Well, after being on lockdown during this Covid-19 pandemic, I decided to finish up some long overdue projects. The one that has been gnawing at me the longest is putting together my "Phil Collins" Gretsch Kit. In "
Building the Phil Collins Gretsch - Part One", I described how I assembled the shells, the badges, wraps and lugs to build a replica of the iconic black drum set made famous by the legendary drummer of Genesis.
I had a few recording projects that required an acoustic kit without all those unwanted overtones one gets from a double-headed tom. The single-headed concert toms, first made famous by the late, great Hal Blaine seemed the perfect choice.
The drums were outfitted with Evans Blue Hydraulic 360 heads; They looked great, sounded warm and wet enough for recording and deadened the toms enough without much tweaking. I installed Remo Muffl' Rings on the larger concert toms; 18", 16" 15" and 12", leaving the 10" and 8" alone for that high pitch sound. In the later years with Genesis, Collins used a 4" x 14" Noble & Cooley snare for that crisp, gated attack. That was great, however he also used a deep 8" x 14" Gretsch snare for his fusion and rock performances. His Birch Pearl kit he used with Robert Plant, Pete Townsend and Eric Clapton featured that snare drum. I liked that sound as well, so I found a Maple 8" x 14", stripped it down, wrapped it in black (again from Jammin' Sam in Arizona), obtained more lugs, Gretsch strainers, a coated Evans Blue Hydraulic snare head and the Collins deep snare was born. I'd never owned anything deeper than a 14" x 6.5 snare before, and was surprised at the depth a drum like that could generate. One great example of how this big, "marching snare" could sound, can be found on guitarist Al DiMeola's solo album "Scenario". The tune "
Island Dreamer" features keyboardist Jan Hammer of the Mahavishnu Orchestra/Miami Vice fame, alongside Collins in a beautiful trio. Afer a gorgeous beginning by DiMeola and Hammer, Collins comes thundering in on those toms and that deep 8" snare.
In addition to Genesis, Collins would delight audiences in the prog-rock ensemble "Brand X", where his talent for instrumental music would be brought to the fore. My upcoming projects were also borne of a jazz-rock ensemble setting, with 7 string bass, keyboards, percussion and guitar, not unlike Brand X and the aforementioned DiMeola album. Although I am ambidextrous and open-handed, like Billy Cobham, Lenny White, Simon Phillips and Rayford Griffin who play with their ride cymbal on the left and their kick drum on the right, I am not a true "left handed" drummer like Collins, few drummers are. Collins places his ride AND his kick on the left, and his hi-hat on the right; A mirror image of a right handed drummer. Collins' son Nick Collins uses an identical Gretsch kit, just like his father, however Nick is a right handed drummer and sets his kit up in "normal" fashion, as any right-handed drummer would. I decided to take the younger Collins' approach and set up my kit accordingly. I really like the idea of the ride cymbal over the kick the way both Collins employ it. Drummers that use only one rack tom, or place two rack toms on a stand to the left of the kick will know that ergonomic feeling all too well. Ultimately, I will add more triggers and mics to this kit before I record, but for now, this latest project kit can be deemed an absolute success.
