like to tell something about that too. Sure. But there was, well, let's say that the Zilchian people and the Sabian people were not the best of friends. No. That was really, really, really a big problem and of course the two main characters out of that story are no longer among us, Armand and Robert. But I mean, it would be really hard to find two people as different, you know, as these two brothers. Yeah. The same incidentally was true for Robert and Thomas Peisty. And they were way different from each other also, but they didn't split up, of course. Yeah. What always struck me is that you had one guy who was like the... Well, in the case of Peisty, Thomas Peisty was the bonvival and the businessman throwing parties and, you know, having lots of fun. And Robert Peisty was very much into himself and not really easy to get to. And he wrote poems in his spare time and he was the sound designer. Oh, wow. And that was in the Swiss village of Notville. And then in the United States, you had in the city of Norwell, which is pretty much the same, you had these two other brothers where Armand was the bonvival, you know, and into the symbols. And his brother, Robert, was like the businessman. Yeah. And Robert was not absolutely not happy with the fact that I was writing the book on symbols. Really? Why not? He basically said, you're a journalist and you're going to destroy everything and you're going to talk about everything that we don't want you to know. You're going to spread all kind of information. And so he was really, he was actually really against it. But luckily, I was good friends with Wayne Blanchard. But you're very respectful of everything. And like you said, it's a unbiased, there's not an opinion, there's not really much in the book where you say, this is what you're going to want to use. Like you like this. But on that note, what is your personal preference? Like are you a Zildjian guy? Are you a pasty guy? What do you like? Basically, old K-Zildjians. Okay. And there's a 22 and 18 and a pair of hiats. The hiat is pictured in the book, the top symbol. And if you put the top symbol on a table and you put the clutch in, then the clutch is supposed to make like a 90-degree angle with the table. Well, this is an old K and it leans to the right. You don't have to look closely to see that. It's just doing it. The leaving grooves around the cup. The groove that's at the bottom of the cup on one side goes sort of halfway over the cup on the other side. And the top symbol is just a bit smaller than the other one. And of course, all of these symbols are self-tilting. The hole is never in the middle. And the fun thing is I took these all hiats. Tal Bergman was at my place for a couple of days once. And he played those hiats and I said, Tal, I have to get some groceries or whatever. I came back 15 minutes later and he was still playing those hiats. He really loved them. So I took these symbols with me when I went to Turkey, one of my visits to Istanbul. And I said, can you make these symbols? And they started trying to mimic these symbols. And they were a nice pair of hiats, but they didn't come close. The thing is that some of the factory workers had those symbols of me in their hands. They said, you want us to throw them out? Throw them out? Why? It's bozuk, but it's rubbish. And they didn't have any appreciation for the fact that these were among the most sought after hiats symbols, true old K, crooked, warped, whatever you know. So the old Ks were those the ones that were then, those old Ks would have been made in Turkey with that. And I heard something, and you would, I mean, again, look at who I'm talking to, obviously, but so I heard something about how in the old K factory, there would be something where they would try and I guess there was maybe a stack of symbols and they would shape multiple of them at one time. And the ones that were lower in the stack didn't get quite shaped as well. And those were the ones that got sent to America and the ones that were like the more crisp top symbols would stay either in Turkey or elsewhere. And the whatever it was that wasn't quite as, you know, sharp and clean as the rest of them is what became exactly what you're talking about. And obviously yours wouldn't have been in America. You're saying that I'm like, well, you probably got one of the different ones, but they left Turkey and they weren't like, it was like a different. I never heard that. I mean, you have so many conspiracy theories today. Yeah. I never heard that story. And that might have been Andy Zilgin who said that. I can't remember. I got to listen. I'm getting it all mixed up now. But he wasn't there. And what I've seen in Turkey and how things go there, they didn't even take, they didn't go through, I can't imagine that they did things like that because they just make symbols. Yeah. And nobody, I mean, nobody is going to select and well, this one is a little bit better. So we'll send that to, they just did it the way they did it as craftsmen. You know, what I heard about the stack of symbols is that they, to shape the cup, they didn't have an hydraulic press as they do today. So you would have like a steel table like an anvil with hollow, which was like the shape of the cup to be. And then say maybe two, three, four, I don't know, symbols were put on top of that table and a concave is that, they would take a large hammer and hit on it a few times. Yeah. So that, of course, the cup of the lowest symbol would have a different shape than the cup of the symbol of the higher symbols. Yes, that's exactly what I was, yeah. And of course, these cups wouldn't be like perfectly aligned in any sense. Yeah. And then they would drill the holes. Well, exactly what I just described about the top of the higher symbols, I mean, goes all over the place. But that sound is inimitable. I mean, it's a truly unique sound. And I still feel that, and of course, Zildjian makes these beautiful Constantinople symbols and everybody's making those kind of symbols. And I think the only way you can truly replicate the old K-Zildjian sound is to make symbols that are not perfectly aligned in any sense. Yeah. But then who's going to do that? Because you're very well aware that probably, I don't know, 60%, 40%, 80% of what you make can be thrown out. So it would make them really expensive. But this is just a wild guess of who long time ago wrote the book on symbols. Yeah. Well, all right. So back to the book here. So you did the brands, there's all that stuff, but I just really think it's valuable and cool that you have the information on, it's great to learn about all that stuff, but it's also got very practical information about symbol care, about cleaning your symbols. Which I mean, I when I was a kid bought some, I forget what it was. It was like a little like, goldish tin of some stuff. And I was too young and I was trying to clean, I had an A medium ride, just a standard Abadus medium ride. And I remember trying to clean it. I think I was just too young and I didn't know what I was doing, but since then I've never cleaned my symbols ever. And I've heard the debate about it's good to clean them, people will clean them every day. And then I've heard also, you get a certain sound if you never clean them. So what's your take on cleaning symbols? I don't write about music anymore. Not really. I write motorcycles now. I'm the editor-in-chief of an organization in motorcycle action group. Yeah, that's cool. It's really cool. And it's like writing about drum sets or guitars, but now they have two wheels. And we'll just one look at my motorcycle, we'll tell you all about my symbol cleaning. I never cleaned them. You're not going to clean all the Ziltians. No, exactly. The hi-hats actually were buffed at one time by someone who didn't know what he was doing, obviously. I don't mind because I like the way, the really off way they sound. I don't clean them and I don't clean the other symbols as well. I use and that's one of my big loves. A 22 inch pang, a Ziltian. Yeah, sure. I have a great, extremely low sounding 16 inch new K Ziltian crash. And I have quite some symbols from the Istanbul factories, like Turkish symbols and Istanbul. Just like a few weird ride symbols. And when Turkish symbols started, you know, coming off of the Istanbul Mehmet Company, I said, you really need to make some symbols that are different from what the others do. While sticking to the four main series that you should make in my point of view, I asked them to make me a really thin unlaved ride symbol and they did. There's a 22 that weighed about as much as a regular lathe 20. So it's very, very flexible. And then they made me an 18 like that as well. And it's just, it's like a very different sound concept. And I sometimes like to play those. Yeah. It goes up on that. Variety. And cleaning, I totally accept that and appreciate the fact that people love to play clean and shining symbols. And I also totally appreciate the fact that there are people who don't. I don't. Just you saying that there's, that's the beauty of the drums as you can see someone who likes to have their tom perfectly flat. Someone who likes to have their tom completely tilted forward and everywhere in between. Your symbols are, it's just, it's a way to express ourselves or clean off, take off the labels like certain drummers and stuff. I think your 12 inch tom tom might sound way lower than my 14 inch more. Exactly. Around or whatever. And I love to experiment with that. And at one point I played with a very, well, no, no, like a bebop tune, 18 inch drum, an extremely high 10 and a 16 inch floor tom that was tuned as low as it gets. And that inspires me basically to do other things, you know, you can do whatever you want with a drum set. Yeah. Free spirits in the musicians world, aren't we? Yeah, we are. No one tells us what to do. You tell me to clean my symbol, I'm not going to clean it. You put, you also have a danger. I like that you also say the danger of, it's just like when you look at this book there's just basically everything kind of gets answered where you talk about how like there's almost like a protective film on newer symbols that you don't want to use these things on the cleaner on because it could go away. So, and then auto polishing compound, ketchup leaves a residue and doesn't, like that's just so. Yes, I remember that. Did you experiment with this stuff? Were you out there with like ketchup on your symbols or a symbol I should say? Or is this just word of mouth? That was probably word of mouth and it was literally word of mouth because internet was not really happening, you know, in the late 80s. No, yeah. I don't even remember when I had my first internet connection but it was, I mean, this book, the layout was done, you know, just, you know, sticking pieces of paper to another piece of paper. It was like with scissors and glue. Yeah, absolutely. I've heard that with not so modern drummer, you know, famous publication, John Aldridge was on the show talking about that. Aldridge, yeah. Yeah, cutting things out and they're printing it and wherever they can get a printer and so then let me also ask you here, one thing that I think is really interesting is the segment on cracked and broken symbols because this is something that I've never, I think I drilled out one symbol. I had an A custom that had a crack and I drilled it out to stop the crack but again, I feel like I'm not a very handy person or I feel like I'm more like, I don't know, like not, like I do more damage. Again, similar, so I am also, I like motorcycles as well. I've done it, but I'm on the other one where I've done it where I've, you know, I'm going to put some air in my tire and I put too much air in and it somehow caught a nail on the actual, like the wheel hub and popped the tube and I had to get it all new, everything. So, yeah, been burned. Now, what's just kind of go, tell us a little bit about broken symbols because there's the drilling, there's cracks on the edge, there's cutting it off. Like if I have a broken symbol, can I make it sound good still? Yeah, it depends on your definition of sound. Good answer. Yes, I'm boring. I'm just giving all of these answers, you know, that you can't do anything with or you can use it to as fast with it as you can. Seriously, I mean, I know a guy in Holland who would just like turn 16-inch symbols with a correct edge. He would turn them into 14-inch symbols and they would, of course, be more of a bell type symbol after that because the shape, the bow relative to the size is different, but also the symbol is thickest and around the cup and then it's thinner towards the edges. And if you remove these thin edges, then the symbol won't respond as fast. Yeah. So, I mean, you can either throw it out or do something radical with it. I remember that in the workshop where I used to do these little repairs and it's by no means professional what I did there, but it was just, you know, I would do things and ruin things from it. Yeah. There was a crack that came from the outside and went in like maybe an inch or so and there was maybe two smaller cracks in that same area. So, there's actually a photo of that symbol in the book. So, there was like a very broad V-shape that I cut out of the edge. Yes. Then I took four rivets and I mounted two rivets on each side because that was, of course, the lighter side of the symbol because there was just a section missing there. So, people would tilt itself, you know, towards the place where the rivets were not because they would be at the light side. Interesting. And I've used that symbol a lot. And, of course, being a right symbol, it wouldn't crack that much. The risk of it cracking more than it would. I mean, I never cracked symbols. I was a very bad customer for the stick industry as well because I actually love sticks where the wood tips sort of splinter away so that you get this bit of softer sound. Yeah, exactly. I'm not in the stick breaking or in the symbol breaking area. No, but if you do, which, you know, in your lifetime of drumming, it's bound to happen at least once with maybe a crash or something or thicker symbols, I know due to. But I want to mention, too, that you have a little bit here, like an image or I guess you'd call it like a figure on the page that's two symbols where it says, if you do cut it out, like, you know, trim out the, like, if a chunk comes off, you don't cut it at a point because that creates further cracking. Actually, you're looking at page 106 now, not because I remember the book by heart, but I just looked at the section. I'm on 106, yeah. 106, there's the Tosco symbol with the wide V-shaped cut. If you cut out a symbol and you make sharp edges in the symbol so you don't cut out a wide V-shape or you say you should avoid in that V-shape that it actually has the point where the two legs of the feet come together. It should be a smooth corner, if you will. I mean, if you have sharp edges, the symbol will absolutely start cracking there. Can I, all right, so, and this is, I think I would know the answer maybe, but can you answer why do symbols crack? What is the reason that they crack? What is a symbol that's more prone to crack? You know, just in theory, do you have any thoughts on that? I think symbols crack because they're not being played correctly. Too hard? Too hard, sticks that are too heavy or drummers that put a lot of stress on the edge of the symbol. Actually, drummers should watch these beautiful videos on YouTube where you look for a high-speed camera used on a symbol or a drumhand. It's all wobbly. If you hit the symbol, you can see that it vibrates. But if you want to really see how it vibrates, then look at one of these little YouTube videos. If you understand a bit about what a symbol is, if you mount your symbols horizontally and you hit them with your stick under a 90-degree angle, then all of the energy goes into that edge. It has to go somewhere and it cannot give because the edge, if you hit it under this straight angle, it has no place to go. So it will probably give up. I mean, Simon Phillips is somebody who can... You never hear people complain about that Simon is playing too softly. He can, of course, but he can really smack those symbols. He used pretty thin symbols. He never cracked symbols because it's the glancing motion. Yeah, it lets the symbol breathe, I guess, or lets the energy... I guess it's like the energy has to go somewhere and if you don't let the energy go somewhere, it's going to break. Yeah, it's going to give up. Now, I've had some old super-thick Z-custom symbols, 99% sure they don't even make Zs anymore. And those I had more, I think I had... So I had a crash, it was like a 19-inch crash or something where it just split and I was younger and probably not really... I was probably hitting too hard and doing different stuff wrong, but is a thicker symbol more prone to crack than a... I just feel like I had more trouble with Zs and I saw more people say Zs would crack, but I might have just had a bum symbol or something. Maybe the answer is in the book. I wouldn't know at this moment, but maybe if you would compare it to... If you have a glass and you drop it, it'll break. It's very stiff and heavy. If you have a piece of paper and you drop it, nothing will happen. It's like it can wobble, it can move, so the energy has places to go. And these heavier symbols are restricted in their movement. So perhaps... I'm not completely sure about that. You really need just to take some loving care of the instrument. And that also means that you don't tighten them up. Because then again, if you mount them really tight, the energy cannot go places, so you're correct. If you don't use cymbal sleeves, then you heard the cymbal from the inside out. There's this picture of the cymbal with a keyhole in the book. I can now safely say that I made that keyhole myself, not because I didn't have these rubber things on my cymbal stands, but I was at this drum shop where I used to do these repairs, and I was looking for cracked cymbals to make photos of for the book, and I was looking for a cymbal with a keyhole to make a photo of. And I've seen many cymbals with a keyhole in that drum store in the years that I was working there. There wasn't any cymbal with a keyhole inside. So I took a look at the red cymbals, and I got myself a file, and I hand filed the keyhole into the cymbal. It's a fake keyhole. It's a hoax. The whole book is fake, actually. It's all fake. It doesn't even exist. That's funny. And so people know, maybe if you're out there and you've never experienced a keyhole, like Hugo was saying, a keyhole is where you've got your cymbal, and then in the bell where you actually slide the cymbal stand, the hole, you have metal touching metal. And as you progressively play more, it literally just kind of makes like a nodule, which you can see if you get the book on page 95, you can see Hugo's lie of a cymbal that isn't really a keyhole. No, I'm kidding. But it's very common. One problem I have sometimes with like sleeves is I'll have like the sleeve. I'm talking probably on cheapo stands, because I truly have never ever actually invested in like a nice DW or whatever brand cymbal stand. I always bought the cheapo ones, which served me fine. Me too. The sleeve will be very high up on the threading of the arm, where the cymbal stand, the actual, you know, where the cymbal sits so I can never get enough tension down on the cymbal to get, you know, some control. Now I do, that's maybe on one or two of my stands, but I feel like that's kind of a common problem where I've even had to take like a knife or like a file and cut off and trim down my sleeve to be able to get a little bit of control. Okay, well, I never controlled my cymbals in that sense. Anyways, I used the camber teetops on top, so I don't use wing nuts. Okay, sure. Two time consuming. You're a busy man. Extremely busy and playing every week. No, I'm not playing that much. I love the teetops because you just slide the cymbal over and they're there and they, you know, the teetop is not to keep the cymbal on the stand. The teetop is there to prevent the sleeve from creeping upwards. Yeah, gotcha. So that works fine for me. And, you know, if the sleeve is too long, you just use some extra felt if you want to control the cymbal. And bring it up. Yeah, I would definitely suggest to do that with ride cymbals only. Because crash cymbals really should, you know, be able to move because if they don't, you correct them. And if you correct the cymbal within the limited time warranty and you take it to the store and it goes to the factory, then the people at the factory can exactly tell you how you played it, how you mounted it. They can read the cymbal. And if they read in the cymbal that you mounted it too tightly, then the warranty is off. I mean, it's like motorcycle tires. You give an expert a motorcycle tire and he can tell you how you ride, you know? Yeah, you're riding like an idiot. In my case, you're doing something wrong. I recently, they actually gave me one, not, you know, to plug a product here and that I actually really like. I have a kit here at my house that I have it on. It's like a smaller little set. I just use a ride and a high hat on it. And it's called the no nuts cymbal sleeve. And basically it just slides down and replaces the whole thing, the whole washer, the sleeve. And I really like it. I always kind of thought I would see people with, I mean, obviously the idea of having a cymbal just on there without anything on the top. People have done that for a long time. But this kind of has like a higher, like sleeves so it's not going to pop off. The ease of switching cymbals using that system of just, you know, pop it on, pop it off is great. There's so many different ways to do it. And you got the little clippy ones that are, I don't even know who makes those where you squeeze it and they clip on. You got guys who use like, you know, dice that are like, you know, it looks like they're in Las Vegas. Yeah, I've seen those. I still read the Dutch drummers magazine, of course, you know, because of course. So I get to see all of these news, new things that pass by. And some of these things are really old things, you know. I remember that I think Yamaha came out with the boom arm, the convertible boom stand, where you can actually hide the boom in the top segment of the symbol stand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as a boom stand. And then I was at the company that back then was the premier drum distributor for the Netherlands. And in his showroom was a like 19, early 1930s or so premier drum set. It had that same convertible boom stand, you know. Yeah. So many of these things they come and they go and somebody invents them again or they think they invent them because they never, they've never seen that. I'm not accusing anyone of copying the stuff. But all the weeks, I just went through the book, of course, this weekend and I saw that then I remembered there's a drummer playing for Weather Report and they were looking for a specific type of sound and then Joe Zaminul said why don't we try that trash can lid? And it actually sounded great. So they took it to the studio. Joe's wife was a bit pissed, I think. And the grill hole in the middle mountain is on a stand and it worked great. But then it didn't last that long because the trash went away as the drummer says it. And Joe Zaminul has had many drummers. At this point in time, I just don't remember who it is in the book. And then a little American company actually introduced the trash can lid symbol. Oh, yeah. And they had an ad in Monodromo and I was like, are you serious? That ad of that company just appeared only once and then it was gone. Oh, I see. OK. So as we get close to time here, I just want to ask you what are like, obviously this book came out a long time ago. It does stand like alone as a piece of, you know, a resource. Since then, obviously some new brands have come out. There's dream symbols who you were talking about the options. This is just a side note, the options of, you know, cut the symbol if it's cracked or drill it or throw it away. They also do a recycle program where you get a dollar per inch. But what are some, have you seen anything cool that you're like, like, you know, little symbol mount stuff that if you were to redo it today, that you would want to include in the book? Well, no, I just know. I mean, I've been into motorcycles for the past three years and then before in all of these other things. So I read it, but my knowledge is much more like a passive than active. Got it. And I would definitely want to shed light on new developments. Yeah. Technically, but then again, you know, the basics are still the basics and these Constantinople symbols are really popular. They all make symbols in that same vein that are extremely popular. The Turkish people and they still make these symbols in the same way. So basically, there's nothing really new under the sun. Yeah. And many people have requested me like, why don't you do it again? And I said, well, you know, I don't even know how many of these, many copies of the book have been sold in these past 27 years. Yeah. But I can tell you can't make a living off of it, really. You're not the first. But Jeff Nichols did the drum book has said he's like, buy it. Don't buy it. I don't care. I don't make money off of it. Buy it secondhand from a thrift store. I don't care. Yeah. The main thing for me, you know, that was, that was always, that felt good. Of course, I would be at the NAMM show, you know, 20 years after the book came out and people would probably notice my name on my, you know, on my little badge. And they said, you go, you did a symbol. Hey, man. Thank you. And that was, you know, and people of these newer Turkish companies, they would say, thank you for putting Turkey on the map, you know, as a symbol making country. And, and, you know, it was just, I just helped spread the word and that, yeah, I was, I was very, I'm just very happy that I was in the position to do that and to have all these wonderful people helping me with like creating the book and doing lots of work for it, you know, because nowadays you just look it up on the web and then we did all this, my, you know, writing letters and, and the, Yeah. In faxes and I would be on the phone with the United States of America. And then they said, hold the line. And I would sit there. I was like, like, that is $2.50 per minute. Can you please hurry it up? Yeah, it's different now, man. I mean, like right now this, this interview would have cost us like, you know, 50 bucks or 100 bucks. Well, and I want to say thank you because, you know, you were an early influence on me for doing history research, which it's like, you're still my go-to book of like, oh, I need to, I was going to look up, you know, the history of like, there's just those little things like the old, like, sizzlers where you look back and they were these like kind of like things that would come off of the top and go down and the arms and there's just so much, there's so much history to all this and I also want to mention too, just as a friend, there's, there's, I have a few of the symbols, Ray Burn, Burn symbols. He makes great handmade symbols here. I know Nicky Moon does symbols, which I've never played, but I've heard him on, about him on multiple podcasts and just so there are people doing it. You know what I mean? It's still evolving and I think it's really cool that people can get into it and it's no longer the, the big four that you mentioned before, you know, Zildjian, Sabian, Peisty and Minol. So it's a cool time. It absolutely is. And one last thing, if you, and I still get questions of people that say, do you know who made this symbol? And I hardly ever do. All I can say, if you have a symbol and you have no clue who made it, 99 out of 100 times, it will be Euphib. Really? Because Euphib, when I was there, I got, I got a request like that a couple of weeks ago and, and then a couple of weeks later, the guy sent me, I found out it came out of the Euphib factory and he included a sheet with stamps, logos, symbol logos that were sent to him by someone, I don't remember now. And then I remember that when I was at Euphib, they opened up a drawer and there were all these metal logo stamps that were used for symbols. They made everything, you know, and often, of course, with a Turkish half moon or a star or both or what have you, they made symbols for everyone. And now, of course, like there's many manufacturers who make sticks for everyone. Again, there's nothing new under the sun. So they were like the, there's so many words for it, like white label or OEM or stencil, they were just creating, wow. Next to their own symbols. And of course, they gave birth indirectly to the wonderful curations of the late Robert Spitzikino. Yeah, which someone recently, and I got to look up the, I usually like to give people shout out, someone mentioned to do an episode on him and I'm not as, I wasn't as familiar and I looked it up and I was like, oh my God, these symbols are like $2,000. Very rare. And I kind of saw a little bit about a brief history, but so that's another one that I'll, I got to find the right guy. There's a Dutch guy, a Dutch drummer who knows, who was involved with Roberto. Okay. Well, maybe you can send me his info and get us in touch if you think he'd be a good guy on the show. Okay. And then someone, I've had multiple people say you should do a symbol episode and a few people have said you need to talk to Hugo. So thank you to everyone who did. It was a while ago, so I apologize for not being able to remember. And a thank you to Rob Cook per usual for connecting me with you, Rob Cook of the Chicago Drum Show. Give me your info and your phone number and stuff. So man, Hugo, this is just, this is one of those bucket list episodes for me that I've wanted to do for a year and a half now. So it's been awesome having you on the show and I appreciate you taking the time. And I think obviously we've talked about it a lot. So why don't we just tell people where they can get the symbol book? I mean, is it the standard, you know, go ahead and get it on Amazon kind of thing? Is that the best route? Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. And if people want, just Google the symbol book and it'll show up. But otherwise, or you can look up Hugo and it's P-I-N-K-S-T-E-R-B-O-E-R. Check out the symbol book online and that's great. Hugo, thank you for being on the show. My friend. Thank you for having me. And I was actually really surprised that we could talk for over an hour. We made it through. So long ago. And I'm going to read it again and again. Oh, awesome. Me too. It's always a constant source for me. So cool. Thanks, man. You're welcome. If you like this podcast, find me on social media at drumhistory and please share, rate and leave a review. And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future. Until next time, keep on learning. This is a Gwynn Sound podcast.