{"id":8859,"date":"2023-04-16T13:11:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T12:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thestoryinst.com\/?p=8859"},"modified":"2023-12-01T21:53:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T20:53:03","slug":"jimmy-page-number-one-and-number-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thestoryinst.com\/en\/2023\/04\/16\/jimmy-page-number-one-and-number-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Page number one and number two"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Jimmy Page<\/strong> mainly played Gibson<\/strong> Les Paul guitars, among them the\u00a01959 Les Paul Standard nicknamed \u201cNumber One\u201d<\/strong>. This was his main recording and live guitar from around the time he started working on the Led Zeppelin II album.<\/p>\n

Aside from this guitar, he also famously used a\u00a01958 Fender Telecaster nicknamed the \u201cDragon Tele\u201d<\/strong>, and a black\u00a0Danelectro DC-2 3021<\/strong>. Also, he\u2019s famous for playing a double-neck guitar \u2013 a\u00a0Gibson EDS-1275<\/strong>\u00a0which Gibson<\/strong> made for Jimmy Page<\/strong> so he could avoid having to switch guitars when playing \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d live.<\/p>\n

When it comes to amps, Jimmy Page<\/strong> mostly used the\u00a0Marshall Super Bass and Marshall Super Lead<\/strong>\u00a0combination. Prior to this, or before 1971, he used a variety of different amps, including a\u00a0Supro Coronado<\/strong>, a\u00a0Vox UL4120<\/strong>, and a\u00a0Hiwatt Custom 100<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As far as effects, in the early days, Jimmy Page<\/strong> used a\u00a0Sola Sound Tonebender MK II<\/strong>\u00a0which is one of the earliest fuzz pedals on the market. Aside from this he also used a wah pedal \u2013 he started out on a\u00a0Vox Grey Wah<\/strong>, and eventually moved onto a\u00a0Cry Baby<\/strong>\u00a0wah which he continues to use to this day.<\/p>\n

\n

Jimmy Page\u2019s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard\u00a0\u201cNumber One\u201d<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is Jimmy\u2019s<\/strong> \u201cNumber One\u201d guitar, a 1959 Gibson<\/strong> Les Paul Standard, which he bought in 1969 and used extensively on tour and in the studio with Led Zeppelin. Up until that point, he used a 1959 Fender Telecaster, but the Les Paul quickly became his favorite.<\/p>\n

Page got his \u201959 from Joe Walsh (James Gang; later Eagles) in April of 1969. Walsh did an interview with Guitar World magazine in which he shared the story about the exchange.<\/p>\n

“As soon as I played the Les Paul I fell in love. Not that the Tele isn\u2019t user friendly, but the Les Paul was gorgeous and easy to play. It just seemed like a good touring guitar. It\u2019s more of a fight with the Telecaster but there are rewards.”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Mods<\/h4>\n

\"\"This guitar had a few\u00a0modifications done to it before\u00a0it got into Page\u2019s<\/strong> hands. The back of the neck was sanded down and shaved, making it very\u00a0thin and easier to play \u2013\u00a0which was the thing that Page really liked about this guitar.<\/p>\n

One issue that was caused by this is that it\u2019s still unknown\u00a0what year model the guitar is. Due to the sanding of the neck, and the fact that none of the pickups are original, the serial number on the guitar is no longer present. But\u00a0most people agree that Les Paul\u00a0is probably from late 1959, or early 1960.<\/p>\n

\n

Tuners, Pickups<\/h4>\n

\"\"After Page<\/strong> got to play the guitar\u00a0for a couple of gigs, he decided to swap the original\u00a0Kluson\u00a0tuners with\u00a0gold-plated Grovers \u2013 since he was already\u00a0familiar with them\u00a0from his Les Paul Custom.<\/p>\n

The electronics were modified as well. Pickups were changed\u00a0numerous\u00a0times.\u00a0Originally, the guitar had the Seth Lover PAF\u00a0pickups, but after a tour of Australia in 1972 the bridge pickup malfunctioned and was promptly replaced with\u00a0a T-Top humbucker which remained there for the duration of Led Zeppelin. The T-Top was eventually replaced with a custom wound Seymour Duncan humbucker\u00a0sometime in the 90s.<\/p>\n

The neck pickup remained the same until the 2000\u2019s when it was replaced by an original PAF humbucker from the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\n

Push\/Pull out of Phase Switch<\/h4>\n

\"\"Jimmy<\/strong> replaced one of the original knobs with a push-pull knob, which enabled him to reverse the phase of the pickups when this switch was activated.<\/p>\n

As far as when exactly this happened, based on Jimmy\u2019s<\/strong> statement below, it didn\u2019t happen until he modded his Number Two Les Paul. This second Les Paul he got in 1973, and it was modded way later, in the early \u201980s by Steve Hoyland. So obviously, it can be concluded that this out-of-phase sound was not featured on any of Led Zeppelin\u2019s albums.<\/p>\n

\n

Jimmy Page\u2019s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard \u201cNumber Two\u201d<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"This is Jimmy\u2019s<\/strong> second 1959 Gibson<\/strong> Les Paul Standard\u00a0\u2013 aptly dubbed \u201cNumber Two\u201d.\u00a0He bought it in England shortly after the 1973 U.S. tour, but he didn\u2019t use it on stage until January 1975, when it was brought out on tour as a backup for Number One.<\/p>\n

Page\u00a0usually had this guitar\u00a0tuned to DADGAD and played\u00a0\u201cKashmir\u201d on it.\u00a0It was sometimes also used for \u201cDazed and Confused\u201d \u2013 when Jimmy<\/strong> played with a violin bow, \u201cMoby Dick\u201d, and \u201cOver the Hills and Far Away\u201d.<\/p>\n

“I customized my number two Les Paul, which again is a real od vintage one. However, that gave any combination of all of these (pickups). But, it was a little fussy, because all of the knobs were push\/pull, and I had little switches (below the pickguard).”<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Mods<\/h4>\n

Jimmy<\/strong> wanted his Number Two to feel and sound as similar as possible to his Number One, so the neck was shaved and sanded down to replicate the neck profile on Number One, and the Kluson tuners\u00a0were replaced with Grovers.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, he began experimenting with different wirings in the 80s. His \u201cNumber Two\u201d Les Paul was the first to succumb to these experiments, as Jimmy<\/strong> sent it off to Steve Hoyland for some pretty extensive mods.<\/p>\n

\n

Switches\/wiring on Jimmy Page\u2019s #2 Explained<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Steve replaced the original pots with four push\/pull pots. The two tone pots would enable Jimmy<\/strong> to split the coils in the pickups \u2013 basically eliminating one of the coils in the humbuckers. The two volume pots enabled him to put coils of each of the pickups in parallel or in series with each other.<\/p>\n

Aside from those four push\/pull knobs, Steve also added two additional pushbutton switches tucked below the pickguard. One of these switches put the pickups in series with each other, and the other one would reverse the phase of the bridge pickup, resulting in the famous \u201cPeter Green\u201d out-of-phase tone.<\/p>\n

As Jimmy explained himself, he eventually found all these mods rather unnecessary, and only ever really used the out-of-phase switch. For that reason, when he decided to mod his #1 Les Paul, he only added a single push\/pull knob, which did exactly that.<\/p>\n

\n

Gibson\u2019s Replica<\/h3>\n

In 2008 Gibson<\/strong> produced a limited run of Jimmy Page<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cNumber Two\u201d Les Paul replicas. Only 325 guitars were made, 25 of which were aged by Tom Murphy of Gibson<\/strong> Custom Shop and then played and hand-signed, and numbered by Jimmy Page<\/strong> personally. An additional 100 guitars were aged but not signed, and 200 were finished to Gibson\u2019s<\/strong> VOS specs.<\/p>\n

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Jimmy Page mainly played Gibson Les Paul guitars, among them the\u00a01959 Les Paul Standard nicknamed \u201cNumber One\u201d. This was his main recording and live guitar from around the time he started working on the Led Zeppelin II album. Aside from this guitar, he also…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559,620,575,566],"tags":[309,756,310],"class_list":["post-8859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-gibson-en","category-guitar","category-rock-en","tag-gibson-en","tag-led-zeppelin","tag-les-paul-en"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t