Drewcifer's Tone Zone

Meek The Maverick with machines in 1960

 45 Years ago today, the year 1967 was just getting started. It was a year which would explode into radical cultural change, driven in great measure by new music. By the time ‘67’s “Summer of Love” was in full blossom, Jimi Hendrix’s “Are you Experienced” had been released in May, followed in June by the Beatles’ psychedelic masterwork,”Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” These were records with mind-bending sounds that had never been heard before (or had they?). Suddenly, the world was splashed with Day-Glo paint. The new hippie counterculture and it’s music were everywhere. Psychedelia had been TURNED ON and TUNED IN - in stereo!   

And Joe Meek missed it.

In an ironic true-crime tragedy, he had taken his own life on February 3rd 1967, in an apparent double murder/suicide. Why the irony? Because Meek was the British recording engineer/pop-music producer who absolutely and undeniably paved the way for how the groundbreaking records by Hendrix, The Beatles and others were recorded. Meek was one of the first producers to grasp and fully exploit the possibilities of the modern recording studio. His innovative techniques comprised a major breakthrough in sound production. Among these methods were physically separating instruments, treating instruments and voices with echo and reverb, processing the sound through his fabled home-made electronic devices, the combining of separately-recorded performances and segments into a painstakingly constructed composite recording.

At a time when many studio engineers were still wearing white coats and literally recording “by the book,” Meek, ever the maverick, impudently bucked the norm. He produced everything on the three floors of his “home” studio - which in itself was a radical concept - and was never afraid to distort or manipulate the sound if it created the effect he was seeking.

He pioneered studio tools such as multiple over-dubbing on one and two-track machines, close micing, direct input of bass guitars, innovative use of the compressor, and effects like echo and reverb, as well as sampling. Unlike other producers, his search was for the ‘right’ sound rather than for a catchy musical tune, and throughout his brief career he single-mindedly followed his quest to create a unique “sonic signature” for every record he produced.

Meek is credited with coining the phrase, “If it sounds right, it IS right!”

Responsible for many “firsts,” at least in the U.K., Meek was: 

• One of the first to experiment professionally with sound-on-sound overdubbing techniques (1951)

• The first to put microphones directly in front of and sometimes inside sound sources (1954)

• The first to intentionally overload preamplifier inputs and print “hot” signals to tape (1954)

• The first to use compressors and limiters in creative rather than corrective applications (1954)

• The first to build a compact spring reverb unit (1957)

• The first to “flange” sounds using two synchronized tape recorders (1958)

• The first to employ tape loops on commercial recordings (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Meek