John Bonham tuning

A few months ago Drum Magazine had an article on just this very thing, The Bonham sound.
I mailed it to one of our Forum members in Belgium because he was interested or I would quote the page, etc. It's out there for the taking.
 
Yes, I read it. He offered that he thought Bonham's tom resonants were tuned about 1/4 to 1/2 a turn tighter than his batters and his snare was tuned high with loose snares, but that was about all he went into tuning wise, besides citing it as a perpetual mystery that even Ochletree doesn't really address.
 
Hey all, I'm resurrecting an old unanswered.

Can anyone answer the original posters question on Bonzo's tuning?
No tech, or engineer got the Bonham sound. As a matter of fact no one has gotten the Bonham sound xcept Bonzo:) If you disagree, prove it with a link or mp3, words mean nothing:)
 
...No tech, or engineer got the Bonham sound. As a matter of fact no one has gotten the Bonham sound xcept Bonzo:) If you disagree, prove it with a link or mp3, words mean nothing:)

I totally agree with this! I have never heard the sound Bonzo produced from anyone, but Bonzo. I will further add, it wasn't only the way the drums were tuned, there was some heavy sound engineering going on!
 
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There's something kind of silver dot-y about his sound- I don't know if he ever actually recorded with Ludwig silver dot heads, but I'd fool around with those- particularly on the bass drum. The attack is a little harder than with the cs black dots.
 
If you disagree, prove it with a link or mp3 .....

A mp3 ... or a sound bite .... please ...​
No, I disagree ... If you own the drums .... then you probably know how to tune them ....​
If you don't own the drums, then you're probably just here to argue ....​
words mean nothing:) .....
And they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" ...​
 

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I'm not buying into the notion that he had some secret tuning. It's not rocket science. That sound can be recreated easily enough, it's not mystical or anything. Big Ludwig drums, with coated emps over coated ambs, reso tuned higher than batter. Yes the tuning is critical but easy enough to duplicate. Hit the drums dead center with authority. There's your formula.

C'mon people he was just a guy like you and me.
 
I am a huge Bonham fan. His sound isn't magic. It's big drums tuned the way people used to tune big drums. To say that the engineering/production had nothing to do with it is like saying the 3rd and 4th albums have the same drum sound.
 
What astounds me the most about Bonzo's sound was how uniquely engineered it was!
Everything was BIG! Big room, big high ceilings...dynamic range was huge. You couldn't possibly have produced it more PHAT!
 
This is a peculiar question. Being a big Bonham fan myself, I've worked long and hard on understanding how that sound worked. Remember that there was not one universal Bonham sound on every record. The tuning and micing on Led Zeppelin I is totally different to In Through The Out Door, or Led Zeppelin IV even. On later albums the tuning is overall much lower. As a general rule, tune quite high, and tune the resonant heads higher than the batter heads. Coated heads on wooden drums, or clear heads on a vistalite (there's another one...two radically different sounds that are still thought of as 'the Bonham sound'.

Simply put...tune higher than the lowest note the drum produces, and have the resonant head higher than the batter. The relationship between the two heads should be the point at which it sounds good to you. An LM402 will sound a lot more like Bonham than any other snare, because that's what he used. Again, the tuning varies wildly...listen to the snare on 'Good Times Bad Times' and then compare it with the snare on 'No Quarter' from Houses of the Holy...the 'No Quarter' snare is tuned considerably lower.

An unported bass drum is quite important for the bass drum sound but it can be approximated if the mic port isn't too big.

As far as micing goes...again, for the first album or two I think the kit was miced from above...one overhead, or a stereo mic. No spot mics usually (although live there were). Compression is an important part of the sound (but again, are we going for 'Whole Lotta Love', 'When The Levee Breaks' or 'All My Love'? A different amount would be required for each one). The drums for 'In Through The Out Door' were played back through a speaker in a stone room to add more reverb to the sound. That'll have had quite a big effect.

The only common factors throughout all of this are the size of the drums (14" or 15" mounted tom, 16" and 18" floor toms, 26" kick), and using overheads to get the main drum sound rather than spot mics. That's it.
 
I am amused with all the fanboy idolization of a drum tuning. IDK I think it's a fools journey to try and cop another's sound. In the end it all comes down to how you play your drums not the tuning. Let JB's sound RIP with him. Your emotion and energy is what you were given, don't throw that away in favor for what someone else was given. That's ungrateful.
 
Im sure the right sizes will help ALOT. It wouldn't be physically possible to get the exact sound from his 14'' tom with a 10/12''. Im sure you can get pretty near, with some heavy tuning, with alot of precision and drum head selection.
I might have even got one of these Bonzo sounds out of my toms without noticing, and i maybe didn't like it at all, so i retuned. I tune my heads like said in here. Bottom tighter than top. I tune the bass drum until it feels and sounds good to me. I tune the snare until i can make ghostnotes without even touching the head (almost). I tune the snare until it sounds good to ME. That's is what i'd say the best method to tune. Tune until it sounds and feels good, to YOU. - Not Bonham..
 
I am amused with all the fanboy idolization of a drum tuning. IDK I think it's a fools journey to try and cop another's sound. In the end it all comes down to how you play your drums not the tuning. Let JB's sound RIP with him. Your emotion and energy is what you were given, don't throw that away in favor for what someone else was given. That's ungrateful.

With all due respect

Thanx for the condescending sermon. Here's a reply from a "fanboy" Drums are either tuned or not tuned. Bonham tuned his drums extremely well and to try to emulate that is simply smart and a good learning experience. I guess by your standard, we should never play along with our favorite records, and put down the books cause we'd be "coping" another. To dismiss, and not learn and evolve from what our predecessors accomplished, would be "ungrateful" That was a foolish insulting post to say the least. Post up your sound and playing, see if it stands up to Bonzo's. Until then, don't judge people working on their craft the way they see fit
 
A mp3 ... or a sound bite .... please ...​
No, I disagree ... If you own the drums .... then you probably know how to tune them ....​
If you don't own the drums, then you're probably just here to argue ....​
And they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" ...​

I love that quote at the bottom, I've been saying that for years " I feel more like i do now than i did when i first got here" also try "It's colder in the summer than it is in the country":)

Nice kit, I built my own drums to extremely exacting specs. But a picture is worth nothing. A sound clip or some form of media with proof of "sound" is what i'm saying. A million guys have Bonzo sizes and not much more:)
 
Im sure the right sizes will help ALOT. It wouldn't be physically possible to get the exact sound from his 14'' tom with a 10/12''. Im sure you can get pretty near, with some heavy tuning, with alot of precision and drum head selection.
I might have even got one of these Bonzo sounds out of my toms without noticing, and i maybe didn't like it at all, so i retuned. I tune my heads like said in here. Bottom tighter than top. I tune the bass drum until it feels and sounds good to me. I tune the snare until i can make ghostnotes without even touching the head (almost). I tune the snare until it sounds good to ME. That's is what i'd say the best method to tune. Tune until it sounds and feels good, to YOU. - Not Bonham..

Does it matter to you that that wasn't the question? Why do people feel the need to talk people out of what they're interested in????? Geeezzz
 
I am a huge Bonham fan. His sound isn't magic. It's big drums tuned the way people used to tune big drums. To say that the engineering/production had nothing to do with it is like saying the 3rd and 4th albums have the same drum sound.

What you speak of is nuance. Bonzo sounds like Bonzo on every album. Once again no specifics on tuning??? what is it with you guys?
 
I have a 1970 Ludwig green sparkle kit identical to the one in Jeff Ocheltree's video.
I tune it like I tune all my drums, which is resonant side higher than batter side, but.... this particular kit is a different animal and requires a slightly different approach. Because they are big drums and the shell construction is 3 ply maple/poplar/maple, the drums sound better tuned a bit higher in pitch than modern drums. They don't sound good at JAW tuning, they need to be tensioned up to resonate and create that big sound. It's big and boomy, but with the bottom head higher in pitch, which is about a third higher on my kit, it is a controlled boom. The kick drum isn't thuddy..it's boomy too, but it sounds awesome, big and powerful. The whole kit has that vintage bonzo big boomy vibe, and is totally different than my DW's. I think if you want that Bonham type of sound from your kit, you gotta have larger drums tuned up a little higher, the correct heads and expect it to be a different animal that may not be appropriate for today's music.
 

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Does it matter to you that that wasn't the question? Why do people feel the need to talk people out of what they're interested in????? Geeezzz

I read the whole thread, so I know that what I wrote was not an answer to the given question. Im not trying to talk him away from Bonham or the style he likes or anything like that. I just think it's important to find the sound YOU want and not your friend or Bonham in this case. Besides, everything i could give the guy for an answer was already posted in here a thousand times. So I really just wrote what i felt about this whole subject of an idol and everything.
 
With all due respect

With all my respect sir. I'd suggest you stop writing these offensive posts. We didn't harm, Insult or threaten you in any way, and still you enter this defensive stance where you keep tell us that we're wrong, and write this posts. I scrolled down a little, and then I see you did this three times? And you ask what's wrong with us! May I ask what the heck that's wrong with you?
 
With all my respect sir. I'd suggest you stop writing these offensive posts. We didn't harm, Insult or threaten you in any way, and still you enter this defensive stance where you keep tell us that we're wrong, and write this posts. I scrolled down a little, and then I see you did this three times? And you ask what's wrong with us! May I ask what the heck that's wrong with you?

That one post was offensive to anyone who asks a question. No offense intended to you or any other, I'm not looking for a fight. Sometimes the written word can imply emotion not intended. I appreciate advise from u and others, it's just frustrating to read through an entire thread to find IMO little pertinent or thoughtful input, mostly just detractors and nay sayers. why bother responding if you have nothing constructive to add? It's not good for anyone. The questions are about Bonzo's tuning...Period. And I may have missed it, but i found no good answers.

Thanx and (water boy voice) "lets be friends"
 
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