Hand Percussion · Makers

Maker

Remo

Models: 15 · Categories: 3

Remo Belli's Mylar drumhead, introduced in the late 1950s, ended the era of calfskin and made drums that stayed in tune through weather and travel. The company went on to build world percussion with synthetic shells and heads — djembes, frame drums, and the tunable Roto Toms — and remains the largest drumhead maker in the world.

Maker

Latin Percussion

Models: 12 · Categories: 1

Martin Cohen founded LP in 1964 after failing to buy decent congas in New York, and the company effectively industrialised Afro-Cuban percussion: consistent, tunable, durable instruments where the tradition had relied on hide, rope, and luck. LP hardware — the Jam Block, the Cyclops tambourine, the Aspire student line — is standard equipment worldwide.

Maker

Meinl Percussion

Models: 12 · Categories: 1

Roland Meinl founded the company in Bavaria in 1951, and while the cymbal side is better known to drummers, the percussion division is one of the largest in the world: congas, cajons, djembes, and an enormous catalogue of small instruments. Meinl's cajon range in particular is the widest of any maker.

Maker

Contemporânea

Models: 4 · Categories: 1

Contemporânea makes the instruments of the Rio bateria — surdos, repiniques, tamborims, caixas, and pandeiros — in Brazil, and supplies escolas de samba as well as the European samba scene.

Maker

Gawharet El Fan

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Gawharet El Fan builds tablas (darbukas), riqs, and frame drums in Cairo, inlaid in mother-of-pearl and shell, and is the name most often seen on Egyptian percussion sold abroad.

Maker

Emin Percussion

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Emin makes darbukas and frame drums in Turkey in cast aluminium and copper, with the sharp, ringing tone the Turkish and Arabic idioms ask for, and supplies most of the darbukas played outside the region.

Maker

Bina Musicals

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Bina makes tabla, dholak, and harmoniums in Delhi for students and performers, and is one of the few Indian instrument makers whose work is distributed widely outside India.

Maker

Hugh Tracey

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

The ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey spent decades recording southern African music and then built a tuned, durable version of the mbira for players outside the tradition. The instruments are still made in South Africa and are what most of the world means by "kalimba".

Maker

Nazareth

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Nazareth builds berimbaus, atabaques, and pandeiros in Brazil for capoeira and candomblé, where the instruments are made to be played hard and outdoors rather than recorded.

Maker

Gope

Models: 2 · Categories: 1

Gope builds samba and capoeira percussion in Brazil — surdos, pandeiros, atabaques, and berimbaus — and is one of the names most often seen outside the country.