Last time we talked about Les Paul’s role as the father of the electric guitar. Nobody can question the significance of his innovations there, but that was far from the limit of his contribution to modern music. Next up we’ll be learning about the part he played in the development of modern audio recording.

The State of the Art (in the 1930’s)

Les was just as fascinated with recorded sound as he was with the electric guitar and he was equally important in its development. To put the revolution Les spearheaded in context we need to go back in time to the 1930’s. Sound recording and reproduction technology had already been around for some time, but it was a purely mechanical process with no electronics involved.

Early recording systems were nothing more than a stylus attached to a diaphragm, etching a groove directly into a spinning wax disc. The sound waves produced by the musician vibrated the diaphragm causing the stylus to carve grooves into the moving disc. (This is where the phrase “cut a record” comes from!)

What may surprise modern readers is that the “wax masters” produced could only be used to create a handful of gramophone records before they became damaged! Popular performers had to play a song many times over with multiple recording devices in front of them in order to produce a decent batch of copies to sell.

By the time Les was performing, disc reproduction had improved to the degree that many records could be made from a single performance, but recording still carved directly into a disc – meaning one bum note and the disc was ruined… Unlike us pampered musicians of the Pro Tools era, in the 30’s you had to get it right first time.

Sound on Sound

Today anyone with a laptop and some inexpensive (or even free) software can have a home studio that puts the recording technology available to classic acts like the Beatles to shame, but back in Les Paul’s day the idea of having a your own recording studio was completely unheard of. Even if you had the money there simply weren’t shops where you could buy the equipment. So in typical style, Les built his own.

Click to read the rest…

Looking for fresh inspiration or guidance, or just some entertainment? Here are a few things from the world of music and sound which might be of interest!

Jump to:

• Experts weigh in: How to improve the sound of your recordings
• Tips & tricks for transcribing music quickly
• How do beatboxers make those sounds? Let’s take a look…
• Top sites for music educators
• JazzAdvice.com on how to hear what you want to play
• The “Truck Driver’s Gear Change” through the ages

Experts weigh in: How to improve the sound of your recordings

Many keen amateur, semi-professional and professional recording engineers are now choosing the superb Reaper DAW software for making and editing their recordings. In this epic thread on the Reaper Forums, many of them weigh in on the classic question: “Why don’t my recordings sound good?”:

• Read their answers here

MuseScore Provides Top Tricks for Transcribing Music Quickly

If you read Matthew Abdallah‘s article on song transcription you might find this one interesting too: the MuseScoreTips website regularly publishes tips for the free score editing program Click to read the rest…

Here’s an excellent post from the home-recording site, Hometracked, on how to avoid that ‘amateur sound’ when recording music:

10 Hallmarks of Amateur Recordings

Anyone who’s tried recording music themselves will know the frustration – you spend hours working away and getting your mix right, and then come back to it the next day or next week and it just sounds… unprofessional. Even worse if somebody else comments on it!

It can be very difficult to put your finger on what exactly is holding you back – is it the equipment? Something about the way you’re mixing? The performances you recorded? You can hear that something’s not right, but what is it?

Well, wonder no more – Des over at Hometracked has put together this excellent list of common problems which can contribute to that ‘amateur’ sound. They won’t all be relevant to every track you struggle with, but I guarantee that some will make you say “Ah! That’s what it was!”

An excellent set of tips for those just getting started in home recording, and a handy reference checklist for when you’re working on a track. As time goes on, you can train your ears to listen out specifically for these problems, until they jump out at you on first listen. At this point, you can be confident you’ll never turn out a track which suffers from these amateurish indicators again!