Recording the Beatles

Last updated
Recording The Beatles
Recording the Beatles.jpg
First edition
AuthorKevin Ryan and Brian Kehew
LanguageEnglish
Genre Non-fiction
PublisherCurvebender Publishing
Publication date
2006
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages540
ISBN 0-9785200-0-9

Recording The Beatles is a book by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, published by Curvebender Publishing in September 2006. Written over the course of a decade, the book addresses the technical side of the Beatles' sessions and was written with the assistance of many of the group's former engineers and technicians, [1] chief among them Peter K. Burkowitz, designer of the REDD mixing console. [2]

Contents

The book's full title is Recording The Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used To Create Their Classic Albums. It examines every piece of recording equipment used at Abbey Road Studios during the Beatles' sessions, including all microphones, outboard gear, mixing consoles, speakers, and tape machines. Each piece is examined in great detail, and the book is illustrated with hundreds of full color photographs, charts, drawings and illustrations. How the equipment was implemented during the group's sessions is also covered. The effects used on the Beatles' records are addressed in great detail, with full explanations of concepts such as ADT and flanging. The Production section of the book looks at the group's recording processes chronologically, starting with their "artist test" in 1962 and progressing through to their final session in 1970. The book contains several rare and unseen photos of the Beatles in the studio. The studio personnel and the studio itself is examined.

Release and reception

The book has been critically praised by recognized Beatles authority Mark Lewisohn (who also contributed the book's Foreword), The New York Times, [1] [3] Mojo magazine (which gave it 5 stars), Beatles engineers Norman Smith, Ken Scott, and Alan Parsons, Yoko Ono, and many other individuals directly involved with the Beatles' work. The release of the book was celebrated in November 2006 with a party in Studio Two at Abbey Road. In attendance were most of the Beatles' former engineers and technicians.

The soul singer Raphael Saadiq and his engineer Charles Brungardt studied Recording the Beatles in preparation for recording Saadiq's retro-minded album The Way I See It (2008). [4]

Contents

Chapter 1: EMI/Abbey Road Studios
Chapter 2: Personnel
Chapter 3: Mixers
Chapter 4: Outboard Gear
Chapter 5: Microphones
Chapter 6: Tape Machines
Chapter 7: Speakers & Amplifiers
Chapter 8: Effects
Chapter 9: Studio Instruments
Chapter 10: Other Studios
Chapter 11: Production (1962–1970)

Related Research Articles

Geoff Emerick English recording engineer

Geoffrey Ernest Emerick was an English sound engineer and record producer who worked with the Beatles on their albums Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Abbey Road (1969). Beatles producer George Martin credited him with bringing "a new kind of mind to the recordings, always suggesting sonic ideas, different kinds of reverb, what we could do with the voices".

Abbey Road Studios Recording studio in London, England

Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, which owned it until Universal Music took control of part of EMI in 2013.

Recording studio Facility for sound recording

A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single singer-guitarist, to a large building with space for a full orchestra of 100 or more musicians. Ideally, both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties.

<i>Abbey Road</i> 1969 studio album by the Beatles

Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album released by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although Let It Be was the last album completed before the band's dissolution in April 1970. It was mostly recorded in April, July and August 1969, and was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, and 1 October 1969 in the United States, reaching number one in both countries. A double A-side single from the album, Something / Come Together was released in October, which also topped the charts in the US.

<i>The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions</i> Beatles reference book by Mark Lewisohn

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions is a reference book on the English rock band the Beatles compiled by author Mark Lewisohn. Hamlyn published it in the UK in 1988 and Harmony Books published it in the US.

Electrical Audio is a recording facility founded in Chicago, Illinois by musician and recording engineer Steve Albini in 1997. Hundreds of independent music projects have been recorded there. Unlike most producers, Albini refuses to take any royalties from musicians who record at the studio.

Professional audio Activity and category of studio-grade audio equipment

Professional audio, abbreviated as pro audio, refers to both an activity and a category of high quality, studio-grade audio equipment. Typically it encompasses sound recording, sound reinforcement system setup and audio mixing, and studio music production by trained sound engineers, audio engineers, record producers, and audio technicians who work in live event support and recording using mixing consoles, recording equipment and sound reinforcement systems. Professional audio is differentiated from consumer- or home-oriented audio, which are typically geared toward listening in a non-commercial environment.

Mark Lewisohn English author and historian

Mark Lewisohn is an English historian and biographer. Since the 1980s, he has written many reference books about the Beatles and has worked for EMI, MPL Communications and Apple Corps. He has been referred to as the world's leading authority on the band due to his meticulous research and integrity. His works include The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (1988), a history of the group's session dates, and The Beatles: All These Years (2013–present), a three-volume series intended as the group's most comprehensive biography.

Recording practices of the Beatles

The studio practices of the Beatles evolved during the 1960s and, in some cases, influenced the way popular music was recorded. Some of the effects they employed were sampling, artificial double tracking (ADT) and the elaborate use of multitrack recording machines. They also used classical instruments on their recordings and guitar feedback. The group's attitude towards the recording process was summed up by Paul McCartney: "We would say, 'Try it. Just try it for us. If it sounds crappy, OK, we'll lose it. But it might just sound good.' We were always pushing ahead: Louder, further, longer, more, different."

Arthur Rupert Neve was a British-American electronics engineer and entrepreneur, who was a pioneering designer of professional audio recording equipment. He designed analog recording and audio mixing equipment that was sought after by professional musicians and recording technicians. Some of his customers were music groups The Beatles, Aerosmith and Nirvana, and recording studios Sound City Studios and Abbey Road Studios. Companies that he was associated with included Neve Electronics, Focusrite, AMS Neve, and Rupert Neve Designs.

The recordings made by the Beatles, a rock group from Liverpool, England, from their inception as the Quarrymen in 1957 to their break-up in 1970 and the reunion of their surviving members in the mid-1990s, have huge cultural and historical value. The studio session tapes are kept at Abbey Road Studios, formerly known as "EMI Recording Studios," where the Beatles recorded most of their music. While most have never been officially released, their outtakes and demos are seen by fans as collectables, and some of the recordings have appeared on countless bootlegs. Until 2013, the only outtakes and demos to be officially released were on The Beatles Anthology series and its tie-in singles, and bits of some previously unreleased studio recordings were used in The Beatles: Rock Band video game as ambient noise and to give songs studio-sounding beginnings and endings. In 2013, Apple Records released the album The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, which includes previously unreleased outtakes and demos from 1963, to stop the recordings from falling into the public domain.

<i>The Way I See It</i> 2008 studio album by Raphael Saadiq

The Way I See It is the third album by American R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Raphael Saadiq. It was released on September 16, 2008, by Columbia Records – his first for the label. Prior to signing with Columbia, Saadiq had independently released his 2004 album Ray Ray, recorded with the songwriting and production duo Jake and the Phatman. He developed a creative partnership with their colleague, audio engineer Charles Brungardt, who shared Saadiq's fascination with historic recording techniques and equipment. In 2008, the singer returned from a vacation that had inspired him to pursue classic soul music and recorded The Way I See It primarily at his North Hollywood studio with Brungardt.

Musical outboard equipment or outboard gear is used to process or alter a sound signal separately from functionality provided within a mixing console or a digital audio workstation. Outboard effects units can be used either during a live performance or in the recording studio.

Send tape echo echo delay is a technique used in magnetic tape sound recording to apply a delay effect using tape loops and echo chambers.

Verband Deutscher Tonmeister

The Verband Deutscher Tonmeister e.V. (VDT) is a registered association for audio industry professionals. The VDT has evolved from the Deutsche Filmtonmeister-Vereinigung that was founded in Munich in 1950.

A tape operator or tape op, also known as a second engineer, is a person who performs menial operations in a recording studio in a similar manner to a tea boy or gopher. They may act as an apprentice or an assistant to a recording engineer and duties can consist of threading audio tape, setting up microphones and stands, configuring MIDI equipment and cables, and sometimes pressing the relevant transport controls on the recorder or digital audio workstation. Abbey Road Studios always assigned at least one tape op to each recording session.

The EMI REDD .17, .37 and .51 were vacuum-tube-based mixing consoles designed by EMI for their Abbey Road Studios. They were used to mix several influential albums, including most of the Beatles' albums and the first two Pink Floyd albums.

Professional audio store Retail business

A professional audio store is a retail business that sells, and in many cases rents, sound reinforcement system equipment and PA system components used in music concerts, live shows, dance parties and speaking events. This equipment typically includes microphones, power amplifiers, electronic effects units, speaker enclosures, monitor speakers, subwoofers and audio consoles (mixers). Some professional audio stores also sell sound recording equipment, DJ equipment, lighting equipment used in nightclubs and concerts and video equipment used in events, such as video projectors and screens. Some professional audio stores rent "backline" equipment used in rock and pop shows, such as stage pianos and bass amplifiers. While professional audio stores typically focus on selling new merchandise, some stores also sell used equipment, which is often the equipment that the company has previously rented out for shows and events.

Peter Cobbin is an Australian audio engineer and producer. He served as chief engineer of Abbey Road Studios from 1995 to the mid-2010s, during which he became the first engineer to remix music by the Beatles, remixing their 1999 compilation album Yellow Submarine Songtrack. He has recorded and mixed scores for a number of films, including The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2002), several entries in the Harry Potter and Wizarding World franchise, and the Hobbit trilogy (2012–14).

References

  1. 1 2 Kozinn, Allan (26 December 2006). "A Book Publisher, Beatlemaniacs? Why Don't You Do It on Your Own?". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  2. Peter Karl Burkowitz 1920-2012 Obituary by the AES
  3. Kozinn, Allan (26 December 2006). "Waiting to Take You Away on a Fact-Filled Tour". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  4. Britton, Jack (March 2011). "A Modern Throwback". Electronic Musician . New York. Archived from the original on September 23, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2012.