a peek at musical history being made, on 4 tracks...

[hooper]

Interesting how much echo on the vocal and how thin the lead guitar sounds... and how perfect it all sounds mixed together.  And these guys harmonize pretty good together too!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-wXZ5-Yxuc

[Flash Harry]

Fascinating.

It shows that limitations in technology doesn't limit creativity. It's astounding what they produced, many cannot deliver stuff of this quality now despite having far superior gear.

[Greeny]

Pure talent and genius doesn't need technology! Great post, Hooper. Thanks!

[na_th_an]

You all should read Geoff Emmerick's book. It's great, and goes pretty techy about those recordings.

http://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Everywhere-Recording-Beatles/dp/1592401791

I strongly recommend it. It's a great read, specially if you are interested in recording techniques and history. Geoff became the lead engineer around the time of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper.

I don't know if it's already out, but some time ago I learned that Ken Scott was writing his very own book. Scott began as a handyman during Geoff's era, engineered some later recordings by the Beatles at Trident studios, and went on to produce some of the best David Bowie albums (mainly Hunky Dory and The Rise and The Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, among others).

EDIT: Oh, it's out! http://www.amazon.com/Abbey-Road-Ziggy-Stardust-record/dp/0739078585

[hooper]

Yes, and of course George Martins book 'All You Need Is Ears'

Loved Geoff's book... and talk about the luck of being at the right place at the right time (with the right stuff...)  On Geoffs first day on the job at EMI, as a 15 year old gopher/assistant... George Martins new 'discovery',  The Beatles, were returning to record their first single.  He literally got to grow up with them in the studio.

[na_th_an]

Yup - all I can feel about that is ENVY

[cuthbert]

A thoroughly enjoyable listen!

I agree about just talent and genius being able pull it through, but also in the case of most of their Abbey Road studio output, I think this also applies to the production. Best of both worlds!

[na_th_an]

After reading the book, one realizes how uptight Abbey Studio and EMI in general was when it came to studio practices. When most lower profile studios had already 8 track machines (for example, Trident studios), Abbey engineers had to deal with ancient, four track mastodonts. It's pretty striking, for example, that by 1970-71 they had just adopted an 8 track machine but, at the same time, Bowie was recoding Hunky Dory at Trident on a 24 track machine.

[Geir]

Really cool !!!

[steelguitar]

Very interesting for the art of mixing!
A true historical document...