In Memorium
Les Paul - More than just a legendary Guitarist
13/08/09 13:14
Les Paul is best known as an amazing guitarist. His signature model Gibson guitar revolutionized modern rock and roll. But did you know that he is also the father of the modern recording process?
Les Paul is the inventor of cell-sync. This technology made multi-track recording a reality. Back in the days of recording to magnetic tape, cell-sync enabled you to record some audio and hear it back while you recorded something else. Thus the concept of the “overdub” was born. This made the impossible possible. Musicians could for the first time play more than one instrument on a single finished master recording. This is something we in the digital age take for granted, but if not for the ingenuity of Les Paul most of the great classic rock, jazz and blues music we are still influenced by today might not have been possible.
I encourage you to look into how recordings were made in the past. Why you ask? Well when you listen to classic rock the sound and production varies wildly from band to band because everyone had their own way of doing things. This is something that I believe is lacking in music today. There are a ton of great ways of getting unique sounds, ideas that even if you copy them the difference in the instruments you use and the room you record them in will yield results that have a sonic character that will be all yours. This is not true with sounds created in the digital realm that can be more easily copied.
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