What is your favorite John Bonham drum kit ?

carved from a tree that was felled by lightning iirc

I think the sound was definitely in his technique, but he also always used that 24" kick drum.

Probably going with maple, leaning towards stainless steel (hate Vistalites), and of course every drum kit is better with tympani.

Supposedly, John Paul Jones threatened to quit if Bonham used a double-bass-drum setup (which he apparently did at a handful of shows).

Oh btw Vistalites all the way

origin of the maple kit, per carmen appice of vanilla fudge:

John was freaked out by the Vanilla Fudge albums. One of the things that really freaked Bonzo out was the drumset I had which, at the time, was two 26″ bass drums, a 12×15 marching tom, a small tom-tom, a 16×18 tom, a 22″ bass drum over on its side as the big tom, and a 6 1/2″ snare. I mean, it totally freaked him out as it did a lot of the English drummers. He wanted the same drumset I had. I remember to this day calling up Ludwig and telling them about this group, Led Zeppelin, that I thought was going to be big, and that the drummer wanted a duplicate drumset. Six months later Vanilla Fudge and Led Zeppelin went out together on an equal bill, and we both had the same set of drums—the first maple wood set in rock ‘n’ roll.

carved from a tree that was felled by lightning iirc

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, July 18, 2019 12:48 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

Maple

Maple

Maple or Vistalite.

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Vista lite looks cheap and tacky
Can you really compare the sound of plastic with wood? I guess if anyone could convince me it would be JB

I always liked the green sparkle. Uncommon color and they looked cool under the stage lights.

Years ago I shared a practice space with a bunch of people, one of whom was a drummer who had a maple Ludwig kit set-up Bonham style. I got a chance to play it a couple of times - I didn't know enough about drum subtleties to really get into the details about it but that 24" kick was a fuckin cannon going off in my ear at 100bpm.

I think the sound was definitely in his technique, but he also always used that 24" kick drum.

― change display name (Jordan)

otm

it's amazing that bonham played both clear plastic and stainless steel (?!) drums, and yet the thing that defines his sound is his heavy, just behind the beat bass drum playing

/Achilles break/

Vistalite drums are motha fudgin' loud as shit.

Bonham could make any kit sound like Bonham, as Dave Mattacks pointed out:

I was over at Bonham’s house in the early days. There was a jukebox in one corner and a little Ludwig kit with an 18″ bass drum. I asked him a question about some riff or other. I understood what he was saying when he explained the riff, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. Understanding the riff became totally irrelevant. I was sitting and listening to this guy play an 18″ bass drum, and it was exactly the same sound as on a Led Zeppelin record! It was, like, a 4x 14 snare drum, an 18” bass drum, an 8x 12 and 14x 14, and he said, ‘Oh, you mean the thing on blah, blah,’ and that sound came out. I just couldn’t believe it; it was that drum sound from this toy drumset!

http://johnbonham.co.uk/drumsetup/ludwig-speed-king-bass-drum-pedal.html

Throughout Bonham's career, he used Ludwig's SpeedKing bass drum pedal with tight spring tension. Bonham used a felt beater, switching to a wooden beater towards the end of his career. This pedal has been nicknamed the "Squeak King" because of the large amounts of squeaking it produces!
The squeak of the pedal is audible in the following Led Zeppelin recordings:

'Since I've Been Loving You', 'The Ocean', 'The Rain Song', 'Houses of the Holy', 'Ten Years Gone', 'Bonzo's Montreux' and the live version of 'I Can't Quit You Baby' on Coda and 'All My Love' on In Through The Out Door.

Jimmy Page has commented on the squeaking:
"The only real problem I can remember encountering was when we were putting the first boxed set together. There was an awfully squeaky bass drum pedal on 'Since I've Been Loving You'. It sounds louder and louder every time I hear it! (laughs). That was something that was obviously sadly overlooked at the time."

The late, great John Bonham backstage at Olympia Stadium, Detroit, Michigan, 1975 pic.twitter.com/FQd6xxlumQ

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) February 16, 2021

http://screen-slate-rails.herokuapp.com/system/images/W1siZiIsIjIwMTgvMTIvMjEvMTgvMzMvMTQvMmRmNjI1ZDgtODZhNi00YjFiLThiNDItNDgyZGZlNGQ0MTM2L2EtY2xvY2t3b3JrLW9yYW5nZS5qcGciXV0/a-clockwork-orange.jpg?sha=f8257dd54f25465d

Peter Grant and John Bonham backstage at the Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1975 pic.twitter.com/7rzNgpZ6x6

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) December 18, 2021

I never really made the connection with the clockwork orange thug costume until now