Renold Schilke

Renold Otto Schilke (June 30, 1910 – September 5, 1982) was a professional orchestral trumpet player, instrument designer and manufacturer.

As a result of his childhood activities in the Holton plant as well as additional trade school studies, he was a skilled tool and die craftsman and dabbled in both firearms and brass instrument making.

Schilke took the scientific approach to answering the question of plating versus lacquering or bare brass - finding that the inelastic lacquer masked the ductility of most alloys resulting in the resonation of the metal itself being increased relative to the resonation of the air column whereas plating was indistinguishable from bare brass as it was merely a thin layer of equally ductile material.

[2] Like his neighbor and fellow Chicago Symphony trumpeter Elden Benge, as well as Vincent Bach, and Ernst Couturier, Schilke used his knowledge of machining and the science of sound to address his dissatisfaction with the instruments available to him by building his own.

[1][6] Since the company's inception, many of the top names in both commercial and symphonic styles use or have used Schilke trumpets including Bill Chase, Randy Brecker, Marvin Stamm, Adolph Herseth, Arturo Sandoval, Duško Gojković, Jon Faddis, Lew Soloff, Alan Rubin, Rick Baptist, Lin Biviano, Johnny Madrid, Dizzy Gillespie, and members of the Canadian Brass.