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Suede·Social·Issue No. 20
Tone recipes·2026 · JUL
Rock1969

01Led Zeppelin

Whole Lotta Love

Aggressive, midrange-forward, slightly woolly distortion that sits between clean and saturated. The main riff is a Les Paul through a small amp pushed harder than it wants to go, captured by close-mic'd 4x12s with a fair amount of room. Lots of low-mid bark on the open A, with the picking attack still preserved. The breakdown section uses a Theremin and tape manipulation — the rhythm tone alone is what people copy.

02Signal chain

Guitar to amp, 1 pedal between.

  1. In
    Guitar

    Gibson Les Paul Standard '59, bridge humbucker

  2. 01
    Front-end fuzz to push the amp into saturation
    Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII

    Attack: 2 o'clock, Level: maxed

  3. Out
    Amp

    Supro 1690T Coronado (or Marshall plexi — debated for years)

03Field note

The secret sauce

Page recorded the main riff with a small amp cranked to absolute failure, then double-tracked it slightly out of phase. The 'thickness' is actually two narrow tones stacked, not one fat one.