The Les Paul Recording Studio has officially opened in Los Angeles featuring the completely restored first true multitrack recording console – The Monster – designed by Les Paul in 1957 with Rein Narma to work directly with The Octopus, the first multitrack tape machine.
Essential to the operation of the console are period-correct rectifier vacuum tubes, which were procured from the inventory at Telefunken Elektroakustik in Connecticut. Telefunken is the manufacturer of historic recreations of classic microphones alongside their own proprietary designs based around the distinctive tube mic sound.
The Monster is an eight-channel, three-bus, tube console, with unique features built in, such as vibrato effects, record enabling, and tape machine control, as well as EQ and echo sends on every channel. The Monster and Octopus laid the ground the way for how music has been recorded for the past 65 years – and the foreseeable future.
‘I recently oversaw the restoration of Les Paul’s original recording console and first multitrack tape machine Grammy Award-winning audio engineer Tom Camuso, now the Chief Engineer at The Les Paul Recording Studio, says. ‘After trying every tube I could find on the market, Telefunken’s new Black Diamond tubes were the only tubes that worked.’
The Black Diamond used in the console restoration is the Telefunken GZ34-TK, an accurate replacement for any amplifier using vintage GZ34 or 5AR4 rectifier tubes. Rectifier tubes were some of the very first tubes to be invented and provided an essential block to shaping the sound of an amplifier. Black Diamond Series Tubes can also be found in Telefunken’s recreations of the Fairchild 660 and 670 compressor/limiters, als invented by Rein Narma.
‘No other currently manufactured tube can handle the power draw of The Monster console,’ Camuso says. ‘I’ve been using the tubes and they’ve been working perfectly. No other new tube has lasted more than one power-up.’
The Les Paul Recording Studio commemorates the legacy of music pioneer Les Paul located at the United Recording building at 6050 Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. The studio features the restored original equipment used by the inventor and guitarist including his groundbreaking audio console and eight-track recording set up. Alongside the console sits Paul’s Ampex 5258 Sel-Sync machine affectionately called The Octopus, which is the first eight-track recorder ever produced.
