Led Zeppelin’s secret revealed. No magic
Guitarists tend to overestimate the magic of instruments. Many people believe that the key to popularity is a unique sound, not professionalism and skill. Sometimes a unique, different sound makes a good rock band famous. Led Zeppelin can be attributed to this category of rock groups. It’s first album attracted attention not only with catchy songs, but also with the unusual sound of Jimmy Page’s guitar. It was then that the “legend of a unique guitar amplifier developed specifically for Led Zeppelin” appeared. Interest in the unusual device was fueled by the silence of Jimmy Page himself.
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However, in 2019, as part of a collaboration with Perry Margouleff, Jimmy Page was forced to hand over his “mystical” amp in order to be copied. And then the first part of the riddle came to light. It turns out that while on tour in 1959 with Neil Christian, the amplifier that Jimmy Page was using fell out of the car and broke down. It was a completely ordinary “Supro Coronado 1690T” amplifier. It had to be repaired. And many of the parts Jimmy ordered from Britain. It turned out that after the repair, the amplifier began to generate sharper and deeper distortion at a lower volume. At higher volumes, the dynamic sound distortion is even more pronounced. This is what made the Jimmy Page sound so unique.
But this is not the end of the story. It turned out that Led Zeppelin recorded their first album without sponsors at their own expense. Therefore, they had to economize on studio and equipment costs. The second factor in the unique sound of the guitar on the first album is the dynamic distortion caused by a cheap recording microphone.
By the way, you can buy “Supro Coronado 1690T ” even now. They are sold at Amazon. Without additional British details, of course.
