Page 51 - Guitar Classics Magazine - The Les Paul Bible 2019

THE MAN BEHIND THE GUITAR

© Getty Images/Amy Sussman

close mic’ing to enhance detail and presence. This heads into a single unit. Working with Ross Snyder to
way of recording has been the industry-standard ever design an eight-track tape machine, the first multi-
since. Working with acetate disk cutters rather than track recorder was built for Les by Ampex in 1957
tape, he would record a part onto disc and then play and he ordered an eight-channel mixer from Rein
along with the recording to create a second recording Narma to go with it. Les Paul had, in effect, created
on a different disc. This sound-on-sound technique the template for the modern recording studio.
is known today as overdubbing. What’s more, Les Not all his projects worked out and his advice in
discovered he could loop the original sound back an interview with Greg Hofmann was: “If you work
off the disc to create feedback and he varied disc on something and it’s coming to you hard, shove
speed to create harmonies, bizarre octave effects and it in the corner.” Judging by the sheer quantity
apparently supersonic speed. The track Lover from of dismantled instruments and non-functioning
1948 is so bizarre that comic legend WC Fields told recording equipment deposited around his home
him: “My boy, you sound like an octopus”. after Les died, he meant it literally. In the same
Les had been experimenting with sound-on-sound interview, published in January 1988, it’s clear that
since the 30s, so he naturally continued exploring Les had kept himself up to date. He offered prescient
this after moving over to tape. In 1952, he invented insights on synthesis and telling appraisals of hot-
flanging, which featured on the track Mammy’s shots such as Eddie Van Halen, Al Di Meola and
Boogie. However, multi-track recording is surely Stanley Jordan. However, his unyielding enthusiasm
Les’s most lasting innovation. for low-impedance pickups remains largely unshared.
Although few listen to Les’s music these days, his
MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES association with Gibson ensures his name will never
Overdubbing on a single tape machine was basically be forgotten. Many of the practices he pioneered are
impossible, because of the inevitable time delay just as relevant in the modern digital world as they
caused by having separate record and playback heads. were in the analogue era. Not bad for a lad from
Les proposed solving the problem by merging the Waukesha, Wisconsin.

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