HOW WOULD JOHN BONHAM SOUND TODAY? (Quantized)

No wonder Jeff Porcaro hated click tracks.

Funny how he was so off tempo, but from all the music I've listened to, his cymbal crashes are the most perfect in sync with the rest of the instruments. Even listening to Rush, and the over-glorified Neal Peart, it's just boring and sounds a mess. The only other stuff I've heard where the drummer had perfect alignment was Blink 182 with Travis Barker.

Bonzo let Jimmy lead and he played to JP’s tempo. Blame Jimmy. This music was real. The band loved playing together. Totally harmonious

Disagree. The quantized versions have much better time and groove because of it. Bonham is too out of time on these to feel groovy.

Thank God our music was recorded before these technological blasphemies were made real.
Long live the Sixties! Long live the Seventies!
We rocked the world like it never was rocked before, like it never has been rocked again!
Class of '69 still rules!

Wish you’d play the real one with the click

John bonham would sound like a legend in any time.

There's a "making of" Zepp documentary where they say his alcoholism was so bad, he had to consume an entire bottle of vodka just to get out of bed as he would have the shakes so bad when he woke up, and he'd be at least three bottles down when he arrived at the a session. Apparently some of his best stuff was recorded after six of seven whole bottles vodka back to back. he couldn't stand up or talk, but they propped him on the stool, stuck the sticks in his hands, and he did this.

The great “feel” vs “technical” debate. “Feel” wins every time.

Quantizing those little fills makes it very machine-like sound. It doesn't sound as bad to me - maybe since I grew up with those kind of quantized drums - but those imperfections in the fills make the song 10 times more exciting

Rick I went back to this video because myself and some of my band mates from the 1970's, were discussing quantizing, its usefulness and not so usefulness in recording.

The tempo appears to be slower than 170 BPM, though.

That why true artists at the pinnacle of the abilities. Is way way, better than a computerized drum beat. If you attend a concert with electronic drum beats your wasting your valuable time and hard earned dollars!

Great comparison, I always believed that no computer will beat humans feelings, long live Bonzo and the music that comes from the heart...👊

It took me a year to learn that Fool in the Rain beat. But once I did...totally worth the time and totally understand what you're saying here. You can't learn that part with a click, you'll sound like a robot.

One sounds completely stiff and nerdy and the other is greasy Rock 'n Roll

The concept of "behind the beat" or "ahead of the beat" is a myth. The beat is where it is and mostly where the drummer plays it.

Great analysis, Rick. Let's keep music human!
Btw, similarly to perfect pitch, are there musicians who were born with "perfect"/metronomic timing? "Perfect" quote/unquote, because I'm sure there are different degrees of perfect pitch, as you discussed with Ola Englund, to the point where some perfect pitch guys will cringe if an instrument is not perfectly tuned to A440 while others won't mind a note being 15 cents sharp or flat and still be able to recognize it. Let's say that someone who were 99% dead on the beat most of the time could be regarded as such.

The computer one has no personality.

Good video... a super computer cannot compare to what was going on inside Bonhams drumming brain... in fact a super computer would not be able to make his beats and fills.

Bad video. This is just romanticizing sloppiness. Bonham himself admitted he wasn't a good drummer and he was right, not even in his time he was among the best, he was even outclassed at time keeping by decent enough but not virtuosic drummers like Bill Ward or even Ringo. If you can't keep time you're a bad drummer, as simple as that. The behind the beat thing that was common place in old drummers wasn't done on purpose in most cases and one can hear even if they went behind it was very slightly, unnoticeable for the untrained ear and still sounded tight. So yes, playing and practicing to a click is a must for all drummers even if cranky boomers like Beato hate it. Human variation will always be there, even Neil Peart had that human element despite his almost perfect playing.

what a joke concept! 😀 self promotion disguised as analysis!

To be fair, Bonham‘d feel for Tempo was dreadful, and the main reason he was criticised by Ginger Baker. But man, what an amazing sound the dude had.

Why???? Perfection isn't human and if perfect it fails to have the emotional resonance. So again....WHY?

I love Rick B., and I want that to be clear. But while watching this, I got this horrible, empty feeling inside. And I can pretty much directly relate this feeling to seeing all of this quantization of John's drum parts. Now I know that when Jimmy Page goes into the original analog tapes for the remastered box sets, he must use all this crap to bring it into 5.1 surround sound. But, yeah, it just made me feel blue inside.

Ableton could do this in 2 seconds.

The touch of him is naturally of playing if you search perfection recording with the computer all the instruments

How would John Bonham sound today and the answer is like a led zeppelin reunion where the drummer has arthritis

Excellent example. The original track swings. That's something quantizing always ruins.

The title itself is very misleading.... John Bonham would never allow such a thing to be done to his playing, neither would any producer of worth. Should be "What John Bonham would never sound like" - anyway cool video. It shows the sterility and soulless sounds that modern music has devolved into.

He still wouldn't be able to swing ...

I'm just seeing this now (four years after it's debut), but the interesting thing here is Bonzo actually played to a click track on In Through the Out Door as John Paul Jones and Robert Plant, writing most of the material, had Jones playing kis keyboards to a click during the day and Bonham and Page coming in for the night session and adding their parts, hardly seeing Jones/Plant during recording. "Bonham was struggling with alcoholism and Page was battling heroin addiction. Jones later said, "there were two distinct camps by then, and we [Plant and I] were in the relatively clean one." Many of the songs were consequently put together by Plant and Jones during the day, with Page and Bonham adding their parts late at night."

100% AGREED! FUN VIDEO RICK

Long day ago I've seen couple of videos by Rick about this topic - about quantizing drums, and I've come with a trick for drum programming.
If you program the drums - like you don't have a drummer or you don't have a studio to record your drummer properly - and you program the drums by VSTs, like Addictive Drums or whatever, just immitate these microshifts. Yes, it will take a lot of your time (while just writing an addictive drums line takes couple of hours, immitating these microshifts will take a couple of days, but it worth it), but - try to add as more shifts as it is possible to make the groove. Immitate them both in kick, snare and hats/rides, whatever, with keeping the groove you want to create in mind. Modern rock and metal music is heavily quantized, so sometimes it's simply impossible to listen - no pump, no groove, no breath, due to working with VSTs (like, even top-tier artists work with drum-imitating VSTs), but by adding these microshifts to the left and right you preserve the breath of the track as it would be really played by skilled drummer. But - do not rely on "humanizing" effects in VSTs, write these microshifts by yourself, manually, with keeping in mind the groove you want to hear.
The second trick is - after you've programmed a drum track, layer the kick and snare (and - if possible - toms) up with oneshots (of course, tending to avoid any possible phase issues by working with waveform of your oneshot), and put these oneshots a bit quieter than the drum track. It will allow you to create your own drum tembre, and - moreover - it also adds a lot to the dynamics of your drums. Like - in real life - drum sound is not just a single sound of a single hit, it is always a combination of variety of sounds - stick hitting the drum, strings under the snare, resonance of the room, mic bleed, etc. etc. Every live-recorded drum track will have it's own sound (even when played on the same kit and recorded on the same gear, but by different drummers), so layering up your drum track with one shots allows you to create your own sound, and adds even more of breath and liveliness to "drum performance" that you recreate in your DAW. Without layering your drum track with oneshots there's a lot of risk, that even with microshifts, heavily propelled groove, liveliness of your programmed track, it will sound programmed because drum VSTs always sound the same (so - you definetly do not want to have a sound of drums that you've heard from thousands of other bands), which kills the feel of groove and breath. So - when programming drum tracks - write all the accents and microshifts (don't be afraid with experimenting, adding a couple of subtle "mistakes" in drum line will even make your drum track spicier and more groovy) and layer your kick and snare with various oneshots (my take is - 2-3 oneshots for kick, 1 for heavy accent, 1 for non-accented, 1 for ghost notes, create 2-3 audio tracks for each of these oneshots, 1 track for heavy accents, 1 track for non-accented notes - you get the idea, balance them correctly, and make them a bit quieter than your VST track - like I try to keep the heavy accents track 5 dBs quieter than the VST track, and others - for 3-4 dBs quieter from heavy accents and each other), pay attention to phase issues, and you'll get a great sounding programmed drums, and no one will ever believe that these drums are programmed, not played. Oh - and of course - put a bit of saturation on the group "kick-snare-toms", to make the drums push more (yep, you can saturate cymbals also, but I usually use a bit different processing for cymbals group).

Bonham was a human drummer, not a metronome. It was the pauses, up/down tempo that made him great.

Quantization of dramatic pauses is as unmusical an idea as it gets. Composer/Conductors speed up and slow down intentionally. So should good drummers.

it actually sounds great both ways. sorry

swing swing swing

I've always said that playing with a click track would've ruined John Bonham's or Bill Ward's style. I'll hit the drum when I darned well feel like it. That attitude and swagger is totally bad-ass.

The quantized version sounds better to me.

This is difference of day and night... great done!!

John Bonham could play just around the tempo but his micro timing was so good you wouldn’t notice. So many brilliant subtleties to his playing and musical instincts he made the kit sound beautifully human and hit HARD while making it musical

There's a lot of expression going on in tempo changes. Slowing down builds up tension or a feeling of suspense, speeding up releases it or creates drama or excitement. Ironing all of that out makes it less perfect, not more.

MIght be me, but it's wrong because you're cramming everything into 4/4 without recognizing the swing in Bonhams playing. Update your time signature and grid to include triplets and I think you'll find you can digitize that human swing just fine

And Ginger Baker said that Bonham couldn't swing............lol

According to one analysis I've seen, vocalists come in two timing flavors: reproducible and non-reproducible. The former sings an accordingly consistent timing, while the latter, never. Is this the same for all musicians? - signed, musically impaired.

To Me, this perfectly shows the difference between playing and instrument, and programming one. A singer's vocals are their instrument. The drummer's drum and style are his. Subtle styles of play do not come through and add to the product when it's digitally sequenced to perfection by tools and not musicians. When I say musicians, i mean those who can play instruments, Not composers and arrangers. If you're a drummer, and you want to get your voice out, you play your way. It is why all the greats had their own style, own sound. It's also why I would prefer analog/tape to digital/cd any day. But that's another topic. Great exercise here.

This could have been titled "why new music sucks" quantized drums make it all sound the same

What Jeff Porcaro sound like today Quantized?

Bonham is such a powerful drummer!