The first record was recorded after a short tour the band did to settle old yardbirds obligations that jimmy page was still contracted for. Also served as a good source of revenue. The band was indeed together for a short time, but they had slightly more than 24 hours rehearsel. Legend has it that the whole thing was done in 36 hours, which I can believe. What most people discount or dont realize about Led Zeppelin 1 is that it was a completely independant record. Jimmy Page financed the record (or most likely Jimmy Page and Peter Grant) and finished it entirely on their own at which point they went out to solicit a record deal. Atlantic didnt scoop them up and throw them in a studio, the first recording atlantic was involved with, unless I have my history totally wrong (which is possible, I wasnt there) was the second record which was recorded at a myriad of studios in NY, LA and London while the band was on tour. Led Zeppelin did indeed sound great no matter what they did, LZ2 is a great example of that, tracked by different engineers through different consoles in a few different studios. What I would really like to know, the stuff recorded in London was almost certainly CCIR (whole lotta love, what is, thank you, living loving maid) while the US stuff (lemon, heartbreaker, ramble, moby dick, bring it on home) was probably NAB. Im too young to know but my guess is that it probably wasnt too common for US studios to have CCIR eq's on their decks, but its just a guess. The only commonality outside of the band was the fact that it was all mixed in the same studio in NY by eddie kramer (blech). Thats quite a lot of variables for one record, which when you listen to it sounds a little disjointed but most of the people that listen to it would never notice. argh, rambling.
dave
dave
