The Beatles | HELP! (takes 1 thr 6) | 1965

Such analog feats make for a fascinating and timely tale in the hands of Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, whose deeply researched and timely self-published book Recording the Beatles, shows with painstaking clarity how recording engineers not only captured the band on tape, but augmented its musical palette in ways still emulated around the world.

This epic chronicle, published by Curvebender Publishing in 2006, is the result of over ten
years of research in the pursuit of the exact circumstances and studio methodology by which all the Beatle records came into being. 'Recording the Beatles' is the ultimate reference that tells what equipment (microphones, tape machines, speakers, amplifiers, mixers outboard gear), musical instruments (the studio's and the Beatles'), personnel, production techniques (effects, studio setups, editing) and more that went into each and every Beatle recording.

The book also tells the story of the intense work ethic of the greatest Pop band that, despite the seemingly sterile and certainly colorless studio atmosphere at that time, managed to create their timeless music.

Weighing in at 540 pages, the book was an instant hit among Beatles fans and music geeks and has just gone into subsequent printings after the initial imprint of 3,000 copies sold out.

The book is an exhaustive and authoritative archival retrospective on The Beatles' recording methods that could not be timelier. The band's label, Apple Corps., has been for years on the perpetuoully reported verge of licensing the Beatles catalog to online music stores, and the long awaited second remastering of the Beatles catalog for a digital format since it happened for the compact disc in 1987 brings the prospect of online distribution a tad nearer the fore.

Kehew and Ryan (both of whom have recorded music professionally) interviewed the engineers who were there and documented their equipment. They pored over studio logs to piece together what the engineers used, how they used it and in which songs equipment appears, so you can hear for yourself.

The authors of the book have made it their business to find out everything there is to know about the the methods by which the Beatles' music was recorded. Of course, given that this took place considerably less than 4000 years ago, and that most of the people involved are still very much alive, their task was probably a great deal less speculative than that of the archaeologists. After all, you're going to get much more definite answers if you can talk to the people involved and look at the equipment they used than you will if you're sitting around looking at a 40-ton block of stone and trying to work out how a bunch of guys in loincloths, with no JCBs, managed to move it about and use it to create pleasing geometric shapes.

The result is a sometimes overwhelming look at everything that went into Recording The Beatles -- or at least as much as is possible to document in 10 years of research and writing.

Recording The Beatles is a huge book, and there's a simply awesome amount of information collected within its 500+ pages. It is the result of over a decade of research, in which Kehew and Ryan tracked down and interviewed as many ex-EMI staff as they could find, located and photographed examples of nearly every piece of studio equipment in use at Abbey Road between 1962 and 1970 and spent countless hours investigating the contents of EMI's archives.

The original analog master format is EMI's 2-inch magnetic recording tape which runs at a speed of 15 inches per second. The originals were backed up on digital tape for safekeeping in 1991.

Hardcover: 537 pages
Publisher: Curvebender Publishing (2006)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0978520007
ASIN: 0978520009

The hardcover book, which is large enough to fit into the life-sized replica of an EMI tape case that comes with it, is bursting with photos and descriptions of the equipment, studios and people who helped evolve the Beatles' sound. Considering the weight of their legacy, it's hard to approach the Beatles as a book subject without falling prey to repetition or abstraction, but its concrete, well-researched approach brings you close to its subject matter in a way that other Beatles accounts haven't.

And although the book's focus is technical in nature, the authors never neglect the human element for long, including lots of anecdotes and photos of the engineers, producers and the Beatles.

Gazing at all these pictures of beautiful, ancient, analog gear, I felt like a character out of Blade Runner looking at a pictures of real animals after they had gone extinct (nearly) and been replaced by robots.

The equipment at Abbey Road and the other studios chronicled in the book has a magical feel to it that's impossible to replicate in a software interface.

It belongs to an opulent, if ramshackle, analog recording age that will never return.

With the music industry's shrinking budgets and growing reliance on digital technology, who can afford teams of amp room technicians in white lab coats, or studio attendants in brown ones? For that matter, where do you even buy 2-inch tape anymore?

Despite the switch from analog to digital recording, there's a clear link between the recording techniques pioneered by the Beatles' engineers and those in use today in digital recording software. The book contains a great account of the Beatles' discovery of automatic double tracking, or A.D.T., which is a perfect example of the sort of inventiveness regularly in effect at Abbey Road Studios.

John Lennon complained about having to record his vocal tracks twice in order to achieve the "double-tracked" effect, which makes a person sounds like he's singing with himself. While thinking about the problem, Abbey Road engineer Ken Townsend took a nap after an all-day recording session, and woke up with a solution.

The engineers played Lennon's vocal track at 15 inches per second, routing the signal to a second tape deck which recorded it at 30 ips. The other part of the trick is that the second deck had twice the space between the Record head and the Play head as the first, so Lennon's voice arrived at the Play heads of both machines at approximately -- but not exactly -- the same time.

By mixing the signal from those machines onto a third, a new sort of double-track effect could be heard -- different than the previous kind, because the vocal nuances on the first track were reproduced identically on the second track.

Lennon and the rest of the Beatles loved the A.D.T. effect, and began using it on instruments as well as vocals. A good example is Lennon's vocal on "Revolution 1," which, incidentally, he recorded lying down in the middle of the studio, as a picture in this book shows.

Each chapter looks at the general techniques being used during that year and also features 'A Closer Look' sections which explore specific songs from that year in greater depth. The sheer volume of information doesn't let up here either, and the section is awash with 3D diagrams of studio layout, track sheets, photographs to show things such as drum mic placement, and lists of the equipment and instruments used during the sessions.

Section I covers the design, construction and history of Abbey Road itself, as well as the different roles of the various studio personnel, with bios of all the Beatles, various engineers, and tape operators.

Section II covers the studio's recording equipment-- mics, mixers, tape recorders, and outboard -- and features an enormous collection of highly detailed (and clearly labelled) photographs, as well as a wealth of information about each piece. Much of the details are

Section III follows a similarly detailed format, but looks at effects and instruments belonging to Abbey Road and also at other studios used by the Beatles during their career. It also schematically shows how to achieve the many original special effects the Beatles first used.

Section IV, called Production, is probably the most interesting because it is a year-by-year history of the band's studio work and actual production, beginning with EMI/Parlophone producer George Martin's reasons for signing them back in 1962.

As George Harrison remarked: "We recorded the first Beatle album in one day; the second one took even longer."

This section has drawings of the where each of the Beatles stood or sat, the position of their amps, sound screens, microphone placement and so much more. There is a chapter for each year from 1962 to 1968, and a joint chapter for 1969 and 1970.

The last section will likely generate the most interest among prospective readers. But it's the preceding sections that really make it work: all of the background information places the content of this section in context, and gives you a clear understanding of how these records were actually made.

The book also reveals the origin of the word "plug-in," which is now used to refer to everything from Winamp add-ons to Photoshop effects.

Equalization cartridges labeled "Classic" or "Pop" were literally plugged into the back of the mixing desk, which had little holes cut out of it so you could see which cartridge was plugged in.

These plug-ins were somewhat similar to the ones people use today, but engineers back then had a much different way of adding delay. They would route audio to a reverb plate or -- more impressively -- room-sized echo chambers with speakers and microphones in them, so that delay and reverb could be added by literally bouncing sound off of walls. Today's desktop producers might have it easier, but they'll never have it so good.

As tempting as it is to reminisce about the good old days of analog recording, most music people probably wouldn't back a return to the sort of situation where it took mountains of money to produce music.

As edifying and entertaining as it is to read about how the Beatles were recorded, you'd never want to have to do it yourself (unless, perhaps, you could easily afford the cost). But the Beatles' engineers' attention to detail, methodical approach and problem-solving mindset is in more demand now than ever, since digital technology has made everything so easy. As one would expect, this book is sure to fascinate any Beatles obsessive or recording engineer.

But, back to the Beatles going digital. Recording the Beatles shows the Beatles' engineers using the most cutting-edge technology available to record and mix these records.

If the remaining Beatles and contemporary team at EMI have stayed true to the inventive spirit of Abbey Road in the digital redo about to be debuted, they'll have remastered the 13 core albums of the Beatles' catalog directly from tape into a 24-bit 96-kHz format that will sound even better than the lossless files made from today's CDs. Like their big move to 4-track, this would make a lot of sense in retrospect.

Apart from the stunning amount of data contained in this book, the other striking thing about it is how fluently written and well laid out it is. Given the amount of technical facts here, you might expect a book that is rather dry in tone, but this is simply not the case — largely, I suspect, as a result of the authors' boundless enthusiasm for their subject. While you could use the book as a work of reference — something to be dipped into at random or to answer a specific question — I'd be surprised if most readers did not end up going through it from cover to cover. It really is that enjoyable.

Many of the techniques and processes we take for granted in the modern studio were pioneered by the people who recorded the music of the Beatles. This book gives a fascinating and unique insight into how they worked, how their equipment worked and how they used it to create not only the records we know so well, but also music recording as we know it.

With previously unseen pictures of the Fab Four and other studio clients taken by Abbey Road staff and friends, an unprecedented level of professional and technical detail of every mic, musical instrument and arcane recording studio device used (there were many), plus a devotion to accurately and fully document the (relatively) short time span the Beatles spent in the studio, 'Recording The Beatles' is the ultimate in Beatle histories and a work of love by its authors.