Drum Dial Bonham Sound

jdrummys

Member
I know, I know...It has a lot to do with production, miking, drum sizes. But I need to at least do what I can to try. I dont have huge drums like him. I have a 22x14, 16x14, 14x14, 12 x 9 and a LM402. Right now I have the toms on 76 reso, 81 batter and they sound pretty good. What setting would work on the the kick drum and the snare? Please only answer this if you have a Drum Dial.
 
I know, I know...It has a lot to do with production, miking, drum sizes. But I need to at least do what I can to try. I dont have huge drums like him. I have a 22x14, 16x14, 14x14, 12 x 9 and a LM402. Right now I have the toms on 76 reso, 81 batter and they sound pretty good. What setting would work on the the kick drum and the snare? Please only answer this if you have a Drum Dial.

email whoever has these and convince them to take drum dial readings for the benefit of the drumminng public good, or convince them to market their own drum dial, one that those readings would be exclusive too.
 
I dont have huge drums like him. I have a 22x14, 16x14, 14x14, 12 x 9 and a LM402.

Just not gonna happen mate.

Try as you may, you're simply not gonna get a 22,12,14,16 rig to sound like a 26,14,16, 18 set up......drum dial or not.

Forget the drum dial initially......Bonham didn't use one. Play around with your tuning, when you get some sounds happening that you're happy with, grab the dial and take note of the readings.
 
I've played around with those drum dials on my kit and I'm glad I didn't buy one. Those numbers don't mean a whole lot because you can get big changes in sound with moderate changes in tension that will be imperceptible to the DD.

The biggest problem you're going to run into is striking a balance between big sizes and tight tension. As is clear in that video, Bonham used some pretty tight tension on those big drums which was a major part of his sound. If you tune your drums as tight as his, you'll be way up there in pitch and far above where hsi drums were just because your sizes are that much smaller.

Obviously, you're going to have to find some middle ground and accept that your drums won't ever sound like Bonham's.
 
Your Batter tensions seem a bit tight to me.
I don't tune like Bonzo, But I do use a dial to help me tune.
I would think that 76 to 78 would be more in the range on the top heads.
Those drums that you have are not the correct sizes to get the exact sound of the drums that he played.
 
I know, I know...It has a lot to do with production, miking, drum sizes. But I need to at least do what I can to try. I dont have huge drums like him. I have a 22x14, 16x14, 14x14, 12 x 9 and a LM402. Right now I have the toms on 76 reso, 81 batter and they sound pretty good. What setting would work on the the kick drum and the snare? Please only answer this if you have a Drum Dial.

What type of heads are you using? 81 on an ambassador is a very different pitch than an 81 on a coated Emperor.
 
I've played around with those drum dials on my kit and I'm glad I didn't buy one. Those numbers don't mean a whole lot because you can get big changes in sound with moderate changes in tension that will be imperceptible to the DD.

I have not found this to be the case
 
Im sorry- I actually meant 76 on the batters, 81 on the resos. I use Vintage Ambassadors and coated Ludwigs on the bottom.
 
Actually, I recommend you forget trying to duplicate Bonham's sound with drums that are nowhere near his sizes and instead find out where your drums with your head selection want to be tuned to sound their best.

That means putting each tom into its most resonant range, so each is at its loudest and sustain is equal from every drum.

Put the DD on the shelf for a while and do this with every tom:

Take both heads down to finger-tight. Add no more than 1/4 turn to each tension rod, top and bottom, using two keys on opposite tension rods and using a star-pattern. If the drum is still flappy add 1/4 turn more. Keep adding 1/4 turns all around until the drum plays a real note. At this point make both the top and bottom heads the same pitch and touch up the lug-to-lug tuning.

You have just found the lowest note that tom will play.

Now add 1/4 turn at a time to all tension rods, keeping the pitch the same and keeping the lug-to-lug tuning decent. Strike the batter in the center of the head after every round of tension.

Eventually you will reach a place where the drum is louder, punchier, and has the most sustain. That's your sweet spot. Above this pitch the drum begins to choke. Once it's well-tuned in the sweet spot, now you can take out your drum dial and measure what you have. Don't be surprised if you have varying readings from lug-to-lug, drum dials do that. (Your ear is better at fine tuning.) Take an average and make a note of it so you can find it again.

Do this with all your toms. At this point they should all be relatively equal in loudness and sustain. If that's too much sustain for you, now is when you can fool around with raising the reso relative to the batter to cut sustain. Bonham used to tune his resos way higher than the batters, as much as a fourth or a fifth. That works on big drums, it may be too much for yours.

Finally, Bonham used (on his wooden drums) coated Emperors over coated Ambassadors on his toms, a coated Emperor snare batter, and coated Emperor batter and reso on his bass drum, with felt strips for muffling. You can try these, or perhaps the Vintage Emperors. My kid played on a backline kit with them and they sounded very Bonham-y.
 
Another direct hit DTD. I have a Bonham kit, 26x14, 14x10, 16x16, 16x18. It doesn't sound anything like a 22x14, 16x14, 14x14, 12x9. Not even close. I tune the heads, which are exactly the same mentioned in the above reply, a bit higher than you would think, in order to get the big round tone out of them. You can't do that with the smaller drums, it just doesn't sound the same. The bottom heads are a third higher in pitch than the tops. They sound virtually identical to the sound on Zoso and Houses of the Holy. Very cool. I'd never get that out of a smaller kit. I'm not a drum dial guy either, not precise enough for me. I'd rather get the drum to where it sounds as sweet as possible, document what notes are being heard when tapping in front of each lug on the head via a pitch pipe, then tune the entire kit in intervals of thirds or fourths, whatever worked best. Works every time and you can dial it in in seconds.
 
I have not found this to be the case
Okay, let me clarify. I got the DD to help me recreate on the snare drum that elusive and often fleeting "sweet spot" but the DD was not sensitive enough to pick out small tension differences that resulted in huge audible differences. That's more what I was referring to since I don't have any trouble tuning toms and bass drums by ear. For those, I pretty much just what Gatzen does and that works fine.

Drum dials are probably okay for a quick change of heads to get you in the ball park quickly, but your drums aren't really going to pop out until you use your ears.
 
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