History Of Re-Amping - Radial Engineering X-AMP User Manual

True to the Music
THE HISTORY OF RE-AMPING
e recently looked into the history of re-amping and were
W
amazed at the response we received by asking around.
These are brief historical accounts and letters we received.
Many thanks to Frank Wells at Pro Sound News and Mitch
Galagher at EQ magazine for helping us track down these
folks.
1
When we asked recording historian Doug Mitchell ,
Associate Professor at Middle Tennessee State University the
question: 'Who invented re-amping'. Doug gave us this reply:
The process of "re-amping" has actually been utilized since
the very first days of recording in a variety of methods.
However, the actual process utilized may not have been
referred to as re-amping until perhaps the late 1960s or
1970s. From the early possibilities of recording sound
various composers and experimenters utilized what might be
termed "re-amping" to take advantage of the recording
process and to expand upon its possibilities. In 1913 Italian
Futurist Luigi Russolo proposed something he termed the "Art
of Noises". Recordings of any sound (anything was
legitimate) were made on Berliner discs and played back via
"noise machines" in live scenarios and recollected on
"master" disc cutters. This concept was furthered by Pierre
Schaeffer and his "Musique Concrete" electronic music
concept in the 1930s and 1940s. Schaeffer would utilize
sounds such as trains in highly manipulated processes to
compose new music ideas. These processes often involved
the replaying and acoustic re-recording of material in a
manipulated fashion. Other experimenters in this area
included Karlheinze Stockhausen and Edgard Varese.
With the possibilities presented by magnetic recording the
process of what might be termed re-amping was utilized in
other "pop" music areas. Perhaps the first person to take
advantage of the process was Les Paul. His recordings with
Mary Ford often utilized multiple harmonies all performed by
Mary. Initially these harmonies were performed with the re-
amping process. Later, Les convinced Ampex to make the
first 8 track recorder so that he might utilize track comping to
perform a similar function. Les is also credited with the
utilization of the re-amping process for the creation of
reverberant soundfields by placing a loudspeaker at one end
of a long tunnel area under his home and a microphone at the
other end. Reverberation time could be altered with the
placement of the microphone with respect to the loudspeaker
playing back previously recorded material.
Wall of sound pioneer Phil Spector is perhaps the most widely
accredited for the use of the reamping process and because
of his association with the Beatles is potentially regarded
today as the developer of the process. However, Phil was
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