What is wrong with Jimmy Pages guitar tone?

supes

Just watched Celebration Day again, and at times it's like he's a 12 year old kid trying to play 80s thrash metal on the cheapest amp he could buy. That's what his tone sounds like to me, fuzzy, thin, and shrill.
Excellent songs, still love Led Zep, but how he manages to get such an annoying tone out of a Les Paul is beyond me.
(Apologies to any 12 year old kids playing 80s thrash metal on cheap amps, you might not know any better yet, but he should.)

blueskunk

sacrilege 

guitargeek62

Haven't heard it yet, but he's still got it;

monquixote

Your first mistake is watching Celebration Day. 

I'm a huge Zep fan, but I haven't bothered to watch it other than a couple of brief clips as there are vastly better live recordings from the 70's you could watch like the excellent DVD box set that came out a while ago.

LooseMoose

I thought the same...awful!

jd0272

I watched that too (well sort of), but I was well pissed, so just saw blurry things, and heard some noise stuff. Probably equates to our gig on Friday really.

supes

I've got loads of Led Zep DVDs, loads of vinyl, CDs etc. That's why i just can't believe nobody told him how thin and weedy it sounded. Did it sound that bad live on the night?
I'm sure I read he was still a control freak and would have vetted it before it's release or had a big hand in editing it. Sacrilege or not that sound is pants.

bandmaster188

I agree. A zep fan myself but that is a pretty atrocious tone he's using. Sounds like he's got a dan electro pastrami pedal that's about to explode.

p90fool

monquixote said:

 you could watch like the excellent DVD box set that came out a while ago.

I bought that, mainly for the rhythm section it has to be said. There's some classic stuff on there though.

I loved the first couple of albums, they had a darkness and a mystique around them, and Page was hungry and ambitious. Once they became massive though he just seemed to contribute some pouting and some scratchy noises onstage, and even in the studio on songs like Since I've been Loving You you can HEAR him posing rather than concentrating. Awful, awful harsh, thin tone, God only knows that THAT sounded like before it got sweetened by the desk.

One amusing offshoot though is that there's an obsession in the US for "Jimmy Page wiring" for Les Pauls, basically any amount of ridiculous push-pullery you can fit in the control cavity and under the pickguard.
It's amusing because Page himself never had any of that tosh until after he'd made all his famous records.

monquixote

Horses for courses, but  I like the tone on Since I've Been Loving You. 

It's always the example I give when people ask what the difference between neck and bridge tone is. You can even hear him click the selector switch on his Tele.

stickyfiddle

I don't dislike the tone on Celebration Day, but the fact that it's all in D standard spoils it. I get that Plant can't stretch those notes any more (God knows I can't!) but it just doesn't feel right.

close2u

I think Jimmy's tone through most of Physical Grafitti is dreadful too.
Was it the class A habit that made him hear differently?

mart

supes said:

I've got loads of Led Zep DVDs, loads of vinyl, CDs etc. That's why i just can't believe nobody told him how thin and weedy it sounded. Did it sound that bad live on the night?

...

I'm sure someone on here was recently saying how bootlegs from the concert sounded very different to the DVD. And I don't think they were claiming it actually sounded better on the night!

Basher

Must say that what I've heard of Celebration Day sounded OK to me. Pretty standard late-era Page live tones and better than some.

I too have read that the sound of the official release has been "dicked about with" compared to the soundboard recording. That would be utterly consistent with his approach to the other live LZ material. If you want a forensic analysis of the extent to which this went on, check out The Garden Tapes .

I have to differ with most of the opinions here in that it's his "thin" sound that I love. To me it's more a hollow/woody sound and the exact opposite of the typical bloated, rock-god, "here comes the Lester, I'm having the entire midrange" tone. I also love the tones on  Physical Graffiti (I've read that he used the Strat on some tracks - e.g. Ten Years Gone). 

Still, it wouldn't do if we all liked the same stuff, I suppose.

mudslide73

close2u;217132" said:

Was it the class A habit that made him hear differently?

The coincidence isn't a coincidence imo.

He's Pagey, who's going to tell him he sounds bad? He's become reliant on various setups for specific songs (Petersburg, Orange, Marshall) and I think he's just not moved on. His live tone has got increasingly trebly as the years have passed.. must be his ears going.

I think his tonal zenith was when he was using the HiWatts and early on with the Marshalls. The Tonebender years weren't bad either.

richardhomer

Heresy I suspect but I've never really liked his tone. Amazing that so much of the lure of late '50s Les Pauls was attributed to him. He has probably the least archetypal LP tone ever.

The 'Stairway' Tele tone was probably his best.....

fretfinder

Sighs and shakes head disappointedly... 

Pagey is 'the man' fellas!

Phil_aka_Pip

If he thinks a sound is good when you lot all think it's trebly and weedy, it probably means his hearing is knackered and he can't hear much above 12kHz

mudslide73

fretfinder;217186" said:

Sighs and shakes head disappointedly... 

Pagey is 'the man' fellas!

Was I'm afraid. I'm a complete fanboi as well.

randomhandclaps

A major problem with the perception of Jimmy's tone is people think about the big riffs.  I find it bizarre when Guitar magazine say Jimmy made a Telecaster sound big, he never did, it's the arrangement that are big.  Jimmy has never had a great big fat guitar tone.  What he has is a phenomenal bass player and drummer and with those tools he is a master of arrangement.  Look at Kashmir - it was played on a poxy Danelectro but still sounds ferocious and huge - especially for the times.

I believe Jimmy's choice of tone is dictated by two major factors. 

Firstly John Paul Jones's bass playing.  JPJ fills a tremendous amount of both tonal and musical space.  In many tracks it is the absolute meat of them but what sticks in our heads is that cutting guitar.  In most modern bands with fat distorted guitar tones the bass and guitar have to follow similar riffs to avoid clashing,  In a lot of Led Zep tracks Jimmy and JPJ are playing totally contrasting or very differing parts.  This only really works because Jimmy's tone gives the bass space.  This also means that as a three piece, when Jimmy plays a solo there isn't suddenly a massive hole in the sound where the guitar was.

Secondly is reverb.  One of the methods Led Zep used to add largeness to their sound was reverb.  Far more reverb than most modern equivalents.  Jimmy was also the producer so clearly the love or use of reverb was his concept and at his direction.  When a distorted guitar tone has a lots of lows and a significant amount of reverb is added thing get muddy pretty quick.  However listen to Led Zep tracks and they are always punchy and razor sharp.  These soundscapes of large spaces but tight rhythms is only possible with a Page like tone.

ICBM

richardhomer said:

Heresy I suspect but I've never really liked his tone. Amazing that so much of the lure of late '50s Les Pauls was attributed to him. He has probably the least archetypal LP tone ever.

The 'Stairway' Tele tone was probably his best.....

I've watched one of the DVDs (Albert Hall I think) where he switches from the '59 Standard to the 3-pickup Custom at the end, and the tone of the Custom completely blows away the Standard - much bigger, fuller, just plain better. And that's through the same amps, so it's clearly the guitar. Having watched that I'm even more mystified as to why Standards are so much more highly valued than Customs. A lot of other players recorded some of their best tones with Customs too.