Mark Gausel's "S.S. Imitation" kit

My name is Mark Gausel and this drum set is my version of Neil Peart’s S.S. Professor. It is what I jokingly call the S.S. Imitation. Neil’s influence goes back to 1976 for me. This is the first replica kit I’ve finished, though most of my kits had the ”Neil” touch to them, with Roto toms filling in just fine for concert toms. The S.S. Professor is my third favorite of Neil’s kits. My favorite is The Candy Apple Superstar Tama’s, next the wood grain Artstar prototypes. I have always adored Neil’s sets and given the opportunity, I built one.

The shells are built by the Keller Company and are Maple. I used Yamaha Hardware from the Stage series. I had custom shells built for my V-Drums and had all the drums finished by Mitch Smith in Dayton, Ohio, with black prizamitique automotive finish. Mitch usually paints hot-rods. I used DW, Tama stands, and Pedals. Kat Marimba (3 octave) Fat Kat trigger pedals. All the drum sizes are identical to Neil’s. The cymbals of course are Sabian Paragon. I chose not to remove the stands legs (though it would save hours of set-up time) out of respect to Neil. Everyone knows that’s his thing. I left out the “bling-bling” gold plating (didn’t care for it), and I had better custom electronic cymbals made. 

Thanks Andy for posting my pics and thanks to Neil for inspiring me all of the time.