Heartbreaker solo BBC version on 6 different historics; tone comparison

[Mr.Paul]

You are truly a Jimmy Ace!!!
Great playing.
Tonewise #4 did the job for me.
It may not be 100% BBC Session tone, but IMO the clarity and the character of the PAFs clearly shine.
What amp did you use? Any pedals?
Or did I miss it?
Thanks for posting!

 

[JimmyAce2006]

You are truly a Jimmy Ace!!!
Great playing.
Tonewise #4 did the job for me.
It may not be 100% BBC Session tone, but IMO the clarity and the character of the PAFs clearly shine.
What amp did you use? Any pedals?
Or did I miss it?
Thanks for posting!

I used a Marchall JCM 900 2x12 100 watt combo with a Marshall power brake. No pedals. Thanks!

 

[cmcgov]

#3 sounds meaty and darker, #5 sounds like it has more treble and higher end, #1 #2 #4 and #6 all sound very similar. Good playing mate. I liked #5 for best tone.

 

[alexmania]

Hi all,

JimmyAce, first of all thank you for being such an amazing teacher. I must have learned a dozen JP solos the right way by watching your vids. I'm old school and started figuring out solos by ruining many a record and needle back in the day. Man, I love that Internet, it may actually catch on.

Off course I'm super jealous of your collection (and talent) and my very first R0 is being delivered this coming week from Wildwood Guitars, which apparently are mods of Custom Shop reissues. Of special interest is the underwound pups.

I found all six of the sounds to be too dark and full. I've always found JP to have a thinner quality to his tone and struggled to hear the 'quack' or chirp on any of those demos. Maybe it was the headphones I was using. I think if you have JPJ and JB as your rhythm section and you're a Tele player, a thinner sound might be more attractive. I have a 1979 LP Custom which has always played great and traditionally sounded muddy and thuddy. Through many tangents I connected with the luthier that made Billy Bragg's guitar and made for me some Australian alnicos which actually get much closer to the thinness of the sound I crave for a LP. This guitar has a strat pickup (can I say strat in this forum?) from a 60's strat which I put on about 25 years ago. The mini togges turn the middle pup on and off and reverse the phase of the neck and bridge pup. All efforts to thin out the sound since she weights 11 pounds.

I know it's tacky to trash R's here, especially the much coveted 2004 PJ model (I'd sell a kid, kidney, anything for one) yet I wonder if thinning the sound from the amp would actually change the characteristic of all the samples and change people's perception of which sounds better.

Here is a link to Hearbreaker / Lemon Song I did live a few months ago (with many apologies to all the much better players out there, especially JimmyAce) that my 79 Custom through my JVM112 can push out.

http://global.GreatNJProperties.com/videos/RTHZEPTONE/ZepTone.html

I'm sparing everyone the entire set with it's train wrecks here and there but the interesting part is that in that live setting the other guitar player (a LP studio through whatever amp was there through his boss OD) sounds ridiculously off to my ears tonewise.

So, is there a difference? I'll be back next week once my R0 arrives!

Let the pain begin!

 

[JimmyAce2006]

Hi all,

JimmyAce, first of all thank you for being such an amazing teacher. I must have learned a dozen JP solos the right way by watching your vids. I'm old school and started figuring out solos by ruining many a record and needle back in the day. Man, I love that Internet, it may actually catch on.

Off course I'm super jealous of your collection (and talent) and my very first R0 is being delivered this coming week from Wildwood Guitars, which apparently are mods of Custom Shop reissues. Of special interest is the underwound pups.

I found all six of the sounds to be too dark and full. I've always found JP to have a thinner quality to his tone and struggled to hear the 'quack' or chirp on any of those demos. Maybe it was the headphones I was using. I think if you have JPJ and JB as your rhythm section and you're a Tele player, a thinner sound might be more attractive. I have a 1979 LP Custom which has always played great and traditionally sounded muddy and thuddy. Through many tangents I connected with the luthier that made Billy Bragg's guitar and made for me some Australian alnicos which actually get much closer to the thinness of the sound I crave for a LP. This guitar has a strat pickup (can I say strat in this forum?) from a 60's strat which I put on about 25 years ago. The mini togges turn the middle pup on and off and reverse the phase of the neck and bridge pup. All efforts to thin out the sound since she weights 11 pounds.



I know it's tacky to trash R's here, especially the much coveted 2004 PJ model (I'd sell a kid, kidney, anything for one) yet I wonder if thinning the sound from the amp would actually change the characteristic of all the samples and change people's perception of which sounds better.

Here is a link to Hearbreaker / Lemon Song I did live a few months ago (with many apologies to all the much better players out there, especially JimmyAce) that my 79 Custom through my JVM112 can push out.

QuickTime Pro - Export for Web - RTHZEPTONE
I'm sparing everyone the entire set with it's train wrecks here and there but the interesting part is that in that live setting the other guitar player (a LP studio through whatever amp was there through his boss OD) sounds ridiculously off to my ears tonewise.

So, is there a difference? I'll be back next week once my R0 arrives!

Let the pain begin!

I don't know where you are getting "thinness" to describe Page's tone. IMO, it is anything but thin on those live BBC recordings. In fact, there is a lot of growl in Page's guitar. Pre-1973, Page still had the original 1959 PAF in the guitar. That is what he used in that BBC concert; on LZ2, LZ3, and LZ4 on songs where he used a Les Paul, that is what you got as well. And as for the quack / chirp, that sound comes from the mod in which he re-wired the guitar to achieve reverse phase (Peter Green's sound). On Page's #1 LP, he pulls up the bridge's tone pot to get the reverse phase. The Page #1 signature guitar that I played in one of the videos above gets that sound in the middle toggle position. But Page did NOT make this change to his Les Paul until AFTER Led Zeppelin broke up. It was not on any LZ recordings, studio or live. So I don't know why you are looking for it in my videos.

As for the Fender sound, he did use a Telecaster on LZ1. And he used the Tele on the Stairway solo. He may have used it on LZ2's Lemon Song and Living Loving Maid. Beyond that, most of the songs were recorded primarily with a Les Paul on the first 4 albums.

And I can not get your link to open the audio file. I tried with Windows Internet Explorer and with Firefox. It will not play.

 

[alexmania]

Ouch, my guitar teacher has chided me.

I'm actually delighted at your response. Please don't take my comments as criticisms in any manner. I learn a great deal from you and you do much I can't.

I do hear the chirp / quack in much of his tone and it's probably later than the BBC recordings which is probably our disconnect. I hear that chirp in a lot of the 73+ live sounds where he's only using the bridge pups. I think in addition to the OOP Peter Green tone there is also some buffered effect in there that's lightly compressing his tone. I don't think it's the amp, although the retubbing might have something to do with it.

Here is a direct link to the video file:

http://global.GreatNJProperties.com/videos/RTHZEPTONE/RTHZEPTONE.mov

Rock on,

Alex

 

[lespaul01]

For anyone who may listen or try to listen to alexmanias link, I would suggest not downloading any plugins that you are prompted to use in that link. It could be 100% safe, but imo better judgement would be to skip it all together.

 

[alexmania]

Sorry guys, I'm a Mac so it may be asking for Quicktime. I'll create an AVI so windows users can play it natively. Stand by...

 

[JimmyAce2006]

Sorry guys, I'm a Mac so it may be asking for Quicktime. I'll create an AVI so windows users can play it natively. Stand by...

Thanks. I saved the file to my PC & tried to open with Pinnacle Studio & it would not open. Pinnacle usually handles just about anything.

 

[alexmania]

Hi guys, so not worth the hassle to hear me play! I saved the movie as an AVI in pretty low visual quality so it wouldn't be huge. The sound should be there, though. The link is:

http://global.GreatNJProperties.com/videos/RTHZEPTONE/RTHZEPTONE.avi

Oddly these all play on my Mac. Oh well. Hope the tone is worth the effort. FWIW, this is bridge pup only.

 

[JimmyAce2006]

The audio and the video are not sync's up but I was able to hear it. Looks like you had a nice crowd.

 

[alexmania]

Yeah, we had several hundred people. Maplewood NJ has a fantastic yearly festival called Mapewoodstock which my band has played the past few years. I started a not for profit musician's collective called Rock The House which put on concerts for charity and to actually have paying gigs for musicians which was very popular. Our love of LZ prompted the core of Rock The House to form a 'not quite all stars' LZ tribute band called Rock The Houses of The Holy and that was our set. Back to the original thread, my Wildwood R0 is shipping on Tuesday so I'll be able to report then how that compares. Now if I could only play like you...

 

[ghost driver]

I'm going with 3,4,6 as the front runners. They are all very good as always John. I picked your new toy first because to me it just puts the notes out there in a very clear but beefy tone. It just growls at you.

 

[JimmyAce2006]

Yeah, we had several hundred people. Maplewood NJ has a fantastic yearly festival called Mapewoodstock which my band has played the past few years. I started a not for profit musician's collective called Rock The House which put on concerts for charity and to actually have paying gigs for musicians which was very popular. Our love of LZ prompted the core of Rock The House to form a 'not quite all stars' LZ tribute band called Rock The Houses of The Holy and that was our set. Back to the original thread, my Wildwood R0 is shipping on Tuesday so I'll be able to report then how that compares. Now if I could only play like you...

Your playing was good; however if you plan to play a lot of LZ tributes, I recommend buying a Page #1 LP.

 

[alexmania]

Thanks. I would love to get a#1 or a#2. They seem hard to find. I'm hoping the R0 does it for me. As you know the R9's will have a thicker neck. Got one you wanna sell?

 

[JimmyAce2006]

Thanks. I would love to get a#1 or a#2. They seem hard to find. I'm hoping the R0 does it for me. As you know the R9's will have a thicker neck. Got one you wanna sell?

I do in fact have an R9 I want to sell. It is on ebay. If you are interested, give me your email address & I will send you a link.

The Page #1 has the thinnest neck of any LP I have ever played - by far.

 

[alexmania]

Does the R9 have a think neck? You bet I'm interested!!!! My email is [email protected].

 

[JPP373]

Ouch, my guitar teacher has chided me.

I'm actually delighted at your response. Please don't take my comments as criticisms in any manner. I learn a great deal from you and you do much I can't.

I do hear the chirp / quack in much of his tone and it's probably later than the BBC recordings which is probably our disconnect. I hear that chirp in a lot of the 73+ live sounds where he's only using the bridge pups. I think in addition to the OOP Peter Green tone there is also some buffered effect in there that's lightly compressing his tone. I don't think it's the amp, although the retubbing might have something to do with it.

Here is a direct link to the video file:

http://global.GreatNJProperties.com/videos/RTHZEPTONE/RTHZEPTONE.mov

Rock on,

Alex

Very Cool! And Doing so while on Stage with Zoso Pants on!

 

[alexmania]

Thanks JPP...That was a bit of an inside joke as I figured three people in the audience would get it. Try googling for those and it's impossible. My obsession with this guy is so crazy that I actually made them out of Nike basketball pants. It also added extra pressure to the gig because if I stank up the joint, I wouldn't be able to show my face in town for a very long time.

 

[JPP373]

Thanks JPP...That was a bit of an inside joke as I figured three people in the audience would get it. Try googling for those and it's impossible. My obsession with this guy is so crazy that I actually made them out of Nike basketball pants. It also added extra pressure to the gig because if I stank up the joint, I wouldn't be able to show my face in town for a very long time.

You did Great man..I like how you down played the Zoso Pants with an Everyday T-shirt! You are Now Definitely Qualified for the Loafers and Zoso Custom Shirt Wait, there's a Dragon Suit for sale in the Classifieds! Ask JimmyAce he knows all about it..You gotta read that thread just for the Humor