The contributors to the development of contemporary recording practice are both numerous and diverse. In some cases, solutions have preceded problems - the 8-track tape machine being a case in point - whereas there are many examples of demand-driven developments such as digital audio processing or noise reduction.
The contributors have been musicians (Les Paul and the electric guitar), producers (Joe Meek and his numerous devices), studio engineers (Geoff Emerick’s tape manipulations), technologists (Willi Studer and his many tape machines), composers (Todd Machover and his computer-mediated hyper instruments), computer designers (Kim Ryrie and the Fairlight), electronics engineers (Robert Moog) or theoreticians (Alan Blumleins’ development of stereo) ; in fact contributions have come from virtually all areas and disciplines.
Recording began as little more than a cottage industry: from these humble beginnings, it developed into a massive corporate entity commanding huge financial, human and physical resources. It is difficult in such a huge industry, fairly to single out particular people since they rarely work in isolation but, it is nonetheless possible to identify a few individuals who either devised the rule book or who, in some cases, tore it up and rewrote it.
Many of the most notable developments in recording have involved the layering together of different sonic or instrumental ingredients. The man most commonly credited with the “invention” of the multitrack recorder, a key component of this process is Les Paul, perhaps better known for his eponymous guitar. History records that, contrary to popular belief, Paul himself did not invent the multitrack tape machine: the credit for that goes to the development engineers of Ampex. Nonetheless, Paul was unquestionably the first person to grasp the creative opportunities offered by multitracking. His work in this area not only predates the multitrack, it also predates the tape recorder. Paul used disk recorders in a thoroughly unconventional way (having built his own machine in 1929 from such components as the flywheel of a Cadillac).
He started to exploit multitracking techniques in 1930, using the inside and outside tracks of a conventional acetate disk to provide 2 tracks. Another practice developed by Paul was to make a recording on one machine, play that back and perform another part to it, combining the two audio sources and recording them onto a second machine. This disk, containing 2 parts, was then replayed and a third part added as it was again rerecorded. Inevitably, this copying process resulted in a substantial loss of audio quality, which, although Paul was able to minimise its consequences through careful preproduction planning, could not be entirely solved until the advent of the multitrack recorder.
Nonetheless, the process was usable, if somewhat clumsy. Paul was by no means the only person to make use of it: Cunningham reports that the first vocal overdub was done in 1931 by Laurence Tibbet who added a baritone part to his previously recorded tenor. Others include (most notably) Sidney Bechet who, in 1941 played all 6 instruments on a recording of “The Sheik of Araby”. Paul claims, probably with some justification, to have invented most of the basic processes now used routinely: delay, echo, phasing and varispeed. All this was achieved without recourse to a tape machine which was not available to him until he was given an early Ampex machine by Bing Crosby, on whose broadcasts Paul regularly played.
Having previously done his recording work in a garage, the tape machine proved a liberating device for Paul and his partner, country singer Mary Ford. Paul added a fourth head to the machine to provide “sound-on-sound” and delay facilities and set to work. Since each production required numerous generations of copying and recopying, the sound would degrade with the “oldest” (and hence the most copied) tracks being the worst affected. To minimise adverse effects on the finished product, Paul devised what is now the standard recording procedure, putting down backing parts first and solos and vocals later, ensuring that they at least sounded cleaner. Paul claimed to have followed this process for up to 37 generations without serious problems.
The extra head fitted to Pauls’ Ampex allowed him to create tape echo which he claimed to prefer to reverberation (however, in apparent contradiction, his recordings appear to be saturated with reverberation). The delay time could be varied by varispeeding the recorder or by moving the head nearer to or further from the record head. Remarkably, Paul claims to have almost always recorded his guitar by direct injection and retained only 1 microphone to record vocals and occasional percussion.
In the mid 1950s, Ampex developed the 8-track recorder and Paul, immediately sensing its potential, became the owner of serial no. 001. At this time, the recording industry was using relatively simple equipment and few studios saw any real use for the multitrack. As Paul recalls (quoted by Cunningham):
“I remember walking down a hallway with an engineer and saw a plastic bag over the top of an 8 track tape machine. He said, “Look what you started, Les.” And I saw this machine and said, “What’s it doing in the hallway? ” He said, “What are you gonna do with it ?”
“He didn’t think there was anyone else out there that could use it apart from me and Mary. People just did not have the foresight that multitracking, this tool, could be used in so many different ways. And it was so terribly important for other things than just to do a multitrack recording of a guitar and voice. So it took about 5 years before they began making background recordings and putting a singer on later. They did that with Ray Charles, Patti Page and a lot of people, but it wasn’t really done seriously for quite a few years.”
By 1958, Tom Dowd of Atlantic Records had become the owner of the third Ampex 8 track and had found a definite use for it.
Cunningham quotes him thus:
“Hearing what Les (Paul) was doing prompted me to think we could make superior records if we were to record on multitrack tape because, instead of reacting to the mix and trying to capture the performance in one hit, we could enhance it, relive it, improve parts and generally make a better tape for transference to disk. But hardly anyone appreciated the power of the 8 track. They didn’t realise that an hour after the session or even the next day, you could sit down and push up the level of the bass or the guitar on a particular recording to create a whole new different mix that would make a much better LP or 45.”
Dowd also had a simpler motivation: to create recordings with maximum sonic impact and particularly, maximum loudness. His intention was to optimise his product for radio (which had a strictly limited dynamic range) and the jukebox market (where ear-catching quality would determine the success of a record). The multitrack allowed many of the issues and decisions that would influence this process to be dealt with separately and outside the real-time context of the studio “performance” which still remained the traditional approach to recording. Overdubbing per se remained relatively uncommon but the ability to replace unsatisfactory parts and to remix repeatedly until a “perfect” result was achieved proved decisive in allowing Atlantic with its improvised studio to produce some of the most famous recordings of the era. Even so, recording remained something of a haphazard process, even for major companies. The “studio” used by Dowd at Atlantic was actually the company office during business hours and, when the days’ work was done, desks would be pushed to one side and the room became a studio.
Meanwhile, other studios continued to improvise, a classic example being Columbia Records who used the stairwell of their office building as an echo chamber with microphones on the eighth floor and playback speakers strategically placed on various landings below. The 8-track was one of the first pieces of equipment built specifically for the recording industry: most equipment was derived from broadcast practice. Until Dowd started to build a desk to partner his 8-track, mixing consoles as such had not existed. Mixers there were aplenty but these were usually simple mono units lacking equalisers and having only simple volume controls for a small number of input channels. Dowd’s fundamental shift of emphasis away from the moment of performance to the progressing process of overdubbing and remixing marked a change at least as great as Les Paul’s invention of the concept of multitrack recording.
While large-scale multitrack systems began to proliferate in American studios, such recorders and their associated mixers were virtually unknown in England which, at least in terms of popular music production, was very much the poor relation. Monolithic, long-established companies with little interest in other than classical music dominated the market and popular music was barely tolerated. Recording practices were derived from classical sessions and were woefully inappropriate to the needs of rock & roll. Insufficient microphones, live mixing and almost nonexistent overdubbing facilities all contributed to the slow development of popular music recording in England and it was not until a few independent producers began to break away from the larger companies that experimentation that would ultimately lead to the dominance of English popular music could begin.
Notable amongst these renegades was Joe Meek. Formerly an engineer at IBC Studios, Meek broke away from the major companies and founded his own company, Triumph Records. Based in a flat above a leather goods shop in North London, Meek created a completely new approach to recording using a range of homemade devices and (by the standards of the time) abusing traditional technology in search of new and different sounds.
Meek’s first album (”I hear a new world” released in 1960) was, in some respects, a piece of musique concrete, using a huge range of non-instrumental sound sources which were subjected to electronic processing together with an obscure electronic keyboard instrument, the Clavioline. Meek’s creations had to do without multitrack recorders since such machines were virtually unavailable in England at the time: instead, he employed massive EMI BTR50 mono and Lyrec stereo recorders in much the same way as had Les Paul before his acquisition of an 8-track, recording on one machine, then “bouncing” to a second while adding an additional layer and so on, finally mixing down to mono via a 4-channel Vortexion mixer, using a spare recorder to create echo and delay effects
These machines also contributed echo and related effects but much of the unique sound created by Meek came from his homebrewed circuitry: he created reverberation units from a bolt attached to a garden gate spring or the heating elements of a broken fan heater and built compressors using a photocell sticky taped to a torch bulb. These processors were built into cardboard boxes or whatever came to hand and were the subject of paranoid secrecy since Meek was convinced that his rivals were seeking to discover and exploit the techniques that he had developed. Ironically, in the mid 1990s a former Meek associate began to market a range of contemporary audio processors named after Meek and incorporating at least some of his eccentric electronic ideas.
Among these techniques were included doubling drum tracks with the sound of the drummer playing cardboard boxes and packing cases and requiring the entire band to stamp out a rhythm on the bare floorboards of the stairwell. Meek’s productions were characterised by the extensive use of sound effects but, most notably, massive and highly audible compression, limiting, echo and - extraordinary for the time - deliberate distortion. His recordings were made at saturation level and were frequently rejected as being uncuttable.
Ultimately, Meek was able to upgrade his studio to 4 track and to equip himself with commercially built outboard equipment but, by then his musical style had become passé and this, together with financial and personal problems, led to his suicide on February 3 1967, the eighth anniversary of the death of his idol, Buddy Holly.
Perhaps the most famous producer of the early 1960s was Phil Spector. A former doo-wop singer, he evolved a unique production style which, by virtue of its remarkable complexity and density, became known as the “Wall of Sound”. Working predominantly with female vocal groups such as the Crystals and the Ronettes, Spector essayed the creation of what he referred to as “teen symphonies” characterised by melodramatic lyrics and equally overstated arrangements and production.
Unusually, Spector made relatively little use of multitrack technology, preferring instead to use large ensembles and to record and mix live, leaving vocals to be overdubbed later, often by bouncing to another recorder. Spector’s bands were largely assembled from Los Angeles session players, most notably the legendary “Wrecking Crew” augmented by as many others as possible. One Spector production, for instance, featured 4 harpists, 7 rhythm guitarists, 2 bassists, 4 pianists, 3 drummers, 4 percussionists and large string, brass and reed sections. Spector would listen minutely to each instrument or section in turn, making changes to arrangements or microphone positions until the overall sound was achieved. On at least one occasion, his engineer (Larry Levine) had still to turn up the lead guitar channel when Spector decided that they had achieved the sound he wanted and that the channel should remain muted. He refused,however, to let the guitarist go, believing that removing the tiny amount of leakage from his amplifier to other microphones would destroy the mix.
Surprisingly, the “Wall of Sound” is technically unsophisticated. As a small concern, Gold Star did not possess compressors and the like so the sound had to be created using little more than very basic equalisation, echo and reverberation and relying instead on the creation of textures by instrumentation and the control of dynamics by the players. Rather than demanding multiple overdubs, Spector would simply use multiple musicians playing the same part - an ensemble featuring 4 bassists and 7 rhythm guitarists was by no means exceptional - relying therefore on capturing the feel of a live performance rather than attempting to recreate it outside of realtime. Furthermore (and perhaps surprisingly) Spector eschewed the use of stereo claiming: “I don’t care how close you come, you can never balance those channels precisely. With mono, I have it locked in.” (Larry Levine quoted by Cunningham)
Spector’s choice of studio was also central to the creation of his unique sound. Gold Star studios in Los Angeles was used almost exclusively and was known for its bright, reverberant acoustic - allegedly due in part to the use of an unusual (and apparently highly toxic) paint used on its walls. Unfortunately, the control room acoustics were such as to reinforce these qualities and hence a Gold Star recording might well sound wonderful in its own control room but would sound totally different when played elsewhere. In other respects, its technical facilities were more or less typical of the time: a custom built 12-channel mixing desk fed a 3-track Ampex recorder (later replaced by a 4-track Scully) and monitoring was by means of modified cinema loudspeakers.
Larry Levine:
“The lack of isolation between the musicians had a lot to do with the unique results ……… because of the small dimensions of the studio, it was subject to resonance depending on which instruments were played in certain areas and also the keys in which the songs were played. It was normally the guitars which had the most effect, with open chords or strings obviously omitting (sic) a louder sound than when there were fretted chords or closed notes. So whenever an acoustic guitar played a closed string, we would have to open up the microphone a little more to get the desired level but in turn that would let in a little spill from the drums.”
In a precursor of the approach that was to become commonplace in the 1970s and 80s, a substantial part of a Spector production stemmed from happy accidents which were then adopted as part of the “score”. To facilitate this, a 2-track recorder ran constantly during a Spector session to ensure that none of these moments were ever irrevocably lost. Recent “restorations” of the Beach Boys sessions for “Smile” and “Pet Sounds” indicate that Brian Wilson - perhaps the greatest imitator of the Wall of Sound - adopted exactly the same approach. Eccentric though his approach undoubtedly was, Spector created a number of legendary recordings all of which bore his distinctive hallmark. To a large extent, the particular artiste was irrelevant: what counted was that it was a Phil Spector Production.
Brian Wilson was one of those heavily influenced by Spector’s work and his approach to recording. Wilson was the musical and production leader of the Beach Boys and was one of the first band members to eschew live performance in favour of an exclusively recording environment, a practice that would later be adopted by the Beatles, Steely Dan and others. Having long admired Spector’s production work, Wilson set about analysing his approach with a view to creating a similarly massive sound. His first observation was the consistency of studios used: Spector had recorded almost exclusively at Gold Star (and very occasionally at Ocean Way) in Los Angeles and Wilson concluded that these environments made a major contribution to the outcome. Gold Star certainly had a unique sound, attributable to its unusually live acoustics and also to its natural reverberation system: a loudspeaker and microphone placed in the loft area of the building.
Not content with using the same studios as his idol, Wilson took the next logical step and employed the same musicians (based once more around the Wrecking Crew) and, ultimately achieved his own version of the Wall of Sound. Here his approach diverged from that of Spector. While Spector had, to some extent come to regard vocal parts as a necessary evil that could detract from his sound, Wilson used his Spector - simulation as the basis for massively complex harmonies, themselves extensions of the Beach Boy’s existing vocal style. Typically, Wilson would record the entire instrumentation as a live mix on to one track of an 8 track recorder, leaving 7 tracks for vocals. Coincidentally, the vast majority of Wilson’s work was originally mixed in mono just like his hero Spector. In Wilson’s case, however, this was attributable not so much to a wish to emulate but to a marked loss of hearing in one ear.
What was particularly unusual about Wilson’s approach was that, for the first time, music was being created from first principles actually in the studio itself. Again using Spector’s approach of employing a “logging” recorder to preserve every experimental fragment, Wilson, having arrived with perhaps no more than a few chords would create an entire arrangement. Once the instrumental part was recorded, Wilson and his collaborators (Peter Asher and Van Dyke Parks) would go away and write lyrics which would then be recorded by other members of the Beach Boys and Wilson himself. This way of working caused considerable outcry when it became publicly known that the Beach Boys no longer played on their own records but Wilson persisted, creating the legendary “Pet Sounds” album in 1966 and going on to start work on its’ sequel “Smile” the following year. “Smile” showed yet another innovative approach by Wilson. Songs were now assembled from fragments, some only a few bars long which were painstakingly edited together to create a (hopefully) coherent whole. Relatively few examples of this way of working were publicly released, the best known being “Good Vibrations” and, until quite recently, it was assumed that little material was ever completed for the “Smile” album. Recent releases suggest otherwise but it is impossible to imagine what the completed album might have been like since no overall plans appear to have been made and such material as survives is fragmentary.
Despite his ultimate failure, Wilson had created a wholly new approach to the art and craft of popular music, depending entirely as it did on the technology and techniques of the recording studio. Like his predecessors, he created a new set of tools that would continue to be used for many years to come.