Recording

The Evolution of Beatles' Recording Technology

by Cari Morin (1998)

The recording industry changed immensely while the Beatles worked on their albums. When they began, the 78 rpm record in the home and the two track tape recorder in the studio were standard. The Beatles pushed themselves and those around them to achieve all of their visions for each album. They had the phenomenal guidance of their producer, George Martin and engineers, first Norman Smith then Geoff Emerick.

In 1963 when the Beatles began studio recording with Love Me Do, recording consisted merely of taping an in-studio performance. The sound was fed to a mixing console consisting of just ten microphone inputs and two outputs to a tape recorder. The two track recorder typically had rhythm (drums, bass, backing guitar) on track one and lead vocals on track two. In this way, the rhythm track would be solid and only need volume adjustment when the vocal track was added. However, if there were any mistakes, recording would have to start again. In the same year, EMI dropped the 45-prefix to their catalog numbers when the 45 record had become the industry standard.

The single, I Want to Hold Your Hand, done in October of 1963, was the first Beatles song to use a four track tape machine. Overdubbing, the process of adding new sounds to previously recorded tracks, was now possible. For example, track one could now be rhythm, track two for vocals and the remaining two tracks for the instrument solos. Now, if someone was not satisfied with their particular take, only that person would have to re-record, not the whole band. "It made the studios into much more of a workshop." said Ken Townsend. The four-track was so large that it had to be put in a separate room, causing the only interaction with the session to be via a talkback button. Even with four tracks though, bouncing was still common. This causes a considerable amount of tape hiss and loss of control over the balance in the bounced track.

With the Beatles utilizes double-tracking, a method of re-recording a performance on a separate track along with the original. This is most often used for vocals and creates a fuller sound. Also, the subtle differences between the two renditions have an attractive quality to the ear. At the time, double-tracking was a time consuming process since the performer needed to be as close as possible to the original performance. Six out of twenty songs on this album are double-tracked: Don't Bother Me, Please Mr. Postman, Roll Over Beethoven, Not a Second Time, Slow Down and I Call Your Name.

The title song from A Hard Day's Night has basic rhythm on track one, John's first vocal on track two, John's second vocal, Paul's backing vocal, bongos, drum and acoustic guitar on track three and 'jangling' guitar notes with George Martin on piano on track four. The standard fare of recording rhythm first followed by vocals then solo instrument continued.

In August of 1964, the Beatles were recorded at the Hollywood Bowl. They would later be recorded in 1965 at the same location and an album was released much later containing songs from both performances. The US standard at the time was a three track, recording the band in stereo on two tracks and keeping the voice separate on the third so that it could be brought up or down in the mix but George Martin said "...[T]hey didn't use three-track in quite the right way...they did some very bizarre mixing...I found guitars and voices mixed on the same track." Those recordings were transferred onto a 24 track and worked on from there.

Beatles for Sale implemented a number of firsts for the band. Every Little Thing had an instrument that was new to Beatles recording, timpani, which Ringo played. Eight Days a Week was the first pop song to have a faded-up introduction. Everybody's Trying to be My Baby implemented STEED, single tape echo and echo delay, which makes George's voice sound like he is 'singing in a tin can' and as was common while recording, the rhythm backing leaked into the vocal track.

She's a Woman, on a single with I Feel Fine, features Paul singing at a high pitch which showed his knowledge and incorporation of other types of popular music. This work has the chocalho in it, a cylindrical metal shaker with lead shot or peas in it, another example of the Beatles using different instruments in the studio. I Feel Fine is an example of their experimentation with more than instruments. In this song, John has amplifier feedback at the beginning, something he saw Jimi Hendrix do while in concert.

1965 was yet another year with more recording. However, the Beatles could now spend more time in the studio since they were moving away from touring. It was in February of that year that George Martin and the Beatles came up with two new recording techniques. The first was to rehearse songs while a tape machine was running and then spool back to properly record over the material. The second was to have a finished recording after only one or two takes. The rhythm track would be taped first then new sounds would be overdubbed onto the tape, causing there to be a large number of overdubs on the tape. Before, each of these overdubs would have been a new number for the books. So although a song could be completed in a small number of takes, there were still many hours dedicated to it. I Need You has for the first time on a Beatles recording a foot-controlled tone pedal for the electric guitar, known as a wah-wah pedal. Yesterday utilized a string quartet, the beginning of a long relationship with strings for the group. Interestingly, Paul did not want the players to use any vibrato so that it sounded 'pure'. For a single take, Paul sang and played guitar simultaneously then the strings were overdubbed while Paul recorded the vocal again. However, since he did not use headphones to hear himself, there is leakage from the studio speaker into his mic, nearly causing double-tracking.

On work for Rubber Soul, more firsts occurred in Beatles recording. On October 13, the session extended past midnight. This would soon become the norm for the group. Norwegian Wood uses the sitar which showed George's increasing interest in Indian music. In My Life has a piano that was recorded at half-speed then played back at double-speed since George Martin had difficulty playing it at the right tempo and to simulate the baroque style sound of a piano. At the end of work on this album, Norman Smith was promoted to record producer and he moved on to begin working with Pink Floyd.

To replace Norman Smith, Geoff Emerick came on board as engineer for Revolver. Although only 20 years old, he was very willing to try out new techniques that the Beatles would always say yes to. Tomorrow Never Knows was the first piece to be worked on for the new album. It has John's voice routed through a leslie speaker, a type of rotating loudspeaker used in organs, which produced a whirling effect on his voice. Artificial double-tracking had been thought of by Ken Townsend and was used extensively because it allowed the vocal part to be recorded to two tracks simultaneously, saving much time since every song was being double-tracked at this point. At the time, ADT required two tape machines with one having a variable oscillator to allow the machine to run at different speeds. A recorded signal from the playback of machine A is recorded to the vari-speed machine B then fed back into machine A and combined with the original signal. This causes the two 'images' of the voice to separate slightly which makes for a fuller sound. Tape loops, sound achieved by removing the erase head of the tape machine then recording many times over the same piece of tape, were also used extensively on Tomorrow Never Knows along with backwards tapes. Microphones began to be placed closer to the instruments in order to produce a fuller sound. Ringo's drums had a sweater stuffed in the bass drum to 'deaden' the sound while the bass drum microphone was positioned very close which resulted in the drums really being heard on the album. Eleanor Rigby, on a split with Yellow Submarine features just Paul and a double string quartet that has the instruments miked so close to the string that 'the musicians were in horror'. In Got to Get You Into My Life, the brass were miked in the bells of their instruments then put through a limiter. Both I'm Only Sleeping and Tomorrow Never Knows had the guitar notation written out backwards, played as written, recorded, then played backwards, a much more labor intensive project than simply recording the guitar and playing that backwards. Click here to here the guitar notation played 'forwards'. In I Want to Tell You, Paul's bass is overdubbed separately which allowed for specific treatment as opposed to being lumped on the rhythm track. This would become more common during the years that followed.

Paul's bass also got a new sound beginning with the single, Paperback Writer, when Ken Townsend used a loudspeaker as a microphone then positioned it directly in front of the bass speaker so the moving diaphragm of the second speaker made an electric current. The other side, Rain, features both vocal and instruments which were recorded at 42 cps as opposed to the usual of 50. This causes interesting textural changes in the instrument's sound. This is the piece closer to normal speed.

In November, the Beatles reconvened after a two month break. For the first time, the Beatles had no schedule to adhere to and could work however long they pleased on the new album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first song to be recorded was Strawberry Fields Forever. This piece had in it everything the Beatles were familiar with, vari-speed tape machine, backwards tapes and unusual instruments. It was also the most difficult to record, the first take being seven hours long yet not even being used. Strawberry Fields Forever ended up being the first half of a more acoustic take and the second half of another take with cellos and trumpets which were then spliced together, amazingly done by George Martin and Geoff Emerick. Although the two parts were both different in key and tempo, they discovered that by speeding up the first part and incorporating a pitch decrease and slowing down the second, they could join the two parts. When I'm Sixty-Four was recorded at slower tempo so that when it was played back at a normal speed, Paul would sound like a teenager thinking about getting old. Penny Lane has an interesting assortment of instruments, keyboard, percussion effects, piano through a Vox guitar amplifier with added reverb, harmonium, conga drums, flutes, trumpets, oboes and double-bass. A Day in the Life was recorded without the middle eight so Mal Evans counted out the 24 bars and the Beatles turned up the reverb with each count. Also, Mal set off an alarm clock near the end of his count so they would know that it was almost time and amazingly, when Paul's lyric 'Woke up, fell out of bed...' was brought in, it falls perfectly after the alarm clock. There was another section which has an incredible piano crash. In Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, there are random tape splices as the ending in order to simulate fairground noises. On Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul's bass was directly injected to the console which vastly improved its clarity and enabled control of the tone, elements Paul had been displeased about for a long time. This is potentially the first time DI had ever been used before. The setup of the album is that of a concept album. The very beginning has the sound of an audience, in order to prepare the listener for the presentation of the Sergeant Pepper band. Between songs, there is virtually no silence, only split seconds or a cross-fade, the first merging into the second. After the piano crash of the last song, a 15 kilocycle whistle for dogs is played then there is gibberish in the concentric run-out groove. In this way, there was theoretically no silence at the end of the album.

The rest of the Beatles albums shows a continuation of their studio techniques and ability to incorporate any instrument in a song. Revolution 9 has an incredible amount of different sound effects such as a choir, backwards violins, a cut up and backwards symphonic piece, backwards mellotron, people speaking and the statement 'number nine' from a taped examination from the Royal Academy of Music. The Beatles also implemented a new way to work by treating the rehearsals as recordings with all the takes numbered so that they could go back to the best version and incorporate overdubs and mixdowns. The single version of Revolution has a very distorted guitar sound to it which was achieved by putting the guitars through the recording console which causes the channel to overload and create a fuzz sound. In Mother Nature's Son, the drums sound more like bongos and this was achieved by putting the drums halfway down an uncarpeted corridor with the mics at a far end which resulted in a staccato sound. The first song to use eight-track at Abbey Road was While My Guitar Gently Weeps and it was also the most famous instance of an outside musician playing on a song, Eric Clapton. Because from Abbey Road has a Moog synthesizer used for its overdubs. This synthesizer would later change the sound of rock music.

Information gathered from The Beatles Recording Sessions, The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 by Mark Lewisohn