At NAMM 2015 this week, DW announced that the Neil Peart R40 14 x 6.5 snare drum will be available for purchase. All Pro Percussion has a listing for the snare with an estimated delivery date of April 2015. It's listed for $1,499.55, which is the same price as the Neil Peart ICON Time Machine Snare. Note that this drum features the same level of exotic inlay artwork as well, meaning that the designs on the drum are produced by different wood types and colors (as opposed to graphics).
Here's the description:
In celebration of Rush's 40th Anniversary Tour, Drum Workshop, Inc. (DW Drums) is releasing the Neil Peart R40 snare drum. Just like Neil's R40 touring kit, this DW Icon series snare features exotic inlay artwork from previous Rush albums and gold plated hardware. Each snare includes DW's Mag Throw-Off with 3 position butt plate and a DW Deluxe Snare Drum Bag.
See Neil Peart's Time Machine drum kit at Just Drums in Toronto, 11/15, 12 p.m.
For those of you in the Toronto area on Saturday, November 15, Neil Peart's drum tech Lorne "Gump" Wheaton will be at Just Drums with Neil Peart's Time Machine kit.
WHEN: Saturday, November 15 from 12:00-4:00PM. WHERE: Just Drums, 137 Willowdale Ave, Toronto, ON
On November 15 in Toronto, Roland Canada and Just Drums are proud to host the WORLD' S MOST RECOGNIZED HYBRID DRUM KIT EVENT!
Don't miss this once in a lifetime chance for an Interactive Experience with the world's most recognized hybrid drum kit and drum tech for one of THE most accomplished drummers in the world! Neil Peart's Time Machine Hybrid kit is a work of art and has been on stage all over the world with RUSH on their Clockwork Angels and Time Machine tours. Drum technician Lorne (Gump) Wheaton was there the whole way . and now they will be at Just Drums for one day only. There won't be another chance ...like this to get up close to the kit, and get the inside scoop from the guy who makes it all work, Neil's right hand man Lorne Wheaton.
Get your picture taken with Neil's kit, chat with Lorne, and learn how this Hybrid Kit all works. Join Roland Canada V-Drums Specialist Darren Schoepp at 1pm and 3pm for an Interactive Presentation that includes the history of Neil Peart and V-Drums, a detailed look at the technology of the Time Machine Kit, and a Q&A session with Darren and Lorne. Come see an exclusive custom TD-30KV Steam Punk themed V-Drums kit honoring Neil, and check out many other custom V-Drums finishes.
Additional Experience: hands-on Hybrid kit demo stations, V-Drums test drive zone, one day V-Drums Contest, V-Drums Specialists demonstrations, and in-store specials are all happening from noon - 4pm.
Enter to win a signed copy of Neil Peart's new book FAR AND NEAR: On Days Like These, plus many door prizes!
This will most likely be the last time you can see this kit for a while, as it's being officially retired after the event:
Guess it's time Bubba & I started to think about a new kit. :0) The "Time Machine" is officially retired after next weekend.
Having seen Lorne present the S.S. Professor kit many years ago in Los Angeles, I can say that seeing something like this is extremely rare and well worth any effort. (I flew from Seattle to Los Angeles just to see it.)
Also, please let me know if you have photos or videos to share after this event.
Neil Peart DW Limited Edition Icon snare: More details
We're starting to get more details about the three DW Limited Edition "Icon" snares that were announced last week at the NAMM show. Here's what we know:
There are three snares being produced, including a Neil Peart Time Machine design, as well as one for Nick Mason of Pink Floyd and one for Roger Taylor of Queen.
DW is making 250 of each snare.
The Time Machine Icon snare drum is a 6.5x14-inch 10-ply Collector's Series Maple VLT (Vertical Low Timbre).
A portion of the proceeds will go to the charities of each drummer's choice. Neil Peart's charity is The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation in Toronto, Canada.
As far as price goes, one drum store in England has listed the Time Machine drum for 1399 pounds -- or around (US) $2,308. Yes, this is a lot of money for a snare drum -- but these are limited editions being produced at a level of craftsmanship far above typical snares.
DW has also released a handy inlay legend (PDF) detailing the different woods used in each drum. Just to be clear (because I didn't understand this at first), the designs and colors aren't created by stencils and paint, but by inlaying different woods into the drum itself.
The Time Machine symbols are made of natural maple.
The gears surrounding the Time Machine symbols are made of dyed orange maple.
The cogs around the lugs are made of natural walnut.
The vertical borders are made of white poplar and dyed black poplar
A promotional video is now available from DW about these drums:
Neil says in the video, "This is made to replicate the exact snare drum that I use -- not only in concert, but on every one of our records since I started using it -- five or six years, I would suppose. It's a personal instrument in that it is the drum that I play, but it is an evocation of the design that we came up with for the live kit -- the Time Machine kit. This is a further development, if you like, of that technique of what it takes to do this kind of inlay, and what it takes to create such a beautiful piece of art and craft."
Here's a close-up of the inlays in the snares (from left to right, Roger Taylor, Neil Peart, and Nick Mason):
DW introduces Neil Peart Collector's Icon Series snare
At the NAMM 2014 show held this week, DW introduced three new Collector's Icon Series snares to honor Neil Peart (Time Machine), Roger Taylor (Queen's crest), and Nick Mason (Dark Side of the Moon). You can download the PDF brochure here.
You might be wondering how this version is different from previous Neil Peart Time Machine Collector's snares. According to the brochure, the Time Machine motif is "...is painstakingly laser-cut, then hand-inlayed from a variety of jaw-dropping exotic wood veneers."
This means the designs on the drum aren't painted -- they're laser cut from different exotic wood veneers and hand inlayed. The design and construction is illustrated in the DW video (at the 9:20 mark).
Here's a close-up of the snare:
Here's what the "gear" looks like before it's inlayed:
Created by DW Drum Designer, John Good, to pay tribute to some of the most iconic drummers in the history of Rock, the all-new line of Icon snare drums honors Neil Peart of Rush, Roger Taylor of Queen, and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. The snare drums sizes and shell configurations are as played by each artist, with one dramatic new design element. The finish is painstakingly laser-cut, then hand-inlayed from a variety of jaw-dropping exotic wood veneers. For Neil Peart's drum, the Time Machine motif is realistically created in the wood, while Queen's ornate, Freddie Mercury-designed crest is depicted, as is Pink Floyd's famous Dark Side of the Moon prism and waveform image.
Each drum is protected with clear gloss lacquer and includes Collector's Series snare drum standard features such as our MAG throw-off system with 3P (3 position) butt-plate, True-Hoops, True Tone snare wires, True-Pitch tuning, and DW heads by Remo USA. Also included are a premium DW snare bag, certificate of authenticity, and a legend that describes the woods used for each specific drum. For more information on this iconic collection, visit: www.dwdrums.com.
There's no list price yet, but you can imagine with this level of craftsmanship, these snares are not going to be cheap.
Here's a picture that Gump posted on his Twitter account recently, which includes the red Dauz pad:
From the Dauz website:
Limited Edition 6" Pad This is the EXACT Dauz Pad we custom designed for Neil Peart's new kit. As you probably know, Rush is gearing up for a huge worldwide tour. Neil asked us to upgrade his current Dauz pad to one that matches his latest red and copper kit. Neil named her "Ruby".
For a very limited time, we are offering our customers who buy direct from Dauz the opportunity to own their own "Ruby".
This unique, one-of-a-kind pad will only be available for a very limited time. We only manufactured a limited amount. So when they are gone... they're gone!
Neil Peart wrote an article for DW Edge magazine Issue 10, entitled "Gearing Up for The Road." Neil writes about how he prepared for the "Clockwork Angels 2012 Tour." There's also an interview with Neil's drum tech Lorne Wheaton.
If you haven't seen this part of my website before, it features drum kits that are either replicas or kits inspired by Neil Peart's drums. Drummers have been sending in pictures of their kits since 2006, so there are quite a few to look at.
Neil Peart planning to play on next Vertical Horizon album
Neil Peart is planning on playing on the next Vertical Horizon album, although it's still in the works. The news came out in a NAMM interview with DW drum maker John Good on YouTube. Good also talked about making a new drum kit for the recording session.
Vertical Horizon confirmed that it's talking to Neil about this session on the Pledge Music website (you need to pledge or sign in to get the entire update):
... but we're working to make it happen. I won't comment publicly online about it yet, but since it's out there I wanted you to see this. Neil and I are working on the scheduling, and DW has kindl...
I'm not sure if this means that Neil is going to perform as a guest on a few Vertical Horizon songs, as he did on Burning the Days, or more. More updates as I get them.
This survey was all about Neil Peart fills. I decided to open it up so people could add additional fills to the list. This made it more interesting, but also made it more difficult to count votes -- because I couldn't always tell which fill someone was referring to. Because of this, I had to drop some of the options people had added.
The Results
1. Tom Sawyer solo fills - 30%
You could say these are probably the most important fills Neil has ever played. "Tom Sawyer" was the song that launched Rush into popular culture and expanded Rush's audience considerably. (This was the song that captured my attention.) As I wrote about these series of fills on my "Top 10 Fills" page:
Who can forget this drum-solo-within a song? The first fill is trickier than it seems (if you watch the Archives studio video, Neil actually skips a tom on the way down). The second is the famous "quadruplet" with a triplet feel.
Here's Neil talking about the difficulties of playing "Tom Sawyer." There's also a clip of him playing it around the time it was recorded (at Le Studio):
2. Natural Science solo fill - 18%
This was the big surprise -- as I didn't have this on my original list (but it should have been). This is the kind of fill that happens so fast, you're left wondering what just happened. I had to slow it down to really understand what was happening. Neil would go on to use this same approach for solo fills in songs like "YYZ" and "Leave That Thing Alone."
Watch Neil play "Natural Science" on the Snakes & Arrows tour:
If you're looking for more about what Neil's playing here, I recommend watching Ray Harber's lesson on "Neil Peart's four note grouping." The part about the "Natural Science" fill comes in around the 7-minute mark.
Conceptually, this song was an attempt to bridge the gap between the primal appeal of the rhythmic reggae "bounce" and the electronic energy of high-technology music. As a drummer, this gave me the opportunity to begin as a simple "groove" player, and then grow through various developments into the "overplaying show-off type" toward the end! I drew on many influences throughout this progression: notably the works of Creme and Godley, Ultravox, The Police, the great things that Michael Giles did with early King Crimson, a healthy dose of good old hard rock, and a little Caribbean influence.
Here's a version of "Vital Signs" with isolated drums. You can really hear how much they tweaked the drum and cymbal sounds.
Full results:
Fill
Votes
Percent
Tom Sawyer (solo fills)
31
30%
Natural Science (solo fill)
19
21%
Vital Signs (fill at the end)
11
12%
Leave That Thing Alone (solo fill)
8
9%
La Villa Strangiato (solo fill)
5
5%
The Camera Eye (into last verse)
5
5%
The Spirit of Radio (leading to the second part of the song)
4
4%
YYZ solo fills
4
4%
Red Barchetta (after guitar solo)
3
3%
Armor and Sword (before the chorus reprise at the end)
I created a survey on Facebook recently, asking people to vote on 10 Neil Peart drum kits. (Note that this survey did not include all Neil Peart drum kits, as I could only include 10 due to a Facebook survey limitation.)
Canadian residents: Win a "Hockey Theme" snare drum
There's a new contest for Canadian residents only called Snag the Snare, where you can win one of three limited editing snare drums ore some other secondary prizes. These snares are replicas of the drum Neil used to record his version of "The Hockey Theme." The contest ends on December 16.
Here's more information about the contest:
Contest starts on Monday, December, 5 2011 at 12:01 p.m. Eastern Time ("ET") and closes on Friday, December 16, 2011 at 11:59:59 p.m. ET (the "Contest Period"). There are (i) three (3) grand prizes (the "Grand Prizes"), one of which will be awarded in each of the following three provinces from among all the eligible entries received in each of these respective provinces during the Contest Period: Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec; and (ii) thirty (30) secondary prizes (the "Secondary Prizes"), each consisting of a CD, DVD or Blu Ray copy of "Rush -- Time Machine, Live in Cleveland" of which four (4) CDs, four (4) DVDs and two (2) Blu Ray copies will be awarded in each of the following three provinces from among all the eligible entries received in each of these respective provinces during the Contest Period: Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec, (the Grand Prizes and Secondary Prizes are collectively the "Prizes" and each a "Prize"). Limit of one Prize per household. No purchase necessary.
The contest is sponsored by TSN, Rush, and Drum Workshop.
Interview with Neil Peart's drum tech Lorne Wheaton
There's a nice interview with Lorne Wheaton in the Canadian Music scene, including many great pictures of the Time Machine kit during the set-up process.
At the London O2 Rush show, Rhythm Magazine got a tour of the "Time Machine" kit from drum tech, Lorne Wheaton. You can watch the video here:
Here's the info from Rhythm Magazine:
On May 25, 2011, Rhythm ventured to London to interview The Professor, Rush's Neil Peart, for a forthcoming issue of the magazine. In addition to the interview we also headed to the stage of the O2 Arena for an exclusive tour of Neil's phenomenal Time Machine kit with his long-time tech Lorne Wheaton. Join us on stage for a AAA look at one of the greatest drum set-ups on the planet! Our thanks to Lorne for the tour and to Chris from Sabian for helping us set this up.
