Our research about manufacturers led us to Taiwan, where we visited every manufacturer we could find. There were many!! We finally settled on a young manufacturer that we could see had great talent, capability, and who was also willing to do whatever we asked him. This was very important to us as we wanted to have our own instrument made from scratch. At that time, he only made a few sopranos for Europe. We wanted to change the quality of instrument that was currently being produced. We wanted to use our own molds, key positions, alloys, etc. We'd say, "Lets make those screws stainless steel", and they would reply, "Well, it will cost more", and we'd say "That's OK!" We eventually became partners by contract and we grew to 3 factories. From nearly nothing we built these factories up together and formed "Cannonball". We decided to have fun with this name by using ideas and motifs from the Medieval Period.
