The man with a multitrack mind
When Dave Marsh put together The Book of Rock Lists, it wasn’t entirely for his lists: he hit up people in the music biz for their own ideas, and they made up maybe a quarter of the book.
In the chapter “Production,” we find: “Les Paul Lists the Most Important Technological Innovations in Recorded Music,” which are:
- Solid-body electric guitar
- Echo
- Flanging
- Phase-shifting
- Electromagnetic pickup
- Reverb
- Time delay
- Sound-on-sound
As if you hadn’t figured it out by about #3, Marsh gives it away:
Les Paul is, of course, either the inventor or one of the most important figures in innovating all of these devices.
In 1974, I acquired a four-track open-reel recorder (from Onkyo’s Dokorder line) that would actually record all four tracks at once, in addition to the usual two-out-and-two-back pattern. It was intended as a vehicle for quadraphonic sound, which was all the rage back then, but while I had the equipment to do quad, I was more interested in screwing around with those four tracks, which I could mix down to stereo should I so desire. And this little tape deck had one feature I’d seen only on the Big Boys: it could temporarily switch a section of a record head into playback mode, so you could lay down tracks, one after another, in perfect synchronization. At the time, I didn’t know that Les Paul had come up with this idea first, twenty years before; in fact, he’d asked Ampex to build him an eight- track machine for just this sort of thing.
Which basically illustrates Marsh’s point: both guitar heroes and guitar zeroes — this latter group includes me — owe a lot to Les Paul, whose final chord rang out today.
Jeff Brokaw »
13 August 2009 · 10:51 pm
The word genius is thrown around much too often.
But Les Paul was an unqualified genius, just as an inventor. And he was a fantastic guitar player.
To those who’ve never heard his playing, seek out any compilations or anthologies. I borrowed one from the library about 6 years ago and could not believe my ears.
R.I.P.
unimpressed »
13 August 2009 · 11:14 pm
It’s rare to find a Legend and an Icon in the same person. Even at that, I think I’m selling him short.
Jeff Brokaw »
14 August 2009 · 10:08 am
FWIW, my thoughts here: Guitar players and rock and roll fans … a moment of silence. Les Paul dies at 94