Here’s a very interesting isolated track from “Ramble On” by Led Zeppelin. It’s the isolated lead guitar track, and while there isn’t that much music of it (most of the track consists of only headphone leakage), it is pretty telling of how Zep recorded.

What you’ll hear is Jimmy Page’s guitar parts in the turnaround before choruses, the solo harmony parts, and an interesting part at the end that’s not on the record. Here’s what to listen for:

1. The first part enters at 1:05 and it’s the pre-chorus clean guitar part. Nothing particularly remarkable here; it sounds just like the record.

2. The first solo begins at 1:55 and it consists of long sustaining distorted notes that are a harmony to the main guitar part. Listen to the end, where Page plays a very busy fill that doesn’t make the final mix.

3. The second solo comes at 2:31 and once again it’s a harmony part. It’s not performed with great precision but it certainly works within the context of the part.

4. At 4:00 the reverb is turned way up and Page plays some harmonics and sustained notes, then some fills at the end. This is something that you won’t hear on the record as the song is faded by the time these parts enter.

5. The interesting thing in this track is that it appears that Page knew exactly what he was going to play in every section beforehand. Where today we would take each section at a time and work on it, in this case it was more like, “Go into record for the entire song and let me take a pass.” As a result, this might have been the only take of these parts.