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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.
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.
Was it the class A habit that made him hear differently?
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.
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.
The 'Stairway' Tele tone was probably his best.....
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
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.
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