Noble & Cooley

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Noble & Cooley Snare

Noble & Cooley ("N&C") is a premium drum kit company based in Granville , Hampden County , Massachusetts . The manufactory is best known for its snare drums .

history

Historic American marching drum

The company was founded in 1854 by Silas Noble and James Cooley, who began making marching drums for the US Army in the kitchen of the Nobles farmhouse . In the first year they made 631 drums. After a few weeks they moved into their own building and just two years later they built their first factory.

For the election campaign of US President Abraham Lincoln , they built a drum for him from slats from his home wooden fence, which was used during various election campaign events. During the American Civil War they were making drums for the Northern Army and soon the company grew enormously, exceeding 100,000 drums in 1873 . The company also manufactured toy drums for children until the end of the 19th century .

In the early 1980s , Jay Jones (great-great-grandson of founder James Cooley) decided to produce professional drums for musicians in addition to traditional military drums. He worked with the designer Bob Gatzen and used an old steam wood bending machine that had survived a fire in the company in 1889 . In 1983 Noble & Cooley presented their "SS Classic solid shell snare drums" , snare drums with a solid wooden shell . Since then, the company has launched numerous other models of snare drums with wooden or metal shells, as well as complete drum sets. In 1989 and 2003 Noble & Cooley worked with the traditional cymbal manufacturer Zildjian to produce exclusive snare drums from real cymbal bronze . These drums were only made in limited editions and became collectibles.

Over the years↔ several extensions with modern production facilities were built. The company still produces at the original location when it was founded.

A few years ago, a museum, the Noble & Cooley Center for Historic Preservation, was opened in the company's historic buildings, showing the history of Granville during the American Civil War as well as the innovative strength and development of the American northern states.

The company has announced that it will re-issue its historical “Contract Drum” in a small limited series from 2011 to 2014 and provide it with a certificate of authenticity that is intended to confirm that it is true to the original. These drums had a plywood ( ash ) kettle bent under steam , a tire made of the harder oak wood , over which the calfskin skins were tuned with cords and leather cuffs . It was once the standard instrument of the Union Army of the Northern States.

Today's product range

  • SS Classic Snares - the first N&C snare produced to this day from 1983.
  • Alloy Classic Snares - drums with a cast and turned aluminum shell .
  • SE Snares - the SE stands for "Special Edition".
  • CD Maples - highly exclusive drums that are only made to order and according to special customer requirements.
  • CD Snares - the snare drums belonging to the "CD series".
  • Solid Shell Oak Kits - New development of a series of complete drum kits made of oak.

Former products

  • Studio Classic Series - drums and drums that were an entry-level series for high quality drums.
  • Horizon Series - Drums made of 6-layer maple plywood , four layers of which ran "horizontally" in the grain and gave the series its name.
  • Star Series - drum series produced from 1987. The main difference to the "Horizon Series" was that they had a massive steam-bent maple shell. What was particularly striking were the drum depths of 6 "x10", 6 "x12", 6 "x13", 7 "x14" and 8 "x16", which were unusually small for the 1980s. This was due to production technology, as they were made on the same machines as the snare drums. Only the conventionally manufactured bass drum belonging to the series had a normal shell depth.

Known users (selection)

Web links

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  1. ↑ homepage NCCHP