Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541612
54 W I N T E R 2 0 2 6 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y It's an 8-track, three bus mono console. You've got echo- sends on everything. These are your bus levels. Basically, you have Octopus line and mic and line, then an A, B, C bus. Say these three channels are your drums. On A, you put your kick, with everything else on B and C. He's got a monitor return section, too! That was a big thing and really separated this console from other mixers. He had the ability to listen to playback while he was tracking. Wow. There are also drawings of him doing this four years before the tape machine is done because he's wrapping his head around, "How am he going to make it work?" Then at some point, he meets Rein Norma who built the Fairchild. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah. So, he's the guy who did the 660 and the 670 and, at the same time, he built this [console] for Les. Wow, history just keeps on coming out. I spoke with Rein's son, and he tells me how his father was building the console in the living room! Apparently, every Sunday, Les and Mary would come over for dinner, and Les would be like, "It's got to do this and it's got to do that." He even put vibrato into the console because he didn't have it in his amp! He put the vari-speed in the console, too. In fact, he took the channel one mic pre and hardwired a guitar cable to it and recorded all his guitar, right here! Basically, it's made so you could sit here and just play. He sort of pioneered the wraparound console. Yeah, I see that! So, what are the preamps then? They're one-offs. He called them "gunboats." They're Rein Norman design, so, essentially, it's like a Fairchild console. That's a hell of a one-off! Yeah, again Bill Putnam Jr. was here looking at it because they were like, "You know, we saw a console from Gold Star that when they opened it, was all 610 stuff glued into a different frame." They thought this might be the same. I showed them and they're like, "Oh, no, this is different." Wow. The great thing is Rein did this at the same time he was doing the 660, so his brain was firing on all cylinders! I would imagine so! It sounds incredible. And it's wired so crazily. As you can see, the patch bay is nuts, but everything works. Direct out. Mults on everything so that certain things normal and mults right next to it. So, if you don't want to break the patch, you can pick the signal up anywhere. Everything is just really thought out. He's got polarity reverse in the patch bay, too! I see there's EQ's, too. You've got EQ on every channel, and they're super musical, they're subtle. Kind of smooth and not too surgical. They're amazing. Tell me about the machines because I've never physically seen the machines before. This is basically an Ampex 300. The big thing is the first one with the sync head. You can see that switch, that's where you switch it into sync. Les also put kill switches on the meters so that he wouldn't hear them tapping. Because it was hitting it kind of hard! Yeah! This is really, really cool! When I was first told about it, I was like, "What do you mean Les Paul Studio?" Yeah, everyone thinks it's a museum, which it is because it's so historical, but you know, we always joke and say it's like the Wright brother's plane, but you can actually fly it! Right! And we want to show people what he did because a lot of people come in—people who have worked in the music business forever—and they had no idea that he was doing all this. He was always just sort of pushing it, and if you look at the console, it hasn't really changed much from that original layout, you know? Yeah, I think it's really important to keep all of this one-of-a-kind gear operational. This stuff is so rare and sounds so good! It's like having a classic car; you must drive it or it's going to fall apart, and they're not making them anymore. So, there's only one way to save it, and it's to keep using them! For more history and photos, visit: Studio.Les-Paul.com