Jimmy Page number 1 out of phase mystery

[Gaylord Amsterdam]

For years, people have been trying to get Pages out of phase sound. Many thought it was an out of phase switch but Jimmy did not have that until later. Lots of people think it was the replacement bridge pickup was wired out of phase. But I noticed on my Jackson Rhoads with the stock Jackson branded pickups if I roll the volume knob back just a hair it gets nasely and honky sounding. Not one of my other guitars does this. Any ideas why and was this possibly how Page did it?

I'm thinking that the loss of top end makes it more midrange and Page lick but just this guitar wondering if Pot values have anything to do with it as all my other guitars except 1 are single coil 250k pots and I've not tried this on the other one yet.

 

[Zepfan]

In an interview with "Guitar for the Practicing Musician", He stated that he wanted the middle switch position to have both pickups in series. So he added a separate wire for the neck pickups ground side of coil and used the existing ground wire for the case. He then wired the neck pickup to be in series with the bridge pickup in the middle position by reversing the pickup wires since the end coil wire was isolated from the pickup's ground wire.
Both the pickups(Bridge and neck) were the same wind direction used together in series to get the OOP tone.

 

[Wallaby]

Just my 2 cents and IMO and that - but I wonder really if some sounds people identify as "out of phase" are sometimes just particular middle-position sounds they haven't experienced before.

You can get some pretty interesting quacky, clucky, funky and otherwise middle-position sounds, especially with lower-output 'buckers and careful height and pole adjustments.

Again, IME, IMO, just an idea.

 

[ElvisNixon]

 

[ElvisNixon]

 

[BFcaster]

That's interesting. Have you seen this anywhere as a wiring diagram? Still trying to wrap my head around it, but if what he said in the article is true, it's intriguing.

 

[BFcaster]

In an interview with "Guitar for the Practicing Musician", He stated that he wanted the middle switch position to have both pickups in series. So he added a separate wire for the neck pickups ground side of coil and used the existing ground wire for the case. He then wired the neck pickup to be in series with the bridge pickup in the middle position by reversing the pickup wires since the end coil wire was isolated from the pickup's ground wire.
Both the pickups(Bridge and neck) were the same wind direction used together in series to get the OOP tone.

Oops...

 

[ElvisNixon]

Here’s the story of the guitar, it’s being stolen in 1970 and recovered very recently.

About 3/4 of the way through the article they discuss how a regular 3 PU Custom 3-way switch works and the modifications Page did to it. I was talking with a knowledgeable friend who’s very into getting the sounds like on the records. He has a non-modified vintage 3 PU “Black Beauty”. He was theorizing that the BB was used on the second record, not his flametops.

My friend demonstrated over the phone lol, the sound of the middle and neck combined and damn if it didn’t sound correct when he played Whole Lotta Love and various solos.

Here’s the article in Guitar World Magazine:

Jimmy Page Recovers Stolen Les Paul Custom

 

[ElvisNixon]

That's interesting. Have you seen this anywhere as a wiring diagram? Still trying to wrap my head around it, but if what he said in the article is true, it's intriguing.

They explain how the modded switches work in the article.

 

[loudboy]

He also used a lot of pretty unorthodox mic'ing techniques, and signal chains.

 

[Zepfan]

Here’s the story of the guitar, it’s being stolen in 1970 and recovered very recently.

About 3/4 of the way through the article they discuss how a regular 3 PU Custom 3-way switch works and the modifications Page did to it. I was talking with a knowledgeable friend who’s very into getting the sounds like on the records. He has a non-modified vintage 3 PU “Black Beauty”. He was theorizing that the BB was used on the second record, not his flametops.

My friend demonstrated over the phone lol, the sound of the middle and neck combined and damn if it didn’t sound correct when he played Whole Lotta Love and various solos.

Here’s the article in Guitar World Magazine:

Jimmy Page Recovers Stolen Les Paul Custom

That's his Black Beauty LP, We were discussing his Telelcaster(Dragon Tele that Beck gave him).

 

[Zepfan]

Oops...

OOP -Out Of Phase

 

[Ed Driscoll]

Here’s the story of the guitar, it’s being stolen in 1970 and recovered very recently.

About 3/4 of the way through the article they discuss how a regular 3 PU Custom 3-way switch works and the modifications Page did to it. I was talking with a knowledgeable friend who’s very into getting the sounds like on the records. He has a non-modified vintage 3 PU “Black Beauty”. He was theorizing that the BB was used on the second record, not his flametops.

My friend demonstrated over the phone lol, the sound of the middle and neck combined and damn if it didn’t sound correct when he played Whole Lotta Love and various solos.

Here’s the article in Guitar World Magazine:

Jimmy Page Recovers Stolen Les Paul Custom

"Whole Lotta Love" was recorded at Olympic in London, so he would easily have had access to both Les Pauls.

 

[ElvisNixon]

That's his Black Beauty LP, We were discussing his Telelcaster(Dragon Tele that Beck gave him).

I didn’t see the word “Telecaster” in this whole thread.

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]

Did JP even own a burst during the recording of LZ II ??? Depends on the time-line, i suppose...

 

[Zepfan]

I didn’t see the word “Telecaster” in this whole thread.

The OP was talking about the OOP tone of his number 1 guitar, which was the Dragon Tele used on the first 4 albums and the first 2 tours. It had fret issues and the luthier he sent it to for repairs fixed the wiring for him.

Did JP even own a burst during the recording of LZ II ??? Depends on the time-line, i suppose...

Page got the Burst LP from Joe Walsh on 2nd tour when the Black Beauty was stolen.

 

[Ed Driscoll]

Did JP even own a burst during the recording of LZ II ??? Depends on the time-line, i suppose...

Page told Marc Myers, the author of the quite readable book Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, "In April [of 1969], we went into London's Olympic Studios and cut 'Whole Lotta Love.' (The rough mix version with different lyrics that appears on the reissued deluxe edition of LZII was apparently recorded on April 19, 1969.) He had purchased his "Number One" Les Paul from Joe Walsh in late April of '69, telling Guitar Player, "Joe brought it for me when we played the Fillmore. He insisted I buy it, and he was right.”

There were lots more sessions for LZII in the States, but timing-wise, it sounds like "Whole Lotta Love" may well have been the Black Beauty.

 

[ElvisNixon]

"Whole Lotta Love" was recorded at Olympic in London, so he would easily have had access to both Les Pauls.

My friend that has a 3PU Custom was getting some amazing “Whole Lotta Love” sounds. A 3PU Custom’s 3 way switch allows for neck pu alone, neck+middle pu, and bridge pu alone.

My friend was getting the sound from the neck+middle pu position straight in
a tweed 3X10 Bandmaster in a big, reflective room.

Who knows when Page added the extra switches and pu swaps? There’s just something about Whole Lotta Love that sounds fundamentally different than a 2 pu LP. Of course Olympic was one of the best studios to ever exist. The Helios mixing desk in studio A was even more revered than a vintage Neve. Mic locker to die for and most importantly the room itself was amazing. You can hear it from Hendrix’s stuff to LZ, to anything that came out of that place. Of course it didn’t hurt to have Eddie Kramer engineering LZ either.

 

[Wallaby]

Posting about Jimmy Page's Number 1 in the "Other Guitars" forum has Les Paul written all over it IMO. I've followed this thread with the understanding we've been discussing Les Paul tone the entire time.

 

[Ed Driscoll]

The OP was talking about the OOP tone of his number 1 guitar, which was the Dragon Tele used on the first 4 albums and the first 2 tours. It had fret issues and the luthier he sent it to for repairs fixed the wiring for him.

Well, Page used the Tele for the "Stairway" solo, and likely other parts as well, but as he wrote in his 2020 Anthology book, "I played the Les Paul on 'Whole Lotta Love,' and 'What Is, and What Should Never Be,' and that decided it 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 II, like I had built Led Zeppelin around the Fender Telecaster, I built the second album around the sonic texture of the Les Paul Standard. Neither Joe Walsh, nor I realized at the time just what an important thing he done by coming along with that Les Paul."

Page got the Burst LP from Joe Walsh on 2nd tour when the Black Beauty was stolen.

The Black Beauty appears happily along with the "Number One" Les Paul Standard in the first disc of the Led Zeppelin DVD filmed at the Royal Albert Hall on January 9th, 1970. In Anthology, next to a closeup of the fret marker that Perry Margouleff used to identify that it was indeed Page's Custom, Page writes that the guitar was stolen in April of 1970, when the band was crossing the border from the US to Canada to get to their April 13th concert in Montreal, which was their fifth campaign in North America:

In April on the American tour, we were traveling from Minneapolis to Montreal. It was always hell crossing the border from the United States to Canada, which is why some bands didn’t play Canada. Going through customs was really intimidating and, like other bands, we would often get delayed with the equipment being turned over. To avoid all this fuss and bother, sometimes we played close to the border on the US side -- somewhere like Albany or Buffalo in the east or Seattle in the west -- and then people traveled over from Canada.

But, on this occasion, we went over the border, and my Black Beauty didn’t turn up at the other end. There were so many points in the journey, where it could’ve gone missing at the original airport, at customs, at the airport in Canada, but all I knew was that it wasn’t there, and in those days, nobody could trace it.

(The quotes were transcribed on my iPhone, so apologies for any typos. And apologies for completely geeking out on minutia regarding Page's Les Pauls.)