Led Zep "When the Levee Breaks"

[Jason M Hancock]

The sound of this tune has always baffled me. How did they get it? Was it tons of reverb with tons of compression? Was it some kind of muffling or filtering? There's a sonic quality in this recording that I can't recall hearing anything similar to on any other recording by any other artist.

Thanks.

 

[Cyrokk]

A lot of the sonic uniqueness is in the drums: Bonham and his roadies set up his brand new (at the time) drum kit in the hallway at Headley Grange studios while the engineer, Andy Johns, hung a pair of M160 stereo mics overhead, placing one on the first floor landing. The sound was further enhanced by feeding it through a guitar echo unit and applying massive compression.

No baffles, plaster walls.

Phasing was added differently on each of Plant's verses, and the harp was back echoed.

And of course Page bottle-necked the guitars.

Apparently a living hell to mix too.

Cy

 

[darrin_h2000]

Cyrock

You know your rock histoery dude. I was about to give the same answer.