i got an email from jost nickel, drummer of jan delay & disko no.1. he had a great idea about our website. he suggested to install a button which collectively shows all new products we introduced for 2010. this way you don' have to search through the entire product section in order to find out what's new.

no sooner said than done: when you click on products you can see the tag-cloud at the bottom. there is a tag called new 2010. when you click on it, all of the new products for 2010 will show up collectively. no more time-consuming search necessary. all news 2010 at a glance.

thank you for the hint jost.

- norbert

this morning i have uploaded a couple new profiles from some of our newest international artists:

leo lazar from germany who plays with saint lu.
shy of the depth drummer chris allen from england
viatrophy's drummer craig reynolds from england
swedish drummer tobbe gustafsson who plays with vomitory and torture division
danish drummer jeppe nielsen from surfact
a great up-and-coming drummer from belgium, yannick de clerck
the bishops drummer chris mcconville from england

check'em out and be inspired.

- norbert

what albert hammond states in his song it never rains in southern california has not been the case today. it has rained the entire day so far, and not just a few drops here and there. real heavy showers! i heard that several flights got cancelled because of the rain which means that some namm people are stuck here for one more night. good luck and safe travels to you all. i‘ll be leaving anaheim tomorrow and fly back to frankfurt. 

oh well, another namm show is over which means time to move on to new projects.  most of my work during the last six months has been related to namm. it all culminates in those four days of namm. as soon as it is over, a huge mental load is off my shoulders. now i sit here in my hotel room reflecting on the last four days. bottom line, it has been a fantastic show for us. here is why:

> our booth looked stunning.

> we have had more drummers and artists visit our booth than ever before. everyone who stopped by had a great time.

> we got a great response on our new m-series.

> most importantly: people dig drumming more than ever. the spirit in the drumscene continues to be positive. that means the most to me and that is what keeps me going. 

now it‘s time to pack my suitcases. for some reason i always go back home with more stuff that i came with. it‘s gonna be a challenge to fit it all in. 

i guess albert hammond is right after all: when i look outside my window now, i see a clear sky and no more rain in southern california.

- norbert

ps: check out the fotos i took during namm

the weather forecast estimates low-pressure-area daisy to bring germany cold, windy, snowy weather for the next couple of days. when i look outside the window right now, they are perfectly right. having said that, it is perfect timing that next monday most of the meinl team will fly to sunny california to attend another namm show in anaheim. the last couple of days were very busy for us with all the usual last-minute preparations. and as always, we managed to finish everything just in time - now.

let the weather forecast people predict whatever they want for the next ten days. it's time for namm and time for a climate change.

looking forward to a wonderful week in anaheim at the namm show and maybe i see some of you there. would be great!

- norbert

on behalf of the entire meinl team, i wish you a very happy, peaceful, and healthy new year 2010

another year is almost over. in a couple of minutes we'll close the doors here and leave for holidays. 2009 has been an extremely successfull year for meinl cymbals. we have achieved a lot worldwide and still, everyone here is full of new ideas and inspiration for the next year. a lot will be going on again and is being planned right now already.

looking back to 2009, one of my personal highlights has been without a doubt our first international drum festival in moscow, russia which took place on june 06. this has been a fantastic experience and to be honest, i for myself have declared that event as the best-day-ever in my 20yrs long lasting meinl career. no kidding. it seemed as if all the years of hard work have climaxed for us in that phenomenal festival.

looking ahead, please mark your calender for june 26th 2010 when our next drum festival will take place here in gutenstetten again. this will be another highlight for us next year. have a sneak preview on meinldrumfestival.com already.

on behalf of the entire meinl company, i thank you all for your support, loyalty and believe in meinl throughout the last year. it means everything to us.

wish you a merry xmas and all the best for 2010. see you next year :-)

- norbert

Last Friday, December 18 to be exact, I left the office early to hook up with one of our US cymbal artists, Daniel Williams of the band The Devil Wears Prada. The band was playing a show that night at one of the few decent venues in Nashville for heavy music, Rocketown. Daniel and TDWP have been on a steady upward trajectory for quite some time now, and it's been a very cool thing to witness. So I was looking forward to some hang time with Daniel and to also see their show that night, as it was sold out. 

Pre-show, I was fed some obligatory beers by Daniel and his ever-hospitable band-mates while hanging on their tour bus outside the venue. Daniel and the guys talked about how fortunate they feel to be doing such good business touring during what is an extremely trying time for bands on the road. People only have a limited amount of money to spend on concerts and bands' merchandise, so TDWP feel grateful that they are selling out venues and that people are choosing to spend their money on them.

Along with biz talk, we also rapped about life stuff in general. My job is called artist RELATIONS, and it is always nice when it is indeed a RELATION, when the artist is genuinely interested in an exchange of ideas and conversation. In Daniel's case, it's definitely a relation. He's a super-great guy who cares about everyone around him and it certainly shows.

So showtime came along and I was glad to get some good video footage of Daniel at work.

Here are some links to that footage - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gg5mZztzc4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDSKmJX1uLw

Daniel's cymbal setup is very musical. If you were to sit behind his kit, you would see the following left to right - 

 - Byzance 14" Medium Hihats in Traditional Finish

 - Mb20 20" Medium Heavy Crash

 - Classics 22" Medium Ride (his artist page says Mb20 22" Heavy Bell Ride, but he just changed it and we need to build that particular Classics ride into our setup program...)

 - Classics 8" Medium Bell

 - Byzance 22" Medium Crash

 - Mb20 18" Rock China

The Classics 22" Medium Ride that he just switched to is an interesting thing. So many artists these days are into a steady washing white noise sound. I've suggested this B8 alloy cymbal to a few artists and it's gone over very well. The alloy is durable and the sound is bright enough to cut through the dense wall of guitar and bass amplification. This cymbal is like a motor. Get it going with just enough wrist action and the cymbal will do the rest of the job for you. I suggested this cymbal to Daniel a month or so ago and he is super stoked to have it in his setup. If you have a hankering for a white noise wall of wash cymbal sound, check this one out.

Enjoy the footage of Daniel and Happy Holidays to all of you out there.

 - Chris

dinner was just about to be served at our annual xmas party last night when manfred haas, the longest serving employee at meinl, returned from the printing shop with the first 1,000 copies of our new 2010 cymbal catalog. it's such a good feeling to finally hold in your hand what you have been working on for several months. everyone who has seen it so far loves it. the cover design especially seems to be the favourite, including myself :-) i think its fair to say that this catalog is our best so far.

manfred delivered the 1,000 catalogs just in time. they were an essential tool in our today's meeting. our german, austrian, dutch, belgium and asian sales team got together this morning here in our headquarters. myself and my colleague stefan gave the team a presentation about the current and future meinl cymbal marketing, as well as about all new products for next year. reinhold meinl completed the meeting by giving some highly inspiring thoughts about the catalog's distribution. hearing him giving a lecture on his views always plants a seed in my ear. i get a lot out of his immensely clever thoughts.

some already asked us via facebook how they can get hold of the new catalog? soon it will be available on meinlcymbals.com for download (pdf). but in general, always check with your local dealer for an actual hardcopy. they should all have it in about 1 - 2 months. or simply stop by at our namm booth in anaheim next months. also, please dont hesitate to let us know your feedback about it when you checked it out.

i would like to thank everyone involved in the creation of our new catalog, especially tobias merkle, sonja baer, christian habermeier, sebastian jaeger, sven mihm, rick malkin.

- norbert

its the end of the year again. for us here at meinl cymbals that's equivalent with deadlines. not only have we just printed a new symphonic and marching cymbal catalog. more than that we are in the final stages of our 2010 cymbal guide. we are working on the very final corrections right now and then once again, off to the printer. deadlines

the 2010 namm show in los angeles coming up. same thing: deadlines! everyone involved in that show like the booth builder, freeman show services, colleagues, forwarders, advertising agency, and many others, need some final information from me in order to do their job.

distributor meeting coming up next week that needs to be prepared. same thing for another sales meeting coming up the week after in which we brief our domestic sales staff about all the news for next year. i still got to finalize my presentation for that. more deadlines.

and last but not least the daily artist-relations business of reviewing endorsement packages, sending out gear, tour service, and so on. not to forget working with all the drum magazines worldwide who also have their deadlines for their next issues.

all of that is what hits us at the end of every year. it's by far the busiest time for everyone here. one can actually sense a certain tension here in our office. some colleagues nerves are on the edge.

but look, i am not complaining. in times like these one can be more than happy to have a healthy business going on. i love that time of the year and working under time-pressure usually stimulates my creative output immensely . it's great and i can't wait to finally see all the final results! there's no better feeling in the job-world than when you see all the wonderful results and getting a postivie feedback for all the hard work you have done.

with all the crazyness and deadlines in mind, it just kind of hit me today that time flies so incredibly fast. it's been two years now today that our company founder Roland Meinl passed away. to me it does not seem so long at all. it's good to sometimes just pause for a moment and realise that life is not only about deadlines.

Everyone keeps complaining about the economy. Not sure what they are talking about, because, wow!...it has been an incredibly busy couple of months at Meinl USA. It seems that it's busy all of the time now, but lately it has been especially so.

Lots of planning for lots of events...a Brann Dailor in-store signing tour, Moe Carlson and Damien Schmitt at the Montreal Drum Festival, Rodney Holmes at Cascio Interstate's Drummerfest, Chris Adler in-store signing  sessions, a Nick D'Virgilio clinic at West Music, a Benny Greb clinic tour, and PASIC with Felix Pollard and Benny Greb performing are all just a few of the projects that have required a lot of time and preparation in order for a successful outcome for each and every endeavor.

This time of the year is always packed anyway with preparations for the beginning of 2010...work on the new cymbal catalog and preparations for the 2010 Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, CA in January (a BIG event) require a good deal of time and energy as well. So add on all of the other events and you have a very full schedule.  :-)

Check out the photos of a few of the things that I've mentioned that have been going on.

 - Chris