What skins and tuning did Ringo use to achieve this sound?

That's when Ringo went to a natural maple Ludwig kit (5-piece). I read somewhere he even went to calf skin heads for the recording of that album (not sure though).

Although years I ago I saw Beatlemania and that drummer used the 4-piece black oyster kit for the whole show, and when he went to do the Abbey Road stuff, he simply put towels on the upper part of his toms (they were taped to the rim).
 
That song is simply amazing. I would have thought towels would be a bit more than you'd need for that sound, but who knows. Maybe if they're sufficiently thin.
 
That song is simply amazing. I would have thought towels would be a bit more than you'd need for that sound, but who knows. Maybe if they're sufficiently thin.

Well, live and mic'd up is a whole 'nother ball game too. Perhaps the combination of towels and close-micin, adding a bit more low-end eq does the trick. Fast forward to Fleetwood Mac's reunion concert and you remember that great sound Mick Fleetwood got out of his DW toms? Good drums, good tuning, awesome engineering....
 
Here is a video of the suspect dishtoweled floor tom, too:

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/ringostarrgetback.html

Ah, those cymbals! I know Armand must have hand picked them! Yes, my generation is guilty of removing resos, stuffing in pillows, and taping all sorts of really weird things to the batter heads. Then we would, of course, lose the bottom hoops and all the lugs that went with them, and cause the drums to lose their roundness. This is why so many vintage drum sets are out of round in my opinion.
 
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