Dubbed the “New Sound,” this new approach was focused on a process of recording layers of music — overdubbing — to create recordings that soon featured only Les’s guitar.  Dad achieved this by recording a track onto a disk-cutter, then playing that track back while recording a new track onto a second machine.  Working in this way with two disk recorders, he also added speed effects (achieved by recording at half speed and then playing back at full speed) and some distinctive echo. The resulting tracks sounded like nothing before them.

I asked dad how he approached recording in his LA garage studio.  He explained that he didn't want to balance the musicians, that's up to them, but he did want the audience to hear the instruments and vocalist as if they were the performer, an intimate view which led Dad to the new technique of close miking.

Les also received a new recording device — an  Ampex tape recorder that had been a gift from Bing Crosby in 1949.   Dad ingeniously modified it by adding an extra recording head to allow sound-on-sound overdubbing.  The fidelity of the new tape recorder was much improved from his previous disc-to-disc system, and the tape set-up was also portable.  Many #1 hit records of Les and Mary's were done in hotels while on the road using this new tape system.

A quote from

"The electric guitar : A history of an American icon"

"The search for a hit record is the search for ‘a sound,’ that unique combination of an artist’s individuality, imaginative musical arrangement, and skillful engineering ....  no one has been as successful in creating hits as Les Paul.  No one has been as successful in achieving that unique combination."

1945 turned out to be a pivotal year for my Dad.  After collaborating with Bing Crosby

and playing one of the best solos of his life on the mega-hit "It's Been a Long, Long Time,"

many opportunities were about to open up, and Dad was more than ready for what was

coming... it was his time.  His "New Sound" led to 36 Gold records including 18 Top-Ten

Pop Hits featuring 13 Vocals and 5 Instrumentals.

Discovering, along the way, Echo, Delay, Phasing, Close Miking, and the first Gibson

Les Paul Solid Body Electric Guitar, followed by the first Multi-Track Recorder.

This is the story of Les' garage studio that played such a major role in the birth of his

"New Sound," and of course, as usual, Les tells it best....

LP: "My mother came in 1946 to visit us in Chicago.  She drove down from Waukesha, and she said, 'Lester I heard you on the radio last night, you played real good.'  And I said, Mom, it couldn’t have been me on the radio because I’ve been doing seven shows a day here with the Andrews Sisters at the theater.  And she said, ' well you should do something about it,  Lester because there are people out there copying you and they sound just like you.'  And when your own mother can’t tell you from the other guy you got a problem.  And I say you know what I’m gonna do?  I’m gonna create my own sound."

Les Paul's garage In LA was turned into a Recording Studio to find his New Sound