Geoff Emerick

Interview: Geoff Emerick
by Maureen Droney

The Beatles, the ’60s Sound Revolution, the Hall of Fame

The most revered and respected pop music of all time is, indisputably, that made by the Beatles. Almost forty years after they were recorded, their words and melodies are still heard all over the world. Even today, producers and musicians speak of Beatles’ records with awe as they strive for some modicum of the artistic and commercial success achieved by those records. And while many much more recent albums have quickly become dated, the Beatles’ records still sound fresh, current, and desirable—as evidenced recently by the chart-topping success of Beatles 1, 2000’s Apple/Capitol Records compilation.

Now, think of the greatest Beatles’ works: “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Penny Lane,” Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road. Behind the console for all these milestones was Geoff Emerick, an engineer who truly, has never been accorded his due respect. The superb songwriting of Lennon and McCartney and the brilliant polish of producer George Martin were, of course, essential elements, but without the courage, vision, and determination of Emerick, these recordings would have been lesser accomplishments. He pushed the boundaries of recording, doing things that others had either never thought of, or never dared to try. He challenged hidebound traditions and rigid administrators, and created perfect sounds, along the way developing groundbreaking techniques that today’s engineers invariably take for granted.

It’s almost impossible for those currently in the field, who work in a world with limitless access to specialized equipment—and limitless numbers of tracks—to imagine the skill and creativity required to make those records. Emerick was a maverick—one who saw music in colors and engineering as artistic expression. Not only was he unafraid of new ideas, he embraced them. Simply put, Geoff Emerick brought record engineering into the modern era.

Since those long ago Beatles’ days, Emerick has amassed, as both a producer and an engineer, a lengthy roster of credits. He’s worked with the Zombies, Badfinger, Supertramp, Tim Hardin, America, Robin Trower, Jeff Beck, and Split Enz, as well as on numerous albums for Elvis Costello, including Costello’s classic Imperial Bedroom and 1996’s All This Useless Beauty. He has also continued to work with Paul McCartney, and with Wings, on records including Band on the Run, Tug of War, and Flaming Pie. But in our interview the summer before Emerick’s 2002 TEC Hall of Fame induction, the talk was mostly Beatles. I met with him one sunny afternoon as he was taking a break from production rehearsals with a new young band he was readying to record at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles.

I guess my first question has to be, “Why you?” How did it happen that you became the Beatles’ engineer at that particular place and time?

Well, I’d started at EMI as a second engineer when I was 16, right out of school. It was, actually, the same month that the Beatles went in for their artist test. I used to get on well with George Martin, so when I was an assistant, I used to do most of his sessions. Norman Smith, who was the Beatles’ original engineer, used to like working with me as well, and we had a great relationship. He taught me some priceless fundamentals that I’ve never forgotten.

From assisting, I was promoted to mastering—disc cutting. The reason for that was, in those days, to know mastering was to know what you could get on the tape that could actually be transferred to the master. Because, of course, if you overdid the bass end, or didn’t get the phasing right when you were recording, there were problems.

Learning mastering was a part of your training.

Yes. At that time, you were never going to be a recording engineer and producer until you were forty years old. That was just the system. When the Beatles started, of course, things began to move at a different pace. And then Norman, their engineer, wanted to become a producer. He also wanted to carry on engineering the Beatles, but EMI said, “No way.” So suddenly, the situation arose where Norman had to be replaced. EMI knew that was coming, and as I’d been second engineer on some of the Beatles’ sessions, and got on well with George Martin, it was decided to promote me to engineer.

I was not quite twenty, so everyone was aghast at this. Because, you see, in the studios, there were the second engineers and the tape ops who were youngsters, and there were the engineers, who were all over forty. The age bracket of twenty to forty were all in mastering, away from the recording scene. But EMI knew that Norman was going to leave, and they had to have someone, so I was made an engineer.

How did that go?

Well, I was terrified. For one thing, multitrack wasn’t on every session at that time. You had to record straight to stereo—huge orchestras and a singer—the whole bit. And the mixing console had only eight ins and four outs, so you had to know what you were doing. Because no one’s going to spend a fortune putting an orchestra in the studio with you, if you don’t. The responsibility was absolutely enormous. I was doing Matt Munro, Cilla Black, Manfred Mann—all EMI artists. My first hit was Manfred Mann’s “Pretty Flamingo.” And then George Martin approached the Beatles and said, “Here’s the situation: Norman’s going to leave, and I’m going to suggest that Geoff take over.” And I was called up to the manager’s office.

You hadn’t realized what was in the works.

I was shocked at being asked to do it. I was playing this little game in my head—eenie meenie, back and forth. If it stopped on this, I was going to do it; if it stopped on that, I wasn’t. And it stopped on yes.

At the time you got the position with the Beatles, had you already shown signs of being a bit of a maverick?

Really, it all started when I was mastering. We used to get American records in and wonder how they got the sounds they did. We, of course, were limited to EMI equipment. There was no outside equipment allowed in, apart from a few Altec compressors. If they did bring a piece of equipment in, they took it apart and rebuilt it . . . just to find out how it worked, I guess.

So we were listening to these records, like the ones from Tamla, and there was all that extra bass end. And we were always talking about how did they get that sound? Now, a lot of it was the musicianship, of course. But there was no one to tell us these things; we had to find out by our own methods.

It was the amount of bass and also the level—the loudness—that fascinated us. You see, there were certain things that we weren’t allowed to do. There were limitations on how much bass we were allowed to have on, because in the early days, there had been one particular Beatles single that was mastered and it jumped [skipped]. They’d pressed about a quarter million of them, and they had to redo them all. After that, for any Beatles single that was cut in England, everyone was instructed to cut all bass below 50 cycles.

You just had to roll it all off.

Yes, and it also had to be 2 to 2 1/2 dBs quieter than any other records. It was ridiculous, but they were selling in those huge quantities, which, of course, had never been done before, and they were afraid the records would jump. Later on, when I was the Beatles’ engineer, we had a discussion—which became quite heated—with the manager, myself, the Beatles, and George Martin, and it was decided that we would be allowed to cut them louder.

The first record you did with the Beatles was Revolver.

Yes, and “Tomorrow Never Knows” was the first track.

Of course. They would start with what was to become the most complicated track. Can you describe a bit of what the equipment was like?

The 4-track was remote, in those days; it was never in the control room. We had two 4-track rooms where the tape machines were, and there were three studios, so they had to patch them through. But because of the difficulties of recording “Tomorrow Never Knows” with the backwards things and so forth, where you had to communicate with an intercom to tell the tape op to drop in— which was ridiculous—we requested that the 4-track machines be brought into the control room.

Well, that was just a “no go” area, but eventually they relented. And they sent out six technical staff from the main EMI technical department to supervise the moving of the 4-track machine up the corridor.

There goes the azimuth!

Yes, they were sure the azimuth would go out, it wasn’t going to work, all sorts of things . . . really, it was unbelievable. And the sheer look of horror on their faces as it was lifted over the door threshold!

Let’s step back a minute. How would management know if you put too much bass on something?

Well, the mastering engineers would complain to the manager of the mastering department, “Geoff’s put too much bass on his tape, and we can’t transfer it.” And I used to get reprimanded.

At that time, the producer and engineer weren’t allowed in the mastering room.

No. In fact, when I did Sgt. Pepper, I put on the box “Please transfer flat,” and it just caused chaos. Now, I knew, having gone through the mastering stage, what could be done and what couldn’t. There was no need to touch the tape, and I wanted just to transfer flat. And also, I wanted to go in there while it was being done. Eventually, I did get special permission to sit in on the mastering. Over time, of course, things gradually changed, and it became the norm to go in with the mastering engineer.

But you really did have to do battle over certain things.

Yes. For example, on Ringo’s drum sound, I wanted to move the mic closer to the bass drum. Well, we weren’t allowed. I was caught putting the mic about three inches from the bass drum, and I was reprimanded. I said “Look, this is the bass drum sound we’ve got, and we don’t want to touch it.” And so, I was sent a letter, from one of the guys in the office down the corridor, giving permission—only on Beatles sessions—to put the microphone three inches from the drum. They were worried, you see, about the air pressure—that it would damage the mic. There were a lot of things like that.

But what made you think to break the rules?

It was the fact that I was looking for something new and different all the time. The only way that I could do that was to change the way things were done. In fact, one of the first sessions I ever did, with Force West, we did in Number 2 studio, where the strings always went on the hardwood end and the rhythm and brass up on the carpeted end. But I was after a more live rhythm sound, and a different string sound, so I put the strings up on the carpeted end and the rhythm and brass on the hardwood. And it caused all manner of problems. When the next day, some of the older engineers found out what I’d done, they said, “You can’t do that; we’ve been doing it this way for all these years.” Other people would set the session up, you see, and they used to just walk in and know where to put everything. Then the engineer would just sit down, and away they went. So it was, “If someone else wants to do this, we’ll have to do such and such . . . and we can’t have that.” Because, really, they’d had it easy for ten or fifteen years, and if things were changed, people might expect more from them.

I’ve heard that there was, at that time, a sort of adversarial relationship between engineers and artists.

Well, there were certain rules and regulations. It was very regimented. You weren’t allowed to get too close to the artist; you were only supposed to speak to them if they spoke to you. That was very hard. We had to wear collars and ties and make sure our shoes were polished, and we had to get permission to take our jackets off on a session. And to be seen without a tie—forget it. Of course, you were working with classical people, remember, who expected a certain amount of respect.

Then it’s back to my question of, “Why you?” I mean, the Beatles could have been stuck with someone who said, “It can’t be done” when they asked for something new.

That’s right.

So, what was different about you?

It’s just something that I hear, I guess. I’ve always leaned more toward the artistic side. I didn’t get into the recording business for the technical side.

You have said that you hear in “colors.”

Oh, I do, definitely. The way I approach it is I use what I’m given by the studio like a palette of paints. It’s very hard to explain, but I hear visually. I hear certain sounds in different colors. It’s really an art form to me. If you start asking me technical stuff, I’m not really that interested.

Yet you’re quite a technical engineer, especially in the techniques that you developed—close miking, preamp distortion, backwards sounds, automatic double tracking, tape loops. . . .

It was only out of frustration. Because the Beatles were quite demanding on the sessions. That’s what gave me the fuel to do what I was doing. I couldn’t just sit there and leave it; you had to do something different every track—like “Geoff, we’re going to use the piano, but we don’t want it to sound like a piano; we’re blending the guitar, but we don’t want it to sound like a guitar.” So, what do you do?

Did you usually have a sound in your head that you were going for?

No, I just built the picture from the textures and colors of what the other instruments were doing: what Ringo was playing on the drums, or the way the other guitar or keyboard sounded, trying to get something from that. Obviously, it was still going to sound like a guitar. But I knew what they were saying. They just wanted that extra little bit of magic to make it sound like a different guitar. So I was just applying what we could apply.

I was given the equipment and have used it. Basically, that’s what happened. Like triple compressing a bass, or going from one compressor into another compressor and out of that compressor into a limiter and out of that limiter into another limiter and seeing what happens.

Speaking of compressors, in other interviews you’ve mentioned Fairchilds quite a bit. What is it about them you like so much?

The Fairchild 660s; it’s just a sound they’ve got that I loved. It’s good for specific drum sounds. It’s great on electric guitars, and it’s great on vocals. That’s about it, really.

Do you think there’s something to the notion that bigger is better in terms of recording equipment?

[Laughs] Well, that’s because it was all tube equipment. All the albums up until Abbey Road were recorded through a tube desk. Abbey Road was the first album that was recorded through an EMI transistorized desk, and I couldn’t get the same sounds at all . . . . There was presence and depth that the transistors just wouldn’t give me that the tubes did.

That must have been frustrating.

Oh, it was. But, of course, it gave a texture to the Abbey Road album, after all, which is quite pleasant. But at first, being used to the tube desk and being confronted with the transistorized desk, it was like chalk and cheese. It was hard. And there was nothing I could do about it except craft the music around it. It was a much softer sort of texture.

When Studer came out with their transistorized multitrack tape machines, we were A/B-ing with an MCI 8-track, and the same thing happened. The tape machine just wouldn’t produce the same snare or bass drum sound. And, of course, they could never give you an answer. You could only hear it and say to the people from Studer, “Why does it sound this way?”

And they’d run test tones through it and say it was all to spec.

Exactly.

I was experimenting with 4038s—which were originally BBC design, and are now made by Coles—on overheads. They’re big ribbons; you have to boost the high end. But there was a certain relationship, for some reason, on the 4038s, between mixing them in with the close mics, that really worked. Something to do with the phasing, I suppose. When you reversed the phase on the snare mic, it always came as a much bigger, fatter snare sound when you used the 4038s. It had to do with the bottom end on them. And they were also figure of eight, of course, so it was kicking back.

You say you’re not technical, but you did have a lot of technical training at EMI.

Yes, and it was superb technical training; it really was. Referring to what I said earlier, to be able to record in straight stereo, with no multitrack backup. . . .

And the quality of EMI’s equipment, even to the tape, was excellent.

Oh yes, it was extremely high. When I went to do the Beatles’ Anthology, I took some of the tapes out of boxes that hadn’t been out for thirty years, and they didn’t shed or show much sign of wear at all. Even the tones went straight to zero. It was quite unbelievable. But then, we never had a problem with the tape. Of course, we were never allowed to go back over it.

You used fresh tape for every take?

Oh yes. That was another one of the rules: we always had to record on virgin tape. Because the technical people at the research department said—due to the flux or something—we shouldn’t record over.

“Paperback Writer,” which you recorded, had a rather unprecedented amount of bass on it.

Yes, and the bass drum also. It was one of the younger mastering guys—Tony Clark, who was a pal of mine—so there was some rapport between us. Whereas before, it would have been “No.” I also remember the buzz that quickly went around Abbey Road when it became apparent what we had achieved with the sound of a record. People were standing outside the door and listening. . . . It was so different; really, it was like seeing the first screening of 2001.

Do you recall the setup for those sessions?

We did it [ed: “Paperback Writer” and also “Tomorrow Never Knows”] in Number 3 at Abbey Road—although most of the Beatles songs were done in Number 2. I think I was miking the toms from underneath as well as on top. And I think

What mic would have been on the bass drum?

I think D20s. But whatever can take the impact of the bass drum. We always used to keep the front skin off of the bass drum and put in cushions and a big weight. That sounds better to me than with the head on and a hole cut in it.

What other mics do you recall using on drums?

There were D19s, which were AKGs, I think—just a cheap talkback mic. AKG always said they were the “throwout” capsules for D20s. Then they came out with the D19C, which had a little vent in the back to help the bass end, or something, which never sounded the same, of course. Like Neumanns—the way they progressed up the chain from the 47s and 48s to the 67, which never sounded as good as the 47, and the 87, which didn’t sound as good as the 67. They were always trying to prove to you that it did, but it didn’t.

Overall, your favorite microphone for vocals was a 47.

Yes, and also for guitars.

And you liked using a microphone in figure-8 pattern on bass.

I used to try to pull the bass out of the track to get its own space, and hear it more defined. And one way I tried to do it was to put a tiny bit of chamber echo—well, actually, I should say “reverberation”— on it. I started to do that on Revolver, but Paul could always detect even the slightest amount, and he wouldn’t accept it. So I had to be careful.

But when we were doing Pepper, Paul would often overdub his bass after everyone had gone home. It would be just Paul and I and Richard Lush, the second engineer. We’d spend a couple or three hours doing bass parts, and I started using a C12 on figure of 8 about 8 or 10 feet away from his cabinet, which I would bring into the middle of Number 2 studio. I’d bring it out into the open from the corner area, where it was baffled off because I wanted a bit of the room sound.

Did you ever take the bass direct?

Maybe once. I didn’t like the texture; especially, not on Paul. I guess I never have liked anything that went straight from electrics to electrics. There’s something missing for me if it hasn’t any natural acoustic sound.

For a while, you were monitoring in mono, even for stereo releases.

Stereo was late being introduced in England; we were quite behind the times. Up until Abbey Road, everything was monitored in mono through one loudspeaker. Which was hard, but it also helped. Because it’s easy to get distinctive sounds between guitars if you’ve got them left and right. But if they’re coming from one sound speaker, they merge together, and it’s a fight to find a place and a tone and an echo for each guitar. And then, of course, when you got it and you switched to stereo, it was wonderful. It’s still a good way of putting sounds together.

You have to work harder on it.

Yes, it would take, on the average, two and a half to three hours to work on each sound. We had the luxury; we weren’t holding up the session. Most of the tracks were started in the studio, and they would go on for many hours working on the basic rhythm track, which gave us time to work on the sounds.

Of course, we were recording and mixing at the same time because we were still 4-track. So we were putting the real sounds on the instruments. They weren’t going on separate tracks; they were all mixed on to one. That was the finished sound. It wasn’t a question of doing it in the mix. That was it, and the rest of the track was built around that sound.

Well, that’s pretty much a lost art. It’s certainly apt that your job description was “balance engineer.”

Actually, originally in EMI terminology it was called “balance and control” engineer; you balanced the sections of the orchestra. And our overdubs used to be called “superimpositions.” In my second week at EMI, as a second engineer, I had to do a superimposition with a classical orchestra: Elizabeth Schwartzkopf doing “Cosi Fan Tutte,” singing over a recorded orchestra. On classical sessions, you had to record in quadruple stereo—four machines running, and of course, sending the music tape for her to hear—on the speakers, not headphones, we didn’t have headphones for foldback. So you had to play back, while recording on all four machines! [Laughs] And you never recorded over a take, you had to keep track of numbers with a mechanical clock on the tape machine, and you had to write out all the boxes . . . . [Laughs] It was horrendous. I’ll never forget it. I actually had nightmares.

Is it true that the kind of slap you used on John Lennon’s voice couldn’t be duplicated anywhere else because the EMI tape machines had a different kind of head gap?

You could work it out now, I’m sure. But the head gap between play and record isn’t the same on EMI’s machines, that’s all.

I’m confused about how you were doing ADT—Automatic Double Tracking—back then.

It’s funny you should say that, because not long ago, when I saw Jack Douglas who had worked with John, he said to me, in a humorous kind of way, “How did you do that ADT? I could never get the copy tape to go fast enough to actually lie on top of the original voice like it was double tracked.”

From his question, I got the feeling the tape was going so fast it was about to go up in smoke. John must have told him you could do it while you were recording, but actually, you could only do it when you were remixing. You have to take the signal of the vocal from the sync head. So you’re mixing off the replay head. The sync is in advance, and you put it into another quarter-inch tape machine, then you put that on frequency control, and you slow it down. You’re not trying to advance it . It’s already advanced. You’re just slowing it down. The trick is taking it off the sync head.

You were having to devise all this crazy stuff on the spot: backwards bits, phasing with tape machines, loops—were you having fun?

Looking back, it was great fun, for the most part. There were some moments that weren’t, of course — there was a sort of bad period during the White Album. I actually walked out halfway through. It was something like the eighth attempt at “Oh Bla Di, Oh Bla Dah”...they were arguing, and I could see the whole thing disintegrating. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I said to George Martin, “Can I have a word?” and told him I wanted to leave the sessions. We went to the manager of the studio; it was a Tuesday, and he said, “Well, can you stay ‘til Friday?” And I said “No.” We went back to the studio and had a discussion with the band, who tried to make me stay. But I said, “No, I’ve had enough.”

Your mind was made up.

Yes. Because if someone had twisted my arm, to stay ‘till Friday, when Friday came I wouldn’t have gone. I would have been there the next week and the next week, and felt worse and worse. I had to leave there and then.

You stayed on at EMI for a while after that, then what happened? How was it that you came back to make Abbey Road?

Being so young, I felt I couldn’t further myself at EMI. I’d gone as far as I could, and was desperate, really, to leave. Apple [Records] had formed, and Paul asked, “Will you join Apple and do the studio?” I did, and built the studio, and during that time Paul phoned up and said, “We’re going to go in and do a new album, would you like to do it?” So I said, “Of course.” And that’s how it all worked out. I just went back.

If you were teaching someone how to record vocals, what would you tell them?

You normally know which microphone will suit the artist’s voice; talking to them and listening to them sing in the room gives you insight into their tonal quality. Limiting and compressing depends on what kind of track it is. On “Because,” for instance, I didn’t use any compressors or limiters on anything. I just rode the faders. It’s not about grabbing the nearest bit of outboard gear when there seems to be a problem; you don’t want to over-react.

If there’s a problem, you want to rectify it with the person and work from there. If you’re working with a true artist, it’s not really a lot of what you do, it’s what the vocalist does. Of course, you can now, with Pro Tools, do a lot of pitch shifting and fixing, which seems to be the norm, no matter whether or not someone has done a great performance. But a great performance can get lost that way. When everything is made perfect, it can become insignificant.

I like to hear [drummer Steve] Gadd make a personal statement [with timing]. One of the magic things with Ringo, he’d be hesitant, sometimes, on his drum fills, and then you’d hear them really pick up, and you’d realize it’s a human being, playing. When something is so rigidly in time, it’s like listening to a clock ticking in the bedroom. After a few minutes, your ear just doesn’t hear it ticking anymore. It’s unnoticeable.

Many drummers have said they were inspired by the way the drums you recorded sounded on Beatles records.

It was the presence, I think. No one had heard a bass drum up in your face, sounding as solid as it did. Maybe my approach to recording was magnifying them. I don’t know. Getting back to this visual aspect, it was a question of putting into focus various instruments. Whereas before, everything had been sort of a blur. We just pulled everything back into focus.

There’d been very little close miking done before.

I used to put my ears near to things to hear what the makeup of the particular tone was. I would go out and have a good listen, and see if there were any places where things sounded slightly different. It’s like miking a cymbal on the edge. Have you done that? I put a little condenser on the very edge, and it vibrates and you get this enormous big bottom end—things like that.

Were you puzzled the first time you had to record a sitar?

[Laughs] No, because I’d worked with other instruments on sessions, and had been listening to the tones and where the sounds came from. The sound of the sitar was so quiet and complex. I think I used Neumann 54s or 56s, which are really nice condenser mics—little tubes you could get right close onto the strings or the soundboard, then probably through a Fairchild, to get this amazing big wall of huge sound.

After that, Ravi Shankar came in and was doing a classical recording in Number 3. And George Harrison, who was friends with him, said to me, “Do you want to come in and see Ravi? Because something’s not quite right.” Well, they had him wired up on a wooden rostrum, and they had a ribbon mic, a 4038, about twenty feet up in the air. And of course, you couldn’t hear anything; he was getting more room than sitar, which was just kind of mush in the background. I was just the young kid and the engineer had been there years and years, so I had to be a bit diplomatic.

Considering that you were using loops as far back as 1966 [on Revolver], it must amuse you that they are now so prevalent.

A lot of it was that Paul had a couple of Brenell tape recorders at home. You could disconnect the erase head on them, and he used them to make tape loops, putting new recordings over the first. He’d come in with a bag full of them—some long, some very small—all labeled with a grease pencil. We’d lace them up on our tape machine, and people would have to hold them out with pencils. I recall that on “Tomorrow Never Knows,” there weren’t enough people in the control room to handle holding them, so we got some of the maintenance department down to help. I think we put five loops up on faders, and then just played it as an instrument.

Of course, now, it’s endless, you can do anything. But often, all that doesn’t mean anything. If you just press a button and it’s there, you haven’t really created anything, have you? Going back to the artistic side of it, it’s the difference between painting by numbers or being a Rembrandt and painting a picture. Anyone can apply this technology to recorded music. But there’s that certain something that you can’t put your finger on, something that you can actually give to that piece of recording that the equipment can’t. It’s something that’s in your heart, that’s in you, that doesn’t come from any equipment whatever. It comes from what you hear.

Being pushed to come up with all sorts of new sounds, to try all sorts of things, did you ever think, “Oh, this will never work.”

Oh no. Never. Everything was always possible. Nothing is impossible. That was always my theory.


Selected Credits

America - Nine albums, including: Holidays, Hearts, Hideaway, Highway, 30 Years of America
Badfinger - No Dice
The Beatles - Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road, Anthology 1, 2, 3, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Penny Lane”
Jeff Beck - Wired
Elvis Costello - Imperial Bedroom, All This Useless Beauty
Art Garfunkel - Lefty, The Animals’ Christmas (with Amy Grant)
Paul McCartney - Tug of War, Flaming Pie, Run Devil Run
Paul McCartney (& Wings) - Band on the Run
Carl Perkins - Go Cat Go
Split Enz - Dizrhythmia, Spellbound
Supertramp - Even in the Quietest Moments
The Zombies - Odessey & Oracle 6.Droney

http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/books/berklee/geoff.php

Here, There And Everywhere

To get the timeless music of the Beatles onto vinyl - and put together the greatest pop music albums ever recorded - recording engineer Geoff Emerick made full use of his soundboard skills and his ingenuity, work with the Fab Four and their producer George Martin to create records unlike anything the world had heard up to that point. HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE : My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (Gotham Books; $26.00; March 2006) is four-time Grammy winner and recording industry legend Emerick's story of the years he spend at EMI studios at Abbey Road, working with the band to shape albums such as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Revolver (recently named the #1 and #3 greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone). Emerick started at EMI as a fifteen-year-old assistant engineer – just in time to witness the first studio recording by the Beatles - and by the time he was nineteen he was their main recording engineer for the groundbreaking Revolver, turning the sounds the heard in their heads into the music that would change the world. As Emerick relates in his memoir, the Beatles often had ideas that required far more imaginative skill than just turning knobs and splicing tape. For Lennon’s vocals on 'Yellow Submarine,' Emerick put a condom-wrapped microphone into a bottle of water so that Lennon could hear what he sounded like when submerged (the track wasn't used); Emerick also routed John’s singing through revolving speakers when Lennon wanted to sound like ''a Dalai Lama chanting on a mountaintop'' on 'Tomorrow Never Knows.' For 'A Day in the Life,' Emerick had to organize orchestras in the cramped recording studio and stretch the boundaries of recording technology to get the song’s final, unforgettable piano chord.

Emerick also tells how the creative personalities of the band members led to frequent disagreements and long-held grudges, even as they were producing their greatest songs. The diplomatic Paul McCartney frequently clashed with the tempestuous John Lennon, a sullen George Harrison often resented the lack of attention to his compositions, and Ringo, less interested than the others in making music, rarely had much to say anyone. As the Beatles quit touring and confined their artistic output to the recording studio, Emerick witnessed every flare up, every temporary resolution, and every crack in their musical partnership that would ultimately lead to their dissolution. He was there in the early days when the band had to hide from screaming teenage girls who had stormed the building, he was on hand to see Yoko Ono install a bed in the recording studio during the White Album sessions (to the horror of John Lennon’s bandmates) and he witnessed how the Beatles spent their last months at Abbey Road recording in different studios.

Emerick also shared the outrageous stories of his post-Beatles career, including his trip to Nigeria with Paul and his band Wings to record their Band On the Run album – which, despite monsoon, the theft of the demo tapes, and threats from local singers concerned that their music heritage was being compromised, came together as one of Paul’s best post-Beatles works.

Emerick’s take on the Fab Four and their transformation from mop-topped teeny-bopper idols to innovative sonice pioneers – and jaded international celebrities –is a look at the band like no other, from someone who spent countless hours at work with the group and saw collaborations and confrontations never described in previous account. HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE details Geoff’s extensive contributions to the Beatles’ albums, and also reveals him to be devoted fan, still fascinated by the band’s music. It’s a slice of rock ‘n’ roll history that every Beatles fan will find enthralling.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Renowned recording engineer and producer Geoff Emerick worked with Elvis Costello, Cheap Trick, Jeff beck, and many others in addition to the Beatles. He has continued to work with Paul McCartney on his recent albums. He lives in Los Angeles. Howard Massey is a music journalist and the author of eleven books. As a recording engineer, he has worked with Elvis Costello and Kraftwerk. His articles have appeared in Billboard, Blender, EQ, and Guitar World.

For Lennon’s vocals on 'Yellow Submarine,' Emerick put a condom-wrapped microphone into a bottle of water so that Lennon could hear what he sounded like when submerged (the track wasn't used)

Микрофон в презервативе, засутый в бутылку с водой для создания эффекта "подводного голоса".


Emerick also routed John’s singing through revolving speakers when Lennon wanted to sound like ''a Dalai Lama chanting on a mountaintop'' on 'Tomorrow Never Knows.' For 'A Day in the Life,' Emerick had to organize orchestras in the cramped recording studio and stretch the boundaries of recording technology to get the song’s final, unforgettable piano chord.

Сдается, многие Мартиновские лавры инвентора после выхода книги перейдут к Джеффу.



The diplomatic Paul McCartney frequently clashed with the tempestuous John Lennon, a sullen George Harrison often resented the lack of attention to his compositions, and Ringo, less interested than the others in making music, rarely had much to say anyone.

Тоже жутко интересно - личные отношения внутри Битлз во время записи. Кто и как себя, что говорил, что предлагал. Кажется, вообще именно Джефф чаще других вспоминает этот аспект его работы со студийными Битлз.

He was there in the early days when the band had to hide from screaming teenage girls who had stormed the building, he was on hand to see Yoko Ono install a bed in the recording studio during the White Album sessions (to the horror of John Lennon’s bandmates) and he witnessed how the Beatles spent their last months at Abbey Road recording in different studios.

Ляпов бы, связанных с памятью, не очень бы хотелось видеть в книге. Кровать с Йоко была установлена все-таки во время записи "Эбби Роуда", куда Пол пригласил Джеффа после его ухода, помнится в июле 1968 года во время записи "Белого Альбома".


Каждое Джеффовское воспоминание на вес золота.

И похоже Эмерик вообще сегодня единственный человек, способный сказать что-то новое, дельное и интересное в отношении рекординг процесса на Эбби Роуд. Мартин особой откровенностью не отличался. Нормана Смита, бывшего до Эмрика вообще мало что вспоминал. Его почти никто не интервьюировал. Интересно и то, почему Джефф выбрал в качестве названия книги песню Маккартни: его любимая? ориентирована на покупателей, знакомых с битлз-продукцией? в силу сотрудничества с сольным Полом?

Interview with Geoff Emerick (March 24, 2006)
http://www.earcandymag.com/geoffemerick-2006.htm

Интервью Ровеснику
https://www.beatles.ru/books/articles.asp?article_id=981

Перебросил в "периодику": https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=1786
Сенкс!!!

2Expert:

>Тоже жутко интересно - личные отношения внутри
>Битлз во время записи. Кто и как себя, что говорил,
>что предлагал. Кажется, вообще именно Джефф чаще
>других вспоминает этот аспект его работы со студийными
>Битлз.

>Интересно и то, почему Джефф выбрал в качестве
>названия книги песню Маккартни: его любимая? ориентирована
>на покупателей, знакомых с битлз-продукцией? в
>силу сотрудничества с сольным Полом?

Про личные отношения во время записи там действительно до фига. Но! Я бы любителям Харрисона читать эту книжку не рекоммендовал в резкой форме. Любителям Леннона не в резкой форме, но все же. Вместо восхвалений и терминов "лидер группы" и "символ эпохи" что-то вроде "мужик хороший, очень и очень талантливый, но все же не слишком адекватный временами". Ну а про Маккартни... Я точно не помню, как это точно было написано, но что-то вроде "во время распада Джон, Джордж и Ринго стали ко мне худше относится, так я был "человеком Пола"" примерно так. Очень тепло к Полу товарищ относится. Кстати глава про запись Band On The Run там чуть ли не самая интересная - как он от всяких жучков-паучков-ящерок в гостинице прятался :)

Standing Stone

А он в самом начале так и написал, что являлся Маккартниевским протеже, который в свою очередь выбрал его по причине молодости и следовательно некого нестандартного мышления, которое в свою очередь Пол сумел разглядеть на первых сессиях. Отличная кадровая политика Битлз в исполнении Пола Маккартни.
Касательно книги - с большим трудом приходится искать там новые факты, хотя более осведомленного чем автор после Мартина, казалось бы, быть не должно. Ан нет - доверился журналюге, который все забросал давно зажеванным и всем хорошо известным. Отсюда обилие примитивнейших ляпов. Кен Скотт сразу высказал претензии...

2Expert:

*********For Lennon’s vocals on 'Yellow Submarine,' Emerick put a condom-wrapped microphone into a bottle of water so that Lennon could hear what he sounded like when submerged (the track wasn't used)

Микрофон в презервативе, засутый в бутылку с водой для создания эффекта "подводного голоса". ***********


По-моему, при записи "Yellow Submarine" бутылочками позвякивал человек по фамилии..

Кондон (я дико извиняюсь, конечно!)

А кто на духовых играл в ней, Эмерик не написал. Кто???

2Holy Roller:


>>По-моему, при записи "Yellow Submarine" бутылочками позвякивал человек по фамилии..

>>Кондон (я дико извиняюсь, конечно!)

Если серьезно, то в студии вроде такого и работало. Тем более с Биатлз. А где там бутылочки в Подводке позвякивают?

Да и вообще все факты, приводимые Эмериком уже давно были известны из Сессий Льюисона. Это воспоминание Джеффа он приводит где-то в районе Сержанта. И скорее всего это было просто какой-то эксперимент, который никуда не вошел. Сначала там, правда, никакого такого презерватива и не было. А был просто полиэтиленовый мешок. Но времена меняются, а вместе с ними проясняются все новые подробности :)

Насчет использования презервативов участниками ливерпульского квартета см.
https://img.beatles.ru/f/453/453282.jpg

>>А кто на духовых играл в ней, Эмерик не написал. Кто???

Книжки у меня нет, только отрывок в сети нашел. Надо у Standing Stone-а спросить. Очень сомневаюсь, что автор приводит такую информацию. Допускаю, что эта духовая вставка вообще какой-нибудь отрывок какого-нибудь муз.произведения записанного задолго до Револьвера. Как например гитарное интро Бунгало Билла.

2Expert:

Кондон - был!!!
И даже не один, я два!!!

Терри Кондон-сотрудник студии-звякал (правда не бутылками, а цепями в ванной)
Лес Кондон-оркестрант-играл на духовых в Got To Get You Into My Life...

Однофамильцы? Братья?

И на микрофоне еще один (третий!) завязали...

Я опять извмняюсь, но, видит Бог, не я пригласил их на запись Револьвера...

А про гитарное интро Бунгало Билла кто-йто написал, что это композиция"Parfume" Джанго Райнхардта. Я послушал - вроде не похоже...

Я в смятении...
Кто же???

Первый Кондон.....

http://www.answers.com/topic/les-condon