playing "When the Levee breaks" (LED ZEP) live

[lurgan liar]

Hey my band are gonna be doing our frist gig in our home town in a few weeks time and this is one of our cover songs....

I have been listening a lot to the song and i have noticed a few things that stand out

particularly the boominess (echo) of the kick drum and the effect on Plant's vocals - its like a phaser or something ....also the effect on the harmonica ...its like a delay effect doused in reverb...

Can anyone tell me how we could recreate this kind of sound playing live .... we have our own PA system with a powered Behringer 6 channel mixer and 2 70 watt speakers....

would we need some kind of effects unit...???

Thanks in advance

 

[Thorguitarist]

First off nice song choice...They set up Bonhams kit in the hallway to get that echo sound...(that was after putting him in the bathroom). Jimmy's Guitar is tuned from low to high F-A-C-F-A-C I'm pretty sure. To recreate that you would need reverd effects...I'm not sure if the 6 channels have effects but if they do use them. If you got some pedals or delay/reverb or soemthing...just mess around with them until you think they are right...Make sure to do a souncheck before cause its a different area I'm assuming. Best Of Luck

 

[lurgan liar]

Cheers Thor yeah th guitar tuning i am using is X-X-C-F-A-C . i'm not using the 5 and 6 string ...i got it in a LED ZEP 4 book ....

i pretty much have the guitar covered its just the effects on the vocals and harmonica and kick drum that i need to figure out ...

I think there are FX built into the mixer (its not mine) but i dunno if it will be possible to have different effects on differents channels....

we could probably just leave the vox dry and put the FX onto the harmonica and kick drum and that should do the trick ....anyways thanks for the reply

i can't wait to play this song live ...i've always wanted to play it and finally i am in a band now with a killer of a harmonica player

 

[Thorguitarist]

I'm using the 24 channel Behringer...and the effects or the same on all the channels unfortunatly...but you can adjust how much of the effect is on each of the channels...so you could have the vocals on a lower reverb and the drums on a somewhat higher reverb...If all else fails...then have your drummer just beat the shit out of the drums...hey it's what Bonham would do and you know it... ... I played outside one time in like an enclosed parking lot behind my school. The sound bounced like a mofo...you could try that techinque

 

[lurgan liar]

hahaa

well the bar we are playing in is really small and the floor is made of stone which will help .... i did sound at a gig there last week and it went down really well .... i think it should sound good ...and its a real face melter of a song ...especially when the slide guitar and harmonica riffs come together in the middle ..

Yeeehaaaaw rock n roll i can't wait

 

[Thorguitarist]

do you use the slide or just use your fingers? I tried slide and well im not that good at it..Yeah When The Levee Breaks is a hell of a song..My band just covered YYZ by Rush...i think people were impressed that (3) 17 year olds pulled of a Rush song...YYZ at that..I wihs i was able to come to your gig man..Hope you Rip the bar a new asshole...ahah

 

[lurgan liar]

Wow ...wat a tune.... haven't heard that in a while ...must download it now ....Yeah It is a shame u can't come to the gig ...since i live in Ireland lol ...price of flights might be a bit too expensive lol but it would be worth it to see When the Levee breaks!!!!!!

yeah i use the slide ... here is my band if u wanna hear some of our tunes www.captainkennedy.co.uk

 

[dmc777]

do you use the slide or just use your fingers? I tried slide and well im not that good at it..Yeah When The Levee Breaks is a hell of a song..My band just covered YYZ by Rush...i think people were impressed that (3) 17 year olds pulled of a Rush song...YYZ at that..I wihs i was able to come to your gig man..Hope you Rip the bar a new asshole...ahah

You listen to any Umphrey's McGee? Check them out if you're a fan of YYZ.