Paiste

The Paiste Sound Story begins at the turn of the century. 

Russia 1901-1916
Michail Toomas Paiste, a composer and musician, whose father had come from Estonia to serve in the Tsarist Guard, founds a publishing business and music store in St. Petersburg. The operation, which also includes modest instrument manufacturing and repair facilities, flourishes for many years until the upheavals of the Russian Revolution force its closing.

Estonia 1917-1939
Michail Toomas returns to his native country, and re-opens his business in the city of Tallinn. It is here that he begins to design and manufacture cymbals for concert and marching bands together with his son, Michail M. Paiste, who quickly becomes the driving force and eventually takes over the business. Seeking to meet the rapidly evolving demands of “modern music” and the emerging drum set, the son begins to develop his own special concept for Turkish style cymbals, which he prefers over the Chinese style as a starting point. It is during this time that he also develops the first gongs. The resulting instruments receive awards and international recognition as they begin to be exported to Europe, the USA and overseas.

Poland 1940-1944
The events of World War II force Michail M. to leave Estonia for Poland, where he re-establishes the family business. The company struggles with a wartime shortage of raw materials and difficulty in maintaining international relations, but manages to survive.

Germany 1945-
Towards the end of the war, Michail M. and his family escaped Poland as refugees, bringing him to Northern Germany where, for the third time, he begins to produce cymbals and gongs. The instruments’ superior reputation help revive business relationships and ensure development of a robust export business throughout the Fifties.

Switzerland 1957-
Michael M. establishes a manufacture in Switzerland, also bringing a third generation, sons Robert and Toomas, into what becomes the companies base for future development. A new era begins as Robert and Toomas make Paiste Switzerland the hub of its international business activities. Since 2003, the company is headed by Toomas’ son, Erik.

USA 1981-
The company gains a firm foothold in the world’s largest musical instrument market with the establishment of Paiste America in the U.S.A.

The Paiste Philosophy

The principle of our family business is to continually create new sound with cymbals, gongs, and bronze percussion instruments according to the creative needs of drummers and percussionists.

The foundation of this search for musical sound is the successful combination of the musician’s creative imagination of musicians and the inventive spirit of the musical instrument maker. The spark that continually invigorates this search is music itself, in all its beauty, complexity, and seemingly never-ending capacity for new ways of expression. The relationship between us as sound makers, and drummers and percussionists as musicians, is the very intimate manifestation of this deep principle. This is our true purpose.

The secrets in creating sounds are life-long experience, a deep knowledge about sound and sounding alloys, painstaking craftsmanship, and intensive experimentation. We never get accidental results. We meticulously research and we thoroughly execute our creations. We guarantee consistency in sound qualities and sound color in every cymbal, percussive sound and gong we offer. Through these virtues we can offer a full range of unique and specific sounds, which respond to the musician’s personal wishes. We go on providing you with ever-new sound dimensions. We give you new possibilities to expand your sound spectrum and to creatively develop your individual musical expression. This helps you realize your musical dreams.

Our Cymbals are State-Of-The-Art

Our cymbal program always reflects the current state of music. Music is incredibly diverse and changes constantly. Today’s music mixes and matches styles; it borrows freely from historical periods; it is being enriched by ethnic and traditional genres; it continues to integrate worldwide music styles. Players no longer limit themselves within a certain style.
Experimentation, integration and revolution are the norm. The art of percussion has evolved to a point where technical and musical ability has reached unprecedented levels. Drummers and percussionists speak many musical languages and actively perform in several genres. Our program is designed to keep up these trends. Our ability to do this has grown exponentially over the decades. As a result, our program covers more musical needs than ever before. We continually create new sounds. We create cymbals with more potential for variation and versatile application. We design more sound and function into individual models. We research and develop methods to bring more satisfying sound to lower priced ranges. In short - we work hard to make our cymbals do more to satisfy drummers and percussionists.

www.paiste.com