TRIBUTE TO NEIL PEART

I'm not a drummer, but I am awestruck when I see and hear a good one do his or her craft. There was one though in 1980, that had an enormous, life changing impact on my life in so many positive ways, that his creative contributions before and since inspired me to begin my own journey into being a musician in my own little way.Show more

Fast forward to 2012. An associate of mine went to New York to video Neil, who was practicing alone for the up and coming "Clockwork Angels Tour" ahead of joining Alex and Geddy a few weeks later. Neil was also promoting his books along with showcasing the new signature "Paragon" cymbals he endorsed. https://sabian.com/article/the-story-of-paragon/

What was remarkable is that I was in desperate need of work when the product line video was made, and I was asked to post produce the audio for this video on the song "Subdivisions". I have had jaw-dropping good fortune land on me through my life, but this one was simply unbelievable. The sad thing is that in the end, my careful mix of all his individual drums ended up not being used because it's essentially an isolated drum track of that song that did not suit the energy of the finished video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmbGhoJfYLM

That was the bad thing.

The good thing is that I was allowed to keep all the raw video and individual drum tracks for this song, and for the song "Where's my Thing". As a tribute to Neil in the only way I can, I went ahead and performed the rest of "Subdivisions" by myself over here, just to see how close I could to what I thought the other varied instruments were doing in this song.

I shot several videos of me trying to track along with the isolated drum mix as best I could, not being particularly good at playing the bass, guitar and keyboards at the skill level of many other talented musicians out there.

There are many songs from this band that touched me in my 54 years, but "Subdivisions" is truly the soundtrack of my life.

Buy the album "Signals" here: https://tinyurl.com/wte6jgq

Equipment used in this video are:
1975, Rickenbacker 4001 Bass guitar with active EMG, HB and LJ pickups.
1994 Ibanez RG-470, 6 string electric guitar.
2009 Fender Squire Stratocaster, 6 string electric guitar.
Roland D-70, 76 note, Super LA synthesizer.
Roland JV-30, 61 note,16 part multi timbral synthesizer. (Both Rolands MIDI'ed to each other.)
Sequential Circuits, 49 note Six-Trak analogue synthesizer. (All the Moog Taurus bass Pedal and MiniMoog sounds)
Alesis Quadraverb GT Guitar Multi-Effects Processor for the clean guitar.
Line6 Spider II Guitar Amp for the rhythm and solo guitar.
Tech21 NYC Bass Driver DI.
Adobe CS3.
Samsung Galaxy Edge 7.