from: popeye-x
9/18/01-8:54-63.162.8.202

Les Paul: There's a resistance point to everything. Tape has a resistance. Let's say that the tape is at 50 hertz and it has a two dB head hump. If you go down another generation you now have a 4 dB head hump. If you go down another generation you have a 8 dB head hump, then 16 dB and there goes the square root and all of a sudden you say 'I'm gonna have one hell of a problem.'

But I went 37 generations and it sounded like one generation. The trick is to do the least important parts first and do the most important parts last. If I'm playing my guitar and it's not important, I might record that part first. But if it's my bass part or Mary's lead vocal or it's my lead guitar, I put those on last.

Interviewer: So you set a list of priorities and record them one part at a time?

Les Paul: That's right, but you have to learn to think backwards. You cannot piece something together. Because now it's sound-on-sound and it means that when you start recording, you play to the end and if you make a mistake you must do it all over again from the beginning. Let's say you are twenty dubs in and make a mistake. You go back twenty dubs and start all over again. So you don't make a mistake.