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Company type | Private |
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Industry | Musical Instruments |
Founded | 2002 |
Headquarters | Istanbul |
Number of locations | 2 |
Area served | [1] |
Key people | |
Products | |
Parent | Kırmızıgül Music Company |
Website | www |
Agean Cymbals is a manufacturer of cymbals and other percussion instruments of the Western Classical, Folk, and Turkish traditions. Their factory is located in Edirne, while their main office is situated in Istanbul. They state a commitment to preserving hand-crafted techniques and a tradition of cymbal making that dates back to the Ottoman Empire, as part of their manufacturing ethos. [2]
Agean Cymbals was founded in 2002 by Behnan Gocmez. [3] In 2007, the brand was bought by the Kırmızıgül family, who were already manufacturing traditional Turkish and other ethnic percussion instruments—including darbukas, doumbeks, and bongos—under the Kırmızıgül Company.
Until late 2007, the Agean Cymbals factory was located in Istanbul—a city with a long history of cymbal production [4] —but the company decided to move production operations to Uzunköprü, Edirne, [1] since the traditional cymbal manufacturing process was becoming difficult to maintain in the city center.
Agean cymbals have presented their products at Musikmesse Frankfurt in 2007-2009 and 2017-2018. They were also set to present in 2020, but the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [5] In 2017, they presented a new kind of low-volume cymbal—a type often used for practice or in smaller venues where louder cymbals are impractical [6] [7] —using traditional B20 bronze alloy—the first company to use the material for low-volume cymbals. [8] [9]
In 2019, they expanded operations to produce other kinds of percussion instruments in addition to their line of cymbals.
The company's identity is based on the idea of preserving traditional cymbal-making techniques. They state, “We choose to manufacture our cymbals in the time-honored fashion—100% hand-crafted”. [10] Agean traces its pursuit of hand-crafted cymbals back to the bell-making tradition in the Ottoman Empire. [11]
Their cymbals are hand-hammered [12] [13] and (in the low-volume cymbals) hand-drilled, [6] forgoing the use of auto-hammering that is common within modern cymbal production. [14] The cymbals are then cooked in a process by which the metal cymbal “puck” is heated to high temperature using coal and wood ovens dug into the ground (known as ground casting), rather than modern gas or electric ones. Traditional bronze alloys, such as B20 and B25, are used as their cymbal material, also foregoing more modern nickel-silver alloys commonly used in entry-level cymbals. [3]
A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a definite note. Cymbals are used in many ensembles ranging from the orchestra, percussion ensembles, jazz bands, heavy metal bands, and marching groups. Drum kits usually incorporate at least a crash, ride, or crash/ride, and a pair of hi-hat cymbals. A player of cymbals is known as a cymbalist.
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and chordophone.
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Modern cymbal making comprises many different techniques, from traditional hand methods to completely automated mass-production.
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