[NUKELIES]

A bit of a pop cultural diversion: Joe Meek should be credited with having invented multi-track recording. Phil Spector stole Joe Meek's innovation and called it "Wall of Sound." Phil Spector or associated nefarious forces then killed Joe Meek or had him killed.

However, Phil Spector was not necessarily the only one who was after Joe Meek's new technology. A frivolous lawsuit, which was later dismissed in court, was probably set up by competing large record companies. From the Joe Meek Wikipedia page:

French composer, Jean Ledrut, accused Joe Meek of plagiarism, claiming that the tune of "Telstar" had been copied from "La Marche d'Austerlitz", a piece from a score Ledrut had written for the 1960 film Austerlitz. This lawsuit meant Meek never received royalties from the record during his lifetime. The lawsuit against Meek was eventually ruled in Meek's favour three weeks after his death in 1967. It is unlikely that Meek was aware of Austerlitz, as it had been released only in France at the time.

Joe Meek is now cited by "official" sources as having been paranoid for having believed that "Decca Records would put hidden microphones behind his wallpaper in order to steal his ideas," and for accusing "innocent" Phil Spector of stealing his ideas. We all know how innocent Phil Spector is.

To add insult to injury, Joe Meek's life was recently made a mockery of in the travesty of a film entitled "Telstar," starring Kevin Spacey, Ralf Little, and Pam Ferris; and directed by the eminently talented Nick Moran.

[rerevisionist]

I vaguely remember reading that 'Telstar' was recorded in some upstairs room in Holloway Road, London N8, near Holloway Poly, and got the impression it was some amateur effort - as the sound of 'Telstar' suggests. I see online there's a Joe Meek website, though for my taste it's jumbled and unfocused, and doesn't specifically list what Meek invented. In about 1960 synthesisers were (I think) made with separate components wired together, things like condensers and resistors and transistors, maybe with printed circuits. The 'Clavioline' as shown on Youtube dates from then - it has a godawful quavery sound, for my taste. Procul Harum half a decade later had two organs - or at least keyboard devices - at the same time. Tape recording was the way to get echoes and fades and other then-novelties, and mixers combined the whole thing - John Lennon experimented with these things at presumably at Abbey studios. Even by 1976 Jarre was using 8 track tape and analogue synthesisers. I think it was only in the 1980s with digital sampling and processing that waveforms could be changed ad lib. I wouldn't have thought, with all respect to Joe Meek, that he was as much a pioneer as you think. One of the write-ups on the Joe Meek site says Meek turned down the Beatles - I wonder if he would have done better than George Martin. I'd need some convincing that Meek with his collection of tape recorders and instruments could match big recording studios ... but who knows.

Someone's posted (on Youtube) some of the music of the plagiarism claim.

Thanks for the diversion!

[FirstClassSkeptic]

One of the most logical approaches to obtaining greater recording time on a magnetic media, such as tape, is to utilize the standard 1/4" width to include more than one magnetic sound track, as is done in the Eicor Model 15. The record-reproducee head is designed in such a manner that its magnetic gap concentrates on one edge of a standard 1/4 " tape.

Page 224, The recording and Reproduction of Sound, Oliver Read, 1952

The book also shows a four track magnetic tape system, with coated 35 mm film. And a system that uses tape with a stylus that did 100 sounds tracks on 35mm film.

What was it that Meek is credited with exactly? How did he use it?

[NUKELIES]

Thanks for the Clavioline link - I recognise the sound of course but hadn't heard the name. I watched the Peter Knight of Moontrekkers video -

Joe Meek didn't invent the technology I guess, but he does seem to have been the first to use it in the way that became standard for pop music. And Phil Spector did appropriate his idea however you look at it. Anyways, it's a juicy story which has fascinated me for a while and I just wanted to record my thoughts on it.

40telstargetty_165568t.jpg (16.24 KiB) Viewed 352 times

[FirstClassSkeptic]

Did Meek come up with the idea to put each musician into a separate room, and record each on a separate track? That's how it's done with small bands. Each musician wears a headphone so that he can hear the others. Then the separate tracks are mixed together. This allows the volume level of each musician to be adjusted separately.

[NUKELIES]

FirstClass they show him doing that in the movie Telstar. I don't know if he invented it.

[FirstClassSkeptic]

One interesting thing about all of this recording technology is that when most rock bands appear live, they can't sound like they do on a recording. So most 'live' performances are playing a recording and the band is just lip syncing. Several years ago, some performers started denying they were doing this, and said they were live live, after it was revealed to the general public as to what was happening. It's really a fraud, because people pay big money for a ticket to see a 'live' performance and instead get the same thing they would get on a twelve dollar record.