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ROSS H SNYDER
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Early in 1957 Ampex Corporation delivered the first multi-track professional audio recorder to be equipped with a scheme called Sel-Sync to the recording artist Les Paul. Paul nicknamed it The Octopus, for its eight channels. It has become something of a landmark in recording history, since it appears to have been the first tape recorder to make possible performances consisting of many parts -- these to be recorded not in real time -- now greatly reducing the compromise of quality that was formerly imposed by the necessity of extensive successive copying of copies. This article recalls the invention of Sel-Sync. The author is grateful to others who attended the machine's creation and have augmented my memory of the story .
Les Paul is famous for records consisting of many parts, each played by himself. Many of the early recordings were with vocals by his then wife, Mary Ford. All parts were added together in the final record. The process has been called ''sound on sound,'' or ''overdubbing''. For some time Paul accomplished this by taping a first track on his Ampex Model 300 recorder, then playing it back on the machine, modified to have four heads arranged as follows: 1) playback, 2) erase, 3) record and 4) playback. The earlier part now was played from the first head and simultaneously dubbed to the recording head, but also fed to the artist's headphones. Thus he would perform an additional part whose microphone would add it in perfect synchronism with the first. Both now were fed to the recording head, creating a new, two-part record. As this second, combined part was being recorded, the earlier one was erased. The process was repeated until the final recording had as many parts as desired. With this precarious procedure, any error would necessitate starting over from the beginning. Moreover, as each new part was added, all the earlier ones became copies of copies of copies, ad infinitum, each adding some corruption. Subsequently, the process employed two conventionally configured Ampex Model 300 recorders, one feeding the other as parts were added, but each time preserving the earlier summation tape. Degradation from successive copying remained a problem, however.
In 1955 and 1956 I was manager of the Special...