Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page is the guitarist and producer of Led Zeppelin, and one of the players most closely tied to fuzz pedals. His sound across the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin was built less on a big pedalboard than on a handful of boxes: a homemade treble booster and Roger Mayer's first fuzz in the session years, Sola Sound Tone Benders through the late 1960s, a parked wah, and Eventide rack processors in the '70s and '80s. He is also celebrated as a producer; bassist Charlie Jones, who played with Page and Robert Plant, says "Jimmy is a great producer. He knows how to get the best out of musicians and how to present it."¹

Much of the early sound came from small amps rather than pedals. Skreddy Pedals' page for its Supro-based pedal says Page recorded the legendary debut album with his "Dragon" Telecaster, which he calls "The Excalibur", plugged into a Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk 1.5 and a small Supro "Super" 1606 combo amplifier². The same page says that sound is best recognized by "Communication Breakdown", and that legend has it he also used it on the solo to "Stairway to Heaven" after not finding a suitable sound from any of the larger amps available to him². MusicRadar's review of a Supro reissue notes the brand's amps carry "a certain cachet, not least a Jimmy Page connection"³.

The sound Jimmy Page is known for

Page's recorded tone is associated with three things in particular: fuzz, small Supro amps, and the preamp of the Echoplex tape echo unit. Xotic's page for its EP Booster, which is based on that preamp, says it "captured the legendary Echoplex preamp sound made famous by players like Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen"⁴. JHS Pedals names Page among the players whose sixties Supro combos inspired its SuperBolt pedal⁵, and a Pedal of the Day review of that pedal says "If you want to sound like Jimmy Page, but can't afford that vintage amp, this is a great place to get that tone without hurting your wallet"⁶.

GuitarPCB's Zoso Tone Combo, a DIY dual-circuit board, is built around the same idea, combining two circuits "to capture the legendary sound of Jimmy Page"⁷, and the company's SuperDrive 70's project promises to recreate tones produced by Page, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson, all in one box⁸. Page himself cites Buddy Guy as a vital influence on his own groundbreaking recordings⁹.

Session years: the Roger Mayer treble booster and first fuzz

Page's earliest effect was a treble booster built by Roger Mayer. Mayer says he first started designing pedals in 1961, and that he "produced a Treble Booster that was tried and used by my friends including Jimmy Page who then played in local bands"¹⁰. Mayer had started building treble boosters and experimenting with guitar tones while still in school, before six years of university study in mechanical and electrical engineering¹¹. Page later credited Mayer with supplying him initially with a fuzz box, and said of meeting him at Surbiton, "It was a pivotal moment for my sound"¹².

The two were both interested in fuzz, which they had heard on a record Page played for Mayer: the Ventures' tune "The 2000 Pound Bee"¹³. Mayer first made pedals for Page in 1964¹⁴, and in that year he built fuzz pedals for Page and "Big" Jim Sullivan¹¹. Mayer's own account is direct:

Page has described the effect of Mayer's distortion box, which had an on/off switch so he could control the distortion and sustain, in his own words: it was phenomenal, and when he started taking it to sessions the other guitarists were blown away, while the guys doing the arrangements loved it¹³. He has called meeting Mayer at Surbiton, a suburb in South West London, "a pivotal moment for my sound"¹³. Not everything Mayer offered stuck: Page declined Mayer's octave-doubler with fuzz because "It was difficult to control in the studio from the guitar, so I said it wasn't for me"¹³. A Guitar.com history by Josh Scott says Page allegedly approached Mayer in 1964 to build a device replicating the Ventures' distorted sound, that it was rumored but not confirmed he used this pedal in the studio and touring with the Yardbirds, and that Mayer claims he had never seen a Maestro FZ-1 when he created it¹⁵. Page credits Mayer with supplying him initially with a fuzz box¹⁶.

Tone Benders with the Yardbirds and early Led Zeppelin

From the Yardbirds onward, Page's fuzz was a Tone Bender. Fuzzboxes.org notes that on several occasions during the Yardbirds years he was photographed using a Tone Bender in a very early cast aluminum enclosure, painted in an unusual gold finish¹⁶. The MkII followed: Premier Guitar's history of the Tone Bender says the most well known MkII user is Jimmy Page, who used one during his tenure on guitar with the Yardbirds and in the early Led Zeppelin years¹⁷, and that the MkII was famously used by Page, paired with a Telecaster and Supro amp¹⁷. A Sola Sound statement dated 2nd January 1967 details Page's acquisition of his Tone Bender MKII in December 1966¹⁸. MusicRadar's Rob Laing says the MkII is "all over the first Led Zeppelin album too - just listen to Dazed And Confused"¹⁹, and GuitarPlayer's Dave Hunter writes that Page, who used a MkII, continued to slather Tone Bender fuzz all over his early recordings with Led Zeppelin²⁰. Tru-fi's history adds that Page is often associated with the ToneBender, using it on classic tracks like "Whole Lotta Love"²¹.

The MkII Page used had OC81D transistors, per MusicRadar's Jonathan Horsley²³. The MkIII story continues into 1969: British Pedal Company's history says Page can be seen in 1969 using the Rotosound version of the three-knob tone bender²², and Premier Guitar adds that he was spotted deploying a Rotosound MkIII at the filming of the French TV show Tous En Scene, and that it is thought he used the Rotosound MkIII for some of the songs on Zep's BBC Sessions double album¹⁷. Rotosound's own page for its RFB1 fuzz, a reissue of that circuit, notes there is even a picture of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page playing one²⁴.

The MkII circuit has since been reproduced widely. ThroBak's Stone Bender MKII is described by its maker as a faithful tonal reproduction of the 3 germanium Sola Sound Tone Bender MKii Professional used by Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck²⁵²⁶, and Delicious Audio's page for the Ramble FX Twin Bender says it uses the same circuit of Sola Sound's legendary Tone Bender MKII Professional that Jimmy Page and many others made famous²⁷. SolidGoldFX's Communication Breakdown fuzz, announced at NAMM 2020, takes its name from the song¹⁹.

Parked wah and Eventide in the '70s and '80s

Page is one of the players associated with the fixed or parked wah sound, where the pedal is set in one position rather than swept. Premier Guitar's press release for Magnetic Effects' Zig Zag, a fixed wah filter pedal, says this sound "has been used in some of the most famous recordings of all time by great artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Mark Knopfler, Mick Ronson, Michael Schenker and Marc Bolan"²⁸. Vox's own history of the wah names Page among the players of its Wah Wah pedal, alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison and others²⁹.

For pitch and studio processing, Page turned to Eventide rack units. MusicRadar's report on the H9 Core launch describes the H910 and H949 as "the prized studio processors used on stage by such luminaries as Frank Zappa, Jimmy Page, and Eddie VanHalen"³⁰. Eventide Product Specialist Alan Chaput says Page, Brian May, Frank Zappa, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai all used Eventide gear in their rigs in the '70s and '80s, and that the company's PitchFuzz algorithm for the H9 "allows you to recreate some of the classic guitar sounds" of those artists³¹.

Roger Mayer Page 1 fuzz

The Page 1 traces back to Mayer's first fuzz box. Mayer's own history page says he first started making guitar effects in 1964 for his friend Jimmy Page³². He describes designing his first fuzz guitar effects pedal that year, a unit "used by Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan and featured on many early hit records"³². The Page 1 gives players a built version of the 1964 circuit that started Page's fuzz story.

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