Which guitar on which Zep track?

monquixote

There must be a nerdy web site about this?

My rule of thumb has alway been

Zep 1 all Tele

Zep 2 all LP

Zep 3 mostly Tele

And the others a bit of a mix of both plus Danelectro for anything in a ln alternate tuning and Fender XII for anything 12 string.

However since getting my Tele I've noticed a few songs I would have thought were LP songs sound better on the Tele like The Ocean and Black Dog.

Nerd away Zep nerds.

tony99

what tele did you get? has it got more mirrors on it than phil daniels' Lambretta?

monquixote

Nah it's an AO 50s.

Fantastic thing, really light and resonant.

Funkfingers

Some of the thin, wiry sounds on pre-1970 recordings might be the three pickup LP Custom with its selector switch in the middle position.

The EDS-1275 arrived in 1971.

springhead

monquixote said:

There must be a nerdy web site about this?

My rule of thumb has alway been

Zep 1 all Tele

Zep 2 all LP

Zep 3 mostly Tele

And the others a bit of a mix of both plus Danelectro for anything in a ln alternate tuning and Fender XII for anything 12 string.

However since getting my Tele I've noticed a few songs I would have thought were LP songs sound better on the Tele like The Ocean and Black Dog.

Nerd away Zep nerds.

Borrowed Flying V on "You Shook Me" from Zep 1.

I think the Tele usage is minimal after Zep 1 apart from the Stairway solo and when it resurfaces with a B Bender in it.

Strat on 10 Years Gone and plenty of other tracks after Houses.

Redlester

You are right- there will be a nerdy website somewhere itemising this. 

I- Tele
II- Tele/ Les Paul std- but he still had the black 3 pup Custom then so who knows that could be somewhere
III- probably LP std for electric stuff but I don’t know about the acoustic tracks. Martin? Harmony? Gibson J200? 

I’ve- Les Paul std; Femder electric 12 for Stairway; Tele for the Stairway solo. 

Houses- possibly the double neck for 12 string tracks by this time; Les Pauls; probably Strats and Teles too. 
PG- All sorts of stuff. White Strat on 12 yrs gone
Presence- Les Pauls. Strat on track 2 whose name I can’t recall. 

SRTS soundtrack: LP 1 and 2; a red Lester (!); double neck. 

ITTOD: Blue Strat (In the Eve); Tele with a B benderon a lot of stuff (that crap country track); Les Pauls; double neck on Carouselambra. 

The Firm: Tele 

Roy Harper Jugula album: Tele. Ovation acoustics

Outrider: Tele; superstar type thing; Les Pauls. 

Coverdale Page: Les Pauls incl Transperformance Tuning Les Pauls 

Unledded: Martin; Ovation; Les Pauls (incl a red one with a b bender)  

Clarksdale: Les Pauls; maybe Gretsches; 12 string electric (the Fender?); PRS with a vibrato. 

Etc etc etc etc 

edit: yeah some nerdy site will list it but in the meantime some nerd on a forum will do it for ya! 

springhead

Redlester said:

You are right- there will be a nerdy website somewhere itemising this. 

PG- All sorts of stuff. White Strat on 12 yrs gone
edit: yeah some nerdy site will list it but in the meantime some nerd on a forum will do it for ya! 

If we're nerding I think it was his LPB Strat, straight into the mixing desk.  10 Years Gone! 

Boromedic

Pages best tone for me is live on How The West Was Won, that's all Gibson and Marshalls. LP > Fender Tele......

tone1

springhead said:

monquixote said:

There must be a nerdy web site about this?

My rule of thumb has alway been

Zep 1 all Tele

Zep 2 all LP

Zep 3 mostly Tele

And the others a bit of a mix of both plus Danelectro for anything in a ln alternate tuning and Fender XII for anything 12 string.

However since getting my Tele I've noticed a few songs I would have thought were LP songs sound better on the Tele like The Ocean and Black Dog.

Nerd away Zep nerds.

Borrowed Flying V on "You Shook Me" from Zep 1.

I think the Tele usage is minimal after Zep 1 apart from the Stairway solo and when it resurfaces with a B Bender in it.

Strat on 10 Years Gone and plenty of other tracks after Houses.

I didn’t realise it was a Strat on 10 years gone..

Redlester

springhead said:

Redlester said:

You are right- there will be a nerdy website somewhere itemising this. 

PG- All sorts of stuff. White Strat on 12 yrs gone
edit: yeah some nerdy site will list it but in the meantime some nerd on a forum will do it for ya! 

If we're nerding I think it was his LPB Strat, straight into the mixing desk.  10 Years Gone! 

It was a white strat. I’m not a nerd honest!! But I remember a magazine article a few years back. It featured pics of JP with a white Strat that JPJ had had for years and given back to JP. He referred to it as the TYG Strat. 

12 years gone was a different track where Jimmy played a Marlin Slammer into a Tandy practice amp boosted by a Rocktek distortion pedal.  

Cols

The Les Paul didn’t make an appearance until LZII; the debut album was all Tele except for You Shook Me (Flying V that someone was trying to sell Page), Black Mountainside (Danelectro) and the acoustic numbers (Gibson J-200).

From LZII through to Physical Graffiti, it was largely the Les Paul (although I suspect the Tele was used quite often for overdubs, notably the solo for Stairway to Heaven).  Whole Lotta Love was a Les Paul Custom which was later stolen, and a Vox Phantom XII was used for Living Loving Maid and Thank You.  Acoustic duties were largely covered by a cheap Harmony acoustic.

The electric 12 string on Stairway to Heaven and The Song Remains The Same was a Fender XII; the famous Gibson doubleneck was a stage-only instrument.  Fender Strats were used with increasing frequency from Houses of the Holy onwards; I’d be amazed if The Crunge was recorded on a Les Paul...

springhead

tone1 said:

springhead said:

monquixote said:

There must be a nerdy web site about this?

My rule of thumb has alway been

Zep 1 all Tele

Zep 2 all LP

Zep 3 mostly Tele

And the others a bit of a mix of both plus Danelectro for anything in a ln alternate tuning and Fender XII for anything 12 string.

However since getting my Tele I've noticed a few songs I would have thought were LP songs sound better on the Tele like The Ocean and Black Dog.

Nerd away Zep nerds.

Borrowed Flying V on "You Shook Me" from Zep 1.

I think the Tele usage is minimal after Zep 1 apart from the Stairway solo and when it resurfaces with a B Bender in it.

Strat on 10 Years Gone and plenty of other tracks after Houses.

I didn’t realise it was a Strat on 10 years gone..

Strat also on For Your Life, Hots On For Nowhere and In The Evening, but that one's kind of obvious with the big whammy dive on it!  Dare say there's lots more Strat examples, he had several - White, LPB, 50's sunburst etc.

RandallFlagg

I don't think I like any of the recorded Led Zep tones much, I much prefer the live tone on How The West Was Won

sixwheeltyrrel

Who knows for sure other than him and I doubt he can remember.

I would say the guitar parts on the first four albums are somewhere between exclusively and mostly a Telecaster, crucially with almost all the notes picked.

Cols

RandallFlagg said:

I don't think I like any of the recorded Led Zep tones much, I much prefer the live tone on How The West Was Won

Useful to know what guitars Page was using in the studio then, so you can avoid them like the plague

dogload

I believe he used a Roland GR808 on bits of In Through the Out Door ('In The Evening' was one I think)

mudslide73

RandallFlagg said:

I don't think I like any of the recorded Led Zep tones much, I much prefer the live tone on How The West Was Won

Wasn't some of HTWWW re amped anyway?.. I know some of the guitars (and vocals?) are flown in from different nights too. There's a Kevin Shirley interview where he talked about both as well as some audio fixes on "DVD". 

A lot already covered here.. but Jimmy had another red LP (non b-bender late 50s ex Babies GT refin) which was used on the 77 tour and there's footage of him playing an RD Artist too. 

If you want to get really nerdy there are threads on Royal-Orleans discussing which LP is used on which song on which night - all with photographs.

monquixote

I know the double neck doesn't feature on any records.

He used it on Walking Into Clarksdale and mentioned it was the first time it had been used in the studio.

Presence and OTTOD have a lot of Strat but by that point I'm not really interested in them any more.

Zep I is kind of what I want a guitar to sound like.

CHrisP86

Nice post. Made me go and listen to the full album, which I don’t think I had done before.

Excellent bluesy, rock tone. I do now want a Tele!

Also wondering if this tone was an inspiration for one of my favourite local bands (Jinn House, if anyone is interested...) 

TTony

sixwheeltyrrel said:

Who knows for sure other than him and I doubt he can remember.

That might have been true in pre-internet days, but now ... 

Though Page himself probably still doesn't remember

melod

I am a fan and I think he used many amps and guitars but he had a way of getting the sound he wanted out of different equipment so i wouldn’t  bother much.

As for best sounds, LZII for me is the best probably also because Eddie Kramer was involved. That heartbreaker intro and lemon song one are super.

That said, I would say that over time my favourite and probably more representative sound is on Presence: Rather clean and “dry” but I think it suited his attack and style which I always thought more rooted in rockabilly than blues.