By: Chris Whitten The Kits Noble & Cooley Star Series This is an exact copy of the set I took on the road with Paul McCartney in 1989. At that time I was one of only two drummers touring with these radically designed drums. The toms and snare are single-ply, steam-bent shells (in the style of vintage Slingerland Radio King snare drums). Designed for N&C by Bob Gatzen, the shells proved time consuming and expensive to produce. Sadly, only the Star Series snare drums are still in production.

Camco Oaklawn
Thought by many to be one of the best sounding drum kits ever made.
Camco went through several incarnations and factory sites (Oaklawn, Chanute, Los Angeles), with the mid to late-1960's Oaklawn era drums being regarded as arguably their finest.
The Camco name finally faded at the end of the 1970's, but their drums live on in the hands of those who love classic drums. Current prices reflect that desirability. Lucky for me the rock sizes are slightly less hard to find than the 18, 12 & 14 bop kit, so desired by jazz drummers.
Camco drums have a big, warm tone that instantly says vintage. However in my opinion they easily match - and surpass in most cases - the drums being designed for recording today.

Slingerland Studio King
Having been acquired by Gibson guitars in the 1990's, the Slingerland name briefly re-emerged with the manufacture of Radio King snare drums and Studio King drum kits under the watchful eye of Pat Foley in Nashville, Tennessee. During the making of Custom & Vintage, Mike Udell at Drumhire repeatedly
told us the Studio King set in his inventory was one of the best kits he'd ever owned. Having already achieved great results with a Radio King 'Select' snare drum from the same period, we decided to rent the Slingerland kit and record it using the standard 1970's method. We removed the bottom heads of the toms and resonant head of the bass drum. Sennheiser 421 microphones were positioned inside the toms instead of the usual method above the batter head. This gives you a fatter sound, with a lot of separation. More to the point, it's the archetypal sound of the 1970's studio drummer.

The Snare Drums
Slingerland Radio King, Ludwig Black Beauty and Supraphonic.



This trio represent the most recorded snare drums of all time, and are probably the only snares you would ever need. One of the first single-ply drums, the Radio King has become an industry standard in wood-shell snare drums.
It amazes me that these old drums - many of them dating back to the pre-WWII jazz and big band era - can stand up to the punishment of modern playing. Not only that, they actually sound better than most snare drums being built today. It's truly a testament to the skills of the drum builders of yore.
Compared to the glamour of the Radio King and Black Beauty, the Ludwig Supraphonic is a bread-and-butter drum. Perhaps due to the seal of approval given by icons such as Steve Gadd, Hal Blaine and John Bonham, the 'Supra' is said to have appeared on more records than any other snare drum. It is surely a must for any serious studio drummer.

Craviotto 'Timeless Timber'

Johnny Craviotto is a legend in the industry. Some are already proclaiming him the Stradivarius of 21st century drum makers.
Two magical ingredients combine in this snare drum; Craviotto's workmanship and ancient birch wood, 'seasoned' by being submerged for over 200 years at the bottom of Lake Superior, North America.
In the 1800's logging mills dotted the shorelines of lakes and rivers that were adjacent to the virgin forests of North America. Most of the lumber was used for building the great cities of the Industrial Revolution, except the logs that were lost before reaching their destination. These logs became waterlogged in transit and settled to the bottom of the lakes. Forgotten, these sunken timbers - some of them up to 1200 years old - have remained at the bottom of lakes and rivers for over a century, untouched and perfectly preserved in the icy cold waters of the North.
Recently maple and birch logs were rediscovered in Lake Superior, salvaged, and sold for premium prices to high-end furniture craftsmen and boutique instrument manufacturers.
I feel very privileged to have this drum in my collection.

Noble & Cooley Star Classic

This is one of two identical snares I played on the critically acclaimed Paul McCartney world tour of 1989/90. After the tour I kept both drums, because not only do I love their sound, but also they remind me of the most exciting time in my career so far.
For Superior 'Custom & Vintage' I wanted to add something special. So I asked Peter Stanbridge to craft two Jarrah-ply wood hoops for one of the drums. Like Craviotto, Stanbridge is a lone artisan, building unique drums from exotic woods out of his Newfoundland workshop, 15 minutes from the most easterly point in North America.

Noble & Cooley Alloy Classic and Zildjian Drum
N&C built an enviable reputation on the superb quality of their wood shell drums. Towards the end of the 1980's they decided to branch out into metal, first in collaboration with the Zildjian company and then on their own with the Alloy Classic. The Zildjian drum, made from the same secret alloy as Zildjian cymbals, was an extremely expensive limited edition when it first appeared in 1989. The Alloy Classic was much more reasonably priced and is still available from Noble & Cooley today. While on tour with McCartney, I mentioned to Bob Gatzen - N&C's design guru - that they didn't have a metal shell drum to rival the quality and success of their Star Series snares. He may have already had that in mind because an early prototype showed up for me to take on the1991/92 Dire Straits world tour. This is the drum we recorded for Superior 'Custom & Vintage'.

Canopus Zelkova
Seen by many collectors as the ultimate, this snare drum is bored out of a solid block of Zelkova -a Japanese hardwood prized for its density and resonance. It's a construction method that owes more to traditional Japanese Taiko drums than Western-style snare drums we are more used to playing.
I'm surprised to learn the Zelkova has been around since 1978. Perhaps it's because Canopus is drwarfed by other well-known Japanese drum companies like Tama, Pearl and Yamaha, or because it's ferociously expensive and available only to order from Japan.
In any case, you are unlikely to see one of these drums unless it's in the hands of a collector or studio drummer.

The Cymbals
Zildjian K Dark Crashes
These are cymbals I used on both the McCartney tour and again with Dire Straits ('On Every Street' tour, 1991/92).
I love the tone of the K Dark series. One of the biggest problems for recording drummers is balancing loud cymbals with the rest of the kit. These K's are never overbearing, and I've had great success using them in all my live and recorded work since the late1980's.

Zildjian K 20" Heavy Ride and 18" Sizzle Ride
I chose both these cymbals during rehearsals for the McCartney tour, and they've remained two of my favourite cymbals ever since.
The Heavy ride is surprisingly sweet. The stick sound is crystalline and the wash, although quite high pitched, is warm.
Knowing I would be playing some 'Rock 'n Roll' standards, as well as early Beatles songs with Paul, I was on the hunt for an older sounding cymbal. I couldn't find anything quite right in the Zildjian catalogue, but going the extra mile for me, one of Zildjian's most experienced cymbal testers picked out this 18" K ride and factory drilled it for rivets. I have to say I really enjoyed laying into it on songs like 'Can't Buy Me Love', and with the memories of that tour, this unique cymbal will probably go with me to my grave.

Zildjian 1950's 22" Ride
Maybe I'm too nostalgic, but I have a soft spot for older cymbals.
Some say metal compounds mature with age, I don't know.
I do know, the further you go back in time, the rarer these cymbals become.
They call the 1960's the great cymbal holocaust. Rock music came along and guitarists were plugging into amplifiers with an ever-increasing wattage. Meanwhile, cymbal manufacturers stuck to their centuries-old formula, producing thin cymbals more suited to the acoustic music of previous decades. The result? A lot of beautiful cymbals from the 1940's and 50's bit the dust.
A few larger, heavier ride cymbals survived however. I came across this one at my local 'drum shack'. It has a deeper tone than many modern rides, and just the right balance between stick definition and roar.

K Zildjian Istanbul 16" Crash, 18" Ride, 20" Ride and 13" Hi-Hats
Vintage K Zildjian's are regarded as the ultimate cymbal by many serious jazz drummers. They are delicate and very rare, commanding prices far in excess of any other cymbal in the vintage market.
Each cymbal is unique, having been hand-crafted in Istanbul, Turkey (the birthplace of the modern cymbal), by a family of craftsmen who handed down their experience and skill to each new generation. Because of the human factor in the manufacturing process, Istanbul K's vary greatly in quality.
A recent acquisition, the 13" hi-hats have already become my 'go to' pair. I found the 20" ride on Ebay, but it turned out the owner lived a couple of miles from my house in London. Thin is the thing with these vintage rides. K Istanbul collectors have told me this is the thinnest 20" cymbal they've ever come across.

Paiste Sound Creation
Although a relatively recent offering from Paiste in Switzerland, the Sound Creation line are no longer made and are rapidly disappearing into the vaults of collectors and drummers in the know. Almost all the Sound Creation models exhibit a dark, jazzy tone. However, there are no rules, and cymbals such as the 'Bell Ride' can find a place in any genre.
Championed by drummers such as Al Foster and Jack DeJohnette, along with the earlier '602' Paiste cymbals, Sound Creation almost defined the drum sound at ECM Records, contemporary jazz label and home in the 1970's/80's to artists such as Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, Jan Gabarek and Eberhard Weber.
SC's sound entirely different to the Zildjian cymbals I endorse, and I thought they would add a different timbre and yet more choice to Superior 'Custom & Vintage'.

The Studio
Superior, Custom & Vintage was recorded at 2KHz Studios, London using an EMI TG Desk. 2KHz’s TG is an ex-Abbey Road Mobile console (1964 design) with a 28 channel /16 track configuration, with Germanium Transistor Mic Pre's.


The TG console was EMI's very first transistor design and was used for many legendary recordings of the early seventies including The Beatles' Abbey Road and Pink Floyds' Dark Side of the Moon. It is considered one of the best sounding desks ever made.
The drums were recorded with a selection of vintage microphones by Neumann (including valve U67’s on overheads and KM 56’s on toms), AKG and Sennheiser.
As an added feature one of the room microphones (a Neumann U87) was processed with a Helios F760 compressor, the type found in early Helios 1970's consoles as used by Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones and Apple Corps (The Beatles own studio).

Chris Whitten made a name for himself providing drums for the classic hits 'What I Am' by Edie Brikell and The New Bohemians and 'The Whole Of The Moon' by The Waterboys. He cemented his place as one of the Worlds top drummers with two critically acclaimed projects in the early 90's; Paul McCartney's 'Flowers In The Dirt' album and subsequent record breaking World tour, and Dire Straits 18 month 'On Every Street' tour (1991-92). Chris has also recorded with such varied artists as Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Julian Cope, World Party and The Pretenders.

Peter Henderson started his career at Air Studios where he trained exclusively with Beatles' recording engineer Geoff Emerick (Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road etc). Peter also worked on numerous sessions as an in-house engineer with the legendary George Martin.
As a freelance producer/engineer he has worked in top studios all over the world and co-produced Supertramp´s 20 million selling 'Breakfast In America', for which he won a Grammy (Best Engineered Album). Peter has also worked with Paul McCartney, Rush, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Tina Turner, Ringo Starr and The Tubes.

Links:
www.2khzstudios.co.uk/
www.camcodrummer.com
www.craviottodrums.com
www.noblecooley.com
www.zildjian.com
www.stanbridgedrums.com
www.canopusdrums.com
www.drumhire.com
www.drumshack.co.uk
www.tgmixers.co.uk/

Vintage and custom drums:
www.notsomoderndrummer.com/

History of Timeless Timber:
http://www.timelesstimber.com/

Thanks to Mike Udell (Drumhire) for the Slingerland Studio King kit and Ludwig 402 Supraphonic. Also to Mark Law (Drumshack) for the WFL snare.
1990 McCartney tour photograph courtesy of David Modell.