Mike Portnoy’s Drum Theater

Howdy folks!

Last time I covered Mike’s drum world. we found him and the rest of DT ensconced in (what turned out to be) Avatar Studios in New York for the writing and recording of (what turned out to be) Systematic Chaos – in my opinion, one of the most accessible DT albums ever.

Anyways, as always, lots of news to report on sinc the recording of the new album, so best to crack on with all haste!

The Albino Monster was used for the album tracking sessions as reported in issue 5/6 – the right ‘Bonham’ side only being used on one track ‘Prophets of War’ – the complexity of some of the passages on many tracks requiring Mike to have more drum/cymbal options available, which the left kit gave.

The drum tracks were completed in December 2006 in the run up to Christmas and the kit was dismantled and moved back into storage on 22nd December. The Albino Monster WOULD resurface again in May/June when it became part of the DT ‘B’ rig setup, albeit with a few changes (more later). but Mike already had thoughts about its replacement.

MP and JP broke off from the recording sessions in November 2006 for the South American tour with G3 and also December 2006 for the Australian leg, following on in March/April for the American run.

Various kits were featured – all being supplied by that particular territory’s Tama distributor – even some Superstar set-ups featured on the South American leg, showing that Mike isn’t fussy about which level kit he plays, maintaining that “if it’s Tama, it’s all good.”

On the Australian leg, Mike used a variety of kits again; some top of the line Starclassic maple sets were featured, all pretty much sticking with the same ‘Transatlantic’ configuration. Again, as on previous G3 outings. Mike’s original tech Jose Baraquio took care of kit duties.

The REALLY big news this time around is that Mike has ANOTHER new kit! (We’ve obviously all become familiar with this beast now!! Ed.) This one is a Tama ‘Mirage’ clear acrylic set, which sees a return to more of the original ‘Siamese Monster’ config – the shells are in ‘Crystal Ice’ (clear) as opposed to the ‘Black Ice’ (smoked) variant that MP used on disc 2 of his most recent instructional DVD In Constant Motion and the kit made its live debut at the Gods of Metal festival in Italy in June.

I thought it best to list the differences/things to looks out for/updates, which appear on the ‘Mirage Monster’ as it has been dubbed by Mike – very appropriate too! Anyways, here’s the important info:

The G3 American tour saw Mike debut what had been dubbed as the right side of the new kit in some reports (this turned out to be partly true), but I don’t think any of us thought the new right side kit would turn out as it did (more later). An acrylic Tama ‘Mirage’ kit appeared in almost the same ‘Transatlantic’ config, but with only one floor tom (16”) and a 20” Gong Bass drum mounted on MP’s far right side... two Octobans were included – one before the 8” rack tom, the other just after the 12” rack. These looked a little odd to my eyes, but it was clear MP was experimenting – everything else pretty much remained as the ‘Transatlantic’ setup cymbal-wise and both snares were included (white finish).

One thing that DID look odd were the kick drum hoops in black (standard factory finish) – on the new DT kit, these would be changed very much for the better (more later). The snare drums used, were the white finish Melody Masters – the only change being the batter heads being changed to Remo CS clears with black dots – Mike hadn’t used this range of heads on his snare drums since 1993 on his original Tama Imperial Star kit (with the 14 x 6.5 steel shell snare).

The drums and some of the hardware (e.g. the Gong Bass drum mounts) from the US leg G3 kit made it into the config of the new ‘Mirage Monster’ (i.e. it wasn’t two separate kits drum wise). The kick drum hoops are powder coated in matte silver finish, as are all of the mic arms where they reused (e.g. ride cymbals and overheads). The vocal mic however, remains in black finish as before. Eric Disrude (Mike’s tech) set him up with a punching bag on the left side of the kit – this first appeared part of the US leg and wasn’t present in Europe (during the first European leg – it was present for the autumn shows – Ed.). Mike also has rear-view mirrors set up left and right very much as he did for the Radio City show in April 2006 – again these appeared as part of the full production US leg and NOT in leg one in Europe.

Mike is road-testing some prototype Sabian products on this tour – they have been dubbed “Propellers” and consist of a stack of three cymbals, the bottom two a little like Max Stax and the top cymbal being the 6 Sided “Propeller” – a piece of gothic symbolism! They are in Sabian B20 alloy which stands apart from the rest of MP’s cymbals and are in sizes 9”/11” and 13”.

The left side of the kit is essentially the same as the ‘Albino Monster’ – all cymbals remain the same (bar one new addition) and drum-wise everything was as before, except the 12” snare moved from beside the 16” floor tom, to become integrated into the revised “right side” (that drum was always tough for MP to hit as it was SO far over to the left).

A Propeller is the only new cymbal addition to the left side – this one’s an 11” version and sits to the right of the 12” rack tom.

The tambourines used on the kit in rehearsal prior to the opening Euro leg were white on the left and black on the right – these had changed to both being black for the first show. Also, in rehearsals, the left side tambourine was mounted under the chimes and BEFORE the first Octoban; by the first live show this had moved to under the 2nd/3rd Octobans and above the 16” floor – MUCH easier to hit!

25 row double chimes (Latin Percussion) are used – again pretty much as for the SM and AM. Mike’s stool covers have now been upgraded to have string ties to keep them in place!

The Roland RMP Rhythm Coach (‘Secret Cowbell’) was used in rehearsals prior to the Euro festival leg in June 07 – this was the same as for the SM and AM kits, but again, by the first show, this had been replaced by a Roland PD8 pad which was connected to a separate trigger to generate the cowbell sound used for count-ins/cueing (much better as it’s a much smaller item to fit into an already busy area on the kit)!

The right side of the kit now consists of the 12” Melody Master snare (originally the black finish drums were used and I believe when the band got to Texas [Dallas I think] these had changed to a silver finish [custom sprayed by Eric] – these drums remained with the kit up to the final UK date in Blackburn) – I think these fit the look of the kit much better than the black drums... again, all snares feature Remo CS clears with black dot, to continue the transparent look of the new kit.

Then we have two Octobans, followed by a 13” Tymp-Tom (single headed) then 14” and 16” floor toms – the 20” Gong Bass drum finishes off the revamped right side as far as drums go.

25 bar double row chimes are sited to the right of the Gong Bass and a 13” Propeller is farthest right side under these chimes with an 8” Radia Bell on top.

A 9” Propeller sits neatly under the Octobans on the right-side kit – very cool placement. next to the 13” hi-hats – the rest of the cymbals include a 9” Max Splash, 10” Mid-Stax, 11” mini-hats – (actually a pair of Max Splashes) as an X-hat and an AA 20” El Sabor ride amongst the usual suspects of 16” HHXtreme/18” AAX crashes and 20” HHX Chinese.

An LP Ridge R1der (one that Mike’s had for a while by the look of how battered it is!) sits above a tambourine (traditionally, MP has recent photos stuck on the cowbell and amongst others for this tour his dog Bongo is displayed; both the tambourine and cowbell sit to the right of the new X-hat mounted cymbals).

DT have a new front-of-house sound person on the ‘Chaos in Motion’ tour and as part of the change, MP has new mics on the kit – all toms now having clip-on ‘mini-mics’ and the kick drum mic setup has changed to AKG D12’s (shell mounted) and the overheads are up from three to four.

On some of the European dates on the opening leg of the tour; it was not possible (economically or logistically) to fly/truck the complete set of gear to the shows, so the ‘B rig’ set-up was used (the band used a ‘B rig’ for the South American shows they did on the Octavarium tour – this was when the ‘Mini-Monster’ was conceived).

I was surprised to see that the ‘Albino Monster’ was used as the ‘B rig’ kit this time around – essentially, it was the same as the original ‘Mini-Monster’ (only two Octobans were used) but this kit didn’t have a Gong Bass drum, so the 16” and 18” floor toms were used from the Bonham kit.

The ‘B rig’ kit set up was used to film the second version (after the first was scrapped) of the ‘Constant Motion’ video whilst the band were on the road in Europe in June.

Eric always carries spare snares for MP in case a head is trashed during the show (much easier/quicker to swap in a new drum than try to change a head), but at certain shows (Newcastle City Hall in the UK was a good example), he had them sat on the riser rather than hidden at the back of the kit so they were closer to hand. The stick holder that sits between the two sides of the kit is now a tower of (I believe) 6 rolls of gaffa tape – all taped together – this replaces the aluminium version used on the SM and AM kits.

No graphics were applied to the front of the kick drums heads – just Tama gold logo decals and the heads were left clear – the “Holz” kick drum port-holes now being centrally cut and of the 6” size rather than the 4” versions used on the SM and AM.

James and Mike undertook a press tour in Europe in the spring of 2007. prior to rehearsals for the first leg of the current tour. They appeared in many magazines in the UK and Europe as well as doing radio interviews (including Bruce Dickinson’s rock show in the UK) – good to see JLB being in the front-line as well as MP.

The MP-drum cam video footage of the Systematic Chaos sessions have been edited and compiled as always by Mike Brown and are available exclusively from the store at MP.com in me form of Sysdrumatic Chaos – I have a copy (of course!) and whilst it’s likely to appeal MAINLY to drummers. it still has a very definite affinity with DT fans in general as the full completed album audio is featured as well as Mike’s isolated drum tracks. As always with Mike’s playing, when you SEE him playing his parts. you truly appreciate the amount of thought that goes into constructing his parts – simply awesome.

Since the last update, the most recent instructional DVD In Constant Motion has been released (April 2007) and has been very well received – it is an awesome product and a ‘must have’ for MP/DT fans alike – see the review in issue 7 of New Voice.

MP has appeared in several magazines recently too – as part of the European tour he and James had interviews published in Rock Hard (Jun 07) Hard Roc” (Jun 07) and Hard & Heavy (Jun 07) amongst others. Additionally, Mike has featured in Rhythm magazine in the UK (Jan 07 and Aug 07), the January issue being something of a monster as Mike was guest editor and it featured interviews he did with several of his drum heroes. Neil Peart and Nick Mason amongst them. MP also featured in the Dec 06 and Jun 07 editions of Drummer magazine (UK), the May 07 edition of the French drum magazine Batteur and the Oct 07 edition of Modern Drummer.

Mike has it written into the tour-rider on the ‘Chaos in Motion’ tour that he has a soccer/basketball/NFL shirt to wear (usually for the encore) for each city he’s visiting – that’s how he manages to always have something appropriate to the city DT are playing at each show (in case you wondered if he ordered them in BEFORE the tour started!). Mike has done this on previous tours too and it’s a nice touch for the local audiences of each city they visit.

So there we have it... my special thanks this time around go to Scott Hansen for providing me with some super cool photos taken by Darko Böhringer of the kit from the first ‘festival’ leg through Europe – I left it a bit late to get my info from Mike and Eric this time around as they had both hit the road before I started to fire questions at them! Thanks anyways to both for the assistance they were able to give me whilst being on the first ‘full production’ leg of ‘Chaos in Motion’ – when I started the research on this piece. the wheels of the tour were in ‘constant motion’ and Mike and Eric had a LOT on their plates.

That’s it this time around until next time, keep ‘em peeled!