 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we are joined back for the third and possibly final time Mr. Paul Wells Paul welcome back on the podcast Thank you so much Bart and yes, hopefully the third times the charm to finish this one up and wrap it up Yes, and I say that in a good way Well, I say in the Neil series because we'll likely have you back on in the future because you've got huge knowledge on multiple different things but People made it very clear in the comments. They were like don't worry about the timing and how long it's are and the amount of parts They're people people have enjoyed it. We've we've now have the benefit of releasing to seeing the reaction and Now we can do part three knowing that people are actually enjoying this. Yeah. Yeah, and and Thank you everybody for for watching and listening so far. It's it's really amazing to get this kind of reaction and I'm just so thrilled that there are so many people that are so deep into Neil Peart that want to find out all of these cool things about him and Yeah, I It's actually been interesting because we've gotten some really good comments and feedback on the first two parts and a number of people who are Vastly more knowledgeable than I am about this have pointed out a few things that we forgot So I wanted to to kind of start by listening a couple of those things about by addressing some things that That I wanted to talk about that that I forgot or things that I didn't know about at all Well before and Paul before you start into that Can I do a quick like housekeeping kind of thing first off? Absolutely listen to part you if you haven't listened to part one And two I said this before you can jump in here and get into the DW era of Of Neals kits if you like that why not but also go back and enjoy those I also want to say quickly. Thank you to everyone for your comments for watching this It has been incredible so many people are as as you said I wouldn't say they're more knowledgeable than you But I would say they are very knowledgeable There's firsthand experiences with people who like played the kits that were one from the magazine ads and things like that or the Like giveaways and things. Yeah, but real quick before we get into this I do need to go give a quick shout-out So I have a patreon tier that is $15 a month and you get a shout-out on the podcast So I want to thank mr. John Golden for joining up on the $15 level where that's the upper tier and you get a shout-out On an episode he got a good one here because a lot of people will probably see this and He actually reached out and sent me a message and said and we've spoken before but he said You know how you mentioned and how he said do you know how I meaning me? Mentioned in the last one how drummers will always build themselves into corners and I said and I was like oh Yeah, I remember that and he said he sent me a picture of his drum set in a nice big room And he had just literally built himself into a corner and we had a good laugh and it's it's just what we do so Thank you to John. It really does help keep the show going it helps Support the show on that note because there's a pretty big audience here if you are a fan of the podcast and want to join up at that tier $15 a month it's kind of a cool thing because people can like you can promote your like brand your lesson services Your website I will give you a shout-out on the podcast and then at the end of the app of every single video on YouTube There's a little card or whatever that says like thank you, and it's got drum shop names Podcasts names you can put your band names so you can promote whatever you want there, but For for this time. Thank you to mr. John Golden for supporting the podcast and it really does help things So we appreciate it. So all that being said Paul Take us take us where you want to go my friend. All right. Well first of all, yeah, thanks John for your support So the first thing I want to address that a few people have mentioned Was my Not knowing exactly how to pronounce Crotale It did yeah, there was some funny thing is the funny thing is is that so the comments There was a wide range of interpretations of how one might go about pronouncing that word So I actually got in touch with Eric Gross who works at Zildjian and he talked to a classical percussion specialist there who Confirmed that it is pronounced crotale Crotale crotale. So yeah crotale. So crotale crotales That is the pronunciation now we know Okay, so let's see the next thing I wanted to to clear up. This is these are little Housekeeping things I mentioned that Neil this isn't the first episode that Neil had got his first Wuhan Chinese symbol he mentioned that he got it at Frank's drum shop And I was confused and said that that was in San Francisco that was actually Francis was a shop in Chicago and so I checked the tour date listing the tour date history and It very much lines up with when you start to see that Wuhan in photos They actually played a three-night run in Chicago, January 6th to 8th of 1978 and the first Photos you see where the Wuhan China appears and as I mentioned it was initially he mounted it on his left Are around that same time period or maybe a week or so later into January of 78 And also that made me think about boy I'm not sure I could think of anywhere I'd want to be less on the first week of January than the city of Chicago a lovely city a really really great place But I remember touring there in February and I think I'd never been so cold in my entire life And it took me like yeah a week before I was not cold anymore even after we were long gone from Chicago So yeah, yeah, so that's and I will mention that there is a full episode about Frank's drum shop with rock cook And the history of it and there's like gangsters and like you know giving cops money to let people park out front and there's all kinds of cool stuff in that one So awesome. Yeah, check that episode out for sure So something really important that I neglected to talk about is About Niels the tuning relationship between Niels concert toms and Niels double-headed toms now One thing to mention is that in interviews with Neil He would generally refer to as double-headed toms as closed toms and his concert toms as open toms Meaning the bottom is open versus the bottom is closed So if you see interviews with him where he's referring to close toms, that's what he means He means is double-headed toms. So when he added the the six eight ten twelve concert toms to the kit initially because Those sizes were six eight ten twelve and then with chromie that the rack to the sorry the double-headed toms were 13 13 14 16 he was able to just get a chromatic sort of like high to low From you know six eight ten twelve and then the 13 double-headed toms was lower than the 12 When he changed the kit in 77 and started he completely revamped the double-headed toms sizes to 12 13 15 18 He suddenly now has two 12 inch toms The lowest concert toms is a 12 and the highest double-headed toms is a 12 So the what does he do? He could tune them the same way that he had them tuned before where there was just Descending notes going down, but it seems that he really thought of the two groups of toms concert toms double-headed toms as two different groups of instruments Almost like if you'd imagine this if you think about a keyboard player playing a piano Now the white keys and the black keys are all part of the same instrument. They're the same voice You know you play that you play a chord on the on the on the black keys, and then you play a chord one Half-step up on the white keys. It's a different note, but it's the same sound I think he thought of the concert toms almost like a keyboard player would maybe have a Piano here and a synthesizer mounted on top of the piano where you may have a Middle-C on both of them, but they're drastically different voices and he would use them as such now Sometimes he would do fills where you go down the concert toms and then go down the double-headed toms But a lot of the time he was doing things where they were kind of utilized as separate voices So the point of this is that the 12 inch concert toms was actually tuned lower than the 12 inch double-headed toms even though sort of the you know the The placement of them was to have them kind of go down like this They actually went down in pitch and then back up when he gets to the double-headed 12 So I think I mentioned that the the double-headed 12 and the double-headed 13 and Neil set up All the way through you know the the 80s and into the 90s He had the double-headed 12 He tuned that drum really high and even in the Faro-Ota Kings hemispheres era that's that drums tuned quite high Double the single-headed 12 up further to the left was tuned lower So you would actually have the situation where I'm gonna try to imitate the pitches the four concert toms are like Ding ding ding ding and then starting on the double-headed toms you have ding ding ding ding where The 12 is is higher again. So sure he would do these descending fills From the concert toms to the double-headed toms. He would actually skip the double-headed 12 he would go right from the single-headed 12 to the double-headed 13 in order to get an actual downward Not chromatic, but a downward descending pitch type fill And this is a really interesting thing. It's a really unique thing and it's something that confused me for years I would listen to his recordings listening to his drumming and hear Pitches going up or down and assume that it was all sort of like, you know logical to the placement of the drums But it actually wasn't And you have to really when you listen to them you have to tune in You have to tune your ear to the sound of this very high pitch 12 Having a very different sound than the concert toms The concert toms having a shorter sound and kind of more attack And I don't know it's it's a little hard to describe but When you think about it and you listen to it it's it it makes sense and in a good place to hear it It's towards the beginning of sygnes x1 There's a section where he plays some fills where he he does some fills where he kind of plays them the first time on the Concert toms and then plays the same fills a second time on the double-headed toms It's hard to describe, but I think fans know what i'm talking about and I think they know The section of that tune that i'm talking about and it's just interesting It's it's you know different melodic possibilities that he had available to him and it makes things sound It's a little bit. It reminds me a little bit of like drummers like kenny erinoff billy cobham and gary husband Who would set up multiple tom kits where the toms were In different positions not not all you know like 10 12 13 14 15 16 they would do like 14 10 13 12 or whatever you know any combination so that Their hands would go and maybe play things that were comfortable and conventional for their hands Because the toms are all out of order Everything sounds unique and different and new so he had a little bit of that going on Now related to this I want to talk about the sizes of those smaller toms because a few people would ask about this um, so the concert toms If you look at catalogs, um from the early 70s mid 70s, you look at Ludwig slingerland gretch They all kind of had a standardized size for the concert toms just like they did for rack toms like generally With any of these companies a 12 is going to be an 8 by 12 8 inch depth 12 inch head 9 by 13 9 inch that was kind of standardized tom sizes that I think really kind of came into standardization around maybe the 1940s um So same thing with the concert toms you have a 5 and a half by 6 a 5 and a half by 8 6 and a half by 10 8 by 12 those are the depths of neils concert toms and that's for the slingerland drums and the tomah drums and also The very first um what he first ordered the ludwig kit The white kit he I think I mentioned this he initially had ordered concert toms with it and then replaced them with double headed toms but he ditched The the 12 basically From the the small tom array because now why have two if he's going for double headed toms all around why have two 12s Makes sense considering that he thought of those at the time as the concert toms is kind of a different voice of instruments So what's interesting about the the depths of those toms? So now he just has six eight and ten And ludwig's catalog sizes for double headed toms of those size They only made power toms So this is starting in the um I believe in the 1980 catalog the standard sizes are nine by six. That's a nine inch deep drum nine by six nine by eight nine by ten So all three of those would have been this the same nine inch depth However, neils drums were not those sizes neil for whatever reason requested Shallower sized double headed toms. They were still power sizes as we think of them, but they were not sure the nine inch deep toms now here is where things get confusing and and get a little bit sort of contradictory So as I mentioned those are definitely not nine inch deep toms at least certainly not the six and the eight Now we've gotten I I had actually reached out to a couple of people where you reached out to bernie stone on my behalf To ask him about some of the stuff now bernie stone worked at the percussion center of fort wane and during this time period and had hands-on experience with neils drums and The sizes that he gave Were that it was an eight by six and eight by eight and an eight by ten So all three drums being eight inches deep blue goose classic percussion has provided vintage drum restoration and sales online for over five years They're pleased to announce that they will be opening atlanta drum shop a full service drum destination in atlanta this summer 2023 featuring new and used gear by all your favorite brands atlanta drum shop will be a true drummer support center and cool Hang and if you love neil pier and rush come play not just take pictures of their neil pier r30 commemorative kit an exact replica of neils kit from the r30 tour by dw And check out their expansive collection of dw neil pier replica snare drums and other memorabilia As huge rush fans their goal is to share these drums with the world Atlanta drum shop is opening to the public this summer 2023 join their mailing list to get updates at atlanta drum shop dot com Or find them on social media at atlanta drum shop And if you love vintage drums check out blue goose dot com That's bl o o goose dot com and find them on ebay at blue goose classic percussion bl o o goose classic percussion thanks to blue goose slash atlanta drum shop for sponsoring this episode um, and one thing also to point out is that the 10 inch tom had regular law regular ludwig classic lugs But the eight and the six had ludwig's sort of mini lug a slightly smaller version of their lug which they used on smaller toms um Now I also had reached out. I I I was communicating with the gentleman named alessandro Biancini or biancini who is um an italian drummer who has a number of neil pier replica kits that are unbelievably accurate and amazing this guy has put so much work into detail and I mean it's it's phenomenal he has absolutely beautiful um replica kits he has a replica of the black chrome slingerland kit He has an amazing replica of the rosewood tomma kit and he has an amazing replica of this white ludwig kit and The sizes that his kit has And and he actually modified them his his toms the little toms are six by six seven by eight and eight by ten That's what he told me his toms Are sized at and when I looked at pictures of his kit It looked those little toms looked exactly the same as neils And I think I gave you a photo where I actually Found a photo of neils those three toms Just lined up on the floor when they were being painted next to alessandro's three toms Lined up just you know together and they look exactly the same to me So I suspect that he is closest if not exactly on the money with the sizes of those drums That's awesome. Yeah, there is more there is more so people have asked about this too um when neil started the holder fire tour He realized that he needed to have he still needed the little concert tom voice for um mostly for the tune Red sector a which they were playing on that tour because in red sector a he's playing the back kit with the electronics But at one point in that song There's a little a couple little licks on the concert toms Where he you know he as I mentioned in the last episode when he's playing the back kit He still has access to play the little toms that are now on his right so he He added one of the um one of those concert toms back initially just the six inch concert tom You can see in all the concert footage From the hoard your fryer tour. He's got the six eight ten Double-headed toms and also just to the left of the double-headed six is another concert tom That's there just for those couple of notes and that has a cs black dot head on it The other toms of that kit have clear remos or clear Evan's heads depending on he was experimenting with heads at that time I find it interesting to some degree that he he like if it's going to be played a couple times He will get that drum out. He won't Modify it just to just do it on a tom. It is like no it has to be that Yeah, at that point. I think he felt like I just can't get that sound I can't get the articulation from a double-headed tom. It's got to be the correct thing um now Interestingly for the next concert tour the presto tour I actually the presto album They do a tune called scars, which is another tune on the electronic kit and It's it's this amazing tune that has this amazing drum part very complicated drum part Where he's using mostly electronic sounds, but he incorporates some of the acoustic sounds too And what he actually did was he added back another concert tom So now instead of just a six inch concert tom. He has a six and an eight On the presto kit and I sent you a photo that's from the roll the bones tour book But it's a photo from the presto tour where you can see him playing the back kit and you can see the two concert toms Just to his his right on that tour on the presto tour and album. He's got six eight concert toms then six eight ten double-headed toms and then 10 12 13 15 16 and the 22 inch gong bass drum and two bass drum snare drum There's another interesting little detail and this is something that I did not know about Um, I left off a couple of things in the percussion instruments. I think I meant I mentioned wind chimes I think I might have forgot to mention the bell tree Um, this is all stuff he added around the uh hemisphere's era Well, fair water kings slash hemispheres hemispheres He adds a bell tree which he uses just a couple of points during the trees the tune the trees, but that ends up in the kit Um, he adds a couple of triangles Lots of wind chimes now. There's an interesting funny little instrument that he adds late 79 they do a very short tour before they go into record the permanent waves album And he somewhere along the line found this very small gong It's like, you know, maybe like a 10 inch gong like just a little like Chinese wind gong kind of the the sort of thing like I mean Jazz drummers will recognize like uh, bill stewart often plays like a little gong He adds like a little gong that he'll sometimes set up in the kit So this is something like this. So he put it up on on his Right hand percussion rack kind of just below where the temple blocks were mounted You see in some photos from from september 79 Um, he's he's got this little gong and I don't know where he used it because that was a short tour All I looked through photos from the hemispheres tour And the permanent waves tour this short tour In late 79 or in the fall of 79 is the only time he had the little gong And I don't know when he actually used it the only bootlegs from that tour are pretty low quality I can't discern like, you know where he might have used this little gong But he had this little this little voice in there now Yeah Starting with the moving with the permanent waves tour january of 1980 the little gong is gone But it's been replaced by this little instrument that that some neopier fans get very obsessive about called a bermabell Burma like the country Burma It is a little instrument that zilgin made that is basically a little metal It's probably made out of the zilgin bronze, but it's sort of a pagoda shaped Thing that hangs on a little string and when you hit it it spins like this And then we'll eventually so you hit it and it has this metallic sort of it's a little it's sound very similar to a Triangle but because it spins it has a sort of oscillating effect So that shows up at the beginning of the permanent waves tour and remains on the kit through the moving pictures tour So january of 81. Sorry january of 1980 All the way through december of 81 And that's the moving pictures the the permanent waves tour and moving pictures tour Um, and then it's gone for this by the signals tour. There's no more Burma bell Is that one that noticeable that you you hear it on certain tracks and it's an essential piece of Yes, he plays it at yeah, he plays it um in the beginning of Uh closer to the heart There's a part where alex starts the tune on On uh, acoustic guitar and neil plays his little melodies on crotales And after he plays that um right before getty sings he hits a little Ding and initially when they did that tune he he would play that ding on a triangle But it looks like on the video for exit stage left He actually hits the Burma bell. He also used the Burma bell a little bit at the beginning. You see him hit it On the exit stage left video During zanadu during the introduction to zanadu, which is a big like kind of lots of wind chimes and You know sort of percussion effects. So um, yeah, I think that's more or less it I mean, there are a couple other things I can mention, but I do not want to run out of time um So and that's those are good overview things and and there's so many incredible comments that people left about about different things and just Like I don't want to say one and then miss a bunch but people what one guy wrote in and it was great I I liked hearing this stuff He's like the wuhan china's that you get actually in china are much much much better And I and then the ones that get sent here aren't and this was this used to be the case I think things have been more regulated But little information like that about or he had to take it and get the hole drilled out in the middle to fit on a traditional symbol stand Oh, right now that actually that's something I want to bring up because a number of people asked about How did neil stack his 18 inch crash? on a stand above the 22 inch ride And then also his wuhan on a stand above the 20 inch swish and a few other like the back kit had a 16 inch crash Over a 22 inch ride So what neil would do that's just a standard straight symbol stand And what neil would do is he his here is rhodi would actually use a dremel And widened the the bell hole On whatever symbol was on the bottom and they would just put Basically, you know, you have your the base of the stand with the tripod And then and then the base and a wing nut and then another rod and a wing nut and then the top part Where the tilter is so yep Between the rod and the top rod He would just put the symbol there He would put a felt on top of the Part that you screw up the the sort of top of the middle rod And then in large in the hole and just basically use that as a symbol Stand for the the the ride in this example the 22 inch ride And then the the top post would come out of that and then you have another another symbol stand Another you know, you can mount two symbols on one stand is a very simple way of doing it Now it's not simple because it it involves modifying your symbol It involves enlarging the hole possibly considerably depending on how thick your symbol stand is But remember in the you know, this was neil using Originally pearl then slingerland and then tama Simple stands but we're talking about the 70s and 80s And I think maybe those stands were not quite as thick as we're thinking You know compared to some now so maybe he wasn't really having to modify it too much But it just involves putting a felt on top of that sort of middle post That the symbol would rest on and then the rest of the symbol stand comes out of the the bell hole And then you can put another symbol on top and that was the the Sort of simple way that he that he mounted two symbols on the same stand Yeah, I mean I was wondering the same thing looking at those pictures and it's like that's what it looks like I didn't know if it was some weird modified thing, but literally to just open it Put a symbol in the middle of a stand But and I have some behind me that the older stands really were a lot thinner They're obviously thinner Not as thin as a normal like the little whatever post that comes out at the top that you put your symbol on But it's not like today where it's you know a I don't know inch round hole or something. But yeah, I think you wouldn't want interesting You wouldn't want to do that with a dw 9000 You know symbol stand or something very thick like that because you'd be you'd be enlargening the bell hole if you're 22 inch zilco ride Considerably larger than it than it than it. Yes, you know originally would be so Let's let's move on to the uh to the dw era. Let's um, let's get into this change So nil's using Ludwig nil finishes up the um counterparts tour He does the burning for buddy album Actually on the burning for buddy album He uses a rental drum kit when he for the tunes that he plays is red sparkle Um, it was a there's a 12 13 16 and a 22 When he records his tunes, he only uses the 13 and 16 the 22 It's a red sparkle kit that he later gave to a childhood friend of his named kit Jarvis And that kit is actually if it hasn't already sold it's going to be sold soon It was actually kit decided to sell it and it's being sold through one of the big auction houses Um, interestingly nil that kit was red sparkle, but for whatever reason nil had it rewrapped to black diamond pearl So the color it currently is is black diamond pearl, but it is the same kit so nil starts studying with um a drummer named freddy gruber in new york city um in uh fall of 94 and it's actually I mentioned to you I think in the last episode that I that I was lucky enough to get to meet nil At one of the burning for buddy scholarship concerts And he was actually talking about um this concert was on a sunday And he was actually talking about how the next day the monday He was about to spend that whole week studying with freddy gruber He had heard about freddy and wanted to study with him and he was you know Sort of anticipating that you know He didn't know what to expect and didn't know what this was going to be like But he was excited to start his studies with freddy Um and freddy, you know, this is all very well documented people can find out a lot more than I need to say about this But freddy changed a lot or encouraged nil to change a lot of things about his playing and a big part of that was changing his setup And he I think also maybe the experiences of playing the buddy rich music He got comfortable or kind of like the idea of playing a four piece style kit Like buddy played with the with the rack tom a floor tom and the ride symbol kind of close On the right but close to the rack tom and maybe he was inspired by that as well, but he Changed the gear changed the drum brand, but also really drastically changed his setup. Um completely different like really I mean it's still reminiscent in a way But this is kind of the biggest change that we've seen Um to his setup. I mean to me this is you know, at least as big as adding the rear kit with the with the electronics and stuff But maybe even more significant because this is primary kit. This is his like meat and potatoes kit and he's changed everything about it so um One thing that is very interesting that just recently came out I mentioned the Ludwig kit that he gave to his childhood friend kit Jarvis um kit included a letter Of sort of like proving provenance of this kit that neil had sent him where he's talking about Basically neil wrote him this letter when he was just starting to work on the test for echo album Which is the first album where he uses the dw drums and he talks about the kit that he gave to to kit He had a kit that he gave to kit. This is great um kit Jarvis um and You know talking about how he had it refinished and but he talks about the dw's and he actually says and this is something I did not know and i'm not sure anybody knew this but apparently Neal did a similar thing Before he switched to dw where he actually did a thing where he compared a number of drum sets again Now he very well was very well documented in doing this comparison of kits when he switched to Ludwig in 86 is when he did that comparison, but this was One that he didn't really document. I don't I can't recall any interview or any writing where he talked about You know, he just switched to dw and he didn't really talk about I mean he talked about what he loved about them But apparently according to this letter to kit Jarvis. He um Tried dw's his old Ludwig set and a set of iot drums. Do you say aot or iot? I say aot you say iot the potato potato Let's go the whole thing off. I'm sure all right. So commenters Go at us feel free to to to shame shame me for for uh for pronouncing it wrong aot I think it's ray. It's ray aot is ray aot. Okay, so aot so so he Play he tested a set of um wood hooped aot drums And he said that it was actually very very close between the dw's and the aots And that he decided instead Um, he went with dw but he he did order a aot snare drum a wood hoop aot snare drum Just to have one because he loved it so much and he was really impressed with those drums But he went with dw ultimately Um, and I think again, you know, we talked about with the tama kit with the the candy apple red kit You know having the thinner shells And the four ply leadwood kits neil was he wanted resonance He was getting he was sort of obsessed with resonance the idea of like how long can a drum sustain How long can the tonality of a drum? I hit the drum and I hear a note and the note has length to it and and and has depth of tonality that lasts and I mean dw definitely do that man. I mean dw like those drums sustain they really sustain And that really was a big change in sound for him and he started tuning the drums a bit lower at this point so The the dw kit that he got Was a red the initial kit was a red sparkle kit now. It's not a wrap. It's a lacquer dw do amazing Sparkle lacquers. I mean all their finishes are amazing um, yeah, but they they do these fantastic sparkle lacquers and The sizes that he started out with And there's a photo that I that I included for you of the first promo shot That was taken and this was I believe I think this actually taken before they even went into record test for echo Right when he switched Stormy background and the yeah, yeah, it's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a he was a visual guy He liked he liked, you know, he had a sense of like let's let's make this photo look cool Let's make the stage set look cool. Let's you know, just there's a that's a theme, you know, everything Everything looks good, you know, he doesn't put out a presentation that's half baked or not, you know thought about So but if you look at that kit you can actually see that a lot of the hardware is kind of a hodgepodge of some dw But a lot of Ludwig actually most of the cymbal stand bases are Ludwig if you look at that kit um, I think he didn't really and and and the dw hardware is like not really what he settled on by the by the the Work in progress video which documents the recording of test for echo and definitely the test for echo tour He's got a full sort of like proper compliment at dw stands and things But at this point he still he doesn't really have those yet. I mean, he's using that base still with the Tri-potless That's right. There's no bottom. So he's seems like he's reusing it. Yeah Yeah, they maybe sent him some stands and he didn't want it, you know It didn't have a chance to modify them yet to take the the tripod off. So yeah, that might be exactly what happened That's a good point. So the size is the kit Initially, so it changes a little bit for the tour, but the recording kit is a 16 by 22 inch bass drum He's got three rack toms initially a 7 by 10 and 8 by 12 and a 9 by 13 um There is a 12 by 15 inch floor tom a 16 by 16 inch floor tom and up kind of in the old gong bass drum position Is a 16 by 18 floor tom that's on kind of two stands So it's mounted up like that and then on his left a 13 by 15 Floor tom now these are some different sizes for him. Um, he had been using, you know A Shallow 10 and you know 8 by 12 9 by 13 is certainly standard for him as are the floor tom sizes But instead of the second, you know, he he was using A 12 by 15 or you know 15 inch floor tom's now for the last couple of tours So he continues that but just shifting, you know two floor tom's it gets rid of the gong bass drums um And he changes the cymbals around quite a bit too He still has the same complement of two 16s An 18 and a 20 as his crashes a 10 inch splash an 8 inch splash, but he Moves the ride cymbal in closer to him into that sort of like buddy rich type Position of being you know almost right over the bass drum just to the right of the 13 inch tom um He initially is mounting the 8 inch splash off of the like on a stand off of the bell of the Ride cymbal, but then quickly moves that to a new piece of gear a completely new thing for him, which is A x hat a secondary hi hat to his right now. This was not a pedal operated remote hi hat This is just a uh, you know an x hat, right? That's that's what I I mean a remote hi hat Is something that you control with a pedal an x hat to me is just a table and yeah, yeah an x hat to me I understand is just being you know a Something that's permanently closed or permanently open or whatever but not controllable by a pedal So that is a pair of 14 inch a custom zilgin a custom hi hats That's what he has initially as his secondary hats and they're just to the right of the ride cymbal And then he changes the chinese cymbals around a little bit He gets rid of the 18 inch pang we never see that cymbal again And he gets a couple of new zilgin Chinese cymbals Zilgin make i'm not sure they still do but they they for a long time. They're sort of standard After the swish starting in the 80s They came out with a symbol that they called the china boy and they made the china boy high and the china boy low Which I think were just you know pitch designation designations. I'm not actually sure whether or not They were a different profile. They may have actually been it may been maybe the low was less of a bowed Sort of top and the high was sure more bowed actually I wouldn't be surprised if they were and I think those were zilgin's attempt at copying a wuhan style china And they were sharper sounding than a swish would have been but they still had more sustained than you generally find from a wuhan china So he actually gets an 18 and a 20 china boy low and initially just mounts the 20 kind of you know You see it's a little different in that initial promo photo that I set you with the Ludwig stands and stuff But what he settles on by the time he's doing the recording of test for echo is the the um the 20 inch china boy low kind of You know where the swish where yeah where the swish basically was but but you know where the Kind of you know, I guess where the wuhan ended up being to the right of the you know Just under the 18 inch crash a little further to the right of the ride symbol in the x hat And then he has the wuhan basically the wuhan kind of ends up back where the pang used to be And it's I always I never quite understood why he did this because he continues to do the ride to the china You know with the wuhan those sort of offbeat things that we talked about in the first episode but he has a much Further, you know, I mean, this is a tall guy with long limbs You know, he now has to go from the ride past the x hat past The 18 past the 20 inch china boy all the way back here to hit the the wuhan It's not a problem for him obviously because he still continues to play all of those parts as well as he always did But it just it's much further away than it used to be which is sort of interesting Can you explain now? Neil in my lifetime has been famously just like he's the sabian guy. He's all sabian. So obviously at this point though We're we're still still in china's Okay, so still zilgen at this point sabian comes in a few years later sabian comes in around 2004 Um, yeah, we'll get we'll get to that sabian. Yeah, the sabian thing is a big deal At this point, he's still with zilgen still using more or less the same models except for that You know the changes to the chinese symbol I mentioned in the add-on of the 14 inch a customs You know another thing I should mention he changed the heads he He completely changed his drum head situation He went with entirely Remo coated ambassadors on tops of all the toms and on top of the snare drums too And I need to mention the snare drums in a second Um, and the bass drums, uh, initially he was actually using the dw Stock heads, which are the sort of clear coated Um, you know the the the heads that are clear with a little coated ring around the edge Which is a dw innovation Um, he's using those on the bass drums initially He he eventually switched to power stroke threes on the bass drums for the vapor trails tour But mostly was just using coated ambassadors for the first two tours that he used those drums on Completely different utterly different on the snares too completely different from what he was using before You know using clear emperors and using the cs heads Um with the dot on the snare and bass drums So snare drums, he also I think Probably was incredibly impressed with their snare drums, which I mean he should be their impressive snare drums They at that time had their deal with uh, johnny craviato where johnny was making solid Maple and other wood solid shell snare drums for them And neil got really into the the five and a half by 14 Actually, no, I think about it. Maybe it was a five by 14 Hmm, I should know this right it's either a five or five and a half come on dw fans tell me which one it was But it was a solid maple. He used that one a lot. He also had A six by 14 edge a dw edge snare drum though That's a famous snare that they make that is a combination of of wood and brass a very very heavy brass Top and bottom where the bearing edges are with a a strip of maple and or whatever wood In the middle, I think you could probably get birch or whatever would they offer but at the time it was maple Now one thing that's interesting. There's confusion about whether Neal's kit was a keller shelled kit or made with dw's in-house shells because around 96 97 was when dw Switched over to making their own shells in house. Initially they use keller shells um But it was verified by a gentleman named john van ness And I actually found something That he wrote I was looking through my computer, you know looking through old files and things and back in these days I didn't like you know If you found something online I would like copy it and paste it into like a text, you know, like a like a text edit file or something You know, so I have all these like text edit notes of things that I found on the internet But this is something that john van ness who used to work for dw Um, he confirmed that they were made neals drums were made with in-house dw shells. They were not keller shells They were in-house interesting. So that's important very early Very early in-house. Yeah, but I think I suspect they were probably experimenting with that for a few years and probably knew What they were doing by the time they made neals drums, but I assumed that all of the drums were standard collector series drums It wasn't until later that they got into their sort of very elaborate technology of different sort of ply Directions and I'll get into that stuff with the next kit, but um Another snare drum to point out is on his left. He starts using a three and a half by 13 Piccolo snare drum that's mounted up on his left and he also moved if you remember Up until this point the cowbell sort of tree. He's got a symbol stand with a splash symbol and His set of five or six cowbells has always been on his right Just kind of like next to the ride symbol next to the the largest of his rack toms So he moves that Now it is over on his left above Sort of above the 15 inch secondary floor tom and just to the left of his highest rack tom near the mallet mallet cat Territory exactly right right near the mallet cat. So yeah big changes here. I I think that's everything DW eventually switching to all DW hardware. He's using a DW double pedal Initially a five thousand series double pedal single chain And then once the tour comes around So initially he records test for echo with just the three larger rack as three smaller rack toms 10 12 13 For the tour, I think maybe once they start rehearsing he realizes. Yeah I've been playing with all these toms all this time in order to play the older music I'm gonna need at least one more tom now DW kind of famously I think to this day still don't really make six inch toms Maybe they do now, but I know They didn't in that era. They the smallest tom they offered was an eight Um, so I don't know if they refused to make a six, but he just went with four Rack toms seven by eight Seven by ten eight by 12 nine by 13 So now he has four and it's interesting because he starts to alter You know, he can't quite play You know, he went from Previous to this, you know with the Ludwig kits. I mean each kit kind of has a few, you know, like one less tom But if you think about the tomic kits, you know, he's got four concert toms Four double-headed toms. That's four. Sorry eight total toms to do fills on And now he's down to well seven if you count the 18 inch floor toms So he has to modify a few of the things some of the stuff that he plays He kind of has to modify the fills just a little bit in order to make it work on the Slightly smaller setup, but he does. I mean, he don't notice anything He don't I mean, I know what he's doing differently, but all of the tunes still work at all It all sounds great with with even with without the six inch tom Um for the tour also He modifies just slightly the back kit just a little bit Where instead of one 18 inch bass drum for whatever reason he gets inspired and has now two 14 by 18 inch bass drums in the back kit and I love this kit and this is the only time that he did this Because after this he switched to all v drums for the back kit But on the test for echo tour and there are very few pictures of it. I only found a couple There's one picture in a tour book and then there's another picture and unfortunately the picture in the tour book He can't really see the front bass drum heads, but I included a concert photo that somebody took That it's kind of a grainy photo, but you can see the cool design of the front bass drum heads. Yeah This is awesome. I mean, it's it is very very different But like of course you look at the initial like Promo photo and it's very stripped down But you're right like you said before when he hits the road things fill back out where I guess in the promo photo It seems like here's the dw stuff, but on the road. It's like no, here's neal Yeah, this is the full setup to play all of the tunes that we're playing. Yeah, so so he also the snare drum Is a another 13 inch. I think another three and a half by 13 So it's sort of like a piccolo sized snare drum that he has in that back kit And he only uses the back kit on a couple of tunes on that tour But it is cool to see those those double bass drums there It is and it's neat how he like hey, he he puts that piccolo snare up like so high Like they're like mounted up where you you really don't see snares like that ever They're always flat and right next to you. So it's pretty neat how he does that. It's yeah, I don't know why I mean, I guess, I mean, he's got a floor tom. He's got a Electronic pad. He's got the mallet cat That's all kind of in the position where somebody would put a snare drum if they were having a secondary snare So it's kind of the best position, but he is able to play it and hit backbeats on it occasionally. There's some some tunes in Later album snakes and arrows and then clockwork angels where he does some some backbeat stuff on those on the little snare But mostly it's kind of an effect snare. It's mostly like he just does some little kind of Rudimental rolls kind of stuff. I mean part of the setup too I think you know with freddy gruber he had switched at least temporarily to playing traditional grip And recorded the entire test for echo record playing traditional grip and this setup in a way Maybe also is a little bit more conducive to playing traditional grip on Even though by the tour and certainly by the next album and tour he goes back to mostly playing matched He has changed his style to this somewhat more circular way of playing And I think this sort of the setup And and also having the ride here I think it just lends itself to this feeling of of having a little more openness and not being as Up and down as he had been before Um, so I think the setup was also reflection of that Now while we go and someone mentioned this and I don't want to have like youtube comments direct too much of what we say But someone did mention uh Well, like we should talk about how each drum set sounded and and I will I will note and I you know I'm saying this and I'm we we're always trying to be like positive and stuff It seemed like overwhelmingly that I love how people are saying what their favorite era was I like tama. I like Ludwig. It seemed like Uh overwhelmingly people liked Maybe it was because it was their childhood. Maybe it was because what they grew up with That they really like those earlier tama Ludwig eras But I mean dw makes great drums. What are your thoughts about this era of drum kit compared to the earlier ones? I know I mean they're amazing drums and everyone has a favorite because it's the right time when they grew up But what do you think, you know, you have to understand for me the first time I saw them the the new album I started getting into them in 86 and then 87 the new album that came out was hold your fire, which is the first album with the Ludwigs The first time I saw them was on the hold your fire tour was the Ludwig kit I'm always going to be very sentimental about those drums I remember too when I when I first moved away from home and I first moved to the new york city area to go to college Was in september in 93 And it's really freaky that it's coming up on 30 years that I've been here, but um, I remember uh in october 93 Counterparts came out and I remember driving around driving back and forth. I went to school in new jersey driving back and forth between um, new jersey in new york city listening to counterparts in my car and seeing them on that tour multiple times So that's very that's very sentimental to me. I'm very emotional about that period and about those records So, you know for me Yeah, I mean I kind of my favorite sounding drums are the Ludwigs if that's just my personal opinion But you know the the rosewood thomas have a vibe Again, I think I mentioned this like you listen to bootlegs from the moving pictures tour the drums sound phenomenal Those drums had a lot of cut and really sat in the mix in a really cool and interesting way and I mean the Ludwigs sound beautiful But you know the dw's had a great vibe too and the slingerland sound beautiful the slingerland sound on Yeah, the drums the drum sound on fairwell to king or uh, yeah Sorry on caressa steel actually is phenomenal the drum sound on hemispheres is fat and wonderfully recorded I mean, I don't really you know, I have my favorite is based purely on sentimentality But all of his drums sound good. I also I mean i'm getting into the vapor trails album You know for me when neil went through his personal tragedies I think like a lot of fans We just figured the band was over and we're never going to hear from them again And when they came back and made a phenomenal album in a very emotional album and then came back and toured I was at the first show uh in heartford connecticut on the uh, is june 28th I think uh 2002 on the the vapor trails tour and I was actually personally going through a very difficult personal time At that at that exact moment and and went to that show and it was an enormously emotional Experience to be at that show. I was in the sixth row right in the center and it was like wow, that's awesome It was very intense So I have a very sentimental connection to that kit to the red sparkle dw's that he used on the test fraco tour and the vapor trails tour and you know He was playing so incredibly well on on the vapor trails tour and had it was phenomenal to see him back in action Again and to see the band making music again and to see that sort of spirit come back Um, so I love that kit too And I love the sound of that kit because it reminds me of of that time in those moments So, I mean, I think that wins out over any sort of like, you know, I'm not going to say like oh Well, this kit had longer sustained than this kid or you know, the bass drum spurs are much better on the Ludwigs than on the Thomas or you know, that's yeah, you know, yeah, that's very well put and I do think that like Uh, there are sonic differences that people prefer but like you said, it's it's what was going what you were going through at that time I grew up downloading videos of him playing Really it was the Ludwigs, you know from that was before my time, but I would you know Rip videos off of Kazaa or whatever lime wire back in the day and then also seeing the Seeing the the Ludwigs was like that was my with neal wearing that like he started wearing the certain kind of hat and stuff It was like yeah, that's what I was growing up with so it's it catches you at the right time So I do enjoy the reading what people their favorite time period and it it's very personal I think a lot of people got into him in the dw era too And I think a lot of people were blown away by the the later kits, you know, like particularly the time machine kit I still see people on facebook groups about neal like saying that the time machine kit is like the ultimate Neal kit. Yeah, and I totally get that, you know, it's it's it's a It's definitely the most elaborate kit that he ever had We'll get to that But I want to one last thing about the test for echo kit with the double 18s So one other thing he changed he's still using the d-drum drum pads, which he'd replaced the The Simmons pads on the presto tour Back in 1990, but he also changes the chinese symbol on the back kid. He used to have a wuhan On the back kid. He changes it to actually one of those zilgen china boy lows. I think it's an 18 But you can actually see there's a picture that I sent you it's sort of a From the front overhead shot of him playing the test for echo Tour kit and you can see that chinese symbol. You can see it's a zilgen, but it has a square shaped bell That um, you know, it's round, but but it's it's a it's a wuhan style bell So that indicates that it was a zilgen china boy Low well low or high, but but I believe his were we're china boy lows And then the vapor trails kit is basically the same Oh, he uses the um On the test for echo tour he uses the edge snare through the entire tour if i'm not mistaken It's the edge snare On the work in progress video He you can see behind him He has a whole selection of snares and it's actually interesting I won't go through what he has there, but it's interesting to see You know to kind of pause the video at like certain sections where you can kind of see what the snare drums are There's a there's a pearl snare drum back there. He's got a Ludwig supra phonic You can see that a yacht snare iot You can see that back there you can see um A lot of dw snares there's some other dw snares on there that You know and and he actually plays one of the tunes on If he plays the tune Resist with the pearl wooden pearl snare and he plays the tune um The title track test for echo with the Ludwig supra phonic Um, and he talks about that much later when he's talking about his dw snares that he used to always have You know, he'd always have his slinger lin snare in the studio He'd always have his uh, he'd always bring a metal Ludwig He specifies that that he'd always have a metal Ludwig snare in the studio with him now I don't know if he actually recorded anything on a supra phonic But interesting that he had one and he always brought it with him Yeah, um, but he eventually really settles on dw snares being his sound now on the vapor trails tour It's the same kit But the back kit this is where lauren wheaton starts working for him as his drum tech and lauren modernized a number of things um test for echo. He's still using the akai s 900 samplers Um and storing everything on a floppy disc says 96 97 It's not that you know, people were still doing that then but he changes neils electronics set up entirely and gets them using some proper I think he starts using rollin samplers. It probably has some sort of built-in hard disc thing, but I remember reading about lauren um, maybe an interview or maybe spoke about this like having to go through he found this box of floppy discs Um of samples and he had to go through and transfer all of them into like sort of a proper hard drive Um, wow just to have everything backed up for neil But he switched neil over entirely to a v drum kit including v drum symbols or v symbols So the entire back kit changes to a full sort of v drum complement For the uh for the vapor trails tour including as I said including the symbols and the only thing I believe other than that that changes In the drum kit is um the bass drum. He starts using a clear power stroke 3 instead of the dw coated clear and um he changed he changes the um Oh well, he gets rid of the sydney pad that he's been using since the power windows tour and he replaces it with a daas pad Um, which is a much more advanced, you know, but a also very small sort of trigger pad that he can fit anywhere um, this is a big this he kind of settles on His snare drum thing where he realizes that so they do for the vapor trails tour They do about half of the tour indoors and half of the tour outdoors They play a lot of amphitheaters and they start out that tour and then kind of end up playing in arenas by the end of the tour But then go back outdoors when they go to brazil for the first time So he kind of settles on using the dw the craviado solid maple snare Outdoors and then preferring the six by fourteen edge snare indoors So that kind of becomes his becomes this thing for um for that tour anyway So, um, yeah, I'm looking at your photo here. It looks like am I not mistaken that on the 2002 vapor trails snares Document. Oh, yeah, there's a yamaha snare. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I almost forgot about that So that's from a modern drummer interview When vapor trails comes out he talks about the different snare drums used in the studio and it's a very very interesting selection of snares he said that um Uh, yamaha gave him a couple of snares to try out and he ended up loving them and using them on almost the the entire record The main one being the yamaha seven by fourteen elvin jones model snare drum Um, which is very cool that neil would use an elvin jones anything Um, so the elvin jones snare was a snare that had wooden hoops top and bottom But neil mentioned in this article that um, he very quickly cracked the hoops Um, so they replaced them with regular uh metal hoops So about I think he says like seven tunes on the record or something like that or the elvin jones snare And then he also got a uh five and a half by fourteen yamaha bamboo shell snare Which is a a drum that they produced very briefly But neil got one of them and he used that on a couple of tunes and then the rest of the album is a A couple of different dw snares Um, I think a craviado on one or two tunes Which we we talked about it last time But it's just neat again the to talk about how he played that solid Snare brand brand snare and now he's using the craviado with dw it just kind of works together Yeah, yeah, exactly. I you know, it's I'm glad you mentioned that because this is a little correction from last time Somebody pointed this out in the comments The solid the the piccolo snare that he used on The presto album for most of that album I mentioned was cokobolo wood and I said that it was an african hardwood But it's actually somebody pointed out. It's actually a south american hardwood. So Thank you for that correction Expert expert of hardwoods Whoever you are So let's see where it vapor trails. So, um, the big switch for the next kit is well It's a different kit, but the really the big switch is his switch to sabian. This is where he switches to sabian and He talked about um using some sabians at a rehearsal He had heard sabians He'd heard friends of drummer friends of his play sabians and really liked the way they sounded and they had um a rehearsal they did one concert in 2003 for um The uh during the sar's epidemic or the sar's pandemic in canada that kind of shut down toronto for a period of time Um, there was a big concert to kind of raise funds for uh businesses that were hurt by that I guess And it was called it's a terrible name, but it was called sar's stock Um Or at least that's what it's not funny, but it's like no, I know it's really I don't think that's what they called it at the time. I think it was maybe called the concert for serrano or something like that I don't know, but but anyway, that is better than sar's stock Well, I think that's yeah, that's kind of what it became to be known The during the rehearsals for for that concert They only played like about eight tunes sort of a short concert that they appeared at but um He used sabian for the first couple of days of rehearsal and was just apparently blown away by how great they sounded and What he put the his regular zilchins back up After that rehearsal and then did I guess sort of the final rehearsals and then the gig He was really um, apparently not that impressed with how they sounded at this point Um, maybe he's just ready for a change. I don't know but sabian also apparently were willing to give him his entire Signature line which became known as the paragon line. That's neil's signature line of sabians, which they still make um, and it was basically The sizes that he's been using but a bit of a refinement so 16 18 and 20 inch crashes um, a 22 inch ride eight and 10 inch splashes 13 and 14 inch hi hats a 20 a 20 inch shiny symbol with kind of a square bell actually maybe the 20 inch shine as a round bell. I don't know it's sort of a swish style china and then For the first time he found a company that you know, I I don't know why if if he wasn't happy with zilchins attempt at recreating his Wuhan He stopped using his wuhan. He started using the the 19 inch Paragon chinese symbol, which is in fairness a really great sort of you know Modern replica of the wuhan style symbol And these symbols are a bit different than what he you know that the um, the High hats I know have some sort of hand hammering in the bells and they're they're they're kind of a again a refinement of what he had Before and they have a very nice. They do have a logo on them Unlike a zilchins, which always had no logo, which I know you asked me about Um, the the paragons have this very subtle logo the sort of like etched looking logo on them But they're striking looking symbols and they they they sound very very great I never loved the ride. He went with a heavier ride Vibe than what his famous old, you know zilco 22 was I talked about that before about how the zilco was a low pitched and You know a strong and bold ride, but still had some spread to it But the paragon ride is a lot heavier Um for whatever reason that's what he wanted to go with but it's a little to my ears It's a little more pingy And dry than what I was used to hearing before But that's the big switch that happens actually before he gets the 40th and the 30th anniversary kit There's something to it about like, oh, I love my symbols Like I remember as a kid having like a zbt crash and I was like this thing's great And then you try another symbol and then you go back to your original symbol and it's like, oh You can't unhear that new symbol. So that's an interesting I we all know that feeling You know, and it's nothing against zilgin. It's sometimes It's just time for a change sometimes. You know, I try something else and you just want to try A different sound you want to you know, or you want to you know, maybe you want to work with different people or whatever Um, I I'm sure that part of it too was that sabian We're willing to actually give him a signature line which zilgin don't do that zilgin Have artists design symbols, but they don't put the artist's name on them steve gad and True You know a number of artists have You know with zilgin these sort of symbols that they design, but they don't actually put the artist's name on them That's just sort of always been their policy and sabian have happily put Artist's name on symbols. I think jack D. Jeanette was the first one that had a signature line of symbols with them back in 89 Dave weckel has a whole line, you know neil's line. So that's that's That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and um, and one thing too before we move forward I just want to say that I I like the look of I like v drums. Well, it's also interesting roll in dw now together. That's pretty, you know What looking ahead there, but also I liked that they were the red v drums with the red drum set It just all kind of went together really well and looked the v drums have a depth to them to look like a It looks like a drum as opposed to a Pad so that's that's a nice aesthetic look. It's funny. You mentioned that because each subsolkant kit He kind of gets more elaborate sort of shells added To the v drums to make them look more like, you know, homogenous with the rest of the kit Um, sure and you'll see that the the the next kit the um the the r30 kit. So so 20 2004 was the 30th anniversary of russia's first album coming out in 1974 So they do a big tour the r30 tour They record an album of covers that they call feedback And then do the r third r30 tour in 2004 so he gets a new kit for this And this is when we start to get into some pretty elaborate kits with pretty elaborate finishes So the base finish of this kit, um All of the sizes are the same is what we had before Um, he's still using a 22 inch bass drum. The next tour kit has the 23 inch bass drum, but we'll get to that So, oh, I should mention another thing about all these dw kits is that the previous kits had brass plated hardware But dw's thing is they actually do 24 karat gold plated hardware So all of neils hardware. Yeah, all of neils hardware on these kits so far is actually 24 karat gold Now he does some other things Some other colors with later kits, but these first two kits are 24 karat gold Oh, and they later start calling this kit the ss professor The professor being neils nickname Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, so so the ss professor Um, the base finish is is something that dw called black mirror Which is sort of a black but with I think it's got a little bit of sparkle to it But they devised this kit with these sort of panel Graphics and neil talks about being inspired by Keith moon's kit the pictures of lily kit, which is a famous totally kit that that Keith moon had around 67 68 So you can see the connection, you know with these sort of graphics in each panel between the lugs And neil uses graphics from various album art, you know concepts, uh like the the nut and bolt from counterparts the Rabbit and the hat from presto and so on and it's also kind of cool because the first time he goes back to a man in the star Graphic for the front base drum head, which is the classic You know that he used from uh, let's see 77 until 83 That's kind of a classic neil logo So this kit and I've got to refer to my notes is the first kit where dw start experimenting on neil's drums with these different sort of shell and edge options And I hope I get this right because I actually found a little bit of conflicting information on some of these kits as far as what the shell makeup was But I think the essence of it is that the smaller toms the 8 10 and 12 were standard shelves, but they had Um what dw call an e s e which is enhanced sound edge um, so the bearing edge basically on those drums is very very sharp and that kind of helps to Uh enhance, you know neil tune those drums very high um and this is actually interesting because In the test for echo era back in 96 when he gets those dw drums, he's tuned them a bit lower He doesn't tune them as high as he had been tuning But gradually as that tour goes on they start creeping up a little bit and pitch especially the 12 Um, and then by vapor trails They're a little higher And I notice if you listen to bootlegs of the vapor trails tour as that tour goes on those drums get higher and higher pitched He keeps going back Especially the 12 tuning it higher and higher until he really gets back through that thing that he had in the Late 70s and through the 80s where the 12 is really high which I was talking about before So sure with the s s professor the 8 10 and 12 have the the very sharp edges Apparently the 13 and 15 Are normal and at this point is when dw start experimenting with what they call v l t um, which is um vertical low timbre And what this means is it's set up the shell being you know plies of of of maple or whatever would In sort of you know with a grain going this way would sort of with the Shape of the shell They start experimenting with vertical Plies where the um where the grain of the wood is going up and down Along the edge of the shell or along the shape of the shell instead of sort of left to right And they find that this is this kind of gives the the shell an inherently lower pitch So the larger toms the 13 by 15 the 16 by 16 16 by 18 and the bass drum of s s professor have Vlt shells interesting man. They're they're thinking very much about what what goes where and not all It's all the same. It's got to be all the same. It's it's all and and I think this is exactly the kind of thing that Neil loved about dw is that they were taking this stuff into their own hands They were saying, okay, we're checking out how you tune The kind of sound that you want to go for and the way you hit the drums and we're going to tailor these drums even more to your specific needs you want these Higher drums to be higher pitched and cutting. Okay, we can do things specifically to those drums that we won't do to the other drums that will enhance that Sound and and help you get that sound same thing with the lower drums. You want more low End power and low pitch from these well, we can do something just to get that and it gets even more elaborate with the later drums Yeah, this finish is for me growing up I was 14. I mean, this is modern drummer. You open it. You're looking at it. It's just mind-blowing and and I think it's Uh, the later ones are as well, but this one I think I see a lot of r30 ss professor Replicas this one seems to be very like well guitar center released a run of they did actually they made it Yeah, well, they were basically made exactly to spec. They made 30 of them again celebrating rush's 30th anniversary. They made 30 You know identical ss professor kits identical except they didn't have the the v-drum kit in the back But just sort of the front part of the and and there are 30 individuals out there that are lucky enough to have purchased these kits and um, they came with these sort of special commemorative drumsticks And that I have a special logo and um, yeah, it's really kind of an amazing thing that they they actually offered This kit um for sale and another thing that they did after that tour was they actually sent the ss professor Out on tour by itself With learn wheaten He actually did sort of like a clinic tour except there was no No clinic it was just they they took the kit around to different drum shops Just to show it off because and these things were like very very well attended drummers came out Just to see the kit and to listen to lauren lauren was with it set it up and packed it up every day But he also spoke about the kit and talked about what was special about it and talked about working with neil and answered questions And it's very cool. I actually didn't get a a chance to uh to see that but um, but apparently it was really pretty really cool Um, so I think I covered everything. Yeah v drums that the v drums had a little more shell They built some wooden shells to kind of put the v drums in and you can see that it gets more elaborate with the next kit But you can see he's starting to want the kit to look a little more like, you know I don't think he's trying to make them look like acoustic drums But just so that they visually match the rest of the kit a little better Same turret lug. It's interesting to see a v drum with a turret lug Which is the dw iconic. Uh, that's a whole history there, but but that's pretty cool That's I think we're gonna start seeing more of that as dw and roland have merged Yeah, I don't want to get ahead of myself But I know that that role that roland and dw are working on the electronic drums It would be like why I forget the name of it But it would be like it's like wire completely wireless electronic drums where there's nothing plugged in and it makes me think Who would be the perfect guy if he were still with us to be Testing and being the like, you know the the voice of all this it would be neal if he were here I'm sure he would love what they're Doing with absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, and and and I think he also just he loved to let them Do their sort of mad scientist work and come up with any sort of idea and then he would take it out on the road He try it out or he also lived Not that far from their factory He lived in in by this point. He had moved to southern california and was living I believe in Santa Monica area, which is if you get on the Santa Monica is not far from the ocean and you can get on the pacific coast highway and drive up I don't know maybe 40 minutes or so depending on traffic to oxnard california Which is just sort of I think past malibu and stuff Where the where dw's headquarters are so I think he enjoyed also being able To just you know, pop on his motorcycle or in a any number of really awesome cars that he also owned And drive up there take a drive up the coast. I mean, it's a beautiful drive. I've done it before I don't know if you have but it's it's amazing out there and and And visit the factory and see what they're working on and try out some new stuff I think that was also an attraction for him Um at a later point with dw that he can have kind of a close relationship being physically close to the factory The next kit to talk about Is not actually a tour kit but a kit that he referred to as his west coast kit So he became friends with a musician named matt scannel I think i'm saying that right matt is the frontman for the band vertical horizon And neil and him became friends. They'd hit it off and Um matt had invited neil to play on a couple of tracks that he was working on He wanted neil to play drums and this was all happening in los angeles and neil didn't have a kit out there His ss professor was in storage in the band's um warehouse They just because they have a warehouse where they have all their gear stored In toronto. It wasn't in a budget to uh Ship it over or maybe it was possible, but he spoke to dw about like, well, why don't I have a kit here? Maybe I should have a west coast kit So they built him a kit with the idea that it would just be a recording kit and that kit had A um a wood finish. Um, it's a tobacco sunburst over curly maple finish. It's a very beautiful Um finish and it was I believe all vlt shells Maybe the higher drums. I I actually struggled to find specific information about the shells I remember at one point thinking that I'd heard that they were made out of birch because dw had started making birch shell drums available in their collector series Um, but then I couldn't find anything about that kit being birch. So I could be completely wrong there Um, I did find something saying that they were vlt shells, but I'm not sure if the smaller toms were one thing That's different about it. It's all the same sizes except the um The the eight and the 10 for whatever reason just have a single lug with two tension rods attached They don't have the double lug. I don't know. I don't know why I don't know if maybe they are slightly shallower sizes but one thing that's important about this kit is that um This is the kit where he kind of discovers the six by 14 vlt snare drum And this is the drum that really becomes his snare drum voice for the rest of his career. This is starting around 2005 2006 um, and He basically every snare drum that he plays from this point on is a six by 14 vlt So maple shell with the vertical low timber that the um, uh, vertical low timbre, sorry, um, the vertical Grain shell and he just finds that this is the sound that he wants This is exactly the sound that he wants and there's some interviews with him where he's talking about this snare drum And he says, you know up till this point. I was bringing different snares into the studio And still trying things. I would still have my slinger lin laying around I'd still have a lead wig laying around but once I got this vlt six by 14 I never used another snare on a recording again And I think that's high praise. Yeah. Yeah, it is it is and um, it is a great sounding drum He has a fantastic snare drum sound on The first rush album that he uses this snare and in fact that the next rush album is snakes and arrows And he loved this west coast kit so much that he actually had it shipped to uh, upstate new york They recorded snakes and arrows in all-air studios In um, upstate new york and the cat skills and he actually had the west coast kit That was supposed to be west coast kit was shipped up to the east coast to uh to record this album So there's lots of good video footage of them in the studio. There's actually a documentary made about the Making of snakes and arrows. It's a really great watch. It's on youtube And he's playing that that west coast kit and um the west coast kit Yeah, like I said, I I didn't really find any specifics about the shells But he doesn't ever use that kit live. He has a tour kit for the snakes and arrows album A slight change with the symbols not for the recording of the album But for the tour is that uh, sabian came out with brilliant finish versions of the uh of the paragon line and He uses the brilliant finish. In fact, he's never really seen using non-brilliant finish paragons again He used normal finished paragons on the uh r40 tour. Sorry r30 tour. I always get those too confused Yeah But a big change with the symbol is it's not a change but he adds a symbol He comes up with an idea of what they eventually call the diamond back Chinese symbol So he basically designs another chinese symbol That is a thin kind of like a zilch and swish type profile with a regular sort of small bell But he has a combination of rivets and tambourine jingles installed in this symbol, which is very interesting. Yeah Yeah, it's a really unique sound and it has a sort of cool hissing Sound, which is I think why they called it the diamond back because it sounds like a snake hissing You hear it all over the snakes and arrows album and that stays with them through the rest of his career He continues to use a diamond back. So that goes over the 20 inch chinese symbol He stacks it right on top of that and then further to the right is the 19 inch wuhan style paragon chinese symbol Another big difference with the snakes and arrows tour kit is that this is where he starts using a 23 inch bass drum Which again sort of becomes his size He uses a 23 with all of his kits going forward after this It's a it's a size that dw kind of came out with I I assume they still offer it But you know the idea being well If you're not quite happy if a 22 is a little too small, but a 24 is a little too big This is right in the middle literally and go to anything just he falls in love with the size and he talks about it in a drum magazine interview where he said that um He always felt that he liked the sound of a 24 But the best but he liked the feel of a 22 and 22 felt sort of you know tighter More um more finesse quicker, you know easier to kind of manage sure But the sound of a 24 sort of reproduced better And I think he found the 23 was exactly what he wanted It was it was the the lower sort of you know lower end that you get from a bigger drum But still with the sort of facility the the the that you can get with a uh with a 22 Now the the snakes and arrows kit has a whole new finish again based on the graphics for the snakes and arrows album It's this beautiful. Um, I think they call it Aztec red. It's beautiful rich red finish with um black Hardware, it's black um the lugs and and all of the stands the rims are all um black finish Which is a very very cool look and then there's these sort of snake graphics Um really great looking kit and this has um also a similar thing with um ESE You know that the sharper edges on the smaller toms vlt shells now apparently according to the notes that I found in um this drum head magazine article Uh, which is this is you know that kit this says that all of the the shells were vlt shells They were all vertical low timbre shells um on all of the drums including the smaller drums But the smaller drums had those sharper edges now. They did mention that the 23 inch bass drum Has a uh a rounded edge similar to I think what you would find on an old Ludwig Bass drum well any old Ludwig drum from the 50s or 60s They have the very rounded bearing edges and they apparently were doing that on neils 23 inch bass drum maybe to enhance the low end So that's an interesting change and uh as far as I know everything else. Yeah, everything else is the same Well the finishes in general you touched on it, but just DW has such an incredible like paint department and the finishes are Oh, yeah, it's that's the big thing with DW era in my opinion is obviously the drums sound great. They're very The technology is incredible, but the fact that it's going from logos and designs on the bass drum head to all over the drum set is like Pretty cool. I mean it's incredible the the artwork. Yeah, it is. Yeah, they have a ridiculously talented You know paint and sort of design team there and and they came up with some really amazing stuff for neils drums But a lot of their artists have fantastic looking kits. I jim keltoner has some absolutely stunning Looking DW kits even back to the mid 90s When he was playing with little village. He had this really cool kit with these different sort of you know Block graphics on it and um Tommy Lee's always had great kits, you know, I mean you name it You know, they're they do these amazing wood veneers and things like that But they do, you know sparkle lacquers. They do these sort of Yeah designs based on I mean you name it There was stuff based on kind of like skateboard culture and there's a lot of stuff based on hot rod culture as well Like sort of like frames and matte finishes and things like that. They're popular in the hot rodding world They were inspired by that. I mean, it's really really cool and really amazing team there and and I think again This is something that neil just loved Working with the with these people So one thing I forgot to mention about the the previous kit He switched from coated ambassadors on the toms and started using by for the the ss professor He's using the dw clear coated heads on all of the toms And that's also something that he sticks with for the rest of his career is that the you know clear with the coated ring at the edge um on on the toms Do we know are those made by dw or rimo and sold as dw or they're made by rimo specifically for dw That's my understanding of them. Yeah, very nice remote rimos factory is um located also in california in southern california So I think maybe you know, there is easy communication there easy distributor situation there distribution um The next kit really actually isn't a rush kit, but um It's a kit used for a one-off thing where neil actually wrote the song that's used for the hockey theme the hockey theme music for You know hockey games and neil wrote that music and he to record it And do this sort of documentary about the writing of it. He had dw make this kit that's known as like the hockey kit and it's basically You know again his basic setup but with this hockey theme setup where he's got all of the logos in the the panels of You know in between the lugs again He's got all the different logos of different hockey teams He used in the kit which is really kind of neat. Yeah, so it's a white base with blue Hardware, which is a really cool. Look this sort of metallic blue Um, I like the way that kit looks and he also has for whatever reason dw flat based symbol stands for the most part It's sort of like a stripped down version of his kit It's like if he was going to make his kit a little bit more basic This would be the kit if you were going to like start a rush trippy band that was just going to play in clubs This might be your go-to kit. It's super cool And I I speak with with absolute respect like my next door neighbor Who's a good friend paul is canadian and i've met a lot of canadian people and they traditionally Really like hockey. So it's cool that that neil is into this. It's not like a stereotype that's like, oh, we all don't like hockey It's like in my experience. It's there's a lot of hockey fans. So it's cool to see neil Going for it, you know Yeah, and and I grew up in pittsburgh, which is a pretty good hockey town, you know, but but I never really got into it So yeah, he this was something I think he was pretty honored to to be involved with it because it Seems like he was a pretty big fan. So The the next touring kit though And this is really one of his most significant kits of all time This is probably like the epitome Maybe to a lot of people the epitome of his at least his dw era I think for a lot of people this is his most famous kit, but this is the time machine kit which initially was built for The time machine tour which was a tour that lasted from 2010 to 2011 And then he also used it on the clockwork angels album and clockwork angels tour, which is 2012 2013 And this kit is again, it's the same size as 23 inch bass drum 8 10 12 13 15 15 16 18 and then the v drums But visually this kit is just taken everything is taken up to an entirely new level and So the music that they're writing So it's interesting because the time machine Concept was that they were going back in time. They they they performed the entire moving pictures album on this tour And the idea being that they were going back in time to play this entire record But they also kind of went for this whole sort of like hg well slash jules verne sort of steampunk look Where they you know sort of an you know an 1800s vision of what a time machine would be and this sort of like I mean the stuff is really well documented again I think that fans who want to learn more about this can find out more than I know about it There's interviews with neorea's talking about it But this became this whole theme of clockwork angels which was their last studio album and this sort of big concept album that takes place in the steampunk world And you know if you want to find out what steampunk is if anybody doesn't know it's it's you know There's a lot you can find written about it. But basically the idea is sort of like a vision of the future from the past It's about how people in the 1800s visioned the future like a hundred years or a hundred You know more from there. So they they it's basically sort of a plea pre electricity vision of the future so Gears and obviously yes, right and there's exactly yeah So so all of that plays into neal's kit and also all of the stage stuff that they set up for getty and alex and all of the Kind of like set this is this is one of their most sort of Maybe the maybe the tour that they did that feels the most like a set of a movie or something like that um because everything on stage was In this sort of steampunk theme and and it wasn't just like guitar amps and bass amps and things on stage Everything was made to elaborately look like you know steampunk type technology And the kit was a reflection of this so As far as the shells it's similar to what Was in the snakes and arrows kit, but what I what I have is that the um The smaller toms up through the first 15 were vlt shells But then starting with the 13 by 15 and then the 16 and 18 they used a technology called vlx So as I mentioned vlt is where the vertical low timber timber The shell grain is vertical up and down along the shell vlx is where it's actually staggered diagonally And if i'm not mistaken I think that maybe yamaha have made drums like this too and maybe sonar as well no sonar Use vertical plies. I think uh somebody should somebody who knows more about these drum specifics should should Tell me about this but but yes, so vlx the larger toms in this kit are vlx shells The bass drum is like the snakes and arrows bass drum is a 16 by 23 with a vlt shell with a rounded edge um The v drums again are the same the symbols are the well the symbols are the same setup but he gets sabian to make a special version of the Paragon simple setup with um these very elaborate graphics um, so again neil and um the graphic designers worked with rush forever gentleman named hugh syme Who designed all of their album covers from their from their third album from koresa steel on he did all of their album covers He did all of their graphic design work and tour books and all of the stuff. He's an amazing artist and they worked on heavily on getting this sort of steampunk look going for for this era for for the time machine tour and then the the clockwork angels Album and they had all of these sort of alchemist type designs made up um, and they they use these designs On the symbols and they had sabian figure out a way to print these sort of graphic designs on the symbols and they really look striking um, and he said it was it was difficult for them to figure out a way to To print these graphics on the symbols without altering the sound of the symbols and I think they did a good job with that But I do notice that the ride in the hi-hat sound a little different to me when I I remember like hearing them on the on that tour um And feeling that the the the ride in the hi-hats had a kind of a different sound than they had previously um, sure So that's something now is they they took that technology and i'm pretty sure now they release it as a there's like art series And I I will You know put in the description or insert a picture if I can but i'm At drum shows. I've seen what would be almost 10 years later. That's right 10 or 12 years later. That's a thing That is common now is they have like art on their symbols. I didn't know that that's interesting well, maybe that started with this with the the the You know time machine slash clock or angel era symbol logo symbol design that they that they went for um You know the kit has all this elaborate the riser has these sort of elaborate sort of You know all of this sort of faux wood Design and it's a very very elaborate kit and that and and there's all this again You can you can see interviews with neil and and with don lambardi talking about how they designed this they they found these um Don lambardi found these uh these lamps at a hardware store that had this sort of gear looking bit And they ended up finding out who the supplier of the gear Little gear doodad was and they ended up using that as part of the turret lug Painting it with this copper finish so that the hardware I think is uh copper plated or copper colored On this kit because again that's sort of more representative of that sort of steampunk look Um, but otherwise. Yeah the shut I mean he's using the same type of heads the clear coated heads I think it's around this period actually, you know what it was actually before it's on the snakes and arrows tour Again neil kind of Changes heads a lot. He's experimenting with drum heads still at this point a fair amount I think he always used the clear coated heads, but um on the snakes and arrows tour I remember he started using a coated ambassador x Which is a slightly heavier version of the coated ambassador 14 millimeter version as opposed to I think the regular ambassador is maybe 10 millimeter Um, yeah ambassador x slightly heavier, you know more durable drum head I know later on he's experimenting a bit more with heads At a certain point. I don't know whether it's this tour or the r40 tour. He starts using Remo come out with a cs version of the power stroke 3 So it's a power stroke 3 head which has that in you know muffling ring Around the edge, but the cs version also has a black dot. I know he's using that on the r40 kits um, but um, he may have started using that on the Time machine kits as well. I'm actually not sure sorry But he's also back to a real kick on his back kit as opposed to that's a v that's actually a v-drum kit Yeah, he but the shell got bigger Well that started with the snakes and arrows kit when he extended the shells on the toms on the v-drum toms He also they they house the v-drum bass drum in what looks like a small like a 14 by 14 You know, it kind of looks like a like a baby kick drum. It's actually a great looking. It looks really cool Um, and it does look more like a drum But yeah, that's actually not an acoustic drum at all. That's just a v-drum an acoustic type shell so Yeah, and and um, and he uses that for quite a long time He uses that, you know, the time machine tour is a long tour basically stretched over two years 2010 2011 and then the snakes that the clockwork angels album which is their last album and The tour for that which extended from 2012 to 2013 So there's a lot of gigs a lot of dates that he plays on that tour And I think on that kit and I think you really love that kit and that kit really did sound very very special Um, and that's well documented. Uh, there's a time machine live video There's also a clockwork angels live video and you can see that kit there So we get to the r40 tour which is in 2015. This is their final tour And this is where neil actually plays two kits on the tour. It's To you know the long concert two halves and it goes back in time It starts with their most recent clockwork angels album and they go back in time And play music chronologically backwards going back to their first album For the first half he plays basically his current setup the freddy gruber type setup Um, and now this is an amazing kit with an amazing backstory. So Um, dw have always experimented with different types of wood and they experiment with different veneers and things like that and they're collecting Woods from all over the world and they find out about this log that's discovered in romania. So This this is incredible. So a a a a oak tree In romania in the year 500. This is 1500 years ago in the year 500 ad Falls into a lake and it gets sort of buried under like silt in the lake and At some point, you know 10 years ago or whatever Somebody pulled it out of the lake. I don't know why but they discovered it and they pulled it out of the lake And dw bought this giant tree trunk of oak and decided we're going to make a drum set out of this And neil Is the guy like I guess they made a couple prototypes and neil checked him out and was like I want this This is what I want from my care. So they make both of the r40 kits out of this romanian 50, you know 1500 year old romanian bog oak. So oak is a very hard wood And I've played I owned a yamaha oak custom kit for a while, which I loved and they have a oak has a unique sound It's a it's it's a hard wood and it has a sharper sound to it Than maple or birch, but it also has it's interesting It's sort of like sharp and warm at the same time. It has a sort of throaty warmth to it You know neil's drums sound like neil's drums But he definitely fell in love with this sound and felt that it was a very special and unique sound so Because he's using so they they kind of designed the first kit the sort of modern kit which he uses for the first half of the show the concert Around what the tunes are that he needs to play and he discovered that he wasn't playing any of the rear kit tunes So, you know on this tour. So they eliminate that part of the kit So it's really just sort of the front of the kit now. This is done It looks a little bit similar to the ss professor kit because it's black with the same sort of panel design and he wanted to go back to that It's a different black finish. It's actually I want to see what the name of it actually was it's actually called Died black pear and it doesn't have a sparkle. It seems like the ss professor had a shimmer Exactly. Yeah, that had a slight sparkle to it. This is a a flatter finish, but it's I think it was actually A very very very very dark blue Rather than just actual black. I think there was a slight blue tint to it That maybe only under certain lighting you would see but it's sort of like that thing where like certain types of blue Look more black than black if that makes sense People that are in the clothes that wear like formal clothes a lot of tuxedos tuxedo You think of as being black, but a lot of people that are really into tuxes and if you watch the james bond movies James bond's always like, you know a clothes horse He actually noticed that like shan connery wears What they call midnight blue? tuxedos, which is It looks like it's black But when you look at it very closely, you'll see that it's actually an extremely dark blue and it actually looks richer Then just normal black would look like It's sort of a strange thing here. I yeah, so so it's I think that this kit was a little bit like that But again, john good at dw somebody tell me what this what this finish was and what you know, whether it was like There was any blue in there because I'd like to know that Um What I could not find was any information about the shells on this kit other than the fact that they're romanian oak Um from 1500 years ago I don't know whether they were vlt or vlx or what the edges were I I couldn't find that information online. All I could find was information about the wood So again, if somebody can point us to that info, please put it in the comments or you know, however He'd like to contact us but uh, that's um That so so you could see some photos there's actually a photo I included an overhead shot from the rehearsals for the r40 tour Where you can see that neil has a few more drums and things on this kit. You can see that he's got um The mallet cat setup and he's got his cowbell set up to his left Um those things he found once they decided on the tunes they were doing He didn't need the cowbells and he didn't need the mallet cat So he actually just ditched them and you can see an overhead shot and a couple shots I included of of the r40 r40 kit number one on the tour and you can see that those things are actually Actually eliminated. They're not in use Um same six by 14 vlt snare Uh 23 inch bass drum. So we've gone back to the regular paragon Brilliant finished paragons. Oh, this is a change He added a few extra sizes to the paragon line Um, so the paragon's crash is initially worth 16 18 and 20 He adds a 17 and a 19 To those sizes um for whatever reason they decided to expand those sizes so um On that kit on both of the r40 kits actually he experimented a bit with Between 16s and 17s for the smaller crashes 18s and 19s for the bigger crashes and um, I think I think he probably switched a bit around on the tour, but according to the to the equipment manifest in in modern drummer on The bigger kit the 18 is replaced with a 19 and um, I think also the the left 16 was replaced with a 17 I think those I think those are the official changes But I wouldn't be surprised if he kind of experimented a bit while on that tour And then the secondary kit that's the kit number two that was used for the second half of the uh of the of the concert Is basically a dw recreation of his old slingerland black chrome kit So we go back to six eight ten and twelve concert toms 12 13 15 18 double headed toms two bass drums Um, although now instead of 14 by 24 He's using 16 by 23s because he does prefer that It's a signature. Yep. Yeah, and he goes back to some timbales. He has 13 and 14 inch brass timbales That I believe are gone bops, which dw own gone bops at this point um, and for the gong bass drum dw make him Basically this sort of like mini gong bass drum It's like I think it's only five inches deep if i'm not mistaken and 20 20 inch head That's what he uses on you know, sort of the far right past the 18 inch floor tom And he goes back to the old setup with the ride All the way, you know, just to the right of the floor tom with the with the crash over it on the same stand that the cowbells over You know The exact same setup that he used in the 70s Um, and he talked about how difficult it was to go back to playing that setup After having been playing the sort of freddy gruber Jazz inspired setup for so long, you know, this is by this point, you know, to I mean, he started experimenting with that um in 95 I mean, uh, test record comes out in 96, but I think they started recording it in 95 or at least Writing those tunes and that's when he started using that setup So it's basically 20 years Between 95 and 2015 that he's used the freddy gruber type setup So you can imagine how awkward it would be to go back Um, although you don't hear that when you when you watch the videos I mean, I saw them multiple times on that tour and I mean He didn't seem to be having any trouble at all adapting to this old setup and doing both things You know simultaneously in the same night Well, and it's interesting to look at the the finish Like now after doing this with you for, you know, two hours or whatever I'm used to seeing these wild finishes with all these panels and different things It's like you go back to seeing just the black chrome kit Or their their rendition of it and it looks more but it looks so basic, but it's like right I know yeah, that looks like I know it kind of looks like somebody else's drum set It is it is sort of a Sort of inspired by the black chrome finish, but he does have black Hardware on that kit. So that gives it kind of more of a um A cool look to it. So um, they call that kit He the the name they give to that kit Is L. Darko, which is kind of cool because you have chromi You know the chrome sling kit being called chromi and then black chromi for the black chrome kit And then this is L. Darko, which is kind, you know, because it's a dark finish kit with black hardware So they give it that that name, which is kind of cool And the tom heads the double headed tom heads are the the dw clear coated heads The um bass drum heads now are the cs power stroke 3 on the concert tom's He actually uses clear Remo heads. I don't know if they're ambassadors or emperors, but they are clear He doesn't go back to using the black dot heads, which I thought was interesting He's using um, just a regular clear Remo head on those on those tom's and he Goes back to using a set of chimes an actual set of tubular chimes um behind him for uh for zanidu Which is super cool to see him with that back back in the mix again I'm remembering too when I'm when I'm thinking about these pictures that um Actually dating way back to the r30 kit is when he switched to starting to use dw 9 000 series bass drum pedals I mentioned I noticed that with the yeah with the test for echo and vapor trails kit He's using 5 000 single chain double pedals But he actually switches um to the 9 000. This is around the time it came out 2004 He switches to the to the 9 000, but just for the bass drum pedals. He actually continues to use a 5000 for his um Hi hat stand for whatever reason that's what he preferred. Yeah um, yeah, yeah, but but yeah r40 is um That's basically his last kit. I mean he retires after this tour And you know, I think actually kind of sadly we've gotten to the end of the series because that's the final kit Yeah, I didn't think it would ever end. I was like there might be a part four, but no really though it's it's it's a journey man and it's Incredible and I like I said at the very beginning and I've said throughout I just think it's neat to put all this information in in one slash Three separate video places, you know what? I mean one place where people can watch through and And see all of it and getting all the amazing photos from like Andrew Olsen's website and all the information you sent me it's just like Uh incredible and the the overhead shots and the breakdowns and the modern drummer stuff and uh, I will say that I I am a rush fan, but compared to you and the guy and the guys and girls Let's be honest probably guys who are who we're listening it's It's like I feel like you can love kneel And be a diehard fan or you can just love kneel and and enjoy rush But kneel is his own entity if does that make sense like Yeah, for sure. I mean he he is an icon drummer drummer He's a true icon and and you know, he is a household name. Um, I mean, I certainly I think the closest thing to You know what buddy rich and and you know, you have buddy gene krupa buddy rich ringo star neil pier Most famous drummers of all time. I you know, I mean maybe to certain generation travis barker Dave grohl is very famous, but not so much as a drummer Um, john bonnar is a yeah bottom. I mean, but but kneel is it's sort of an entity And and I think because of you know his lyric writing and his prose writing Also just such an interesting personality and and has such an interesting story that People are really drawn to him and and really fascinated by him. And I think you know, he was uncomfortable with a lot of that because he was a very private person and You know, but but I think people just you know, it just seemed to be an organic thing that that people just are We're drawn to the guy And still are you know people still talk about him a lot and are really influenced by him and there are people that You know, I mean we're gonna get to a point where there are people who weren't even alive at any point at the same time as him That will still be influenced by him heavily And you know, you certainly have that with um with buddy rich I mean, you know, I have I have a friend who was born a year after buddy rich Um, but he can play exactly like buddy rich and is a huge huge fan of buddy and massively influenced by him And still one of his very favorite drummers and he was not even alive at the same time And I think neil will prove to be like that too. I think this is his influence and his legacy and and um iconic You know contributions are just gonna gonna live on indefinitely They're really amazing body very well and he's very well documented too, you know I mean we're talking specifically about the kits, but you know, if you go on youtube It's not easy It's not hard to to to go to somewhere like youtube and find a lot of video footage of him um playing drums and all these different eras and playing all these different kits that we're talking about and playing All of the brilliant music that they wrote and played and also footage of him talking and he was such a intelligent and thoughtful individual and could talk with with such elegance about What he was interested in and what he was doing and what he was thinking and there's great interview footage of him talking about music talking about writing talking about drums and Design and things like that that he was interested in so thank god. He was so well Well documented and well represented absolutely Paul before I let you go one last question because people are going to ask it and it's been asked and it's going to be Keep being asked for the people who made it this far. Oh, can you address the fly-by-night? Yeah, yeah, that's in the video versus what's on the you know, it's on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So so it's confusing because neil on the fly-by-night tour An album um and the tour before it was playing chromi the chrome slingerland kit, which is 13 for 13 13 14 16 222's in a chrome finish slingerland kit and we talked all about that kid in the first episode When when rush were in atlanta that so they Alex likes and I believe talked about this in an interview. They talked about They they they filmed two videos. These were like before mtv But bands were making promo videos for their songs. They made two they made a video for fly-by-night and anthem those two tunes And apparently according I think to Alex Lifes and they filmed them in georgia And I looked up the dates. I I'm not sure I have them handy, but they were um, it was at some point early in 75 They were on the fly-by-night tour Um, or maybe the fly-by-night album had just come out. Um Yeah, I can't find the dates in my notes. I'm sorry Sure, but they were in they were in atlanta for a few days So I assume it was when they were on tour when they were down there that they filmed this these videos um Now they were I think it's significant that they were in atlanta for a number of days because I think they likely had to keep their gear set up at the venue And then film these things during the day because I am 99.9 percent sure that the drums neil is using in the fly-by-night and anthem videos And also the guitars that getty and alex are playing are all rentals And I think they were rentals where they tried to get something as close as they could to what they were normally using They did find neil a chrome finished slingerland kit, but this is a different kit than he was You know using at the time. It's a single headed kit. Um, I actually know what the sizes are It's two rack toms and two floor toms and two bass drums It looked like big bass drums. Maybe a pair of 24s and maybe bigger like 13 and 14 toms I'm not really sure but they're they're concert toms in that same chrome finish, but I am absolutely almost 100 positive that these are not his drums because He was pretty well documented on that tour There's not a lot of photos from the caressa steel tour but there are a lot of photos from the first album tour and the um And the and the fly-by-night tour and there is no photo There's no documentation anywhere of him using this single headed slingerland kit anywhere except this video and it was pretty common for bands to Film a video and use whatever rental gear they could get their hands on and to back that up Um alex is playing a cherry wood finished Gibson 335 or 345. I'm not sure exactly what model but a semi-hollow He didn't own a guitar like that until much later. He was playing a um a sunburst 335 and a Gibson less paul in that era Getty was playing a black rickenbacher Every picture you see he owned a black rickenbacher and he also owned a fender precision bass in those days In the fly-by-night an anthem videos. He's playing a white rickenbacher. It's it's not their stuff I think all three of them were renting gear on that on that day when they filmed those videos None of them are using their own stuff. So I'm I'm pretty sure I think it would be a remarkable coincidence If they all went out and bought entirely new gear used them just to film that video and then never played them again I don't think that never used it again. You know, I mean, I I you know, I've had to do this I I filmed some videos in denver a year and a half ago where we were we were on tour and we were You know, we were in between gigs We went to denver and filmed some stuff and I used the kit that was in the studio I didn't use my own kit. I didn't you know, I wasn't able to you know, we just flew in did that and flew out the same night You know, we we that's a very very common. It makes sense. Yeah, so I'm I'm 99.9 percent sure that single-headed chrome slimming kit was not his but a rental Yeah, it makes the most sense and I think that that is uh That was a common question, but I think that that is the safest assumption so Before we wrap up, I want to thank john golden for joining the upper tier on patreon if anyone What else wants to join you get a bunch of bonus episodes you get your name in an episode you get at the end It helps support the show and pay for the platform we use and pro tools and all this stuff So, uh, thank you to john. Um, I will say that everyone watching this if you're this far in Go ahead and subscribe on youtube because you would be amazed at how many people that's a thing on youtube where I'm guilty of it, but you watch a video over and over again You watch five hours of neil content and then you just don't subscribe it does help the channel So go ahead and subscribe. Um, like I said, I'm very guilty of it But hit subscribe and enjoy it Hit the like button to you on Hit the like button while you're at it. Yeah, like just uh, give us a like so, um, paul Man, I mean this has been a journey. I'm gonna miss you, buddy. This has been uh The since we've started I've become a year older My birthday was in there. Uh, you've gone to London and performed. It's a season has changed. It's now warm outside It's it's been awesome, man. I know well, I I think it's it's it's appropriate for a uh, A prog rock band that it is notorious for um for very long songs And very elaborate trump sets that it would take us this long to get through everything And again, this is yeah, I mean this episode was me trying to rush through the dw no pun intended the dw Yes, you know and all of these episodes. I'm like just trying to get everything in and it still just takes forever So yeah, thank you everybody for your patience and and actually listening to all this stuff and Apologies for things that I may have forgotten and things that I may have left out I tried to get the bermabelle in there. Sorry. I I forgot about it until now, but you know, there Yeah, no, that's okay. Um, and I will say real quick before we're like totally done Thank you to bernie stone for sending over a bunch of info He almost sent so much great info that like I said before bernie is going to be on the show Again, he did his stone custom drums radio frequency slingerland Drum shell machine episode, which was incredible bernie's going to come back on and has First-hand experience with the all of the stuff painting shells for neal all kinds of things. So Bernie will be back on and we'll get more info from him not only about neal But like about a bunch of famous drummer. He's drummers who he has worked with so Paul One last time. Thank you for being here, my friend. I've thoroughly enjoyed our time together And thank you for sharing your knowledge with me and everyone So glad to thank you so much bark. Thanks for the opportunity. It's been really really fun