The ‘’Roland Meinl Musikinstrumente’’ was founded in 1951 by Roland Meinl. Initially the company produced wind instruments, beginning the production of cymbals only in 1952. The first Meinl cymbals were cut out of large metal sheets, hammered, lathed and drilled by hand by Roland Meinl himself. In the 1960s about half of the production was exported to the United States together with German-made Tromsa drum sets.
The first employee, Gustav Strobel, was hired in 1964 and worked for the company for almost 40 years. At about the same time Roland Meinl began to import affordable music instruments from Japan, being one of the first Pearl importers in Europe. He later began to import Tama and Ibanez instruments. Meinl's initial cymbal production focused on low-budget cymbals, and it wasn't until 1984 with the ''Profile Series'' that Meinl started to really focus on professional-level cymbals. The first Meinl pro series was the ‘’King-Beat Series’’, introduced in 1976.
