Why Led Zeppelin Sounds the Way It Does

Aside from churning out face-melting guitar riffs for Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page also functioned as the band's producer, creating its massive sound through careful mic placement, dry vocals, small guitar amps, and a devil-may-care attitude towards instruments bleeding into each others' microphones.

Possibly in honor of the band's reunion in London earlier this month, Guitar Player magazine put together a concise description of each aspect of Page's production strategy, followed by a list of concrete steps that budding rock gods can use to replicate the Zeppelin sound.

Despite the readable style, there's a fairly granular level of detail:

"Just check out the counterpoint guitar lines on 'When the Levee Breaks'
that wage a fantastic battle between the right and left speakers, orthe dueling left/right string lines on 'Kashmir.' Sometimes, Page wouldput a guitar part solely in one speaker to emphasize it, and then crankup another guitar line in the opposite speaker to bring everything toan exciting crescendo."

(image from google)