Veteran music journalist Barry Cleveland (currently an editor at Guitar Player magazine) has published the second edition of his book about the career of an iconoclastic British recording innovator in the 1950s and 1960s. Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques is now available as an eBook for $4.99 from Apple iBooks, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The second edition updates the 2001 print edition, featuring a new introduction, an additional chapter, and a newly restored and remastered version of Meek’s 1959 stereo album about life on the moon, I Hear a New World.
Meek is credited with many “firsts” in music production—at least in the UK. In 1951, Meek experimented with sound-on-sound overdubbing techniques; by 1954, he put microphones directly in front of—and sometimes inside of—sound sources, intentionally overloaded preamplifier inputs, printed “hot” signals to tape, and used compressors and limiters in creative, rather than corrective, applications. During his career, which ended with his death in 1967, Meek also recorded guitarists Ritchie Blackmore, Steve Howe and Jimmy Page.
