, simply known as Pearl, is a multinational corporation based in Japan with a wide range of products, predominantly percussion instruments. History Pearl was founded by Katsumi Yanagisawa -who began manufacturing music stands in Sumida, Tokyo- on April 2, 1946. In 1950, Yanagisawa shifted his focus to the manufacturing of drums and named his company "Pearl Industry, Ltd." By 1953, the company's name had been changed to "Pearl Musical Instrument Company," and manufacturing had expanded to include drum kits, marching drums, timpani, Latin percussion instruments, cymbals, stands, and accessories. Yanagisawa's eldest son, Mitsuo, joined Pearl in 1957 and formed a division to export Pearl products worldwide. To meet increasing worldwide demand for drum kits following the advent of rock and roll music, in 1961 Pearl built a factory in Chiba, Japan to produce inexpensive drum kits, also known as "STENCIL KITS" that bore the brand names of more than thirty distributors such as Apollo, Coronet, Maxwin, CB-700, Stewart, Werco, Ideal, Crest, Revelle, Revere, Roxy, Lyra, Majestic, Silvertone, Toreador, WESTBURY and Whitehall. In 1966, Pearl introduced its first professional drum kit, the "President Series". In the early 1970s, Pearl was distributed in the U.S. by Norlin, the parent company of Gibson guitars at the time. Today, Pearl's Taiwanese operation encompasses five factories whose output supplies nearly the entire worldwide market for Pearl products. The original Chiba factory now caters to the domestic Japanese market, producing drum kits, marching drums, timpani, and symphonic chimes. Adams Musical Instruments are sold in the U.S. through Pearl dealers, Hughes and Kettner guitar and bass amplifiers are distributed through Pearl's main warehouse in Nashville, Tennessee and Sabian cymbals are distributed in Japan through Pearl dealers. Pearl created several drum products, such as shells in the 1970s that were made of wood with a fiber-glass lining. There was also a shell made of a composite called "Phenolic." Additionally, Pearl combined roto-toms and these Phenolic shells to create the Vari-Pitch line of drums. Other early innovations included shells that were slightly undersized, so that the drum head would extend over the edges, much like a gong drum. Pearl manufactured seamless, extruded acrylic shells that were different from the tabbed-and-seamed Vistalite shells used by Ludwig. Pearl also developed the hinged tube tom-arm, a design widely copied by many other drum manufacturers. Construction Pearl has made shells for more than 30 companies. In the 1960s, they ceased making shells for