 Welcome to the Drum History podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Nick Marguerite, aka Nicky Moon, to talk about the history of cymbals. Nick, welcome to the show. Thank you so very much for having me. I really appreciate it. It's awesome to be here. Yeah. This is going to be awesome because I've had a lot of, you know, specific cymbal episodes. Like there's a Zildjian episode. There's an Istanbul Agap episode. There's history of the cymbal book, but not cymbals in general. And you yourself are an American cymbal maker, which is I think beyond cool. We'll talk about that more at the end about the modern, you know, guys like you. But yeah, man, why don't we just go back? Like when did cymbals actually begin? Well, that's an interesting question. And the answer is that nobody actually knows for sure. I don't think as far as I've found, there's no museum with the world's first cymbal sitting in it. But what we do know is that they go back way, way, way to the early, early man. And they are, well, you know, in order to kind of talk about the beginning of cymbals, I think you have to sort of talk about bronze, right? Because that is what cymbals are made from. And bronze starts to appear about 7,000 years ago, very early human history. And the first bronze artifacts were found in the regions of the Middle East and in China. Not surprisingly, two cymbal-making regions. Yes. Bronze is, if anybody doesn't know this, it is an alloy, which means it's a combination of two elements, copper and tin, two naturally occurring elements, which are then heated, melted and combined. And an alloy is a metal that is basically a combination of two metals that have greater properties than the two by themselves. What does that mean, greater properties than the two themselves? What does that mean? Well, I guess more desirable for certain things. I can't say greater. Like copper is great for making plumbing pipes, right? Yeah. But copper and tin combined has certain mechanical properties that make vibration happen really, really well. Gotcha. So it's excellent for instruments. It's excellent for church bells, you know? It also has different, depending on how much tin you use, there's different mechanical properties that you can sort of manipulate for all different kinds of uses. Wow, that's neat. I remember reading some stuff about how it was like alchemists and it was almost like a dark art, which is really cool. Very cool. And it still kind of has that vibe, which I love. Yeah, you're an alchemist, bro. Yeah, sort of. It's always been secretive and I guess it goes back to that. Yeah. And it's been secretive ever since. And I think now people are fortunate to sort of live in this period of time where almost everything is sort of transparent now because of the internet, you know? Sure. So information is much more widely available than it has ever been. But the symbol making world still sort of remains shrouded in a somewhat mystery, you know? Yeah, definitely. And there's like the family secrets and brothers divided and... Many, many, many of family divided for whatever reason symbols does not... It's not something people can agree on. Yeah. And it's, I guess, Zildjian sort of set the precedent for it with their division and it's just been nothing but divisions ever since. I mean, we'll probably get to this a little bit later in the episode when we start discussing the Turkish factories. But they just sort of multiply because people don't agree and then they multiply and multiply and multiply. Yeah. And I want to mention, too, that you sent me just an awesome outline of kind of what we're talking about today. So just again, a big thank you for that because a lot of times that doesn't happen. But I'm kind of just looking along here and you're talking, too, about the mining of these materials. And I mean, way, way back, I mean, you're talking thousands of years ago, they weren't using like bulldozers to go down and get this stuff. No, no, there was nothing. Nothing. And bronze was most likely an accidental discovery. One of the leading theories is that when early man would have been building some sort of fire, they would be using rocks to build a little campfire site. And as the stones heated the ore, which is an ore is a naturally occurring rock with metal inside. So for example, a rock that has some copper in it, this would naturally melt the metal and then they would sort of discover it that way. Which is really super interesting. Yeah. God, this is obviously science. I mean, it's obviously very scientific by nature. So carry on from there. Okay. So the oldest tin bronze alloys date back to somewhere around 4,500 BC, which were found at an archaeological site in Serbia. Serbia being on the Balkan Peninsula, which is the region with Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Albania, so on and so forth. Around 3,500 BC, the first signs of bronze being used by the Sumerians were found along the Tigris and Euphrates in Western Asia. And there was a few, a couple of different alloys that they discovered that they were using. There was a, what's termed classical bronze, which is approximately 10% tin and a mild bronze, which is approximately 6% tin. And they were used for sort of different things, but those were the two sort of primary alloys that they had found. From there, 1200 BC Asia Minor, there's evidence that symbols, this is the first, I guess, appearance of symbols in history. In 1200 BC, they were used to accompany a ritual to serve a goddess Sibel, I believe it's pronounced C-Y-B-E-L-E. Wow. Before then, we were talking like, you know, when you're talking about 3,500 in Western Asia, this is like, it might have been, the metal was being used maybe to make like artwork or like a cup. Right. Yeah, it's almost impossible to tell whether it was a plate, was it like a mini shield, was it made to make a sound. Because really anything made out of bronze will make somewhat of a nice sound. Yeah. So it's really, and obviously these artifacts have been weathered. Of course. So, but the first time that I have found that they have actually been mentioned directly is in that goddess worship. And then they also appear in the Bible, which is super interesting, something I didn't know until I started diving back into this research. And one Chronicles 1315, David commanding the Levites to play on musical instruments, harps and liars and symbols. So it's a passage relating to the Ark of the Covenant or something like that. I don't know. I'm not a biblical historian, but they are mentioned several times in the Bible, which is pretty neat. Yeah. You got to think too that if it's in the Bible or if it's being talked about in that, like you're playing harps and symbols, it didn't get invented a week before. Certainly not. It's already commonplace. So that just kind of proves that it's like, okay, this has been around for a very, very, very long time. Absolutely. My own personal theory is I believe that bronze was used to make plates and also maybe shields. And from that, they sort of discovered that that sort of shape lends itself to also a sound. Yeah. And the Chinese actually used symbols in war, which were maybe also shields. And this is the reason that a Chinese traditional Chinese symbol has that sort of square shaped cup because it was actually a handle and they would hold two of them and bash them together to terrify their enemies. It's awesome. Yeah. Man, that's cool. But they might have also been used as shields. It's certainly possible. And I guess you look at earlier drum sets, like very early trap sets, and most of them have like a China symbol, which nowadays is almost considered like an effects symbol, which is kind of a modern, I don't want to say hip thing, but it just goes, it's so cool that that goes back so far. And I always remember buying like a little Wuhan, you know, China for $20 or whatever insane price it would be, and it would have that kind of cup that you could grab. Yeah. And there you go. So that's what it was actually meant to be held and smashed against another one to make that incredibly sort of disturbingly loud sound that a China symbol makes, you know, it's very harsh. So they would be like walking, they would be like marching into battle. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's no guns. There's nothing. So obviously, they would be like sword battle and they would be smashing these symbols together to like, you know, just to put the fear of God in these people. Yeah, to frighten someone. What the hell is coming out of this? I mean, it's really, if you kind of close your eyes and take yourself back and think about that, it must have been something else. I mean, just to see that would just be incredible, you know, really, really incredible. I assume they would also maybe use them for like celebrations or something like that, too. Sure, sure. Absolutely. You know, like we just touched on goddess ritual worship, you know, in Asia Minor. Yeah. And the Chinese have a very, very, very long history of metalworking, forging, you know, foundries casting and also of symbols and bronze. Mm-hmm. Chinese history is a little bit vague sometimes because there was a lot of it had been destroyed and rewritten over time. So that's why some of it has sort of been lost and not available to the West. But we, you know, I'll try to present whatever that I have. And if anything is inaccurate, I apologize. Yeah. Oh, no, this is great. And looking at your notes here, you say like inscriptions were cast into the bells themselves, not out of afterwards. Yeah, this is very interesting. So the Chinese in this is we're talking 1050 to 700 BCE, which before common error, BC, however you want to say it. Yeah. This is called the Western Zhao period. They actually found a set of 65 bells in a tomb and they were pitched, pitched bells. This is 10 1000 BC and they were all inscribed with the, you know, something that states what the tone of the bell should be. Wow. Which is super interesting. So they already had this knowledge way, way back then that you could produce different pitches from these bronze instruments. And this is actually preserved and this is in a museum, which is incredible. That is incredible. So that's, I mean, if my math is right, that's about like 3000 years ago, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I know. Just it's such a, every time I work on a symbol, I just feel this incredible connection to the past. And that's one of the reasons that I love it. Yeah. Seriously. So putting ourselves into the perspective here as drummers, modern day drummers, bass drum snare, toms, are symbols on our set predate all of this by, well, I guess there would be, you know, you'd be hitting a drum. You'd be hitting, I've heard, I did an episode about drum heads. You'd flip a turtle over, turtle shell over and stretch a skin over it and let it dry and hit that. So drums are going on simultaneously, right? Noise making. As far as I know, yeah, drums are another part of ancient human civilization. It's sort of a form of communication before languages maybe even developed. It's fascinating. But that's a whole nother. That's a whole nother thing. That's a whole other episode. You're the symbol guy. That's somebody else. Yeah. Okay, cool. So right now we're in about 3000 years ago. So yeah. And then let's see. So we go from China. In 700 BC, there's a Babylonian picture that depicts a symbol with a bell, like a bell that is sort of modern shaped. And it even has some, like what looks like rudimentary grooves cut into it, which sort of hints that maybe were they trying to lay this symbol. You know, maybe by hand somehow, which is again, fascinating. That is fascinating. Now, what would you probably, I mean, maybe you know the answer to this, but how would they lay this? And later on, maybe I want to hear you describe to me the process of laving. Sure. What it's good for, why you do it. But how would they lathe back then? I guess maybe it would be some sort of like a pedal thing with a belt that's run on a machine that's spinning. Yes. I don't know when the first man or animal powered lathes were, but prior to electricity, a lathe was a human powered machine, which was almost like a sewing machine. We would push a pedal and it would spin, or you would have a person or two people turning like a crank device that would be making the thing spin as you work on it. Now, I don't know if that dates back to this far, but otherwise they would have maybe been trying to just cut it maybe by hand with a hand tool. And your goal there is to just trim off weight to make it lighter and to make it a different tone, correct? That's part of it. Yes. It's also to remove the oxide on the top of the symbol. When you look at those like raw symbols, for example, a vinyl basance, you know what I'm talking about? They're dark. Yeah, exactly. That's the oxide. So when the symbols come out of the oven, that's the crust that's over the bronze. When you lathe, it removes that. And that oxide has a dampening effect on the sound of a symbol. Some people like it. Some people don't. That's why it's an option nowadays. But before, that was the only way to get down to the bronze was to remove that. And one of the ways to do that is by lathing. Were these guys, this may be a dumb question, but would a blacksmith be doing this because they work with metal all the time? Or was this its own special different world? Well, I guess yes, because before symbols were made with any of the equipment that we have now, it was made very much the same way that a blacksmith would make, for example, a sword. And they did make weapons and tools out of bronze. So yes, I guess that sort of answers itself. You would melt the copper and tin, you would pour it and it would form an ingot, which is like a little bronze hockey puck. And then nowadays, traditionally, you would either reheat it in the oven. The old Chinese method was to then pound it with a forging hammer or the Turkish method to roll it through an industrial rolling machine until it flattens out. But before those tools were around, you would have to hammer it by hand to draw it out. And drawing it out is when you compress it and it becomes thinner. And you would have to constantly reheat and hammer, reheat and hammer. And then that's how they would make like a blank. And then they would have to do the cold hammering afterwards, which is just incredible, ungodly amount of work. All of that. I just think you put it into perspective. There's this unbelievable documentary. It was a five part thing I watched where it was on, if you search on YouTube timeline, that's like the network or whatever. But they built a castle. They're still doing it, I think in France. Every single piece of it with the technology from that time, maybe like the 1300s or something. But what was crazy to me is that they were making nails to then make like a bridge to get over a moat or something. And every single nail was cast and hammered and hammered and heated. And it's like, they needed like 10,000 of them. It's unbelievable. Like we take so many things for granted now. Yeah. The amount of work. Yeah. It's just, I mean, I guess you could look at it as job creation, right? Because it takes a lot of people to make that many nails. But just wow. It's interesting to think back. And you had to make the tools to make the thing that you wanted to make. Exactly. All right. So we're in 700 BC. Then where'd we go from there? We kind of jump forward a little bit. There's an actual picture of a pair of symbols in a Chinese museum from 1200 AD, Chinese Jin Dynasty. I have a link. Obviously, the viewers can't see a link, but if anybody's interested, you can ask me. And I'd love to show you because this is, I think as far as I know, one of the first sort of pairs of Chinese symbols that anybody has ever seen. So I'll put that in the show notes. God, I'm looking at them now. I mean, they look like they're from like the 50s. Yeah. And this is the 1200 AD, which is just insane so long ago. Wow. One thing I wanted to touch on also is bells because the influence of the church in early human civilization was obviously huge. And bells like church bells are made from the same kind of bronze, the symbols, bell bronze, be 20, 80% copper, 20% tin. Obviously, the method to creating a bell is a little bit different, but some people seem to think that symbol bronze was invented in the 16 or 1700s and so on and so forth. And it wasn't. This bronze has been around for, you know, hundreds of years, thousands of years. So the oldest surviving church bell made from this 80, 20 bronze is in Spain in a monastery and it was cast in the year 930 AD. So we're talking, you know, very, very old. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's bells. I mean, to Joe Schmoe, average guy, a bell in a church was probably something they came across more than, you know, Chinese symbols being banged together in battle or little symbol bells. I mean, there's probably five churches in every town. Yeah. They were very common. And I actually this, I've gotten to see some of these things in person. My wife is from Albania originally and Albania is on the Balkan Peninsula over, you know, near Greece and Italy. And they have a very, very old culture goes way, way back. And there were some some bronze bells there that were about 2000 years old that I was able to see in touch. It's just really incredible. People probably walk by them every day, you know, or they look at the, they don't just walk by. They look at the church as a whole. And they think this is an unbelievable old church, but you kind of take for granted that bell up there and the amount of work that goes into that. It's just wild. Yeah. It's fascinating. So this sort of brings us up to the period of the Ottoman Empire, which is, you know, sort of where most people's knowledge of symbol history sort of begins, right? Yeah. And the Ottomans were the Turks and the Turkish are sort of the known founders of the modern day symbol. So the Ottoman Empire began in 1298 AD. And this is sort of the beginning of, I think the Zildjian history starts in around 1600. So we're talking only about 400 years prior. Right. And I think that they would probably already be using and experimenting with bronze, possibly even using them, using it, you know, during battle for shields or maybe even for instruments at this time. And the Ottoman Empire went for, well, until it officially ended in 1922. So quite a long time. Quite a, that's a hell of an empire if I ever heard of one. I mean, that's like the official end. I don't know. I think it sort of ended earlier than that. It's power, but that's like the on paper as far as I know. But I'm not going to get too deep into this era because this is sort of uncovered the Zildjian history. It's been talked about and it's sort of known. And so I'm not going to dive too into that and sort of let them tell their story. Yeah, which I'll, like always, I'll tell people, go back and listen to the history of Zildjian with Paul Francis, which was an older episode, which is, I mean, it is very, very, very much a deep dive into the Zildjian history with all kinds of cool stories about sultans being, you know, assassination attempts from Corope and all these things. So there's, check that out. We could spend two hours talking about Zildjian. So that's why we're kind of skipping forward here. Yes. So the Zildjian 1623, I believe, is when they sort of, the Avidus Zildjian thing started back in the Ottoman Empire. So we'll sort of jump ahead from there. I call that, and I sort of just made these loose terms, the pre-modern era, the 1600 to 1900. That's not a term that anyone else has coined. It's just something that I sort of use for my outline and so the way I think about things. But so, and then I consider 1900 on to be sort of the modern era of symbols. Okay. Yeah. And this is when many different companies and countries started to produce them and they became, they started showing up in the world. So this is sort of the boom, which is really the best part, the most exciting part of the history. Before we get into that, I just want to note that I always find it interesting how things existed before Zildjian and then things from 1623 until 1900 about how we just hear about these dates in the year 2020. And it's like, we don't know, but things had to happen in that time. You know what I mean? Yes. Recorded history wasn't as much. It's just so interesting that those are our dates that we all know. We literally can picture, you know, Avidus, the second standing in front of a sign that says Zildjian symbols, 1623 or Buddy, Reg, or Jean Krupa. And that's kind of like burned into our mind. Yeah. I guarantee. I like to think about it like this, Bart. When you're looking back this far, okay, things that happened in history are all shaped by events like wars and dynasties and, you know, power. So Zildjian, you know, the Ottoman Empire was massively powerful. I mean, just incredibly powerful. And so there may have been, and I suspect that there were symbols in China and in other regions at this time, but the Ottomans were so powerful that they were in the forefront of history. Yeah. And sort of they get to kind of claim that as like, this is ours, you know? Yeah. Sure. Well put. Yeah. So, but I suspect that these things were sort of popping up. And it's interesting how humans sort of evolve at the same time in different places. It's really fascinating to me. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just like, it's like, I don't want to say destiny. It's just natural. Yeah. It's happening everywhere. Evolution. Yeah. It's natural human evolution. So, anyhow. So in the early 1900s, this is when things really start to get interesting. And I'm going to start with Paiste, who I think is just a wonderful manufacturer and a really interesting company. They actually started in Estonia. And the way it's told, and this information that I actually got from Hugo Pinksterborn's book, and you had Hugo on recently, who's been a huge wealth of knowledge for symbols. And I love his book, The Symbol Book. So thank you, Hugo. They started selling symbols that they were making out of the back of their music store in 1900. Hmm. You know, most likely for concert music or whatnot, because that's what was being played at that time. Sure. And then as a result of, like I was just saying, world events, the Russian Revolution was something that was happening around this time. And it totally displaced the Paiste family. And they spent like the next, I don't know, let's see, like 50 years, like kind of moving around from place to place because of, you know, they weren't able to get materials. They had to flee as refugees. So these things all have a tremendous effect on their history. Yeah. Yeah. Which obviously everyone thinks they're like, you know, made in Switzerland. And that's, you think they would be founded there. But I remember seeing on their website a long time ago, it's like, oh, Estonia. I mean, it's, that's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. And in 1947 is when they first established their plant in Germany. So this is 47 years after, you know, they started making symbols out of the back of the music store. So it's quite a long time. It's half a lifetime. Yeah, it is. You know? And then they, in 1957 is when they established their Swiss plan in, I believe in Not Will. And what's another thing that I find fascinating about Paiste is most people know that Paiste is sort of known for using this different kind of bronze, right? B8 bronze. Some people call it sheet bronze or whatnot. Yeah. And whether or not it's a choice is, is sort of up for debate. But really they couldn't get the other kind of bronze because of what was going on in the world. They weren't able to import it or whatnot. So this was what they were forced to work with. And this became their history. And now they've become known for being the only company or one of the only companies that can turn this kind of bronze into a really nice sounding instrument. Yeah. Which is the B8, correct? B8, yeah. 8% bronze. B8 bronze. 10, 92% copper. Yeah. You know, a lot of people say, wow, why do they work with that? Well, that's their history. Why do the Turkish work with 80-20? You know? That's their history. So that's the way they came up. So it's really pretty interesting. Now where did they, you said they could import it. And a lot of people are getting these like, you know, the blanks or whatever. Where are they importing it from? Like where would Paiste import it from? Almost certainly China or Turkey or somewhere in that Middle East region. Middle East region. Yeah. Because I mean, I don't know what the Swiss German history is on foundries and metallurgy and forging, but the Middle East and China have always been primary regions for production of metals and bronze. And I think I asked this to Hugo. I can't exactly remember. But is the reason of that being because it's always been that way? It's just the way it has been. They make things there. Why would other places in the world start a foundry up from, you know, square one when they could just order it in from? They probably could if they wanted to. It's not a thing where like, I've read like the open air factory and the closeness to the sea, the salt water. Yeah, that's some of that stuff is mythology. You could start a foundry wherever you want, right? You could. And especially in today's age, it's just a matter of like cost effectiveness and expertise. Like this takes these civilizations have been doing this for hundreds or even thousands of years, like they know exactly what they're doing. And in order to kind of get, if you're going to get involved in that, you're going to be sort of behind the eight ball, you know, for a couple hundred years. So why not just source it from the people that have already have the infrastructure and the culture surrounding it, you know, to be able to sort of do it. And that's remains to this day. So the 1900s, we were there. We're talking about pasty. And around the same exact time, the Tronschi family, if I said that wrong, I apologize, in Italy, who was manufacturing church bells started to make symbols. And this eventually became the Euphip company. And Euphip stands for United Federation of Independence, something or others, not a hundred percent. Yeah, sure. But what it was was there was several independent symbol makers in Italy all competing against each other fiercely. And then one day they said, well, why are we, why are we doing this? Why don't we just get together and create Euphip, a union of workers. And that's how the company came to be. Wow. That name makes sense then, you know. Yeah. And that's the federation of whatever, whatever. I think I got the first two correct. I don't know. I think you did too. And they eventually came up with their own method of making symbol blanks and symbol bronze, which is really interesting. They do something called rhodocasting, where when they pour the liquid copper and tin into a mold that is rotating at a very high speed, and they let it rotate, and then it cools and it's in the shape of a symbol blank when it comes out of this mold, which nobody else does. So that's their claim to fame. And it was patented. I don't know if that patent still stands. Now I'm sure somebody could probably do that method now if they wanted to, but that's their major contribution. Wow. That's so neat. I've never played a Euphip symbol. I've always... They're awesome. Wanted to. I've always heard their splashes are great. I know Charlie Watts has some. I think he's, is it a ride or is China? But I, yeah, they look awesome. I just haven't come across them, but... Yeah, they don't have a big presence here. They have a very small presence in the U.S., probably because, again, world events and politics, they couldn't export here. I mean, there was a lot of things going on in Italy in World War II and World War I in the early 1900s. So that had a great effect on these companies. Actually, Mussolini, the dictator, declared jazz to be taboo and sort of like outlawed it. And jazz is what really pushed symbols forward in America and everywhere else in the world. So if jazz isn't happening, then their symbol business isn't going to be as rich as in other regions. No. God, that's interesting. And I've mentioned it on social media. I'm working on an episode about drums that were made in Soviet countries or dictator-led countries where they'd be smuggled in or they'd have to be... You'd have to use drums that were only made there and that whole thing, but boy, that's interesting. Yeah. So, again, staying in early 1900s. So you have Pishti, you have Euphip, and then you have Zildjian coming to the United States in 1928. As far as my research goes, Zildjian, check me on that if I'm wrong. And this is when Aram came to the U.S. to teach Avidus III, the family secret. And this is at the time that jazz was exploding. So this is the big jazz being an American art form and Zildjian being the first Turkish symbol maker in the United States that just was meant to happen. It was fate for them. So they exploded. Yeah. Yeah, they really did. And talk about perfect timing. Just everything lined up. Everything lined up. Exactly right. I mean, you can't... And I think what I was saying before, I mean, so obviously they're creating... They have a foundry, correct? So they're... They do. And they, as of right now, are the only... In the United States of America, they are the only facility that makes symbol bronze in the U.S. You have Canada. You have Sabian in Maductic, New Brunswick. And then in Brazil and Columbia, now there's two new foundries that came up in the last 10 years who I'm very excited to tell everybody about. Yeah, that's awesome. Wow. Cool. Yeah. All right. So Zildjian, 1928. I mean, that's God, 1928. There's something about the 20s where it obviously... I mean, this is a year after talking movies came into play. Everything... There goes the silent movie trap drummer. It's literally just a new world for entertainment. Absolutely. Just a whole new world of experimentation and instruments and just incredible stuff happening, you know? Yeah, definitely. Amazing stuff going on in the U.S. at that time. Now, one of the other modern-day symbol juggernauts, Meinl, they came along a little bit later. I don't have a ton of information on their history, but 1953 Roland Meinl began making symbols from the B-8 alloy, which appears to be what was available to them in the Swiss German region. Same thing with Piste. There was already a huge industrial base. This metal is used... See, the thing about B-8 that's interesting is it's not just for symbols. It's for gears and bushings and all kinds of parts and components for machinery. So if there's already an industrial base manufacturing this, it's very easy for them to just get it, and they don't really need to set up their own foundry. You know, there's no reason to do so. Yeah. You know? Why do I think that B-8 means a cheaper symbol? I know I'm wrong about that. Why do I have that... You're right and wrong. It doesn't have to mean a cheaper symbol. It's just that particular metal lends itself to faster, easier production. Okay. And really what makes a symbol great is the amount of human time that's spent on it. So any material can be made to sound fantastic if there's a craftsman with skill working on it. But it's just so easy to take that metal and sort of form it, you know, either by spin forming or hydraulic stamping, pressing, into the shape of a symbol that it's just very easy to make a cheap symbol. And that's why. And Sabian took full advantage of that and sort of in a... What I consider the most ruthless marketing move ever, calling their cheapest line of symbols B-8. That's why I gave that. Just basically telling other people that this is cheap, right? Yeah. And it worked because that's what everybody thinks. Yeah. So, you know, I guess kudos to whoever came up with that idea. Yeah, but we're ending that now. It's not cheap. Yeah. But if anybody who's played a Pisces 2002 knows that it's... That's a symbol that is crafted with skill and it is a beautiful symbol. Absolutely beautiful, beautiful symbol. For sure. Anyhow, so vinyl took great interest in that. It's also easier to produce that bronze with greater consistency, which is a sort of part of the German Swiss mindset. They're all about consistency and being able to reproduce the same thing over and over and over again. They're not really looking to make these individual gem symbols. So it works well with their sort of manufacturing philosophy anyhow. Okay, so anyways, that was the beginning of the vinyl company. Everybody kind of knows that they weren't really making great symbols for many years. And then, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, they just exploded. Yeah. They just came out with some really incredible marketing and started making Turkish symbols. They actually don't make the Turkish symbols. The Turkish make the symbols, but they're branded as vinyl. And that's really what pushed them into where they are now. Yeah, and there's... I don't know the lineup of when it'll be out, but there is a vinyl episode, me interviewing Norbert from vinyl that'll be out, which he goes into full... I would love to hear that. I'm anticipating hearing about that because I really want to learn more about their history. It's a good one. It's more than I thought. But like many companies, like tons of companies, it starts out as just like a distribution company. Yes. Right. There's a spoiler. There's a teaser for everyone. Nice, nice teaser. All right, so we are in the 50s right now. So then, okay, around 1960, something's happened in China, the Cultural Revolution. And this is the beginning of the Wuhan factory. Actually, it's not the beginning of the Wuhan factory. The Wuhan factory in China had been in use for like 1900 years as a facility for making bronze for a number of different things. But it was renamed Wuhan in 1960. And that became sort of the Wuhan that everybody knows in modern times, making those Chinese symbols and then later starting with their other symbols series. Man. Yeah. And that was, you know, China, again, because of world events and their history has sort of been, it's a little bit difficult to pin down details about what's going on over there. So we sort of just take what we can get. Yeah. But they are super important. I don't want anyone to glaze over how important the Chinese are in human history and bronze history and the instrument making history, their contributions to making bronze and making instruments. It's huge. Yeah. I love that it's so multicultural to get to where we are today. Yeah, it is. It really is. It's fascinating. So after that, Zildjian was coming along and doing their thing and totally they had a stranglehold on the market. But I mean, they still kind of do, right? Yeah, sure. God bless them. They're doing their thing, man. The early 80s is when there was a split in the Zildjian family. And this sort of set a precedent for symbol-making companies no longer getting along. There being lots and lots of duplicates and split-off factories. And this is when Sabian is established. There was a... Again, I'm not going to go into the... I don't know the details, but... Yep. Robert Zildjian and... I don't know, Aram maybe? I'm not even going to speak on it. They had a disagreement and he was basically given the plant in Canada which was manufacturing some of the Zildjian offshoot brands. Yep, the Zilco. Asco. Yeah. He had because they weren't able to get the workers from Turkey from the original K-Zildjian because eventually the A-Zildjian in the U.S. took ownership of the K-Zildjian brand as well. And they wanted to produce them but as far as I know they weren't able to get the workers into the U.S. for legal reasons. Immigration and visas or something. So they were... But they could get them into Canada. So Robert Zildjian had those guys at the Canadian factory. So he had all the guys that knew how to do the hand hammering which is why I think Sabian still does hand hammering on symbols and Zildjian chose to go the other way. Yeah. It was like Uncle Michael, like Delgarian I believe they were there and it said, you can't work illegally and they shipped them up. They said go up to the Canadian factory and it all went from there. Yeah. There's a Sabian episode again. Okay. Yeah. Well, I try to give these people's history because they know it way better than I ever could. No, it was with Andy Zildjian and it was just a really, really cool episode. Oh, he's a great... He's really great. I hope to meet him someday. Yeah. So, but this is very big because when I was a young drummer I grew up surprisingly enough in Boston and I lived like 30 minutes from where the Zildjian factory was and they just Zildjian dominated drums. They dominated symbols everywhere you went. It was Zildjian. Every store was Zildjian. You couldn't get away from it. Yeah. And of course, when you're young, you kind of want to do what's different. You don't want to do what your teacher does, your parents do or anybody else does. So I was kind of looking for something else and I started to see Sabian and I was like, oh, that's going to be my brand. Yeah. I didn't know that it was the same family but that's kind of why I started to play them and I played them for many, many years. But it's interesting just from my personal experience being in the Boston area, it was just they just were everywhere. You know, you'd go to the store, there'd be four Zildjian racks. There'd be like maybe one Sabian rack and like a half of a Pistie rack. I mean, I think it's changed a bit. Yeah. And sometimes you didn't see any other brands. It was just straight Zildjian. So regional like where you're located, you used to make even more of a difference. Oh yeah. For sure. Before the sort of global economy that we have now because this is like in the 90s, 80s, 90s. Yeah. I'm sure in Canada, in New Brunswick or Baduktyk, New Brunswick, there's probably more Sabian. For sure. 100%. 100%. And this is, you know, this is another thing that people don't necessarily think about, but like that that matters. Like the factory's here. So they're going to like the first place they're going to sell the symbols is here, right? Yeah. And then they're going to spread out from there. And when you're when you're selling things internationally too, there's a lot of laws and rules and regulations and these things can sort of prevent you from doing business in certain places. And this is a big deal. This is why certain companies don't do certain things like why a company might not have a big presence in the US. Well, it might be very expensive for them to export to the US or very expensive for someone to import it who lives in the US, you know? Yeah. And Robert Zulgin had a ton of experience. He was more of an international businessman. Yes. Whereas Armand Zulgin was way more, you know, he was doing a great job. I mean, he was killing it in America, which kind of trickles down to everywhere else to being, you know, this is cool with the jazz scene here, but that was Robert's thing was. And there's the whole thing where they were allowed to be go to market, I think a year earlier in Europe before they could go to market in America. They had to have a pause on their release. Yeah. So anyway, we're going down the rabbit hole of. You kind of can't help it. I mean, there's such a big part of the whole thing, you know? Yeah. But I'm sort of trying to tell the other part of the story. Definitely. Because everyone's heard that stuff. And also I'm going to say this very loosely and I don't mean this as a jab to anybody or anything. It's just sort of something for people to think about. When a company is in business, they have sort of an incentive to tell you some things, you know? So marketing can sometimes be advantageous. So don't necessarily take all of your information about something from marketing. You know, if you want to know history or if you want to know sort of the background, you kind of have to look out beside that because there's interest tied up in marketing, right? Yeah. That's obvious. You don't market like anything that doesn't make you look great. You don't lie about it, but you only put your best foot forward. Yes. And it's something I found in having my own small symbol business is what people think that they know about symbols. They've all gotten from marketing departments. And many times it's incorrect and I have to sort of re-educate them about what they want, you know? Yeah. Because they think they want something that doesn't make sense. So anyhow, that's a whole different topic. We're talking about history here. Sure. So the 80s were Sabian and then the 80s were also coming out of the K. Zildjian factory in Turkey in Istanbul, the Istanbul Company, which is hugely, hugely important. This is Mehmet Tamdijer and Agap Tomarçuk. And I apologize if I have butchered those names. Two incredible symbolsmiths that worked at the original K. Zildjian factory in Istanbul. They split off and they started the original Istanbul Company. And they were the first non-Zildjian, you know, major business over there. Yeah. And this company has spawned scores of other Turkish brands. So all the brands that you see on the market now, they all go back to the original K. Zildjian and the split to Istanbul. And then slowly they've sort of people have disagreed and disagreed and disagreed and split, split, split, split, split. And then now there's just, you know, a massive amount of factories in Istanbul. Is it? I mean, that strikes me as like, okay, I've learned my skill. I know how to do this. You've made me mad about something. I'm going to go do this on my own. Yeah, sure. I think that's how it goes or I can do it better or I don't like the way you manage it or I just want to be in charge of my own work hours or destiny, you know? Yeah. Sort of tragic because I think a bunch of splintered, small, poorly funded businesses would do better like what UFIP did, all these independent symbol makers that were fighting each other, they banded together to form a union and then they could actually be somewhat of a contender. And I always think with all the talent that's in Turkey, if these guys could just sort of get it together and get along, I mean, they could rival the real, real big brands, you know? Yeah. But that just doesn't seem to be something that will ever happen. So it's fantastic. No. Maybe in a thousand years. Maybe, maybe. Who knows. Really? But that Turkish divisions is very important sort of into the creation of like people like myself because some of these guys splitting off, now you have a company that's sort of a cross between an independent symbolsmith and like a small factory operation, which kind of I don't think ever existed before, you know? And the idea of sort of working independently sort of took hold and Roberto Spizzakino actually was by all accounts the first independent symbolsmith and he actually came out of the UFIP factory sometime in the mid-80s. Yeah. And he's like the, you know, the one everyone looks to, like his symbols sell for thousands and thousands of dollars if anyone can find legitimate ones. I've heard there's a lot of Rob Cook, I was talking to him. I was saying, hey, someone actually reached out and said I should do an episode on him. And I was saying, I've seen him online for so expensive and he said a lot of them are fake. Yeah. There's a lot of, I'm going to tell you another thing that's fake. A lot of the old K's are fake too. I could see that. I'm sorry to tell you because think about it. You had guys that worked in that factory, right? These things are selling for tons of money. All they really, they know how to make the bronze. They know how to make the symbol. All they really need to do is be able to reproduce that trademark stamp, which isn't all that difficult to do. Yeah. But the thing is, it's a forgery, but it's still the same thing. You know what I mean? It's still a good symbol. It's made by the guys that know how to do it. So is it really a forgery? Sort of, but not really. So who cares? At the end of the day, do you like the way it sounds or not? Yeah. It shouldn't matter, but it doesn't matter. It depends on how much you paid for it, I guess. Yeah, it definitely matters. I would love to see a blindfolded test. Oh, yeah. The old K versus a Nicki Moon versus a Bern versus and see if somebody can like, you know, pick it out. I bet they couldn't. We should do that. We'll do it. Yeah. I always wonder, could I pick up my own symbol? I like to think that I could because I try to have my own sound. Exactly. And you've got a very tuned ear to it. Yeah. But yeah. So, okay. So this is all like, to this point, all the factories are in Turkey. They're in China and then there's Canada and there's the United States. Okay. Got it. 2015, a man by the name of Francisco Domeni, who is my teacher, opened up a factory in Avare, Brazil, which is in Sao Paulo, city of Sao Paulo in Brazil. And this is the first South American symbol factory. So this is huge. This is like really, really, really huge. And his factory now is doing extremely well. And I've sort of followed his process. But Brazil is a giant country and South America is massive. So for him to be able to do this is really just incredible. So that is something I just have to mention. And then he has since assisted in the formation of music, I think, M-Y-Z-U-C-K, symbols factory in Bogotá, Colombia. And they opened in 2018. So now there's two legit symbol foundries in South America. West of Francisco. Man, the drumming community in Brazil is, I mean, maybe they, I've spoken with a lot of people who both like the podcast and like the social media stuff I do. And there are just incredibly nice and passionate drummers in Brazil. Absolutely. I love them. They are just the great, great, great people. I've been there twice and I just adore them. Yeah. And I'll say that I was talking to a guy the other night named, his handle is, I'm going to say it wrong, M-Z-U-C-M-A-Z-O-K underscore hand heart crafted. And he makes beautiful drums, but we were just talking about, he was talking about how much he likes the show and just recommending stuff. And he's not the first person to do it from Brazil. A lot of people reach out and say, hey, you should post this video of our master drummer that we all love. And then I post a video and people are just like very appreciative of showing recognition to Brazilian drummers. So thank you to everyone in Brazil if anyone's listening there. I'm sure I have a good amount of my fan base because of my association with Francisco is Brazilian. So I'm sure we'll have some listeners. So what's up everybody down there? I'll see you guys. I'll be back next year for sure. Cool. And that's where a great, I mean, a great deal of my experience comes from there. And I've actually worked in his factory and we've melted bronze and I've worked the ovens and the rolling mill and done the tempering process and use all the machinery and everything. And it's just amazing, I mean, to be able to do that. How did you do that? Like, did you just hit him up and just call him? Or did you, because I mean, it's obviously that would be, that's basically like an apprenticeship. I mean, how did you get involved with that? He actually took notice of me and contacted me when I was sort of early in my business and said, Hey, you know, you should do this differently or Hey, you should do that. And I was like, okay, cool. You know, thanks. Wow. And from there, we just, we went from talking and comments on YouTube section, you know, to, to WhatsApp. And then we just, from there, we just became friends. And, you know, once we met, we were just like brothers from another mother. So he's just a remarkable human being, really, really amazing person and very, very grateful for his teaching and his friendship. He's amazing. I love him. Yeah. You're lucky. So, moving on here, you have also lined up on the timeline manufacturing methods. Why don't we talk about that a little bit? Sure. Okay. We can talk about, we'll sort of briefly go through the differences and we sort of touched on this stuff already, but we can sort of retouch it. The pre electrical stuff that we were discussing earlier, right? With no heavy machinery at all. So with no rolling mills and no pneumatic power hammers, everything was done by hand. So they would pour copper and tan, melt it, make an ingot, hand hammer it while it was hot until it was thin enough and hard enough to then be tempered and then they could cold work it and shape it into the symbol shape again all by hand. And then if they wanted to lathe it, they had to use a human powered or animal powered, maybe lathe, and then you would have your symbol, you know, which is just, it's a lot of work. It is a lot of work to make one symbol like that. And then that sort of evolved. The Chinese sort of kept part of that method, even with technology. So what they would do is they would heat, they would melt the metal and then they would create the ingot, which is like the little bronze hockey puck. They would then heat again and then they would forge using a power hammer to get the blank. And this is the sort of the primary difference between their method and the Turkish method, which is to take the ingot and heat it and then roll it, pass it through an industrial rolling mill. Okay, to get the blank. So that's sort of the biggest difference between the Chinese and Turkish method. The Chinese method now is much more modern and they're sort of doing it the same way. But the early, like if you go back to like the early old Wuhan's and stuff, like they are just, and there's something else. They have a ruckus that can only be created the way that they would make them. Just a chaotic sound as a result of just being pounded into oblivion. Now, do you see like, I know like, you think of like Turkish hand hammer. They're these kind of like handmade symbols. Do you see nowadays in China, are there a couple factories making the traditional Chinese symbols or is it just gone as far as you know? No, there's lots of factories still doing that. Oh, cool. Yeah, they're just because of pollution in China. And I got this straight from a Chinese symbol master that I talk to regularly. They can't use like the old method of melting. They would melt, to make bronze, you need to use a furnace. And the old furnaces were powered with charcoal coke, which is a very dirty process. It also lended itself to that old dirty sound, which some people really like. But because of pollution, they've been forced to use electrical induction. Furnaces, which is what Zilgen and Sabian use. It's much cleaner, much more predictable result. They use natural gas-powered ovens now instead of wood-fired ovens, which is again the old traditional way, which is a much dirtier process. And again, lends itself to certain characteristics of the bronze that you can't get from. So if you look at the Zilgen alloy and like the old Chinese alloy, they're completely different. They're both B20, but they have very different material. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, you got to do what you got to do. Sometimes you just can't do things if it's just horrible for the environment. Yes, yes. So they're up to speed now, as far as not contributing to pollution. So there's the Italian method, which we touched on, which is the rotocasting, pouring the hot metal into a mold that's spinning at high speeds. And then the blank comes out of that, sort of formed, and then they go and they hammer, lathe, and do whatever they have to do to finish it. And then there's the Swiss-German method, which again we sort of touched on. The use of the B8, B10, B12, B15 alloys, what people call sheet alloys. Sure. An important thing that I want to mention, people say cast versus sheet, which is this is another marketing thing. All bronze is cast. It cannot be bronze if it wasn't cast. So you have casting really means melting and putting together. Got it. And letting it cool. That's casting. So you have to melt copper and tin to put it together to make B8. It's just done differently. It's done in much larger quantities and it's rolled in much larger quantities into a very even flat sheet, which B20 can't be made that way. Or if it is, it's through a very expensive sort of process. And then its discs are cut from that large sheet. Got it. So the same batch, mixed batch of melted copper and tins is using to be made lots and lots of symbols. Whereas with the Turkish method, you melt a smaller amount and you pour each ingot individually from the alloy when it's hot. Got it. That makes sense. It makes sense because it's the marketing thing of... And it's probably also, just because you're able to manufacture more of them, you can charge less, which gives the impression that it's not as valuable and as nice. Sure. It certainly has different sonic characteristics. It does not have the low frequencies that B20 can produce, which a lot of people like. But for certain kinds of music, like heavy metal, hard rock and punk, you don't need low frequencies. You need just bright, aggressive cutting sounds and that alloy is fantastic for them. Yeah. That little bit right there is a good explanation of the difference between them, which I think is great. And I've never heard really anything except B8 and B20, but you just said B10, B12, B15. I didn't really know about that. Yes. So they're very similar. B10 is sort of sold as a more expensive B8. You know, it's maybe got a little bit more tin. The differences in sound are negligible. B12, the same thing, maybe a little bit improvement in sonic quality, but very little. And then B15 is the feisty signature alloy, which is they have a patent on that. Okay. Which is a really beautiful sounding thing, but it still has more characteristics of the low tin bronze than it does the B20. Got it. And it gets very scientific from here. I'm not going to delve too deeply into it, but the way low tin versus a high tin bronze are made, they are actually two very different metals with very different mechanical properties. Once you start getting up into that like 18 to 20% tin range, it becomes a very different thing. All right. Cool. That's all that alchemy. That's that dark science. That's that dark stuff. And the last point I'll make about the low tin, the B8, B10s is you can spin form it, which is you can put it on a lathe with like a behind the blank. It's like a form of the symbol. And then you press on it. This is an old art form. That's not really done anymore. Some companies are still doing it to make symbols, cheap symbols, but you can either spin form it or you can just press it into shape, which is much easier than hammering it into shape. Yeah. I think the second line, the early, that was part of the Zildjian Sabian split was they Sabian, Zildjian wanted to do a lot of the, just the form, just the pressed symbols. And I think Robert Zildjian was like, no, I don't want to do this. So there I go again talking about Sabian and Zildjian. That's right. You can't help it. So that's sort of like a real quick class on manufacturing methods. And if anybody wants more clarity on any of this, I'd be happy to just hit me up. I'd be happy to explain any of this stuff to you. Cool. So, and that sort of brings us to the modern movement of independent symbol smiths. Such as you. Which is me. I think is so cool where like, I mean, good for you, I say, and burn symbols in these other ones that I'm sure need to be mentioned to, but like you're going against the goliaths here. I mean, you're doing well. You are building a name for yourself. Thank you. So give us your story here about, I know you studied in Brazil, obviously, but... I did. It goes back a little bit further. And I know we're already over an hour here. If I'm talking fast, it's because I'm trying to be, you know, I'm trying to get through it quickly here. Go for it. I got a, the independent symbol smith movement, I have to give credit to some of the people that came before me. I would love to say it's my idea and I did it, but it's not. Sure. You know, Spizzakina was the first. And then as I said, the Turkish factories, those split off from Agap and Mehmet from the original Istanbul company, they split off into Mirat Deryl, Ibrahim Deryl, Mustafa Deryl, Bosphorus Media. Those are sort of the big players over there. And some of those masters sort of started to train people from other countries. That was sort of the first time that that would happen. And like my teacher Francisco learned from Mustafa Deryl and from Mehmet Beykasek from a media, which was something that they wouldn't have taught you back in the day because it was too secret, secret, secret, right? Yeah. And then, so the independence from Roberto, there was a, and this is probably 15 years ago-ish, the first people that popped up were Steve Hubhubic, who's I think in Iceland. There's Craig Lortzen from Australia, who was another just absolutely phenomenal talent and very important forefather in the independent symbol smithing movement. The first American independent symbol smith that I know of, who's still making beautiful symbols today is Matt Bettis out in Colorado. You have Matt Nolan in Bath, UK. You have a gentleman by the name of Mike Skiba, who was another guy in the U.S. who coincidentally lives in the exact same town that I live in now. He's no longer with us, but he lives in Brick, New Jersey. Wow. So there must be some juju here. And a guy named Johann, who I believe was from Germany, Matt Bettis then taught Heather Stein out in California when he was living out there and she was actually my first teacher. She taught me a little bit about lazing basically just how to not wreck a symbol with hammering. Not really how to do it, but how to not do it wrong. And then from there, I was only with her for like a day and a half, so it was a very crash course, but it was certainly helpful and I'm appreciative both to Matt and to her for the knowledge that I took from them. And then after that, I found Francisco and then I learned my thing. But for about 10 years or so, that was sort of the group. And then you started seeing some other people pop up. Jesse Simpson here in New York. You have Ray Byrne who was out in Chicago. And then some people all over the world, I could name them all. Probably have to top my head, but I won't bore everyone to pieces, but Dave Collingwood in the UK. And it's just, it's spreading now. And because of the internet, information is getting out there. And because of social media, people are starting to say, oh, that's something I'd like to do too. Yeah. And I think it's social media is going to be really, social media is really helpful for all of this because it's a pretty big, these aren't just in general for any company. Buying a symbol is not a cheap thing. So for you to just be like, I could buy the one that like a Sabian or a Pisci that I know, that I can go to guitar center, wherever your local music shop and hear it versus supporting someone like you, it's now more possible because they can hear it like on your website or on social media. Absolutely. It definitely, that has to be a big help to be able to say, okay, I can actually hear this. I like this. And I think that people should do that. I've actually never played any of yours. I have some burn symbols that I love and I can't wait to try yours. And I know what you do too for people is modify. Like I know Mike Dawson has talked about it where he'll give you like, he'll call it like a dud of a ride or something. And you make it, not a dud. Absolutely. I mean, I take symbols of all types and sort of rethink them. And if you have the right starting piece, you can do that, you know, if there's enough weight on the symbol that I can go ahead and re-hammer it and take some weight off on the lathe and adjust the tension and the shape and everything else, you can really turn something into something else pretty dramatically if you want to, which I find is popular. It's a way for me to sort of earn the trust of people that they're not ready to jump into a symbol yet, but they're willing to try a modification. And from there, it's sort of a, okay, yeah, let's get a new moon. But it's just fun too. It's a good time to be able to take something and be like, well, what can I do with this? Because there are dud symbols where it's like, God, I don't like that ride. Yeah, or dud is all relevant to the person too. Like if you have like a, and I'm just using this as an example, I'm not knocking this at all. Like if you had like a Z custom or something, which is sort of a heavy metal symbol and you're not playing heavy metal anymore, it's not that the symbols are dud, it's just not appropriate for what you want anymore. So that's kind of why I rework symbols for people too, is they just have moved on from, they might have been young and listening to Slayer, and now they're like listening to Miles Davis. Exactly. Yeah, and I mean, there's just something about, or maybe you get like a ride or something from like a pawn shop that you buy for like 50 bucks and you're like, oh, I thought this was cool. I'm sure you can maybe send it to you and get it reworked and actually get something really cool out of it. Absolutely, for sure. I do a lot of that and I enjoy it. That's awesome. Now, do you, so you do a lot of hammering and stuff, is your wife must just be like, do you have like a soundproofed room? Yeah, she's a saint. Yeah, I built a room in the house here that has no walls touching exterior walls. So it's sort of decoupled from, you can still hear inside the house, but outside the house, it's pretty dead silent because I live on the Jersey Shore and houses are pretty close together here. So that was a consideration. But yeah, it's got double thick walls with green glue in between and everything as best as I could. Man. Yeah, because I think most people have been to like a drum show or something where they're like, we're going to demonstrate symbol making and there's a guy there and it's ding, ding, ding. Yeah, you're like, oh my God, it's so loud. Yeah, for the love of God. It's incredibly loud. Yeah. Everything to do with drums is pretty loud. Yeah, everything. Absolutely. Hammering the cymbals, lazing the cymbals, making drums, I'm sure is extremely loud. Yeah, we're just loud people. We're loud people. Like we were talking about before, that's why we're always relegated to corners, attics, garages, basements, right? Yeah, exactly. Man, that's so funny. Now, how do people, let's do the classic how do people get in touch with you? All this stuff, if they want to check out cymbals, do they have pre-made cymbals where they can get the Nicky Moon blank, blank hi-hats or is it more of a custom order thing? How does it all work? It's both. What I'm trying to do is give people sort of the factory options but with the custom experience. So it's very much a one-man shop. Everything that's made is made by me, by me only, other than the fact that I'm taking bronze from Turkey because I don't have a facility to do that here. But from raw material to cymbal, it's all me and I do all of the hammering, lathing, testing, finishing, stamping, logoing, edging, all that stuff myself. So I have cymbals that are made in series which are available on my website which is www.nickymoon.com and in the shop page there's a video for every cymbal. And even if the cymbal is out of stock you can see the video and you can say hey, can you make me this or make me something very similar to this and I can do that. And then also if there's a cymbal in the shop where you say hey, I love this but I wish it was 200 grams thinner as long as you're going to buy the cymbal then I'm certainly happy to customize it for you however you want. So we can go full-on custom. Some people don't like logos. I'll take the logo off for them. Like really whatever you want. And this stems from something that I wanted back in the day. Before I was making cymbals there was stuff that I wanted and I couldn't get it. And it drove me crazy and that's really what motivated me to start making them. And now it brings me such joy to be able to give people exactly what they want. I think I want to learn more about learning what I want because I always see online like okay this is a 2038 gram ride versus like you might want a 1900 gram ride. I don't really think I know what I want at this point. Let me touch on that real quick just because since you brought it up a lot of people go off weight solely and that's wrong. Weight is a good place to start because it gives you an idea if it's thin, if it's medium or heavy but a cymbal could be thicker in the bell and it could taper out very dramatically or it could be very even thickness. So if you go only by weights you're discounting that you're discounting the size of the bell, the size of the curve, profile curve, the tension, the finish. So really what I, you just need to know what sound you want to hear and then leave it to the person who knows how to make that sound happen. Got it. You know. Okay. Yeah cause like sometimes people I think everyone's got their own style but it's easy to get caught up in numbers and I know in my day to day audio engineering world you look at an analyzer where it'll tell you the numbers that you're hitting you know the levels you're actually hitting sometimes it's wrong. If someone's voice is higher it registers as louder and I've learned to not follow numbers in that sense. Sure. Yeah. Well you know what's interesting about bronze is it's especially B20 it's kind of alive. Like it has such personality each blank has its own personality and this is why like there's sort of a technique to hammering a cymbal a certain way but it's never the same, never the same for a cymbal to the next one. So somebody might say I want you know 2,140 grams for the cymbal. Well that blank might not sound good at 2040 it might sound really good at 2250 though like so do you want it to sound amazing or do you want the number? You know. I want the number. Yeah I want the number. You just make it. That's funny. Yeah so that's just something to you know just for consumers then and I don't blame people for not knowing this like they're just they're going off of what information that they have but this is a good thing to know is just to say hey I really like Pisces signature but I also like old K can you combine those into a 22 inch ride? Yeah. Gotcha man. That's awesome. Cool. Well I think everyone has learned a ton today from you. I am just beyond grateful for your being prepared and having this outline which maybe if you're okay with it I can put the outline in the show notes and people can actually or I'll put it on the website the show notes that might run out of space but on drumhistorypodcast.com Sure. On the episode page I can actually put this so people can kind of follow along. Absolutely. I'm fine with that and I just will give a little disclaimer I did kind of put my sources at the top here just if there's any information on here that's not like 100% please don't come to me and be like well you said 1298 PC but it was really 1340 like you know I'm doing the best I can here. Oh no this is great you got your sources this is like I feel like it's you are so much more together than me so I appreciate you. It looks that way anyways. That's funny. Okay well all right so everyone can go to nikimoon.com n-i-c-k-y .com and then nikimoon underscore symbols on social media. Yep that's my Instagram which is my sort of primary social media page. Yep okay cool and you're in New Jersey so wherever people you know it's not gonna be like it's coming from if you're in America it's not like it's coming from a different country and takes a long time and it's super expensive so. No my turnaround time is very very reasonable I keep a good stock of raw materials going in you know at all times and I actually keep some partially made blanks in stock too so if somebody wants something a lot of times I'll have it sort of half made already so. Cool awesome well thank you so much Nik I appreciate you on the show. Yeah absolutely thank you so much for having me I'm honored to to be a part of this to sort of spread the symbol history so thank you thank you very very much for having me on the show. If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future until next time keep on learning this is a Gwynn sound podcast