[78-L] FW: Look at this! Another 'rock historian' telling us aboutthe 1930s

[Michael Biel]

Kristjan Saag wrote:
>
> New recording techniques making it possible to create sounds that were not 
> easily duplicated live (I'm surprised he doesn't mention Les Paul's efforts 
> that predated Miller's work with Columbia)
>
>   

Ahhh, but Les Paul COULD duplicate some of his effects live!!!  Didn't 
you ever hear of the Paulvirizer?  He demonstrated it at the end of the 
film "The Wizard of Wakesha".  He had some switches on a guitar which I 
think operated a ten second sound-on-sound tape loop.  He could play a 
short passage, then overdub it, then overdub it again and so on and so 
on.  Then when he had all his tracks he would continue with the melody 
line while the loop continued, but there also were ways he could change 
the loop as he ended the piece.  People have told me that he continued 
to demonstrate this at his gigs, and I bet that he later changed it to a 
solid state memory rather than a real tape loop -- if indeed it had ever 
been a loop.  Is there someone who is going to go thru his trunk of 
tricks like Houdini's and give us the secrets???

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com