ChangeYourStrings

Jimmy Page's guitar strings: the Led Zeppelin Les Paul rig, sourced

Led Zeppelin / Solo / ex-Yardbirds · reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·

Jimmy Page used Ernie Ball Super Slinky (.009–.042) on his electric guitars during the Led Zeppelin era, confirmed in a 1977 Steven Rosen interview during the *Presence* / *In Through the Out Door* cycle. His primary electric across the catalog was a 1959 Les Paul Standard he bought from Joe Walsh in 1969. For acoustic work he used Ernie Ball Earthwood Extra Light (.010–.050) copper-wound. His tunings spanned standard, Open G ('Black Country Woman'), and DADGAD ('Kashmir'). Page is a long-documented Ernie Ball user without a formal signature relationship.

Who Jimmy Page is

Jimmy Page is the founding guitarist, producer, and primary instrumental architect of Led Zeppelin, formed 1968 from the ashes of the Yardbirds, dissolved 1980 after John Bonham's death. The Led Zeppelin catalog from the 1969 self-titled debut through In Through the Out Door (1979) is one of the load-bearing pieces of classic-rock guitar tradition. Before Zeppelin, Page was one of the most in-demand London session guitarists of the 1960s, playing on records by The Who, The Kinks, Donovan, and dozens of others.

What he plays

Ernie Ball Super Slinky (.009–.042) on electric across the Led Zeppelin era, confirmed in a 1977 Steven Rosen interview. His primary electric from late 1969 onward was "Number 1," a 1959 Les Paul Standard he bought from Joe Walsh, Sunburst, single-cutaway, original PAF humbuckers, that played on every Led Zeppelin record from II forward.

For acoustic work he used Ernie Ball Earthwood Extra Light copper-wound (.010–.050), Earthwood is Ernie Ball's bronze acoustic line. The acoustic catalog (Tangerine, Going to California, Bron-Yr-Aur, the unplugged moments on III) was tracked on a rotation of Martin acoustics with the Earthwood set.

Why this fits the rig

The Les Paul at .009 in E standard sits at low tension, the bend-friendly feel his lead vocabulary depends on. The 1959 PAF humbuckers into a Marshall Plexi (or, in studio, a small Supro tube combo for the Whole Lotta Love riff and similar) drive natural breakup at moderate volume; the .009 strings give him the vibrato latitude his vocal-phrasing solos need. The trade-off, .009s drift sharp under hard pick attack, was managed by a relatively light right-hand approach across most of the catalog. Page's lead tone is more sustain-and-vibrato than aggressive picking attack.

For altered-tuning work, lighter strings make Open G and DADGAD voicings sit at familiar tension despite the lower-pitched bass strings, a practical reason Page favored Super Slinkys over heavier sets when much of his writing involved retuning between songs.

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