This is rock-sauce. Saving this for ableton use later :) posted by empath at 6:47 PM on February 14
Yeah, I'm just kind of sitting in front of the computer with my guitar and loving the shit out of these. posted by The Straightener at 6:48 PM on February 14
ROCK AND ROLL! posted by waxboy at 7:16 PM on February 14
Oooh wow, this is really cool. posted by !Jim at 7:24 PM on February 14
Great, great find! Now, does anyone know the legal ramifications of using these in (potentially) commercial work? Because dammit, I already have a million ideas for them. posted by pedmands at 7:42 PM on February 14
Dear lord could that man drum. I could listen to this all night. And I think I may. posted by echo target at 7:43 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]
Fucking awesome. Thanks! posted by xmutex at 7:48 PM on February 14
Tracks 22 and 23 are dream samples (Fool in the Rain -- the main song, and the outro respectively.). Thanks for this.
Best of the heads. posted by edverb at 7:55 PM on February 14
Good lord he hit hard. That is fantastic! posted by awfurby at 7:56 PM on February 14
Some of these have really cool, murky artifacts of the rest of the track. Like this one. Double plus awesome. posted by xmutex at 7:56 PM on February 14
Or actually that's probably more just Bonham exerting himself. Still awesome! posted by xmutex at 8:01 PM on February 14
I only wish so many drummers weren't trying to sound like Bonzo and failing miserably.
I like the way you can hear him making the un-self-aware grunting noises.
And, why, yes, I could use these tracks, too. posted by not_on_display at 8:02 PM on February 14
popechunk - the reason is sounds like that (besides Bonham being a badass) is mainly due to the use of some real nice analog compressors. posted by dminor at 9:06 PM on February 14
See, this is one of the main reasons I love Zep. posted by bwg at 9:16 PM on February 14
Why are his thumps so thumpy?
One reason is his use of heavy-ass sticks. For Bonham, the heavier, the better.
He'd have used tree trunks if he could've managed them. posted by bwg at 9:24 PM on February 14
"Why does he sound like that? What is that sound? Does he use normal drums? Why are his thumps so thumpy? "
Many reasons:
Drums - different makers' drums sound different from each other, like you can tell a Volkswagon from a Mustang with your ear. Bonzo played Ludwigs, but there are many good makers. Also, every drum sounds different depending on where on the head it is hit. A drum has a higher, more trebly sound when it's hit next to the rim than if it's hit in the center. The different sounds attainable from one drum can be next to infinite in the right hands. This is most apparent in Bonzo's snare work; you can hear the snare sound change at times as he strikes sometimes nearer the rim.
Drum heads - the first ones were animal hide. Those are still available along with many other varieties that all bring their own shading/color to a note.
Tuning - tension of the drumheads. Bonzo's bass drum heads sounds kinda loose to me, so he can get that big BOOM, but his snare sounds kinda tight for a good BAP. (I'm a bit out of my depth here, as a bassist, so I'll prolly get smacked down corrected by a drummer.)
Drumsticks - sticks come in an infinite variety of materials and thicknesses that can have subtle and not-so-subtle effects on the sound.
Recording magic - in the studio there are infinite options to enhance and fatten the sound. The size of the room, height of the ceiling, microphones and mic placement, EQ, to name a few, are all part of the final product. To give you an idea, moving a mic one foot (or even less) nearer or closer to a drum will make a noticeable difference in the recorded sound. Once again, the possibilities are endless.
Absolutely the most important factor is the player. Bonzo hit the drums hard, which is a big part of his sound, but he also had great finesse for the softer passages.
All these factors (and most likely others) are integral. posted by wsg at 9:42 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]
Holy crap. Yaaay! Bonzo was (a lot of) the reason Led Zep was so much more than a parody of themselves. posted by freebird at 10:03 PM on February 14
Oh and GarageBand just became like 20 gazillion times more rockin'. Thanks and happy valentine's day, I Love You! posted by freebird at 10:04 PM on February 14
Motherfucker rocks and swings. posted by gottabefunky at 10:12 PM on February 14
Holy shit I have been looking all over for these. Thanks. I wonder if this cache could change the sound of popular music over the next few years.
Well, considering that they keep dissappearing (no doubt thanks to legal reasons) it may be asking for trouble to incorporate these into recordings intended for widespread release. posted by chillmost at 10:56 PM on February 14
The other thing I like about Bonham's playing is how he changes the accent on certain beats of the bar when he's doing a fill so it suddenly sounds like he's out of time, but if you count it out you see he's actually not. Very noticeable in the first few bars on the first track on the linked page. The classic example is "Black Dog" - try as I might I can't count out the verses without getting in a mess. posted by awfurby at 11:01 PM on February 14
Recording magic - There is a lot of compression on these tracks. It is applied in a way so that the attack time and release time create a sort of pumping sound. This lets the kick and snare really stand out. posted by chillmost at 11:05 PM on February 14
Recording magic - in the studio there are infinite options to enhance and fatten the sound. The size of the room, height of the ceiling, microphones and mic placement, EQ, to name a few, are all part of the final product. To give you an idea, moving a mic one foot (or even less) nearer or closer to a drum will make a noticeable difference in the recorded sound. Once again, the possibilities are endless.
Like chillmost said, it's compression on a lot of these that gives it the sound. Although, for the most part, it's actually the fact that Bonham was very smart about playing the drums. Many drum tracks of his were recorded using two to three mics. posted by sleepy pete at 12:06 AM on February 15
I've had these for several years, but I wasn't telling anybody ;) posted by First Post at 2:04 AM on February 15
I am going to try my hardest to combine these drum tracks with David Lee Roth crooning like a lunatic. posted by Jimbob at 2:08 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]
Awesome and looks like he finally sprayed some WD40 on his pedals. (Listen closely to final mixes of The Rain Song, Over the Hills and Far Away, Dancing Days, The Ocean, Houses of the Holy, Ten Years Gone, and Since I've Been Loving You). More facts here. posted by punkfloyd at 3:37 AM on February 15
This is what the internets are for. Yes. posted by Pollomacho at 4:46 AM on February 15
Cool; guess who the guest drummer is on my next tune?! posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:27 AM on February 15
I don't think I ever really "got" what compression on my drum bus was supposed to do. Until now. This is fantastic. posted by uncleozzy at 6:13 AM on February 15
Holy crap, what a fucking beast. BEST OF THE WEB ZEPPELIN RULEZ. posted by Scoo at 6:20 AM on February 15
I wish I knew how to use an equalizer properly so I could get the best out of these tunes. posted by Vindaloo at 6:49 AM on February 15
files are down now. posted by mecran01 at 7:03 AM on February 15
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Noooooooooooooooo! I've only go 17 of them... ! posted by cavalier at 7:07 AM on February 15
503 error.
it got mefi'd.
i so wanted to hear these... posted by ewwgene at 7:19 AM on February 15
Speaking as a drummer, I can happily listen to this stuff all day long. RIP, Bonzo. Thanks for some good shit. posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 7:34 AM on February 15
Shit, I missed them too. Did anybody get them who can put 'em up somewhere? posted by bink at 7:48 AM on February 15
Man, if I were still at home, I'd be mirroring these on YouSendIt at least -- anyone? Anyone? posted by chinese_fashion at 8:00 AM on February 15
looking for a mirror somewhere myself - anyone? posted by garfy3 at 8:25 AM on February 15
Oh yes, the bass will be getting a workout. Thanks! posted by LordSludge at 8:45 AM on February 15
And the David Lee Roth highlights the problem with recording your own vocals: without the context of a band, you always sound fucking stupid. (And then you delete the tracks to avoid public embarrassment.)
I always liked the weird high semi-tones he gets on his screams, wonder how he does it...? posted by LordSludge at 8:49 AM on February 15
Arrrgh - didn't grab 'em because, you know, it was Valentine's Day and I had some other stuff to take care of. Please, anyone who got a copy of these, please MeFi mail if you're afraid to post about them here... posted by freebird at 9:27 AM on February 15
I would love a MeFi mail with a map to the treasure, also, please, thank you. posted by joseph_elmhurst at 10:17 AM on February 15
Thank you, Cavalier. As the rar downloads, I have a next-stage enjoyment question: how would a GarageBand n00b go about importing these MP3s? posted by COBRA! at 12:19 PM on February 15
Well crap doodle. I was hoping there was an OS X archiver for .RAR by this point..
UnRarX looks like it could work, if not MacRar. Inside the archive are a bunch of happy mp3s.
If the rar stuff is no joy I can put another collection together that as ZIP? Or whatever you'd like, but that'd wait about 3 hours or so because I'm gonna be near that PC till then.
I'm not worried about unpacking the rar-- that's why god gave us VMWare. I just haven't figured out how to import into Garageband once unpacked. posted by COBRA! at 12:38 PM on February 15
Figured it out. Damn, the complexion of my weekend just changed.
Also, how awesome is it to hear the random chitchat in the background of these tracks? posted by COBRA! at 1:04 PM on February 15
At about 40 seconds into this video, Warren Haynes tells a great story about Bonham's approach to sound. posted by Ber at 6:33 PM on February 15
OMFG I can play bass with Bonham. Now if I can somehow do the same with Scott La Rock I will have won. Really, thanks for posting these, and thanks for rescuing them when they went away. I guess the mere fact of doing those things means we don't have to tell you how much it really means to have these. posted by freebird at 6:38 PM on February 15
Freebird!! posted by Jimbob at 8:22 PM on February 15
Hey COBRA! - just drag the file from your finder into a Garageband window. posted by awfurby at 12:43 AM on February 16
Yeah, I got that; it just took me a while to figure out that I had to convert it to AIFF first.
But now, fun is being had. posted by COBRA! at 7:34 AM on February 16
50,000 DJs just soiled themselves. Awesome! posted by Rykey at 10:30 AM on February 16
Well crap doodle. I was hoping there was an OS X archiver for .RAR by this point..
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posted by empath at 6:47 PM on February 14