Forty-two years ago today, The Beatles ended their musical partnership and simultaneously cemented their place in the lexicon of popular music forever. While their songs are still very much a part of Western culture, their innovation didn’t stop there. Inside famed Abbey Road Studios, the Beatles and their team of engineers and producers invented new ways of recording music and subsequently paved the way for studio techniques that are still used to this day. Here we’ll take a look at just a few of their fab achievements.
Artificial Double Tracking (ADT)
It was (and still is) common practice to record certain vocal parts twice. This technique increases the overall loudness and strength of a vocal, and is used to add some extra punch to a chorus or emphasis to a verse. But the process was painstaking; the performer had to recreate every nuance of the original vocal line until the two were identical. John Lennon hated double tracking his vocals. Ever the arbiter, Beatles producer George Martin reassured Lennon that even his idol Elvis Presley double tracked his vocals. But Lennon still struggled and became frustrated with this daunting task. Abbey Road Engineer Ken Townsend reached a solution to the problem while on a drive home from a particularly difficult night during the Revolver sessions. He posited that if an audio signal could be split into two, and one of those identical signals was slightly slowed down, the effect would be similar to a double-tracked vocal. When he returned to the studio, he successfully applied his idea by duplicating the original recording onto another tape machine with variable speed control. The Beatles continued to use this trick on their subsequent albums for the remainder of their career. Today, it is popularly known as automatic double tracking and is still used on modern recordings.
Sampling
Using previously recorded pieces of sound in a new context, or sampling, is commonplace in contemporary music. But the Beatles were one of the first adopters of this tactic. In “Yellow Submarine”, George Martin and his colleague Geoff Emerick sampled a brass solo from an old John Phillip Souza recording in the same key. They spliced the solo into parts and rearranged it to fit the musical break in the song. They tried this again in “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”, using samples of steam circus organs called calliopes. This time the duo mixed a number different samples into random order, and recorded the result. This, along with Lennon’s lyrics plucked right from an antique circus ad, created the surreal collaged carnival effect that drives this memorable tune.
Pitch/Time Manipulation
When listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, you’ll notice the dreamy, whimsical, almost psychedelic quality of the of album. This recording marked a turning point for the Beatles; it was the first time they were free of time constraints and able to fully focus on studio experimentation. Part of this was the exploration of pitch and time manipulation achieved by speeding up or slowing down tape machines. In “When I’m Sixty-Four”, Paul McCartney performed the song at a slower speed so that the normally timed vocals would be higher in pitch; closer to the childlike tone of the song. Sometimes pitch shifting was used to pull off seemingly impossible musical feats; during a particularly difficult piano pass, producer George Martin decided to play the part in half time and later return it to normal speed for the final mix. Perhaps most miraculously, pitch shifting made it possible to combine two seemingly disparate tracks into one. The classic track Strawberry Fields Forever was created by pitch shifting two takes, each in different keys and tempos, until they flowed together seamlessly.
Multitrack Recording
Up until the early 60s, most studio recordings were achieved by recreating a live setting and generally mic’ing each performer while they played together, all feeding into one or two tape tracks. While they weren’t the first to utilize multi-track recording methods, the Beatles took advantage of these innovations in ways that were yet unseen. Instead of recording altogether, they used advanced tape machines that could record one performance, rewind to the beginning, and record the next performance layered on top. This non-linear method arguably changed record making from a science into an artform. It was now possible to build upon each song like a house of cards. They recorded almost everything that occurred in a session, refusing to throw away anything that could prove to be important. They devoted countless hours to perfecting their recordings,eventually retiring from live concert performance entirely. The Beatles became the world’s first pop studio band; every new album set the bar higher for audio technology and innovation.
Sources:
eHow: Beatles Recording Techniques
The Evolution of Beatles Recording Technology
