Idea and Sound

Vintage Classic Cymbals are designed and founded by cymbal specialist and enthusiast, Torab Majlesi. Torab has worked as production manager/designer with various Turkish cymbals companies since 1997 and as a professional band/session drummer since 1990.

He started collecting and playing original Zildjian and Istanbul brand cymbals at an early age. His first cymbals were an old K set with a 22”ride, a pair of 13”hihat’s, a 15”crash and a 12”splash which he played with a vintage Ludwig super classic maple bebop kit with an 18”bass,12”tom, and a 14” floor tom.

He bought those cymbals for 350 dollars (if you were to buy them now you would have to add another zero) in 1989 when he was 15 years old from a small music shop in Istanbul. (Unfortunately that set was stolen in 1994).

After years of research and development experience, playing and knowledge he acquired he developed his “1 Model-1 Cymbal” idea. Now there are dozens of cymbal companies worldwide with hundreds of models, but drummers are still searching for that old sweet cymbal and Vintage Classic Cymbals are that sound.

The main idea behind the design is making a cymbal with that great vintage look which produces a great classic sound that also can be played in any kind of music with an average volume and touch with little effort.

Brush and hand cymbal playing techniques are also a very important part of drums and percussion playing and Vintage Classic Cymbals works perfectly in these situations because of their sensitivity and response to the softest of strokes.

All of our cymbals are produced with the highest quality B25 bronze alloy composition which contains 25% tin, (the standard B20 has 20% of tin but Vintage

Classic Cymbals composition has 5% more of tin), to get that classic old K sound.

After the main production techniques of casting, lathing, and hammering are completed all of the cymbals go through an inspection process by Torab. He plays and checks them for perfection to determine that there are no defects, balance problems or un-wanted overtones.The cymbals then go through a and aging process which takes that great look and that nice dry sound that is experienced Classic Cymbals.