Sound on Sound

Before we get started, let's talk a little bit about Les Paul and how he fits into the history of recording and multi-track arranging. We'll also talk echo, reverb, song form and how to get this sound in a modern age.

It's hard to talk about Les Paul's guitar playing and arranging without talking about his contributions to the world of recorded music. I feel that Les is still wildly under represented as a guitar player and as an inventor. Before I get into it, I want to say that I was lucky enough to see Les Paul play many, many times at Fat Tuesday's in NYC and got to ask him a lot of questions about his arranging techniques. This was the guy that taught me how to use a 4 track when I was about 11 years old. Having said that, I could have never presented the details in this course accurately without the help of Les' long time assistant Tom Doyle. No one knows more about Les' recordings, guitars and tinkering than Tom and the Les Paul Foundation.

Ok, Les invented overdubbing or multi-tracking. The ability to record something and then record another part on top of it. This didn't exist before Les. Everyone would have to be performing together. Les' record New Sounds was released in 1948 and tracks could have anywhere from 8-16 overdubs on them. This was so ahead of it's time it would take the recording industry over ten years to catch up. Les was using a 8 track in 1955. To put that in perspective, Sgt. Pepper is still on a 4 track.

Let's talk about how he did it. The early multi-tracks were done to record or acetate. Les had two cutting lathes. He would record a part on to one and then play it back recording that track and a new guitar part onto the second machine. He would go back and forth until he built up his arrangement. If you made mistake you had to trash the record. You could go back one take though, something tape didn't allow him to do. The instrumental "Lover" was done like this and took up to 500 acetates 'til Les was satified with the 8 guitar arrangement he had made.

Les moved this process to the Ampex 200A tape machine given to him by Bing Crosby by adding an extra recording head. This eventually evolved into "The Octopus" which was the 8 track tape machine Les designed and built by Ampex.

Because Les hated distortion and was always trying to get rid of it, almost all of the guitars parts were recorded direct. His only EQ were HP, LP filters, experimenting with capacitors. Think early varitone. No compression or limiting was used on any of these recordings. The only time an amp was used was for playback. He used a Gibson EH150 for this. Most of the listening and mixing though was done on military headsets. Here's the kicker: no Les Pauls were uses on any of these recordings. Yes he played one TV and there are countless promo photos of him in the studio with Les Pauls but that's because he was trying to sell guitars. They're not on the New Sounds Vol. 1 & 2 or Bye Bye Blues records. Those parts were all done on the main "Klunker". This was the Epiphone Zephyr that Les modified. He had three of the Klunkers. The main one wasn't messed with at all, 'cause it was the hit maker. This is the one you can hear on pretty much everything. The Bye Bye Blues record is probably the best sounding recording of this guitar. The other two Klunkers were subject to endless tinkering.

Les did 21 instrumental recordings before realizing he was going to run out of material and it was going to get old. It was then he reached out to Gene Autry looking for a singer. Gene recommended a singer who was singing with him at the time named Colleen Summers. Les hired her, she changed her name to Mary Ford and a whole new chapter began. Mary became the first person to sing with herself on a record. She also plays rhythm guitar on some of these records. Do yourself a favor and checkout all of these recordings. They are brilliant arrangements are immensely important to the world of recorded music.

Ok, so let's talk about how Les would get echo onto his recordings. Les had a third machine dedicated for echo. He would record a part, and the recorded signal would be sent to the third machine. It would hit the record head then the playback head and then be sent back to the original machine. By the time it got back there was a delay or echo effect. Les could actually control the length of the echo by using a Variac or variable alternating current machine on the tape machines motor. He could slow down or speed up the machine by controlling the current. He could also get the echo to feedback on itself creating a reverb effect. This processed was also done when he was using the lathes.

Other echoes were achieved by using rooms. These records were made in Les' house California home, his basement apartment in Jackson Heights, NJ and motels when touring. Les and Mary traveled with his homemade mixer and his ampex machine. Closets, bathrooms, garages, hallways...whatever it took to get a good sound. To get reverb on a whole mix, Les would sometimes playback the mix through his Gibson amp and set a mic far away to get the sound of the mix reverbating in the room.

Before we listen to this Les Paul inspired arrangement of "After You've Gone", I want to talk about the form and some arrangement concepts. I remember asking Les about arranging when I was a kid and he gave me some of the most useful advice I ever received. Les loved to write things down. He said he would sketch the shape of the arrangement on a yellow legal pad. A 20,000 feet above view of a tune's form, how it would develop, where it would arc and so on.

"After You've Gone" is a A1-A2 form. My arrangement is Intro-Head In-Solo-Head Out -Outro. I've put in some stops and hits along the way but they don't effect the progression.

Keep these things in mind when listening and arranging your own tunes. If one voice is in a high register, the second should be in the low, If one voice is very busy the other should be simple and lyrical, if a voice in harmonically complex the other should be simple. Compliment. No one voice should the center of attention from beginning to end. Pass the focus around. You can support a melody by padding underneath creating a bed of sound, harmonizing the melody or playing a counter melody. That's a completely different melody that compliments the original melody.

Here are some ideas specific to Les' arranging. Les is trying to recreate a big band or orchestra so his guitars are imitating trumpet hits, sax line, trombone sections... Create a conversation between voices. Because we're trying to create different voices all in Mono with have to have different registers of the instrument and different timbres or guitar tones so that they can be distinguished from each other. This is why he altered the recording tape speeds, used different capisitors and different echoes. Give yourself room to develop but don't be afraid to be indulgent. Les is more...sorry.
Now let's listen to this arrangement.

When I made this arrangement at my home studio I used an EQ pedal, an old echoplex direct into a Neve pre and recorded to protools. For the reverbs I used Altiverb's IRs of a tiled bathroom and UA's Capitol Echo Chambers that were designed by Les. Any DAW would work, any echo pedal...you can even build up this arrangement or your own on any modern looping pedal. For this course or in live situations, I'm using a Boss EQ, an Echoplex pedal and a Echoplex preamp pedal and going direct.

In this section, we're going to build our rhythm section with a small army of guitars. We'll start with a rhythm guitar, add bass, percussion sounds by slapping the neck of the guitar and a hi-hat sound by recording at a slower speed. I'll teach you how Les altered the timbre of these guitar sounds by recording at different tape speeds. Obviously we all don't tape machines and variacs so I'll also show you how to get these sounds with EQ and delay.