All language subtitles for LED ZEPPELIN 1969 - Behind the Recording of Led Zeppelin II

Led Zeppelin's first album introduced

the band's unrelenting hard rock style

that would go on to thrill audiences

worldwide. Their second album, recorded

the same year in 1969, mostly while on

tour supporting their first record,

really cemented their place as one of

the biggest bands in the world, going

from playing clubs to selling out arenas

with radio hits Whole Lot Love and

Ramble On. For the first album, the band

were able to haul up in Olympic studios

and complete the job in only 30 hours

over a 3-week period. It was actually

recorded before they even had a record

deal and was solely financed by Jimmy

Page himself. So, Haste was in his best

interest. With the band doing all they

could to promote their debut record,

they ended up being on the road for some

time and just weren't able to dedicate a

prolonged amount of time away from

touring in order to record the second

album. Because of this, they ended up

recording as they traveled with sessions

taking place in both the UK and the USA

and even a brief session in R&D studios

nicknamed the Hut in Vancouver to record

vocal and harmonica overdubs for the

song Bring It On Home. Their first album

was engineered by Glenn John's with

Jimmy Paige as producer. Jimmy and Glenn

were like-minded when it came to the

sonic approach for the record in that

space and ambience were important

elements to capture to convey a sense of

size and this was a style that would

continue into the recording of their

second record. This method was crucially

employed when recording John Bonham's

drums for example. For the most part

this was done with two mics over the kit

with one placed to Bonham's right above

the ride symbol area and one directly

above the snare. A third mic would be

placed in front of the bassrum also to

catch the low frequencies not picked up

properly by the overhead mics. This

setup is known as the Glen John's method

and is important for the sound but not

the only important thing. Kramer recalls

the thing that separated him from his

contemporaries which John and I

discussed was the thing about the drum

kit being balanced. Not only from a

tonal point of view but from a volume

point of view also. It was this belief

that symbols shouldn't overpower the

drums. You should be able to put one

microphone in front of the set and it

should work. In the 40s and 50s, there

weren't mics all over the place, and

some of those recordings were

incredible. John came out of that way of

thinking. The core was complete control

and balance. Eddie remembers using the

Noman KM54s for the overheads and an AKG

D30 on a kick drum. Although different

mic combinations were used in many

different studios, including the ones

used at Mystic Studios in LA here. His

skins were tuned very tight like a

traditional jazz players kit, which gave

the drums a pitch and a ring that was

quite distinctive from other rock

drummers. Eddie recalls, "He always used

to come in and give me a big bear hug

and say, "You're going to give me a good

sound today, aren't you?" in a kind of

funny, threatening voice. For Jimmy's

guitar, the way they created space was

by placing a microphone close to the

cloth of the amp, as would be standard

practice, but also having one placed

around 10 ft away and then blending in

the two signals to give the listener a

sense of space and size. Although Jimmy

Paige was the producer, Eddie Kramer was

one of the many engineers who worked on

the album and ultimately ended up mixing

it along with Jimmy with Eddie handling

all the technical details. Jimmy Page

with a Gibson Les Paul is now a classic

image, but for the first Led Zeppelin

record, he actually used the Fender

Teleer. This particular guitar with a

very distinctive paint job was given to

him by Jeff Beck when he replaced him in

the Yard Birds. Jimmy had experience of

using a LesPool live as he had a three

pickup Black Beauty along with the

Telecaster. This encounter left him

impressed with how the guitar's

Humbucker pickups offered more options

when it came to feedback control. And it

was at this point that Joe Walsh offered

him his 1960 Lespool Sunburst for $1,200

while he was on tour in the States

playing at the Fillmore East in New

York. Jimmy snapped this up and it

became his number one from then on and

it was the main guitar he used on Led

Zeppelin 2. It wasn't stock when he

bought it from Walsh as the neck of the

guitar had been shaved down, which

actually shaved off the serial number,

meaning it became impossible to properly

date. It could be a 1959 or a 1960. The

pickups were original Seth Lover Pas, as

was stock at the time. Jimmy said about

the Les Paul, I played it on Whole Lot

Love and What Is and What Should Never

Be, and then decided it was for me. It

was definitely going to be the Les Paul

from then on. I always wanted to make a

change for each album sonically and that

was my first decision for Led Zeppelin

2. Another guitar that definitely

featured on the album was his 67 Vox

Phantom 12. The acoustic parts were

played on his Vox Country Western model.

This can be heard very prominently on

Rambleon. The Vox Country Western is

really a rebadged Italianmade Echo 6.

This is a fairly inexpensive brand and

even has a bolt-on neck. Jimmy's main

amps at the time with a Marshall Super

Lead and Marshall Super Bass. His

superbass was modified by Tony Frank and

it's unclear what these mods entailed as

it's quite possible to effectively turn

a superb base into a super lead. Some

say his main recording amp from Led

Zeppelin 2 onwards was the superbase,

but it's likely both were used over the

years and it's very hard to judge from

pictures as they look identical from the

front. He also used the Fox UL412 hybrid

amp head in the studio, an amp he'd been

using since the Yard Birds days. The amp

was known as the Super Beetle as it was

Vox's response to the Beatles requesting

a higher powered amp in order to be

heard over their screaming fans. You can

clearly see in the studio recording

photos that there are definitely some

Rick and Backer speaker cabinets

present. This is the transonic cabinet

that Jimmy had originally paired with

the Vox and it's likely that the

cabinets contained Altech 417 speakers,

although this can't be confirmed for

sure. The Vox amp and Rickmba cabinet

combination was what he used to record

Whole Lot of Love. And for the solo, the

solar sound tone bender and the Vox wire

slightly dipped to accentuate the

mid-frequencies. He did use the Roto

sound tone bender mark I also joined the

album. Another effect that he used can

be seen in this photo. This is the long

tom echo deluxe by Vox that was

initially made popular by Hank Martin in

the shadows. Whole lot of love also has

a theramin part played by Jimmy. This

occurs in the breakdown and is followed

by another very distinctive part. Eddie

Kramer recalls, "The whole thing with

Jimmy was that we like to leave in

little mistakes and adlibs. It added to

the whole vibe. So on a whole lot of

love, we left in that cough at the

beginning. Then on Robert's way down

inside vocal part, we found that we had

leakage from track 8, a previous vocal

track that we couldn't seem to lose. So

Jimmy and I cranked up the reverb and

left it in. Big mistake. Happy mistake.

An example of the recording complexities

caused by the relentless touring

schedule meant that this song, like most

of the album, for that matter, was

recorded at different times in many

different studios. For example, Whole

Lot of Love, kickstarted the sessions at

Olympic Studios in April 69. Moving on

to&M Studios in Hollywood for further

overdubs and actually finished at ANR

Studios in New York. They were all over

the place, Kramer says of the sessions.

They had this huge truck of tapes and

once they were assembled, he and Paige

completed the mixes in just 2 days. on

August 29th and 30th at ANR Studios in

New York on the most primitive console

you could imagine with only two panots

available. Kramer said fortunately a lot

of submixing had been done previously so

some tracks contained the multiple

instruments and in many cases basic

effects had also been committed to tape

at the time of recording but that didn't

keep Kramer and Paige from creating more

effects and making the most of these two

pampots. They were able to dramatically

move instruments and vocals from one

side of the stereo field to the other,

such as drawing the middle section of

Whole Lot of Love and towards the end of

What Is and What Should Never Be and

also for creating more subtle stereo

effects using reverb and delay. Of

course, when talking about the effects

used on Led Zeppelin 2, it's interesting

to note that while the studio was

equipped with Ptech equalizers,

Teleronics limiters, and other now

classic gear, there were no effects

processors in the modern sense. Reverb

was generated via three EMT 140 plates

and delay was achieved using a three

head real-to-re tape recorder. The delay

results in the time it takes for the

tape to physically travel between the

record and playback heads. Another

example of effects created using

realtore tape recorders is the strange

vocal sound on the chorus of what is and

what should never be produced by phasing

plant voice using two synchronized tape

recorders. The same track was played

back simultaneously on two machines at

the same time with a tape in one machine

playing tape that was uneven. This

produced a wobbling effect by modulating

the second playback in and out of phase

with the first. Less obvious production

techniques used throughout the album

include panning a guitar or other

instrument to one side of the stereo

field and position a reverberated

version of the same sound to the other

as on the opening riff a whole lot of

love. Paige was also fond of backwards

reverb where the tape is flipped over

and the reverb recorded to an empty

track while it's playing in reverse.

Then when the tape is turned back over,

the backwards reverb is heard starting

before the sound it was applied to.

Paige had said that he used this on the

slide part during the chorus of Whole

Lot of Love and at other points on the

album. John Paul Jones's setup for the

album was his 61 Fender Jazz Bass played

through an acoustic 360 bass head and

361 cabinet. No longer production, this

was quite a common setup for rock basis

at the time and it was used both live

and in the studio. Robert Plant felt

that this album was quite a turning

point for him as a vocalist. After

feeling that he didn't get any credit

for his work on the first album, he

began to have severe doubts about his

ability to carry on. During Led Zeppelin

one, as far as I was concerned, I

thought I was going to leave the band

anyway. I didn't feel that comfortable

because there were a lot of demands on

me vocally, which there were all the way

through the Led Zeppelin thing and I was

quite nervous and I didn't really get

into enjoying it until the second album.

I think the vast majority can agree that

he sure did get into it as the vocal

performances are truly incredible and

iconic. Thankfully, the record buying

public at the time agreed also with the

album topping the charts and becoming

the biggest selling album of the year,

deposing Abbey Road from the number one

spot and keeping the Rolling Stones Let

It Bleed from number one also. It marked

a shift for the popularity of heavier

rock and the band of course went on to

make many more classics with their

blueprint now firmly defined.

[Music]