The Beatles' Recording Technology - 1960s Recording Technology

1960s Recording Technology

In the early part of the 1960s, EMI's Abbey Road Studios was equipped with EMI-made British Tape Recorders (BTR) which were developed in 1948, essentially as copies of Nazi Germany wartime recorders. The BTR was a twin-track, valve (Vacuum tube) based machine. When recording on the twin-track machine there was very little opportunity for overdubbing; the recording was essentially that of a live music performance.

Further information: History of multitrack recording

The first two Beatles albums, Please Please Me and With The Beatles, were recorded on the BTR two track machines; with the introduction of four-track machines in 1963 (the first 4-track Beatles recording was "I Want to Hold Your Hand") there came a change in the way recordings were made—tracks could be built up layer by layer, encouraging experimentation in the multitrack recording process.

In 1968 eight-track recorders became available, but Abbey Road was somewhat slow in adopting the new technology and a number of Beatles tracks (including "Hey Jude") were recorded in other studios in London to get access to the new eight-track recorders.

The Beatles' final two albums, Let It Be and Abbey Road, were the only two to be recorded using a transistorised mixing console, the EMI TG12345, rather than the earlier REDD valve consoles. Engineer Geoff Emerick has said that the transistorised console played a large part in shaping these albums overall sound, lacking the aggressive edge of the valve consoles.