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Les Paul (1915–2009), creator of the rock’n’roll sound in the late 1940s

Like Crosby, Paul and Ford used the now-ubiquitous recording technique known as close miking, where the microphone is less than 6 inches (15 cm) from the singer’s mouth. This produces a more-intimate, less-reverberant sound than is heard when a singer is 1 foot (30 cm) or more from the microphone. When implemented using a pressure-gradient (uni- or bi-directional) microphone, it emphasizes low-frequency sounds in the voice due to the microphone’s proximity effect and gives a more relaxed feel because the performer is not working as hard. The result is a singing style which diverged strongly from the unamplified theater-style singing that is heard in the musical comedies of the 1930s-40s.

Les Paul, 1947

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