Tone Chasing

All things Jimmy Page tone recreation attempts!

This section covers discussion, research into, and audio examples of people trying to achieve Jimmy's live tones, including amps, pedals, pickups, strings, etc.

• TSRTS
• HTWWW

TODO: Royal Amps, TGP/MLP/Marshall Forum threads by CDEMike, Andrew884 and others, Abrildel85, etc.

TODO: Lumpy's/Electric Magik, other pedal brands/models chasing Page tone

TODO: ReWind jpp models, other pickup makers, Bryan Samui's MSG 1973 pickups, Gibson 498 mods, T-Tops, etc.

TODO: Strings, picks, etc.

This section covers discussion, research into, and audio examples of people trying to achieve Jimmy's live tones, including amps, pedals, pickups, strings, etc.

TODO: Supro, etc.

This section covers discussion, research into, and audio examples any and all techniques/quirks that Jimmy had or used to get his distinctive sounds.

TODO: Things like his use of rakes, behind the nut bends, country pedal steel-type licks, violin bow, etc. Follow on from my TGP post.

This section is dedicated to analyzing and attempting to recreate those aspects of Jimmy's right hand technique that contribute to his unique tone

If you listen carefully to live recordings, there are times when Jimmy's pick makes this sort of “chirp” sound. It's a high-pitched click sort of sound, that isn't always present when he picks.

Mr. French on The Gear Page posted an excellent analysis and examples of this chirp sound. The discussion on that thread basically concludes that the chirp results from how hard the strings are struck, the angle the pick strikes the string, and I believe gain plays a part as well, since you tend to not hear it when Jimmy play quieter passage.

My own research into Jimmy's right hand technique led me to analyzing where he strikes the strings, in relation to the brige and the 2 pickups. I also posted an analysis on The Gear Page, which concludes that Jimmy tends to pick quite close to the bridge, and consequently over the bridge pickup. This has long been known to create a brighter sound overall, and Jimmy seemed to do it both on his LP and his Telecaster. Much has been made of how bright Jimmy's tone is, especially in the neck position, and I believe his positioning near the bridge is a large contributing factor.

My Gear

Demos

TODO: Capture clips of the same song/parts of a song across different years/bootlegs and compare the tones.

Ideas for samples:

• Boogie Chillun' clean intro section
• Moby Dick intro riff
• Dazed and Confused fast lick out of the bow solo