Some snippets for you.
Page on recording various tunes (from a Guitar World interview):
http://www.iem.ac.ru/zeppelin/docs/i...ews/page_93.gw
"[thinks hard] You know, I don't remember what I used on "Good Times Bad Times", but curiously, I do remember using the board to overdrive a
Leslie cabinet for the main riff in "How Many More Times".It doesn't
sound like a Leslie because I wasn't employing the rotating speakers.
Surprisingly, that sound has real weight. The guitar is going through the board, then through an amp which was driving the Leslie cabinet. It was a very successful experiment.
But for most of the recorded I was using a Supro amp, a wah-wah and a distortion unit called a Tonebender, which was one of Roger Mayer's creations."
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On Black Dog:
"We put my Les Paul through a direct box, and from there into a mic channel. We used the mic amp of the mixing board to get distortion. Then we ran it through two Urei 1176 Universal compressors in series. Then each line was triple-tracked. Curiously, I was listening to that track when we were reviewing the tapes and the guitars almost sound like an analog synthesizer."
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GW: Your bow playing, especially on "Dazed and Confused", is really enhanced by echo. What did you use?
Page: It was actually reverb. We used those old EMT plate reverbs.
GW: That's a little surprising, because there are some areas on the record that sound like you're using tape echo. In fact, Led Zeppelin I was the first album that I can think of that employed such long echoes and delays.
Page: It's a little difficult to remember, and I can't tell you on exactly which tracks, but there was alot of EMT plate reverb put on to tape and then delayed -- machine delayed. You were only given so much time on those old spring reverbs.
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GW: What guitar did you use on "Song", was it the Gibson Doubleneck??
Page: No, I used a Fender 12-string in the studio. And before the Fender, I used a Vox 12-string. You can hear the Vox on things like "Thank You" and "Living Loving Maid" on the Second album.
GW: "Houses" is so bright-sounding. Did you vari-speed the tape up a notch to get everything to sparkle more??
Page: No, the only song I can think of that we vari-speeded up were a couple of overdubs on "Achilles Last Stand". However, I applied the vari-speed to the overall track of "No Quarter". I dropped the whole song a quarter
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GW: Apart from "No Quarter", "Houses" is a happy sounding album, suggesting that you were on top of the world at that time. "The Crunge", for example, is a complete goof.
Page: I played a Strat on that one -- I wanted to get that tight James Brown feel. You have to listen closely, but you can hear me depressing a whammy bar at the end of each phrase. Bonzo started the groove on "The Crunge", then Jonesy started playing that descending bass line and I just came in on the rhythm. You can really hear the fun we were having on "Houses" and "Physical Graffiti". And you can also hear the dedication and commitment.
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- Chris