Sdldawn said:

no, much earlier. On "All My Loving" Pauls voice is multi-tracked.

funkpill said:

I just asked a question.

SPYZFAN1 said:

We have a WINNER! Les Paul INVENTED multitracking.
[Edited 7/13/09 6:40am]

Buddy Holly did it in the 50's.

Giovanni777 said:

Indeed, Les Paul is certainly believed to be the first on this.

Interesting how this was mentioned halfway down the last page and STILL people were quoting the Beatles and such as being the first!

Read the threads, guys

rocknrolldave said:

yup. sorry.

Les Paul... amazing, versatile genius...

rocknrolldave said:

I was going to say the same thing.

Les Paul was doing it on disc and later on tape. Anyway, here are some bits from allmusic:

Les Paul was one of the giants of music innovation in the 20th century, inventing multi-track recording, studio techniques such as "close miking,"...Paul was an innovator in using multi-track recording, which had generated instrumental pop hits for him earlier in his career; now he was able to use Mary's voice for his most important studio experiments to date. First, he successfully achieved a close-miking effect by placing the microphone within six inches of her mouth, producing a warm and intimate sound. Then, by duplicating her performance on multiple tape tracks, it seemed she was harmonizing perfectly with herself, an effect that instantly connected the listener with the emotion of her recording. Together, they changed forever the sound of pop music. From that point until 1954, the duo of Les Paul & Mary Ford had a 16 Top Ten hits, including an astounding five Top Ten hits in a nine-month span — "Tennessee Waltz," "Mockin' Bird Hill," "How High the Moon" (which stayed at number one for nine weeks), "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," and "Whispering."

I've posted How High the Moon here before, but it's a classic and worth revisiting. Not their first tune to use the effect, but probably their most famous

beat u to it.

coolcat said:

Didn't realize we were racing...

RipHer2Shreds said:

me neither.

Had 2 be the Beatles.
They invented every thing related 2 music in the 20th century.

Graycap23 said:

They invented the Moonwalk too - years before Michael Jackson, or even Neil Armstrong, had attempted it.

Giovanni777 said:

Were the Beatles in on that session?

SPYZFAN1 said:

THAT'S who Richard Carpenter mentioned! Thanks!

rocknrolldave said:

Timmy84 said:

Yes, the Carpenters (especially Richard) were big fans of Paul's vocal tracking and modeled their own harmonies on his. Richard referenced it often and, it was also mentioned in the Ray Coleman-penned biography.

RipHer2Shreds said:

Yeah I saw that.

Giovanni777 said:

Taking nothing away from Les Paul, although he's the one most associated with the early use and implementation of the multitrack format, he didn't actually "invent" this technology. A gentleman named Ross Snyder, employed by Ampex (tape recorder manufacturer), actually came up with the synchronization scheme that allowed any of this to be possible.

Here's the Association for Recording Sound Collections paper on the subject for anyone genuinely interested:
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/...l-sync.pdf



As a sidebar, there's an interesting connection between Les Paul and Steve Miller:
A fan of multitracked vocals, Miller learned his earliest studio tricks as a boy in Milwaukee by watching electric guitar pioneer Les Paul, a friend of Miller's family. Paul's wife, singer Mary Ford, taught Miller his first guitar chords, and Miller watched Paul make his first records with Ford.

After Miller's family moved to Dallas, blues guitarist T-Bone Walker and jazz musician Charlie Mingus were regular visitors to their home. Miller's father, a doctor and home-recording buff, invited Walker to a party and recorded him.

"I think what really sealed it for me was when (T-Bone) did the splits with the guitar behind his head," Miller said. "I just went, 'Yup, that'll do it.' "

Miller kept those recordings and plans to include them in a retrospective of his career that Capitol Records hopes to release this Christmas. The boxed set also will include recordings of Miller's high school and college bands featuring Boz Scaggs, who played on Miller's first two albums.

http://articles.latimes.c...iller?pg=1



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

^^ Learn something new everyday. Thanx for the info!

theAudience said:

Why's allmusic lying to me and tellin' me the exact opposite?

RipHer2Shreds said:

Without going into any serious detail, although they've got a good deal of info on artists, when something needs to be corrected, they are incredibly hard to deal with.

Let's just leave it at that.

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

They do be getting a lot of shit WRONG on their sites.

Timmy84 said:

Just trying to add when I can.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

scriptgirl said:

For You
Adore
7
Controversy
Violet the organ grinder

funkpill said:

As sick as I am of talking about Elvis at this point, I will add that while I doubt he was the first (I do believe it was the Les Paul/Mary Ford track) Elvis did do multitracking in 56 and 57. He recorded additional percussion for Don't Be Cruel and added piano on a couple of tracks. In '57 his bassist was unable to play the opening bass for the song "You're so square" so Elvis recorded the bass and then dubbed in the lead vocal track.

While we are all focusing on musical recordings we are probably missing a lot of multitracking examples from comedy albums. I believe that artists like Spike Jones and George Martin both did a lot of multitracking in their work. This ended up having a huge influence on the production of the Beatles music.

theAudience said:

Bullshit. The BEatles HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE inventing this new technology with him. The beatles invented everything you know

JK. Thanks guys.