more from ‘When Giants Walked The Earth”
One of the very important things for us is sound. We spend a lot of time listening and coaxing and tweeking our guitars to get a sound that makes me go… ya, ” that’s it. That’s what I want”
I love finding out about what others did or are doing. Reproducing a great sound is always a challenge, but when you do get it right, it is totally worth it. I quite liked this passage of of the book I am reading about Led Zeppelin, about Jimmy Page and John Bonham nailing the sounds of the drums on When the Levee Breaks
Led Zeppelin recorded its version of the song in December 1970 at Headley Grange, where the band used the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio.
This is the excerpt-
The big difference , in the first instance was the titanic drum sound. ” It was always an electric blues” says Jimmy, ” but I never quite knew that the minute John Bonham had set up his drum kit up in the big hall it would sound so fantastic.” Known as the Minstrel’s Gallery, the hall at Headley Grange ” was three storeys high and so it was this big cathedral like hall. And Bonham just started playing this kit that had arrived and is sounded so fantastic we went, hold on, lets do, Levee Breaks” and we tried it and incredible sound came out.
The sound was captured on tape by hanging two ambient Beyer m160 mikes from the staircase and aiming them where Bonzo was sitting with his kit, while Andy Johns sat in the mobile truck outside recording the sound through two channels he then compressed usng an Italian echo unit called a Binson belonging to Jimmy that used a steel drum instead of a conventional tape. A separate microphone would normally have been added to record the bass drum but Bonzo’s unamplified kick sound echoing around the great hall was on its own so powerful that there was no need. ” I remember sitting there thinking it sounded utterly amazing” says Johns. ” So I ran out of the truck and said ” Bonzo, you gotta come in and hear this”
He shouted ”Whoa, That’s it, thats what I’ve been hearing.
( And what subsequent generations of producers and mixers have been hearing ever since, making it the most sample drum sound of all )
