Mondo Knows Facts
Les Paul helped Ampex build an eight-track recorder
Sel-Sync let him overdub a new part while hearing the ones already recorded Les Paul asked Ampex to adapt a tape machine so its record head could also play back in step with the others, a trick known as Sel-Sync. That let one musician stack part after part without losing the earlier takes. Ampex sold the eight-track machine commercially from the late 1950s. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Les Paul built one of the first multitrack machinesStacking recorded parts let one player sound like a bandThe first recording was played back on tinfoilEdison's phonograph cut sound into a sheet wrapped round a spinning cylinderFlat discs beat cylindersEmile Berliner's gramophone made records cheap to press and stackThe Beatles recorded their first album in one dayPlease Please Me was done at Abbey Road on 11 February 1963Edison's phonograph recorded sound onto tinfoilThe first machine that could play sound back was built in 1877Wax cylinders lost the first format warEdison backed cylinders while rivals pushed discs that could be stamped
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Tags: recording, multitrack, overdubs
Les Paul helped Ampex build an eight-track recorder: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Sel-Sync let him overdub a new part while hearing the ones already recorded. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.