After extensive rehearsals in Los Angeles, Led Zeppelin went to Munich to record "Presence" at Musicland Studios. They recorded the basic tracks for "Achilles Last Stand" during early sessions on 12 November 1975. For the first time during a recording, Jones plays an eight-string bass guitar with a pick. He said that it added more mid-range presence during Page's high-register guitar solos; although Page objected at first, he soon recognized the effectiveness of Jones' innovation. Jones also uses a heavy metal gallop, a rhythmic figure in which an eighth note is followed by two sixteenth notes. To balance the sound, a second bass line was recorded; Popoff describes it as "a more traditional bass track, more elliptical and rife with pregnant pauses, simultaneously lying across the gallop and wholly independent of it."