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This summer’s Rhythm Traders Road Trip us took us to Bangkok, Thailand to visit the factory that has made our Bossa Nova branded Latin instruments for over a decade. For those of you who may not know, nearly all the top brands of Latin percussion instruments are made in Thailand — including LP, Toca, Pearl, Meinl, Natal, Gon Bops, and of course our house brand Bossa Nova. How did that happen one might ask? Well the three main factories are all owned by brothers who learned the craft from their father. The father was a music store employee in Bangkok in the 1980’s, when he was approached by both Roland Meinl (Meinl Percussion) and Martin Cohen (Latin Percussion/ LP) to manufacture their instruments. This coincided with the trade embargo the United States has had with Cuba, which meant that it was impossible to get instruments made in Cuba. Thus, Thailand emerged as the choice because they had the wood, machinery, and know-how to make great instruments.
Over the many years of manufacturing in Thailand, the technology has become very sophisticated in the use of sustainable woods, joinery, hardware, and multiple ply congas and bongos. As a result, even in Cuba and Latin America today, the Thai made instruments are highly sought after and considered among the best in the world.
It was great to meet the workers, look at new products in the pipeline, and to check on the manufacturing of our instruments which will be here by the Holidays. We’ll have a huge shipment of congas, bongos, cajons, bata drums, tamboras, timbales,taiko drums, and nearly every type of shaker imaginable.
Here are three fun facts we learned on the trip:
- Fun Fact # 1) The factory recycles the scraps of rawhide used in mounting the heads, and sells them to another local company that makes dog chews out of them!
- Fun Fact # 2) Export is only part of their business. Within Thailand, they are most well known for making the drums and gongs that are used around the country in Buddhist temples.
- Fun Fact # 3) In an effort to have zero waste from the trees used in making congas, our factory is pioneering a finger-joint process that fuses smaller pieces of wood together without sacrificing sound or durability.
We hope you have enjoyed pictures from our factory visit, and remember when you buy Rhythm Traders and Bossa Nova branded percussion instruments, you’re supporting real people that not only make the best sounding Latin percussion instruments in the world, but they are working to make the production of instruments safe for the environment and sustainable so there will be plenty of wood for many years to come.
Check out the rest of the photos from our trip in our gallery: http://galleries.rhythmtraders.com/2018/09/04/rhythm-traders-road-trip-thailand/