Jimmy Page Tone Figured Out

[jhgyugt765tr]

Preach @coffeecupman ! It's as much about the chase and the pursuit. And it is possible to get close, many have done it. And you know who else bought the same guitars and amps and copied the licks of their idol? Jimmy Page! I don't think anyone in 1964 told Jimmy, "Pack it in mate, tone is in the fingers, you'll never sound like Eddie Cochran or Hubert Sumlin, why don't you try to create something NEW and find YOUR OWN tone!".

What the hell do these people think happens when you chase tones? You never end up being a clone, you learn a crap ton about gear and electronics and music along the way, and then you end up playing like yourself. Which is inevitably the sum of your INFLUENCES. Just like you can hear all the rockabilly and blues players in Jimmy Page's playing, but he sure ain't a clone of any of them.

@efstop I'm guessing you've not spent much time listening to live Zeppelin. And if you just don't like it, fair enough, but questioning others for having fun seems like a bigger waste of time than tone chasing

@CB91710 Everyone brings this up, and I think it's pointless. There are a million ways of achieving a given sound, or getting in the ballpark, and we don't need isolated tracks or the exact gear to do it. We all know about how the recording process happens and imparts tonal changes, but most Page nuts are going after live tones anyway, which often have less -post-processing.

Rant over lol

 

[efstop]

@efstop I'm guessing you've not spent much time listening to live Zeppelin. And if you just don't like it, fair enough, but questioning others for having fun seems like a bigger waste of time than tone chasing

Tone chasing seems more like work than fun, but we all have things that please us
My point is that Page seems to be the number one guitar player that others without a contract want to analyze. There are other worthy sounds out there.
I don't really care for Zep, but I don't criticize those who like them. I'd have a rough time on MLP if I did that

 

[Acey]

Tone chasing seems more like work than fun

That's the fun part!

 

[LPSpecial6403]

Saw this on the Guitar World website:
https://www.guitarworld.com/gear/guitar-pickups/tim-mills-bare-knuckle-pickups-2025

 

[Acey]

“Interestingly, the neck pickup was just shy of 9k. Normally that would be muddy and hot, but because the magnet had discharged so much and the coil windings were heavily asymmetrical..."

 

[Acey]

"Most of the tone came from how much timber had taken off the neck, almost to Ibanez levels of thinness."

I actually tried this on a flying v I built (against everyone's wishes). It was very comfortable and had a good tonal result. The tone cleaned up a bit in the lower mids and rumble/subbass.

You don't actually have to do all that. You can just watch this video and imagine it as a little more extreme:

 

[Pierce103]

In my experience ive found you can squeeze a whole hell of a lot out of a pickup by changing magnets and adjusting the pole pieces. I have a seth lover in the neck of my R9 and swapped in a A5 magnet (comes with an A2). I've been pretty happy with it honestly!

 

[freefrog]

“Interestingly, the neck pickup was just shy of 9k. Normally that would be muddy and hot, but because the magnet had discharged so much and the coil windings were heavily asymmetrical..."

I won't repeat all my stance of post 4 but it would have been useful to know the inductance of the pickup and even more instructive to know what this measurement was for each coil...

If a bobbin was wound with a wire close to 42.5AWG and the other with another spool closer to 41.5AWG, they might have a same number of turns + a same inductance but noticeably mismatched DCR readings... In which case the single coilish character would come from something else than a simple unbucker structure.

To me, IOW, the interview is interesting but doesn't give enough information to allow definitive and defined conclusions...