Page amp settings

[pinky]

What settings did Jimmy Page have his amp set to if you could include the song that he had his settings and if it's live what year. I have a line 6 spider 3 30 watt and a Squier Strat.

[Cactus]

What settings did Jimmy Page have his amp set to if you could include the song that he had his settings and if it's live what year. I have a line 6 spider 3 30 watt and a Squier Strat.

Well obviously with your gear you can't get his sound. Someone on here claimed they ran into him and he told them his live settings from 72 onwards were treble - 10, mids - 4, bass - 2

[huw]

Heck - he used a lot of different guitars & amps at different times in the studio. It's hard enough ttying to work out what he used, sometimes, nevermind what his setting were...

But in vague, general terms, two rules would be lots of mids (far more important for Page than bass, which never wants to be too high) and less gain than you'd imagine (crank the amp up loud & let the power-amp do the work).

Even with a modeler, those ideas will set you off in the right direction.

[TelecasterShaggy]

What settings did Jimmy Page have his amp set to if you could include the song that he had his settings and if it's live what year. I have a line 6 spider 3 30 watt and a Squier Strat.

Try not to get stuck on trying to match other guitars sound all the time. It took me awhile to get out of that phase, but now I love trying to find new sounds I can make with my guitar. Another tip I wish I would have had back when I started is to try to start making your own stuff as soon as you start learning the guitar. This will help you develop your own signature sound too. But as far as getting Jimmy's tone he goes through so many different sonic levels its hard to pin point just one... he hardly ever played a song the same way twice.

Edited May 1, 2008 by TelecasterShaggy

[pinky]

Just asking cause I'm getting a les paul and a marshall 50 watt soon.

[Evermore]

well theres your answer right there! Now that you have the fundamental tools, trial and error will be your best guide. Start with everyting dialed to five (never eleven) and adjust from there.

Volume and tone and pickup selection on the guitar have a lot to do with the sound. Take a look at the beginning of Since I've Been Loving You on The Song Remains the Same DVD and you will see Jimmy Page making quite a few adjustments even while he's playing.

[pinky]

yah that's a whole nother thing with what he had his guitar settings and he's the only one who could tell you.

[MATTY PAGE]

What settings did Jimmy Page have his amp set to if you could include the song that he had his settings and if it's live what year. I have a line 6 spider 3 30 watt and a Squier Strat.

Hello Pinky,

Well I got a pretty dam close amp and guitar to what pagey used. I got a gibson les paul in cherry sunburst (got it couple of weeks ago, it's awesome) and a Marshall JCM 900 50 watt valve amp, about 20 years old, and with that I can get a very good classic rock/zeppy sound but still not Page's sound.

It doesn't matter how close you get you'll never sound like Page, but you'll get close like I have, it just takes time and money, I'll never need any more gear now, unless I get a Marshall JTM45 head. The sound comes more from the actual player than the equipment, if 20 people played the same song on the same equipment not one would sound alike.

But yeah, the amp settings listed is a safe bet.

Cheers

[Cactus]

Volume and tone and pickup selection on the guitar have a lot to do with the sound. Take a look at the beginning of Since I've Been Loving You on The Song Remains the Same DVD and you will see Jimmy Page making quite a few adjustments even while he's playing.

Page practiced what he called the "lost art of tone control". He was always making adjustments to the volume and tone knobs as well as variations on his picking style - sometimes closer to the bridge sometimes further away, harder and softer etc. Kevin Shirley remarked on this when he was listening to Page's isolated tracks for HTWWW

[JimmyPageZoSo56]

I figured out the settings for the 1972, 1973, and 1975 settings.

Now, these settings were set on my Marshall MG Series 100HDFX

so if you have a MG Series 100HDFX. There are some weird numbers that I got while listening to tracks.

1972:

Gain: 8

Bass: 2

Middle: 6

Treble: 8

Contour: 6

Guitar Settings:

treble switch

treble: 5

rhythm: 10

1973

Gain: 6.5

Bass: 2.33

Middle: 4

Treble: 10

Contour: 4.25

1975

Gain: 3-4

Bass: 0

Middle: 5.5

Treble: 7.33

Contour: 5.5

Guitar Settings:

Middle switch

treble: 7

rhythm: 10

Edited May 5, 2008 by JimmyPageZoSo56

[irg82]

I figured out the settings for the 1972, 1973, and 1975 settings.

Now, these settings were set on my Marshall MG Series 100HDFX

so if you have a MG Series 100HDFX. There are some weird numbers that I got while listening to tracks.

1972:

Gain: 8

Bass: 2

Middle: 6

Treble: 8

Contour: 6

Guitar Settings:

treble switch

treble: 5

rhythm: 10

1973

Gain: 6.5

Bass: 2.33

Middle: 4

Treble: 10

Contour: 4.25

1975

Gain: 3-4

Bass: 0

Middle: 5.5

Treble: 7.33

Contour: 5.5

Guitar Settings:

Middle switch

treble: 7

rhythm: 10

It must be the quality of the bootlegs you're listening to, cause there's no way that the bass was set on 0.

----------------

Now playing: The Lovin' Spoonful - Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?

via FoxyTunes

[JimmyPageZoSo56]

well, it maybe 1

but w/e

[Evster2012]

It seems a lost art in the age of "amp modelling" and such. Trust me friends, after 30+ years of chasing the "Page" sound, it's mostly in your hands. I can get an amazing TSRTS Rain Song out of my Strat through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Everybody jumps on the KT88 modded Marshalls. What stadium are you playing? Seriously! 50 watts is more than enough! I can find a "Jimmy" tone in virtually any amp I plug into. While Jimmy did pick and choose in the studio, he had a plain old Marshall backline live. It's all in the hands. It really is. My friend's son got one of those "Everything in one box" packages for like $200. Stick a mic to the speaker and guess what? Got a sweet sound. All I can say is, lay off the gain! Jimmy played clean. Mind your fingers. That's where it happens.

Edited May 17, 2008 by Evster2012

[PJD]

Everybody jumps on the KT88 modded Marshalls. What stadium are you playing? Seriously! 50 watts is more than enough!

YES!!!!

Exactly!

[MATTY PAGE]

Well said Ev,

Another thing that might be worth mentioning to people who don't know this yet, is that yeah Pagey used a lot of gear on stage, I mean the amount of heads and cabs you would see behind him but the majority of that stuff is just for show (or a back up).

There's no way you could use all them amps in one go, it would be too over powering. There is such a thing in rock & roll as too much volume. I would of imagined that he ran his amps via the PA so even if he had just a 30W valve amp (the fender deluxe comes to mind) going through a PA it would still be quite beefy.

I've only got a 50W valve and it's more than enough, I hardly have the volume up at all.

I'm actually on the look out now to get rid of it (it's a marshall jcm 900 with 2x12 cab), gonna try and flog it or part ex it for the marshall JTM45 reissue, proper old skool!

See ya

[Evster2012]

Another thing that might be worth mentioning to people who don't know this yet, is that yeah Pagey used a lot of gear on stage, I mean the amount of heads and cabs you would see behind him but the majority of that stuff is just for show (or a back up).

Yeah, backup. He ran through a single Marshall, with a second for reinforcement. The other amp onstage was the Orange Mat Amp which was solely there for the theremin.

It's funny how things have changed, yet not changed. I went to Rush last week, and since Geddy's newer rig relies on his in-ear audio and runs throught the PA. he has no onstage backline. So to fill the "required" space, he has three 6-foot tall rotisseries full of chickens! He even has a roadie come out and check their tempurature during the course of the show!

[Bluesyzep]

I just picked up my first Marshall tube amp and remembered this thread. Occasionally someone else asks the same questions so thought it was worth a bump. BTW. My modeling amp has been banished to the box and up for sale.

I can see I'm already going the wrong direction. Gotta turn the gain and bass down to start with. I recall another thread involving the tone/volume controls as well. My question is how did Jimmy dirty it up when needed? Switch channels? Volume/Tone controls? Pedal? All of the above?

Edited June 12, 2009 by Bluesyzep

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

I just picked up my first Marshall tube amp and remembered this thread. Occasionally someone else asks the same questions so thought it was worth a bump. BTW. My modeling amp has been banished to the box and up for sale.

I can see I'm already going the wrong direction. Gotta turn the gain and bass down to start with. I recall another thread involving the tone/volume controls as well. My question is how did Jimmy dirty it up when needed? Switch channels? Volume/Tone controls? Pedal? All of the above?

I have not used a Marshall head in a long time but, I would think that with what most have stated already and with my past experimentation with the 100 watter I use to borrow from one of my ex guitar player's. You crank the main (Master) as far up as you can and play around with the bass, mid, presence and treble. This is much easier to do in a big room with high ceiling.

A lot of this higher end gear is made on a day to day or even an hour by hour basis, not all of them are going to sound exactly alike.

[Evster2012]

Jimmy used a non-master volume Marshall 1959SLP Super Lead head. It was modified by Tony Franks (who also did Hendrix's amps). The KT88 tubes would have given it even more headroom than the EL34s, resluting in an even cleaner sound than stock. Thus it's likely there were also preamp tweaks give it a bit more breakup. He used no distortion or overdrive pedals once he switched to the Marshall. He also possibly used the Maestro Echoplex to modify his tone a bit, in addition to using it for echo. The use of G12H 30 watt Celestions also would likely contribute a little more hair.

But mostly, it's Page himself and a cranked Marshall. The biggest obstacle to us mortals getting that sound is the lack of a sports arena to turn it up in.

[Zoso1968]

this is a really good thread lots of good info in here.. with alot of people saying its in the fingers and how u use them, could u elaborate on that please? trying to get any tips possible =)

and if ne1 could take a look at my thread in this section thatd be alot of help its sounding like zep thanks guys

[Evster2012]

As for explaining touch, it's like how you approach lovemaking. We all have essentially the same equipment, but the woman will tell you it's in the touch.

*big sigh* Annnnnyway...

Perhaps you should PM one of the mods and request the two threads be merged. It just takes a couple of clicks for them to do that, and it will clean up the thread redundancy. I would also suggest they keep the "Sounding like Zep" thread title so it opens up the topic to all areas of discussion instead of just Jimmy's amps.

[Zoso1968]

haha nice analogy there ev ahaha yea i guess i get what you mean... im starting to try to play blues stuff now so hopefully thatl help out there a bit =)

do you mean joining this thread with the sounding like zep one? i would but this isnt my thread so id have to ok it with whomever started it... but yea that was my intention of leaving it fairly general so it can be about most anything... haven't gotten any replies yet tho... good few views but not replies.. o well hopefully itl pick up

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

Jimmy used a non-master volume Marshall 1959SLP Super Lead head. It was modified by Tony Franks (who also did Hendrix's amps). The KT88 tubes would have given it even more headroom than the EL34s, resluting in an even cleaner sound than stock. Thus it's likely there were also preamp tweaks give it a bit more breakup. He used no distortion or overdrive pedals once he switched to the Marshall. He also possibly used the Maestro Echoplex to modify his tone a bit, in addition to using it for echo. The use of G12H 30 watt Celestions also would likely contribute a little more hair.

But mostly, it's Page himself and a cranked Marshall. The biggest obstacle to us mortals getting that sound is the lack of a sports arena to turn it up in.

I recon this is why you need to run the master up high, but I've not used anything like that configuration before so, if it has the same gain stage as running a normal Super Lead's master at (or near) the top that's where you should start.

As for distortion, I'm sure if you run a tube amp at high gain setting's your going to get a fare amount of dirt to the speaker's. How about tube selection's? The KT88 are cleaner? I've been fooling around with a Aphex 107 Mic Pre, and tried a Fender tube that was a bunch hotter/dirtier at higher gain setting's then the Phillips tube that came with the unit. I put the Phillips back in but still have the Fender in case I ever want to use it for micing an electric guitar or a bass even.

Here's a review or two on the G12H's

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews...on/G12H-30/10/1

Found this little tid bit about sensitivity, speaker's and styles of music, if Jimmy's amp was as clean as you stated the higher sensitivity G12H would feel at home with a amp with that much headroom and so little distortion (think I answered my own question about the clean tube's).

http://www.agoraquest.com/viewtopic.php?fo...amp;topic=33961 (read sergey's reply)

The best studio's have at least one well designed/constructed large room to give the group the opportunity to really open up there gear and to also pound the skins if needed!

[Evster2012]

Not quite sure I understand you. The KT88s boosted output from 100 to 200 watts. That would give the amp more headroom and less breakup, thus some mods must have been done to the preamp to give it a bit more hair.

Also not sure why you use the term Master Volume. The Super Lead had only six knobs: Presence, Bass, Mids, Treble, and a Loudness for High Treble and Normal input. There was no "Master" volume as there was no "Gain" setting. This amp did not derive its crunch from preamp tube saturation as in a "Master" volume amp. There was no "overdrive". Any crunch was derived from pure outrageous volume settings and genuine power tube breakup, and the fact that he upped it to KT88s would dictate outrageous volume levels. Now that could be offset by running less speakers, but then you'd be blowing them left and right. Now one could surmise that's why he had 4 4x12s on the stage, but he only mic'd the upper right speaker of his stacked cab.

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

Not quite sure I understand you. The KT88s boosted output from 100 to 200 watts. That would give the amp more headroom and less breakup, thus some mods must have been done to the preamp to give it a bit more hair.

Also not sure why you use the term Master Volume. The Super Lead had only six knobs: Presence, Bass, Mids, Treble, and a Loudness for High Treble and Normal input. There was no "Master" volume as there was no "Gain" setting. This amp did not derive its crunch from preamp tube saturation as in a "Master" volume amp. There was no "overdrive". Any crunch was derived from pure outrageous volume settings and genuine power tube breakup, and the fact that he upped it to KT88s would dictate outrageous volume levels. Now that could be offset by running less speakers, but then you'd be blowing them left and right. Now one could surmise that's why he had 4 4x12s on the stage, but he only mic'd the upper right speaker of his stacked cab.

Yes, that is what we are both saying here, The K88's are giving more wattage so you get a cleaner sound at lower level's until you get to peak out put. That's why (IMHO) the higher sensitivity speakers would sound best with so much headroom and not a bunch of squashed (mud) sound.

In short this amplifier was designed to be run wide open! Yes?

OK, let me try again, if I was trying two amp's, one a "Super Lead" with out a "Gain" (main) just a Loudness (volume) knob and also a regular Marshall with both a "Master" and a "Gain" knob and I want to get a close (as I can get) sound of the "Super Lead" from the "Master Head". Being that the "Master Head" has an extra gain stage if I ran it's Master knob at (or close to) the top could I get a close copy of the "Super Lead's" gain structure? I would think it would be close as long as the "Main" gain circuit's are near the same, that is if they just slapped in an extra gain stage for the newer "Master Head".

Don't know if Jimmy's was a 1959 or not but here's some info on the 59" Super Lead...

http://acruhl.freeshell.org/mga/main/1959_notes.html

Some good info on the difference between the Marshall head's....

http://everythingsg.com/forum/index.php?ac...e;topic=15741.0