Led Zeppelin Play-Along Minus Drums

Play along with Led Zeppelin and John Bonham on this Music Minus Drums CD featuring 8 incredible sounding tracks that made them famous. The Play Along tracks are faithfully recorded by Marco Moir with the same intensity & passion as the original Led Zeppelin recordings. You don t need to be able to read music to Play Along with Led Zeppelin on this CD but an intermediate player familiar with their songs can turn it up and rock! A click track is provided as a time guide along with Guitar, Bass and Vocal tracks. The CD was produced by Carmine Appice, one of the world's greatest drummers. Carmine has played with Jeff Beck, Cactus, Ozzy Osbourne, Pat Travers, Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and Vanilla Fudge.

Songs include: How Many More Times * Whole Lotta Love * Black Dog * Rock ‘n’ Roll * When the Levee Breaks * The Ocean * Kashmir * The Wanton Song.

REVIEW

 I think this CD is a great idea, reproducing the sound and feel of the original recordings and making it available to drummers everywhere! Marco Moir did a fine job of reproducing the guitar, bass and vocal tracks; even side by side it was hard to tell the original from the reproduced version. I made a clip of "Whole Lotta Love", both from the original Led Zeppelin album recording and the play-along CD, so you can hear it for yourself.

I think any fan of Led Zeppelin and/or John "Bonzo" Bonham will enjoy owning this CD. Sure, you can play along to the original recordings (a valuable tool), but now you can play these famous eight tunes the way you would have done so IF you were gigging with Led Zeppelin ... or just play it the way Bonzo did ... in either case, it's all good!

Now, I do need to mention that the tracks on this CD aren't exactly the same as the original in some cases. For example, the "Whole Lotta Love" track doesn't have the 2-minute psycodelic drum and percussion interlude that happens mid-way through the tune like it does on the original 1969 LED ZEPPELIN II recording. This tune was released as a single (which I have somewhere), so perhaps this version had a different mix ... I don't remember. I don't think it's a big deal, but some of your Led Zeppelin fans may feel otherwise; so you've been warned.

Each track on this CD has a HiHat count-off, which acts like a metronome, just before the drums would enter. The HiHat then continues throughout the tune so there's something to help the drummer play time to. I'm personally torn on having the click (HiHat) in the mix. I understand why it's need, but I personally would have liked the option to play without it. Since there are only eight tunes on the CD, I wish Carmine had chosen to lay down those same eight tracks again ... but without any click ... or maybe only the count-off. One other note about the HiHat clicks ... they sometimes have a LOT of reverb on them. I guess they wanted to keep the click track within the character of the given tune, but as far as the role for a click track, even though it's a HiHat sound, I think keeping it dry in the mix would have been more prudent and useful to the performer. It bugged me a bit, but perhaps it's just me.

Now a bigger issue that I've found is one serious error on the tune "Rock and Roll".  The introduction and count-off is completely wrong! Not only is the count-off confusing, but you can't play the actual drum intro the way the play-along track is laid out. There's also some tempo shifting with the HiHat click once band comes in, so even if you could play the drum intro, you'll be off from the band once they enter. Very frustrating. I took 15-minutes, imported the play-along into Pro Tools, performed a little minor surgery, and fixed the count-off and opening section so that the play-along track now works correctly. I'm beginning to think that the play-along tracks were recorded with a live drummer, and then removed the drum track and manually added a click. The way the click moves around, even slowing down in certain sections, leads me to believe this is the case. It is these discrepancies and erroneous sections to this project that I give it a lower rating. I want a play-along to be more consistent, not drag and rush like the band (or just Bonham) did on the Zeppelin albums or live performances.

All in all, I think Carmine Appice (executive producer) and Power Rock Entertainment, Inc , as well as Marco Moir, did a great job with this CD, Songs That Made Led Zeppelin Famous - Play Along Minus Drums . If you are looking for some rock tracks to play to, especially minus drums, you'll want to pick-up this CD. At $14.95 ... it's well worth the price!

Oh one last thing ... there are actually ten tracks on this CD. Track 9 is just a closing by Carmine, while Track 10 is Carmine introducing the first tune on the CD ("How Many More Times") and the performer, Marco Moir. Something went screwy with the duplicating I guess. I doesn't make since, but oh well, it's the first eight tracks that we are concerned, and those are just fine ... for the most part.