Neil Peart A Farewell to Kings drums

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Updated: 03/17/2018

At a Glance:

Drums: Slingerland in "Blakrome" Finish with "Vibra-Fibing"; last Slingerland drum kit
Used from 1977-1979
New percussion: Tubular bells (chimes), bell tree, and two timbales. The glockenspiel was moved from the back of the kit to Neil's left.
Cymbals: Avedis Zildjian
Sticks: Pro-Mark 747 wood tip
5.5 x 14 "Old Faithful" Slingerland Artist Model snare with original Copper Wrap finish: 3-ply shell with 8 lugs
Bass drums changed from 22" to 24" x 14"
Drum tech: Larry Allen

This Slingerland kit was the second drum kit Neil played with Rush. It was used to record and tour:

A Farewell to Kings
Hemispheres

From A Farewell to Kings tour book, by Neil Peart

My drums are all by Slingerland, with the shells all treated with a process called Vibra-Fibing, which puts a thin layer of fiberglass on the inner shell. This helps to improve the natural warmth and resonance of the drums, while it sharpens the attack to give greater projection. The kit consists of two 24" bass drums, 6", 8", 10" and 12" concert toms, 12", 13", 15", and 18", tom-toms, and a 5" x 14" wooden snare drum. The cymbals are all by Avedis Zildjian, a 6" and 8" splash, two 16", one 18", and one 20" crash cymbals, a 22" ride, an 18" pang, and a pair of 13" hi-hats.

My collection of percussion 'toys' currently includes tubular bells, glockenspiel, wind chimes, temple blocks, timbales, bell tree, triangles, and a set of melodic cowbells.

I use Remo Black Dot drum heads on my snare and bass drums, Ludwig Silver Dots on the concert toms and timbales, and Evans Looking Glass (top), and Blue Hydraulic (bottom) on the tom-tom. I use Promark 747 drumsticks, with the varnish sanded off of the gripping area.

Drum notes

Adding Percussion: "The percussion stuff came more or less naturally, with the style of music we were making in that A Farewell To Kings and Hemispheres period — extended arrangements combining atmospheric and acoustic passages. All those tuned percussion instruments make such pretty sounds and look so good too!"
Changing to 24-inch bass drums: "As for the bass drum size, I had noticed when I listened to other drummers from out front that 24" bass drums seemed to 'reproduce' the best, so I switched to that size for a while. Tom sizes were refined as I developed stronger tastes on how I wanted them to sound, separately and together."
On "Vibra-fibing" (the process of putting a fiberglass coating on the inside of the drum shells): "I’m not sure it was any big improvement, but it didn’t seem to hurt!"

The above quotes are from Drum! Magazine: "Mean Mean Stride: The drums of Neil Peart"

After Rush:

Peart gave away this kit as part of his 1987 Modern Drummer Drum Giveaway.

Photos

Fan replicas

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