Paiste HQ Visit.

Roger picked me up in the Paistemobile and off we went to the factory where it all happens in a small village called Nottwil. Before we embarked on the tour though we had some lunch. Pizza and salad in the neighboring village with a glass off Rivella (more on that later). The restaurants’ location was aside a Witch burning tower and near the town stoning shackles. Can you say medieval?
Paiste cymbals are what I have been playing since I was a kid and now seeing all the hard work, dedication and passion that goes into each sound, I am a perennial Paiste propagandist. Stefan the head sound creator & supervisor took me to each station (while Roger translated to English) and showed me all the steps that go into the Paiste process.
Cut, pressed, hammered, lathed, screen printed, brushed, tone tested, you name it, it's done by a human and all by hand. A master cymbal is created and each cymbal of it's own kind is measured and compared to it. "Impressive", Darth Vader would comment and you know what stickler he is.
Urs, the 25 year long Paiste hammerer's seemless precision would put Thor out of a job. I watched work for a minutes and it was like watching a machine or a film. A true Master of craft. I practically started laughing while watching.
Needless to say the tour was fascinating and an amazing learning experience.
I sampled the results in the show room, each cymbal was perfect and the MASSIVE gongs they had were other worldly. Power, elegance, beauty and hypnotic all rolled into sound. Sounding the gongs was an amazing experience. Massive sounds hard to describe, dark, ambient lush tones perfect for film scores and anything else that needs a provoked strong emotion. I was in awe. VIVA PAISTE!