Legendary rock producer and recording engineer Eddie Kramer says a number of mistakes resulted in the iconic psychedelic section of "Whole Lotta Love" from Led Zeppelin II.
"The message is leave the damn mistakes in," Kramer concludes. "We're in the ProTools world where you take every sneeze and every breath away from all the good stuff. Leave the bloody hair on."
Kramer says he and Jimmy Page were mixing the album together when they came across one vocal take that had somehow bled into another take.
"You hear Robert go, 'Woman!' And I'm putting a little bit of reverb on and I'm hearing another voice," Kramer recalls. "There's only eight tracks, by the way...So track 8 was the main track and track 7 was another take...I couldn't get rid of it."
After being unable to listen to the track without the bleed-through, Kramer decided to try and see if he could make the mistake sound intentional. His method? Add a ton of reverb.
He then reached for the Echo Send knob on his console and saw Jimmy's hand reaching for it as well.
"We were both laughing because we were both going to do exactly the same thing, and we just soaked it in reverb."
Kramer says it was a joy to work with Led Zeppelin, especially with Page and John Paul Jones, because they were such great musicians. They were also extremely creative and interested in trying new things in the studio.
"Jimmy's the director; he had all the ideas about how he thought it could sound," Kramer says. "But when the two of us got into the studio, it was a very creative conglomeration of two guys working together at the console. Very exciting to work with him."
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Photo: YouTube / Cosmo Music