UPDATE - 10/1@2:31PM: Since everybody's seen these things up close and personal now, I thought I'd throw the pics back up.

UPDATE - 4/23@2:25PM: At the request of DW Drums I am taking down the drumkit photos. They admit to giving permission to photograph the drums, but did so without realizing they might be published to the masses. I'm not going to argue with them as they were very courteous about it. So hopefully you got to take a look at them before they were taken down. And if you didn't, they are absolutely beautiful. They are red with black trim and have the Snakes & Arrows snake encircling the arrow logo in gold on the sides.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Reader Michael Yarberry and a friend were touring DW drums yesterday and unbelievable as it may seem, they turned the corner to see Neil Peart's new Snakes & Arrows drumkit being made as well as being boxed and shipped! Not only that, he was given permission to photograph the pics and I have made them available here for your viewing pleasure in all their high-res glory. Michael is a drummer of 33 years and also supplied some informative captions for the pics.

In Neil's last News update on his website he included a teaser pic (see here) of the kit all packed up and had this to say about it:

... It incorporates several technical innovations developed by John Good since he designed the tobacco sunburst recording kit I used on Snakes and Arrows (formerly the "West Coast" kit, originally built for Matt Scannell’s sessions early last summer). Many people have described those drums as the "best they've ever heard," but the new ones are going to be even better.

So far it's just a stack of bare shells, as you can see, but even they sound amazing when John strikes them in his special "timbre-matching" way.

As for the finish and hardware, that's going to be a surprise. I'll only say, "Black is the new gold," and "Red is the new black." ...

Many, many thanks to Michael Yarberry for taking these beutiful photographs and to DW Drums for letting him do it!

* All photos were taken with permission by Michael Yarberry on a DW factory tour on April, 20 2007. © 2007 Michael Yarberry

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