Where can I find detailed info on the recording techniques used in IV?

[Nikki.Marie]

[snapper]

This may help. Interview w/ Andy Johns:

Pt. 1

Pt. 2

[Matjaz1]

On this part of Led-Zeppelin.org, you can find a lot of information on Page's studio work, however you should remember that this guy wasn't actually there and that he is guessing about a lot of things, but he does have a lot of experience with such things!!

http://www.led-zeppelin.org/joomla/assorted-info

[Jahfin]

Never read it myself but perhaps somewhere here that has can offer up an opinion. The reviews at Amazon seem to speak pretty favorably of it, at least the few I skimmed through.

[Reggie29]

This might help.

Purchased from VideoEzy.

[sixpense]

On this part of Led-Zeppelin.org, you can find a lot of information on Page's studio work, however you should remember that this guy wasn't actually there and that he is guessing about a lot of things, but he does have a lot of experience with such things!!

http://www.led-zeppe...a/assorted-info

Too many errors to count. Claims a Telecaster is played on Babe I'm gonna Leave You when it is the Danelectro with the Supro amp. Also, claims the Les Paul is used on Stairway. Not very good.

[badgeholder]

Never read it myself but perhaps somewhere here that has can offer up an opinion. The reviews at Amazon seem to speak pretty favorably of it, at least the few I skimmed through.

Beat me to it, I was going to suggest the same thing. I have it, it's actually pretty good. Godwin is a respectable Zep head. Even has a picture of the famous stairway.

[Jahfin]

Beat me to it, I was going to suggest the same thing. I have it, it's actually pretty good. Godwin is a respectable Zep head. Even has a picture of the famous stairway.

There's an actual stairway?

[Otto Masson]

The stairway at Headley Grange was found useful for the acoustics - Bonzo set up his drumkit on the lower floor, and they had a single mike hanging down from the second floor. End result: The drum sound on When the Levee Breaks. There is indeed a picture of the stairway in the book, and there's a quote from the photographer as well, who says it's peculiar in that it seems to go on forever.

Robert Godwin's tiny little book has a little section specifically devoted to the recording of the album, but is onle one of four different books on the fourth album - the others are by Andy Fyfe, Barney Hoskyns and Erik Davis. There is also a lot of information elsewhere (books and magazines). I will post some details later.

[guitarmy]

I was led here via another post but it looked relevant:

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/myth-busters-jimmy-pages/

[dazedjeffy]

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2516481399&topic=7127

Andy Johns

(engineer on Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses Of The Holy, Coda, Physical Graffiti)

I was 20 years old when I worked on Led Zeppelin IV. I think I finished the mixing just before my 21st birthday.

Led Zeppelin IV was recorded at two studios, Island (Studios) and Headley Grange. I’d been working with the Rolling Stones mobile. They were the first people in Europe to have a proper recording truck.

I’d done a couple of projects at Mick Jagger’s house. Mick had a house where we’d roll the truck up to, and it worked very well there. I’d done the Stones and some other acts. So, when Jimmy asked me to do another record with them, I said, “Why don’t we try the Stones truck and Mick’s house, because it has so many intriguing different spaces as opposed to being confined to one room in the studio.” Jimmy said, “That sounds great, how much does it cost?” I told him that Mick’s house would cost a thousand pounds a week. He said, “I bet I can find something just as good that doesn’t cost a thousand a week. Good lord, I’m not giving Mick Jagger that kind of money.” (laughs)

So, Jimmy had his people find this place called Headley Grange, which worked great, and it even had furniture, which was something that Mick’s house lacked.

Headley Grange was an old mansion, some sort of successful farmer type of a mansion. It was a little run-down, but it was great for our purposes. In actual fact, we were very lucky to record there. That’s where I got the sound for “When The Levee Breaks.”

When you walked in the front door, there was a little ante room, like a cloak room, and then you opened up the nest double doors, and it was a large lobby with staircases going up to landings; it was three or four floors. It had a very high ceiling. After we’d done a few songs, I had them all in this one room on the righthand side, and those guys played pretty loud. That meant there would [be] a lot of sound pressure built up in the room.

I’d been dabbling with trying to record things on two mics already like the song, “Can’t Find My Way Back Home” by Blind Faith. I did that with them — the vocals, the acoustic guitars, the drums and everything just on two mics. And I like the way that sounded.

Bonzo was never completely happy with his drum sound. So, on a break one evening — I think we’d been there for two or three days — and they were all going to the pub, I said, “Bonzo, I want you to stay behind; you can’t go for your refreshments. Just hang out with me for an hour.”

He moved his kit out of the room into this big lobby area. I got a couple of mics and put them halfway up the first staircase and used some compression. Jimmy had this Italian repeat echo device. It was fairly popular back then. It used a steel drum instead of tape, so it had a very unique sound. Jimmy had brought that along because he wanted me to try it out. We hooked it up to the mixer like any old outboard echo device. I put some of that in there. With that half-time tempo, there’s plenty of room in between the drum hits for the room sound to be apparent and for you to hear that repeat, which is why the bass drum does that kind of triplet thing (imitates sound). So that’s how that happened. If we’d not been at Headley Grange, I would never have gotten that sound.

Recording at Headley Grange was cold and miserable, but musically, it worked great. It was fairly inspirational recording at Headley Grange. We wouldn’t have wanted to stay there for six months, but it worked for us.

When we were recording at Headley Grange, I remember Jimmy telling us, “I saw a

ghost on the stairs last night.” I was like, “Oh yeah, sure you did.” (laughs) I mean, who knows? Jimmy was into all that sort of stuff. I was too busy making out with the cook in the attic. (laughs) I had an attic bedroom, and the cook was quite nice. She came up to see me one evening. I think that’s the night Jimmy saw the ghost. Maybe it was some sort of weird vibe exuding out of my bedroom. (laughs)

“Black Dog” is a very powerful track; I’m still very fond of that one. It’s proto-typical Zeppelin. They were really terrific with dynamics; as opposed to a beginning, middle and an end, they’d take you all over the place. I was very proud of the guitar sound. It was something no one had ever done, and I don’t think it’s been done since, actually.

I came up with the triple tracking idea for the electric guitars on “Black Dog.” I’d been trying to get a guitar sound that they’d gotten with Buffalo Springfield. On the Buffalo Springfield Again album there was this amazing sound.

I met Bill Halverson, who did those records about a month before I worked with Zeppelin on the fourth album. I asked him, “How did you do that?” And he explained it to me. You just run the guitar direct and use a couple of compressors, and you use them as amplifiers so they distort each other. So, I suggested to Jimmy that we try that on “Black Dog.” It’s very difficult to achieve, but after much ditzing about, I got it to work and it sounded great. And we double tracked it.

Then I said, “Hell, why don’t we triple track this, it sounds so good.” So, we had one more guitar up the middle as well. The apparent level on these guitars was so spectacular, when I was mixing it, normally you’d have all the guitars in the same plane on the faders as the bass and the other instruments. But, the apparent level on these things was so hot, they were two-thirds of the way down on the faders but still loud, which was great, because it means they’re not taking up more space, and it leaves room for everything else. It worked rather well.

The band was very quick in the studio. I remember when the tricky time-signature thing came up on that song. I think it was John Paul who said, “How about this?”

And bam, off they went. If you listen to it, Bonzo plays straight through it, and the other guys missed the beat every now and again themselves. I got into this huge argument with the Van Halen brothers once when I was producing them. They said, “No, they’re all playing in 4/4 and Bonzo makes a mistake.” I said, “No, it isn’t Bonzo making a mistake!”

“Misty Mountain Hop” was fun and good to do.

“Goin’ To California” mentions an earthquake in it. There had been a severe earthquake in L.A. the week before we showed up to mix it. I remember that Peter Grant was very nervous about that. He was really frightened of earthquakes (laughs), which was a bit strange because he was a big wrestler-type guy.

The day that we went to mix “Goin’ To California,” Jimmy said, “Oh, we can’t mix that; there’ll be another earthquake. Let’s save that for later.” I was like, “Oh, come on, man!” I didn’t think Led Zeppelin was that big of a deal to cause an earthquake. But, we mixed it anyway and there was a f**king tremor right in the middle of the damn mix (laughs).

“Rock & Roll” happened really quick. One minute there was no music, and then, all of sudden, they were doing that song. That song was difficult to record, because Bonzo was leaning on his hi-hat so hard. I remember there was trouble mixing the guitar on the out section; Jimmy kept calling me up and going, “You’ve gotta mix the end again.” And I ended up mixing the end of that, the final one he accepted in a totally different studio, Olympic. A different room altogether from where we mixed it. I thought, well, this idea is not gonna work; it’s a different building. But, I edited it together, and Jimmy couldn’t hear it was an edit at all, so then he was happy.

There’s unique drum pattern on “Four Sticks.” It’s called “Four Sticks” because Bonzo was using four sticks when he played on it. It had a flammy sound on it.

That song was very difficult to mix. I must admit I might have recorded that one inappropriately because I compressed the drums before that got to tape. Of course, once you’ve done that, you can’t undo it. It made it hard to mix. I didn’t record it right. I must have mixed that song four or five times until I got the version that’s on the record, and it still doesn’t sound quite right. I wouldn’t mind another go at it. I might be able to do it a little better with some of the gizmos we’ve got these days.

I remember “Battle Of Evermore” was sort of a “sitting around the fireplace” thing. I still have a fond spot in my heart for that song. It’s so minimalistic, and yet it had such a gorgeous sound to it. I’m also very proud of the way the fade happens at the beginning. That was my idea. Sandy Denny came in and sang on that later. That was done at Island. She was just a treat.

There was a certain amount of disappointment among the fans with Led Zeppelin III, because there was a lot of acoustic stuff on there, which is what Pagey and Robert were into. They were very into all that Celtic stuff. On Led Zeppelin IV, they struck a very nice balance. I don’t know whether that was conception or just the way it turned out.

I do remember talking to Jimmy about a week or 10 days before we tracked “Stairway To Heaven,” and at the time, I was very much into doing songs that built, and you would add extra layers to the song, and it reached a crescendo at the end. I mentioned that to him. “I’ve got a song that does that. It’s quite a long piece, and you’ll see. It’s got a lot of dynamics. I know what you’re talking about. Wait ’til you hear it.”

We recorded “Stairway To Heaven” at Island (Studios), and I remember the tracking quite well. In those days it was unusual in as much as we tracked the song without a bass. It was drums, Jimmy playing an acoustic and John Paul was playing an upright Hohner piano. I put a lot of bottom end on that so there’d be some bottom end to work with.

It was a beautiful track, and I could see it had dynamics. I thought, boy, this is gonna be fun. Then, John Paul put the bass on. Then we put on the electric rhythm. When we went to do the electric 12-string, the song really started to come alive.

Jimmy would use 12-string quite often through his Vox AC30 amp, which has a very electric, distorted kind of sound. I said to Jimmy, “Why don’t we record this direct?” So that’s why the 12-string has that bell-like quality. It’s much cleaner and that really worked. So, I was quite proud of that.

It wasn’t difficult to get a good guitar sound out of Jimmy. These days when you’re doing guitar overdubs, I can spend the first week or two searching around to find the three or four basic sounds one needs. But, Jimmy would just show up, plug in, I’d stick a mic on it, and it always sounded pretty good.

I remember Jimmy had a little bit of trouble with the solo on “Stairway To Heaven.” As for the solo, he hadn’t completely figured it out. Nowadays you spend a whole day sometimes doing one thing. Back then, of course, we never did that.

They were a very quick band. We never spent a very long time recording anything. I remember sitting in the control room with Jimmy; he’s standing there next to me, and he’d done quite a few passes, and it wasn’t going anywhere. I could see he was getting a bit paranoid, and so I was getting paranoid. I turned around and said, “You’re making me paranoid!” And he said, “No, you’re making me paranoid!” It was a silly circle of paranoia. Then bang! On the next take or two he ripped it out. Of course, it’s a really wonderful solo. Pagey was just unbelievable.

Zeppelin were very, very good musicians. John Paul and Jimmy were some of the best musicians around. Bonzo could play just about anything you asked him to. He hadn’t done all the sessions they had done. Jimmy and John Paul were top session guys, and they were used to playing anything that was asked of them.

And Robert was a great singer. On “Stairway To Heaven,” I remember this quite well. I said, “Hey Percy, it’s your turn to sing.” And he goes, “Oh God, really? Hang on for a sec. Play me the track again.” He’s sitting in the back of the control room scribbling away. He hasn’t finished his lyrics yet. “Okay, I’m ready!” He went out there and did it. I think there was one run through to warm up and two takes and he was done.

Robert has some tremendous range and passion; he hits the notes right on, and he’s got fantastic phrasing. Those are all the things you need from a singer. Robert, Paul Rodgers and Joe Cocker were the three singers from that time that really ruled. Totally different singers, but they never missed a note. They were always right on, had great tonality and you could hear the passion in their voice.

Bonzo was such a solid drummer, and he made a fantastic sound. The way he had his kit set up, no one else sounded like that. The funny thing about Bonzo was if the singer goes out to bang on their kit when there’s a bit of down time, it normally sounds quite different. The sound just goes out the window if someone else is playing their kit. But, the way Bonham had his kit tuned anybody could go and sit down and play poorly, but it would still have this sound to it.

That’s why I was struggling so hard to achieve a great drum sound with him, because it was very difficult to catch. That’s why I came up with the “When The Levee Breaks” theory of miking, which I guess we should have used again. They remembered what it was and used it again for “Kashmir.”

I knew John Paul before he was in Zeppelin. When I was 17 or 18, I had a little deal with him when he was doing sessions. I’d polish his bass, and he’d show me the new lick from the Fontella Bass record, ’cause I’m a bass player. So, I would talk to him being a bass player, and I’m 17, and I thought he was wonderful.

We were coming back from the Red Lion pub after a musician’s union break one day, and he was groaning and moaning, “Oh this bloody session work; I don’t make enough money. I’m gonna make a million pounds in the next two or three years, you’ll see.” And I went, “Yeah, right. Okay, John, sure you will.” Six months later, Zeppelin had formed, and two or three years later he had made a million pounds. (laughs)

At that time, I didn’t work with very many producers. I would just work with the band. And it would say engineered by Andy John or sometimes co-producer. I’d already produced some albums. Jimmy was one of the few people as a musician that could take an objective overview. Most musicians get too involved, and they get lost.

That’s why you have such things as producers. It took me a few years to figure out why geniuses like The Stones or Jimi Hendrix would need someone there to tell them where it was at. But Jimmy didn’t need anybody. He had a vision for what the songs should be. He had his tricks that he’d worked out over the years. He was also a brilliant arranger. He was always looking for new sounds, but it was mostly his talent as an arranger.

If you listen to those Zeppelin records, there’s not a lot of overdubs. Even on “Stairway To Heaven,” there aren’t that many overdubs. It’s just bass, drums, a little bit of piano, an acoustic guitar, electric rhythm now and again and bits coming in and out. It’s not like we do now with four rhythm guitars and double-tracking everything else, and you’ve got this bloody great wall of sound.

When recording those albums, Jimmy would be in the control room with me, and we’d be doing all kinds of things. The other guys either weren’t there, or they’d be milling around in the studio. They knew that he was the producer. He was in charge.

John Paul would come up with a lot of great bits and pieces like the recorders on “Stairway To Heaven.” He’d always have wonderful ideas. The guy was an arranger. He was one of the first people to start using synths. He had a funny little monophonic synthesizer, which we used on a couple of songs. That was kind of new stuff at the time.

We ended up only getting one mix at Sunset Sound Studios, which was my fault. I wanted to go to Sunset Sound to mix, because so much neat stuff came out of there, and we went at my suggestion. We did a bunch of work there, and we took it back to England, and it sounded dreadful. Jimmy and I were both very embarrassed and ended up mixing it all again at Island. We only used the mix of “When The Levee Breaks” from Sunset Sound.

There was such variety on Led Zeppelin IV. People tended to do that a little more back then. Albums would have a lot of variety on them. Even good artists today think, “This is what our fans want; we’re good at that.”

So, they make three or four albums in a row that are almost interchangeable. Back then, the artists that I was working with like Led Zeppelin and The Stones — their albums were very eclectic in a way — there’d be a really nice variety. It’s like writing a set list. The running order of an album was really quite important; you could really affect the way the album felt by the running order.

I’d always been aware since we finished that album that it was a really great piece of work. I never imagined “Stairway To Heaven” becoming this anthem thing and the most-played song on the radio. There was so much great stuff coming on then. It wasn’t like now, where every two or three years something really cool will come out.

There was fantastic stuff happening every year. Lots of it. You had Led Zeppelin. You had Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. You had the Stones. You had The Beatles’ albums. You had George Harrison’s album, All Things Must Pass. The funny thing is, after I finished working on Zeppelin IV, I went on to do Exile On Main Street, which is also viewed as a quintessential rock and roll album. I was having a grand old time; it couldn’t have been better.

Led Zeppelin IV is just terrific work. The band were very hard workers in the studio. But, we wouldn’t work tremendously long hours. We’d start about 12 or 1 and finish about 10 or 11 o’clock. They were quick; they were very quick. To come up with stuff that good and just blow it out the way they did, quite often you’d get two or three basic tracks done in an evening. They were inspired and were having a great old time. By this time, they were very aware of who they were. And they’d done enough work together over where they were very sure of themselves. They knew what their capabilities were, and it all just fell together.

[snapper]

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2516481399&topic=7127

At that time, I didn’t work with very many producers. I would just work with the band. And it would say engineered by Andy John or sometimes co-producer. Id already produced some albums. Jimmy was one of the few people as a musician that could take an objective overview. Most musicians get too involved, and they get lost.

That’s why you have such things as producers. It took me a few years to figure out why geniuses like The Stones or Jimi Hendrix would need someone there to tell them where it was at. But Jimmy didnt need anybody. He had a vision for what the songs should be. He had his tricks that hed worked out over the years. He was also a brilliant arranger. He was always looking for new sounds, but it was mostly his talent as an arranger.

When recording those albums, Jimmy would be in the control room with me, and we’d be doing all kinds of things. The other guys either weren’t there, or they’d be milling around in the studio. They knew that he was the producer. He was in charge.

And this is one of the things that separate's Jimmy Page (and Zeppelin) from all others.

The Stones had Andrew Loog Oldham & Jimmy Miller, The Beatles had George Martin , The Who had Kit Lambert & Glyn Johns, Hendrix had Chas Chandler. I know I'm going off topic, but I don't really care.

[SuperDave]

Thanks for sharing DazedJeffy. Great introspective on the making of IV. Such detail from Andy Johns. Such a great read.

[Otto Masson]

As promised Nikki Marie - a detailed bibliography, not exhaustive, but useful I hope.

BOOKS

The following titles all deal specifically with the fourth album:

Andy Fyfe, When the Levee Breaks: The Making of Led Zeppelin IV, Unanimous Limited, London 2003.

Barney Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin [Four Symbols], Rodale, New York 2006.

Robert Godwin, The Making of Led Zeppelin‘s [Four Symbols], CG Publishing Inc., Ontario 1996.

Erik Davis, Led Zeppelin [Four Symbols], Continuum, New York and London, 2005.

There are two books that go through the entire catalog, giving information on each song individually, which of course can be really useful – and these are:

Dave Lewis, Led Zeppelin: The Complete Guide to Their Music, Omnibus Press, London 2004.

Chris Welch, Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused. The Stories Behind Every Song, Thunder‘s Mouth Press, New York 2005.

In addition I would suggest these, for different reasons.

Keith Shadwick, Led Zeppelin: The Story of a Band and Their Music, 1968-1980, Backbeat, San Francisco 2005. This is an excellent musical interpretation of the entire catalog.

Robert Godwin, Led Zeppelin: The Press Reports, CG Publishing, Ontario 2003 [2nd. Edition]. Lots of excerpts from interviews, including from the early years. Sources are given, and if they seem very useful, you can then go look up the originals.

George Case, Jimmy Page. Magus, Musician, Man, Hal Leonard, New York 2007. Page was the producer of every LZ album, the founder of the band, and had a background of years of studio work as a a session player. This book is the first serious attempt to summarize his work.

Dave Lewis, „Led Zeppelin in the Studio“, Led Zeppelin: A Celebration, Omnibus Press, London 2003 [2nd. Edition]

MAGAZINES

Special features on the fourth album can be found in these:

Brad Tolinsky interview with Jimmy Page, Guitar World, January 2002.

Barney Hoskyns, The Making of Led Zeppelin IV, Uncut, No 110, July 2006. Also has a track-by-track analysis of the album. Nothing important here if you have Hoskyns‘s book.

Andy Fyfe, Wild in the Country, interviews with John Paul Jones and Robert Plant, Mojo 163, June 2007.

Dave Lewis, Led Zeppelin IV, an essay on the album; and Mick Wall, Led Zeppelin IV, an interview with Jimmy Page, Classic Rock 35, Christmas 2001.

Especially useful general interviews with Jimmy Page from the 1970‘s:

Trouser Press, September, October and November issues, nos. 21-23 contains a three-part interview, by Dave Schulps, „Jimmy Page Gives the Interview of His Life“. LINK

Steve Rosen, „Jimmy Page - Zeppelin!“, Guitar Player Vol. 11, No. 7, July 1977. LINK

Mick Houghton, „Zeus of the Zeppelin“, Circus 141, October 12, 1976. LINK

I have posted scans of these interviews complete with the front cover on here - that's what the links in this section are.

Also useful are the following:

Good Times, Bad Times. The Story of Led Zeppelin. Masters of Rock, special issue, No. 4, Spring 1991. Contains interviews with band members and other features.

Jimmy Page: The Ultimate Guitar Hero, Guitar World, Special Jimmy Page issue, July 1986. Contains interviews with Jimmy himself and a bunch of other musicians, about him.

Led Zep Lives! Guitar World, January 1991. Contains interviews with Jimmy Page, where he discusses much of the band‘s catalog at length, and with John Paul Jones; some additional features, including an interview with Andy Johns. The occasion was the 4CD collection release.

Whole Lotta Zep! Guitar World, December 1993. Interviews with Jimmy and Robert. The occasion was the second 2CD box set.

Led Zeppelin: When They Were Gods, Uncut 62, July 2002. Contains Adam Sweeting, Trampled Underfoot“.

Led Zeppelin The BBC Sessions, Guitar World, January 1998. Long interview with Jimmy Page which contains a good many interesting remarks aside from the specifics of the BBC recordings.

[SuperDave]

Great detailed info Otto. You took the time for the research. Always great to have you on the board.

[sixpense]

http://www.facebook....1399&topic=7127

Andy Johns

(engineer on Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses Of The Holy, Coda, Physical Graffiti)

I came up with the triple tracking idea for the electric guitars on "Black Dog." I'd been trying to get a guitar sound that they'd gotten with Buffalo Springfield. On the Buffalo Springfield Again album there was this amazing sound.

Jimmy would use 12-string quite often through his Vox AC30 amp, which has a very electric, distorted kind of sound. I said to Jimmy, "Why don't we record this direct?" So that's why the 12-string has that bell-like quality. It's much cleaner and that really worked. So, I was quite proud of that.

It wasn't difficult to get a good guitar sound out of Jimmy. These days when you're doing guitar overdubs, I can spend the first week or two searching around to find the three or four basic sounds one needs. But, Jimmy would just show up, plug in, I'd stick a mic on it, and it always sounded pretty good.

Andy has a habit of claiming ideas not his own and "acting" like the producer. Jimmy was not too keen about that and in addition Jimmy had to scrap the first mixed version of the LP and redo it because of the equipment. I don't believe Andy worked again with Jimmy on any more Zeppelin music or any other music.

[Otto Masson]

Thanks, Dave.

Andy has a habit of claiming ideas not his own and "acting" like the producer. Jimmy was not too keen about that and in addition Jimmy had to scrap the first mixed version of the LP and redo it because of the equipment. I don't believe Andy worked again with Jimmy on any more Zeppelin music or any other music.

The facts you mention, as far as I know, are quite correct, and I am under the same impression that Andy tends to exaggerate his own importance. He has even made remarks where it seems like the idea to record the drums ambiently, and the whole preoccupation with mike placement came from him, whereas in fact that was one of several things Jimmy insisted on as producer, right from the start. I would question the accuracy of Andy's 1991 account of Levee, which is why I said earlier that basically they just put the drums there and used a single (actually stereo) mike above the kit. That's Jimmy's account. On Andy's account he did it all with Bonzo, while Jimmy and the others were at the pub. Yeah, right.