Thought I'd post a little on Jeff's drum kit history...just a taste of his selections. As kid, a neighborhood friend had won a Slingerland champagne sparkle set in a poker game and sold it to Jeff’s father with cases and cymbals.
In 1978, Jeff was 24 and I had three Ludwig drum sets. There were two Gretsch sets and a Camco set made for him. Everything was brass plated--all black and brass, with a solid brass 6 1/2" snare drum. His "heavy metal" set was a Slingerland with the 28" bass drum, everything in chrome, 20 X 20 floor tom, and an 11 X 15. The Ludwig was basically his all-around studio set. He got into Gretsch for live performances.
In 1979, Porcaro said his first set was a Ludwig as influenced by Ringo. In the studio, Porcaro played a combination of three different Ludwig sets with several old Slingerland Radio King snare drums. Onstage with Toto, he used Ludwig's new Power Drums, which featured extended shells. Cymbal wise, he used the older A and K Zildjians.
Around 1982, Live with TOTO, Jeff used an 8-ply Pearl Rosewood kit with eight rack toms in graduated sizes and two floor toms and playsed Paiste cymbals. He began endorsing Pearl Drums and felt that most all drums felt good to him stating; “Drums are drums, depending on the kind of head and how you tune them. Sometimes just the look of one will make me partial to that one for two weeks; just because it looks different and it's new. I always set up differently. Sometimes there'll be a lot of tom-toms, sometimes just two, depending on what I'm doing. Or sometimes I'll go into something where usually I'd have a bigger kit and the music kind of demands it, yet I'll go in with completely the opposite, which is kind of interesting. In the studio, my set changes for every tune” On heavier tunes, he used a Gretsch 24" bass drum and a 14 x 12 mounted tom and a 16 x 16 floor tom.
On Toto IV, his drum sizes used to record were 10", 12", and 13" rack toms of standard depth, 16" and 18" floor toms, and a 22 X 16 bass drum. He also used a 6 1/2 X 14 Radio King snare drum. The cymbals were all Paistes, and included a 20" Formula 602 ride, 18", 19" and 20" 2002 crashes, a 16" Formula 602 crash, and 14" Formula 602 hi-hats. Basically, he used the same setup for Isolation and I also used it live.
On, The Seventh One, he used his standard sized Pearl Maple kit. No power toms. 10", 12", 13", 14" and 16" floor toms. His bass drum was oversized, about 18"x22". He used a variety of snare drums--an old Ludwig Black Beauty, a Pearl Piccolo, a Ludwig chrome and a custom Valley Drum Piccolo. The choice of snare changed with the texture and style of each tune. Also, the popular Modern Drummer ad at that time was somewhat bogus. When Jeff went to the photo session, it was with a set of drums that weren't his. The toms seemed deep. Pearl said that in the past couple of years, the power-tom sizes became their standard drum. They have the super power toms, but the standard drums that have been around since the '20s and '30s, they call them jazz drums. So when you see pictures of him behind a drumset in the ad, it's deceiving. It's his setup, but those aren't his sizes. He used Pearl jazz-size toms, 10", 12", 13", and 14" and 16" floor toms, an 18 x 22 bass drum, a Pearl piccolo snare, a Pearl standard-size metal snare, and I have a Ludwig Black Beauty and a 6 1/2" regular Ludwig metal snare drum. His hats were a pair of 602 Paistes and also a pair of 13" Zildjians--a Z on the bottom and a K on top. Another was a pair of an old, old, old A Zildjian 14" on top and an Italian Tosco on the bottom that has four quarter-inch holes drilled around the bell and two sets of rivets on each north, south, east, and west point on the bottom cymbal.
Lastly, on Kingdom of Desire, he used a Pearl MLX (maple), alternating between: 3 1/2" x 14" Pearl Free-Floating brass piccolo, Pearl 5 1/2" x 14" steel, 5" x 14" Solid/Select maple, Ludwig Black, Brady 10" soprano snare drum with his toms.
