Got to find my old R/EP's, I remember an interview with the Johns, and they had the setup for "When the Levee Breaks", with a DETAILED setup, Mic's, EQ settings, drawings of the mic placements, etc.. This was the RS mobile with the Heilos. My memory for room mic's- was that 2x beyer m160's went in to a binson eko-rec with quite a bit of EQ, placed on the second level [floor] of the wrap around stone stairwell of Headley Grange, pointed down at the drum kit separated a bit [maybe 6'-10'].

I will try and find them and check, I am pretty sure they used the classic Johns 2x U67's [1 over 1 to the side], and there were kick and snare mic's... U47 on kick is what I think. This was the most accurate info I had ever seen for Classic Zep... Anybody else have those R/EP's, it would have been maybe sometime '76-'81. Lot's of other great info in those, G. Martin & G. Emmerick, G. Massenberg, Ron Nevison, Bill Schee, Classic Motown, etc. Very helpful to my early career [and still!].

Im not seeing the ol' Glyn Johns setup in that photo though. The caption in the top right of the pic says something about Zep II but who the hell knows. I suppose it could even be from a live radio set (BBC, etc).

This one below is supposed to be from April 1969 at Olympic... no kick mic at all on the front (unless they moved it to use it on something else). Same kit as the first pic. Notice what looks like a U67 between the kick and floor tom and another mic high above the kit.

That is the classic Johns mic setup...for "overheads"...heh

This photo is not very telling: note that there is no drummer playing, therefore I am guessing the mics did not necessarily need to be set up.

Oh I was referring to the earlier photo of Bonham playing... not the last one I posted.

The following info is in regards to Bonham's sound on Led Zep III not IV. It is from an interview with Terry Manning who engineered and mixed much of that record in Memphis:

Mics which were used were just the standard mics I always used. 67's, 87's, 47's, EV (RE15?) or Shure (I think 545?). We didn't have or use any Sennheiser's yet. They hadn't really made it to the US in any big way at that time. Neumann was the king, except you had to deal with Gotham Audio in NY, which I must admit was not much fun. So I found a dealer in Germany, and would get mics sent in directly from there, which infuriated Gotham. On drums, John wanted as few mics as possible. He would say the HE would control the levels and dynamics, not the engineer. And he could. I believe there were sometimes 3 mics, two on the kit (only because stereo was getting popular) and a bass drum mic. But on some songs there was only one kit mic and a bass drum one. I distinctly remember panning from centre for the normal kit, to left for the beginning of a tom roll, then on through to the centre and then right for the rest of the roll, then quickly back to centre for the normal beat again. Pretty high tech! Had to be fast, though. Jimmy also helped with occasional fader moves or pans when there was too much for me to do alone (no automation, of course, and I still don't really like automation).

Leaves you in no doubt as to who is "running tings" heh

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. . Awesome pics mixlrose . . ...thanx!
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More for all you Slutz:

The Mobile Studio Ltd.


and this is somewhat right, as wiki somethings is... I still remember the R/EP article saying there were close mic's as well. Got to find that mag, if I'll post the article and hand drawn session layouts...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Levee_Breaks

and this from our friends at google / lynn fustons site:

from a Guitar World mag. interview:
"We were working on another song in the front room of Headley Grange when a second drum set showed up. Rather than stop what we were doing, we told the people bringing it in to just set it up in the entrance hallway. The hall was massive, and in the middle of it was a staircase that went up three stories. Later Bonzo went out to test the kit and the sound was huge because the area was so cavernous. So we said,"We're not going to take the drums out of here!"

Andy Johns hung a couple of M160 microphones down from the second floor, compressed them, added some echo and compressed that as well, and that was all we needed. The acoustics of the stairwell happened to be so balanced that we didn't even need to mic the kick drum."

He said they also slowed the track down to make it "more intense".

and this from mark zuckerman:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?ui...399&topic=7126

and more from youboob;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP2w3wbkpKY

This is rather straight from the source, and he ends it with "good luck getting that sound again, because you really do need bonzo..." to tie it back to #31 above...

Lot's more out there, even here on slutz...

Happy Recording to all!!

Ahh bonzo !
He could of played tin pans and still sounded the muts nuts !!heh

I've never much tried putting a mic that close to the cymbals before, with the exception of some "Glyn Johns" setups I've done...what tends to happen when you get the mic that close in? I'll have to try it I'm sure, just some thoughts might be nice. Keep seeing this more and more. Goes against my past tendency.

It possibly matters WHO is playing the cymbal rather more than the distance to the mic, or the preamp, the cymbal or even the lens Some players have amazing sweet PLAYING control, others hit everything with the same velocity....

True, but being a tone-freak (beyond all others) gave him tone (beyond all others).

That's incredible! I can totally believe it though -- from the fills in the outro to "Out on the Tiles"

I see a lot of studios using U47's or U87's to close or spot mic everything in "behind the scenes" photos, etc... but all the published photos show all kinds of crazy different mics on everything. It makes sense to me that consistency demands consistency in mic choice and placement. It all depends on the effect you want. Most successful recordists that I know simply keep buying mics until they find one they like, then they buy a whole bundle of that one mic ... everyone has their own favorite... me, I own a whole pile of 421's and AT4033's because my ears like them. I use them on everything. If I could afford I would probably have about 6 or 7 U87s and a pair of U47s. I look at mics like camera's kind of, they all take such different looking pictures, and a recording is like a photo album... consistency is important. All calvin klein ads look the same, because they always use the same lighting, lenses, filters, models, etc etc... that's my example and I'm sticking to it. Buy a ton of what you like so you never run out. Same goes for headphones, speakers and preamps. Mish-moshing is usually never the way to go if you want to truly capture something with "a character." Also, this way, the bleed between mics actually meshes and blends into ambience rather than clashing and turning into phasey noise. Don't trust interviews with knights, they're sworn to secrecy LOL

Everyone knows it was the B-NZ0 on kick drum. I don't know why this thread exists.

Who is Jeff Ocheltree and exactly when did he work for Bonzo as his drum tech? My old friend, Mick Hinton (RIP), was Bonzo's drum tech from 1971 to 1980. If John Bonham died in September of 1980 where does this Ocheltree fit into the picture? Just curious.

regards,

Hi @ Edd_K , I have no idea... I thought Jeff Ocheltree mentioned something about In Through The Out Door sessions in the vid...

Your friend probably knew "Henry The Horse" Henry Smith.

@ polishpunker

Thanks for the response, Blast9. I get it now. No offense to Mr. Ochletree but I feel that his place in Led Zeppelin's history is nothing more than a footnote. And to correct some seriously wrong information I've seen on a few websites regarding Led Zeppelin's 1977 tour of North America, Mick Hinton was Bonzo's drum tech for that one. Not the above mentioned Ocheltree. Too bad Mick isn't with us anymore. I'd love his take on all this.

regards,

This is important info!

I think it's brilliant that Eddie, Terry, and Ron freely share their knowledge and experiences of recording this iconic band.

IMHO, the most helpful information regarding John's drum sound has come from the wonderful Dave Mattacks, who (as I understand it) was a friend and contemporary of John. Dave pointed out that John tuned his drums high.

But the essential ingredient, of course, is this:

If you want his sound, get that drum. Did he use a 26 x 18 metal kick drum with a huge sound to record?