Nail the ToneLed Zeppelin

Whole Lotta Love

Led Zeppelin · Led Zeppelin II · 1969

The main riff is Page's newly acquired 1959 Les Paul Standard on the bridge pickup, driven hard into a Vox Super Beatle head through a Rickenbacker Transonic cabinet at Olympic in April 1969 — his own account, though his modded Marshall Super Bass is named in other tellings. Set a cranked British-style head with mids forward, bass pulled back to keep the riff tight against the doubled bass line, and a touch of slapback. Most of the dirt is amp and tape, not pedal: save the Tone Bender and the toe-down wah for the solo and the middle freakout.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning; the riff's fretted D on the 5th fret of the A string is played against the open D string with a slight microtonal bend, and John Paul Jones doubles the riff on bass.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Gibson Les Paul Standard "Number One" (1959) · PAF humbuckers · bridge pickup

Amp

Vox Super Beatle head + Rickenbacker Transonic cab

GAIN
7.0
BASS
4.0
MID
7.0
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
0.0

Page told Total Guitar (2020) "that's exactly what's on Whole Lotta Love"; Ground Guitar argues the head was really a Vox UL4120/UL730, since no Super Beatle is documented in his Yardbirds gear. Knob values are inferred from the record, with the amp's distortion booster and MRB mid boost engaged.

Amp

Marshall Super Bass 100 (1968, Tony Frank mod)

GAIN
8.0
BASS
5.0
MID
7.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
5.0

Competing account: in Jimmy Page: The Anthology Page calls this modded Super Bass his principal studio amp from Led Zeppelin II onward, and some write-ups credit a 100W plexi on this track. Use it as the practical modern substitute — a cranked plexi-style 100-watter gets very close.

Pedals

  • Sola Sound Tone Bender MkII · fuzz · Attack about 3/4, level unity — Page's fuzz of the period; keep it off or barely on for the riff and save it for the solo and the freakout section.
  • Vox Cry Baby · wah · Held fully forward (toe down) as a fixed midrange filter for the solo, not rocked.
  • Studio tape echo (backwards echo) · tape delay · Short slapback around 100-150 ms, one or two repeats on the riff; the reversed echo on the descending figure was created at Olympic on tape, not with a pedal.

Tone character

raw midrange crunch · fuzzy top-end edge · tight punchy low end · compressed, tape-saturated · short slapback echo

easy

Three notes of E minor pentatonic with a slide into the first note, but the fretted D has to be micro-bent against the open D string and the whole figure sits just behind the beat, so timing and bend control are the work.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

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Sources