Paiste Cymbals PST7 Series
The Art of Cymbal Making
There is much conflicting and nebulous information circulating about how cymbals are made. Cymbal companies have different ways of doing things, and naturally they all maintain that their way is the best, while their competitors’ ways are not so good. Since they all have great marketing departments that excel at semantics, everyone usually comes out smelling like a rose. Paiste will limit their statement in this regard to the fact that Paiste does things their way because it works for them and they get superior results.
Paiste Cymbals PST7 Series
The Art of Cymbal Making
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There is much conflicting and nebulous information circulating about how cymbals are made. Cymbal companies have different ways of doing things, and naturally they all maintain that their way is the best, while their competitors’ ways are not so good. Since they all have great marketing departments that excel at semantics, everyone usually comes out smelling like a rose. Paiste will limit their statement in this regard to the fact that Paiste does things their way because it works for them and they get superior results.
Besides, explaining their methods in too much detail would reveal their secrets, and they would rather not substitute such revelations with misleading and trivial simplifications. Still, Paiste’s methods are interesting and their story worth telling. The manufacturing philosophy is simple: they know that a human being has the intuition and ability to create superior musical instruments. To mimic this ability with a machine would require a highly sophisticated robotic device controlled by advanced artificial intelligence. This is a very interesting concept but unfortunately still within the realm of science fiction. So they do things the tried and true way. Paiste makes cymbals by hand. And since the results are magnificent they see no reason to change. In their professional series, they craft cymbals by hand exclusively.
They will use mechanical devices sparingly and only as aids to hand manufacture, but never at the expense of sound and quality. Such devices help remove strenuous labor from their artisans, and allow them to concentrate their talents and energy on creating instruments of the highest sound quality and consistency. In the creation of Paiste’s mid-range cymbals they will introduce automation. Their value class cymbals are entirely machine made, because this helps them lower the cost of such cymbals. The true art of cymbal making is to select the right methods to achieve the desired goal, whether it is ultimate professional sound quality or whether they strive to achieve the best price/value relationship.
