Dug Out My Bonham Kit Today

gotta love the blondes! great job with the emblam, looks very 16th century...
 
Stunning kit, i would love to see it without the rack and the ride hung over kick drum and all the over cymbal stands straight stands and the rack tom mounted on a snare stand, looks sweet though.
 
NIce kit, I too would like to see it without the rack. If you're gonna go with the vintage vibe, get a rail consolette and a cymbal arm on that bass drum!

Find yourself some Giant Beat cymbals and you too will play like John Bonham! ;)
 
Is it really a Bonham kit if it has a rack? I say go for broke and get a second Bass drum and bigger rack.

or not.

Sweet kit though, love the bass drum art!

-Jonathan
 
Thanks Bo, but I love my Zilgians! lol

The Ludwig shell pack was available and I wanted to step down from my Slingerland 32" and Leedy 28's. The 26" is perfect for my hard edge style of paying.

I'm waiting to see the new line of DW Performance series coming out this fall (re: another thread on here) to see what they're like, and then I plan to pick up a kit with a 24" kick. I have 22's, never had a 24", played them and like them.

Either that or a set of DW Collector Series Maples.

You must be really tall. At 5' 00", I can't really play anything bigger than 22" comfortably. I had a 24" long ago, but only used it with one rack tom, and that was kinda' pushing it. I did like how the beater hit in the center of the drum, though. It sounded great. Just this year I've finally committed to the 20" size bass drum, and after 30+ years of playing, I finally feel comfortable with enough uuummmppphhhh to spare!

Rock on, man.
 
Destroy1 - That's a Beautiful 5-piece kit and nice set (1 tom up / 2 toms down), nothing mounted on the solid bass drum, I like that. The 18"x16" floor tom must sound like a cannon, isn't it?

Cheers,
 
Thank you kind Sir! I'm delighted you like it!

Yes Bo, I'm 6'3" and long arms, so reach isn't a problem. The problem with my 32" Slingerland and I daresay my 28" Leedy too (but to a lesser degree) is getting the bass drum beater to hit the sweet center spot of the drum. Not an impossibility on the 28", but certainly on the 32". I've tried everything imaginable...from welding an extension on to the beater rod equipped with a heavy 60's solid wood ball beater (OUCH! ...My shin! ) witch I used for awhile until I got tired of beating myself to death with it.....made another attempt to offset the pedal foot board at an impossibly improbable angle, and a still further attempt to elevate the pedal itself! No go. So I use it as is and heavily mic the batter AND reso heads. The 28" isn't too bad, but the beater still doesn't hit perfect dead center. My 26" Ludwig is perfect.

Although our drumming brethren used 28" bass drums from the the early 20's on; firstly because they were readily available in a marching drum configuration and because there was no drum micing per se; and secondly because there was a need in the Big Band and Jazz era to hear that THUMP, it was, and still is, impractical to use anything larger than a 28" due to the engineering limitations of both the bass drum pedal and the human anatomy. Triggers would probably work, but I'm a purist at heart.

John probably figured that out straight away and decided that the 26" was about the limit he would go to stay in the lower sound wave envelope to achieve what he was looking for, though I suspect that he might have initially experimented with larger size bass drums to come to this conclusion. One can readily see, historically, that his mindset WAS steeped in the spirit of innovation, hence his collaborative efforts with the Ludwig Vistalites and Steel kits. He certainly was a brilliant innovator with an eye towards the future of drumming.

And who among us hasn't experimented with our kits, and by extension, our sound?

RIP JB

BONHAM_3sm350.jpg

I'm sure Carmine Appice would like us to believe that John Bonham played a 26" bass drum because he played them. John's career didn't really take off until Mr. Appice took him under his wing..... ;)
 
Destroy1, nice set. 26" kick drums rule.......
 

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Thank you Harry.


How do you like those Istanbuls? I've never played them, but they look heavy and I'm wondering if they emit a 'darker' sound, say, compared to Avedis Zildgians.
For close to 10 years, I'd spend a whole day at NAMM just going from cymbal maker to cymbal maker, playing, listenning, and taking notes. Finally, a few years ago, I started my collection. And yes, dark they are. Since that photo, I've replaced all my crashes (3) with 14" Istanbul's. And yes, again, the Avedis series, very cool, Zildjian returning to the "more" traditional sound that "put them on the map" in the first place.​
That's a great place for the remote HHat too! All kinds of neat little paradiddle and inverted paradiddle possibilities with that placement.
Yes, a little infusion of Bill Bruford and his symmetrical sets.​

Looks like a 14" and 16" FT on the right and 18" FT on left.
Actually, a 13". Also (not in photo), I have a matching 14x14, and an 18x12 kick. All I need to hunt down is a matching 12x8.​
 
i'm liking the hihat setup. like bill bruford much?

Indeed, yes. I still have my Yamaha RC's set up in the traditional way, but I figure, why not use the technological advances, if they're there. Or at least try them.
 
Love the kit. I recently set my kit up as a 1up 2dn and I am diggin it. I notice that your floor toms are inline with each other. Isnt that very uncomfortable? I am only 6'0 and I need that last tom further out to the right so I dont have to pull my elbows in when I play on that side. I can imagine being 6'3 with long arms playing like that.
 
Minor creepiness alert... whenever you may come back to read this... I recognize that last name through family/friends/etc. and might have to ask some people around I know who share your last name if they recognize the crest... and if they know any drummers in the family... :) lol

Absolutely awesome drums by the way, as clichéd as it may sound and all, every single time I see a big Bonham setup it makes me want to try one of my own... even if I am like Bo Eder and am barely over 5 feet tall and big drums are just next to impossible to play with.
 
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