Recording the Beatles: Geoff Emerick Speaks — Feb 8th 2007

By James Marcus

Engineer and producer Geoff Emerick began his career in 1962, when he joined the staff at EMI's Abbey Road Studios at the tender age of 15. In the decades since, he has worked with everybody from Judy Garland to Elvis Costello, and won four Grammys for his various feats of technical wizardry. Emerick's greatest claim to fame, however, is probably his long collaboration with the Beatles, which got underway with Revolver and ended with Abbey Road. (For the record, he did take a breather during the rancorous White Album sessions.) Last year Emerick recounted his own version of the Fab Era in Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles. With the paperback release just a week away, he sat down with Netscape's James Marcus to discuss music, technology, and the night they dubbed the orchestra onto "A Day in the Life."


Netscape: Even before the Beatles make their entrance, your book gives a funny and vivid picture of the early Sixties atmosphere at EMI. It's very starchy and old-fashioned, with the engineering staff in white lab coats.

Emerick: That was the corporate way, I guess. You found the same thing at the BBC in those days: even the guys who read the news on the radio every evening had to wear a tux. Amazing! At times it made me very frustrated.

Netscape: Your early sonic experiments with the Beatles--for example, running John Lennon's voice through a Leslie speaker on "Tomorrow Never Knows"--were conducted on the sly, as if you were worried about getting caught.

Emerick: And antagonizing the rest of the staff! I was just a young upstart, you see, and they had been doing things their own way for many years.


Netscape: That was the age of analogue recording and magnetic tape. Compared to today's digital technology, it was primitive stuff. Yet it did encourage a certain kind of creative tinkering.

Emerick: Yes, that's gone. The PC platform is just brilliant: you've got high resolution, you've got great software, and it's fairly cheap. But when the Beatles were in the studio, those sounds came out of their heads. Now it's just the click of a button. It's not something that's being created organically by a person. It's not a unique sound any more.

Netscape: Because everybody is pushing the same buttons.

Emerick: Exactly. It sounds really, really good, but it's like painting by numbers. You keep waiting for that magic brush stroke.

Netscape: In the book, you write, "I still love the art of recording just as much as I did when I was a teenager, but the process is simply not as much fun as it was in those days."

Emerick: Oh, sure. I mean, it was hard work. But after we had done it, the feeling of achievement was just enormous. When we were working on the Sgt. Pepper album, we knew that when we finished a track, it was 100 percent perfect. There was no way you could really better it. It was a great feeling.

Netscape: Technically speaking, the Beatles seemed to go through phases. First they were infatuated with double-tracking, then backwards recording, then varispeed, then tape loops, and so forth.

Emerick: I was thinking about that the other day. Our approach was: once we did something, we wouldn't do it again.

Netscape: How about techniques used by other musicians? Same deal?

Emerick: Sure. The idea of phasing--that sort of swishy sound--often came up, but people had already done it, so we never used it. I don't think it occurs on a single Beatles record.

Netscape: Yet you had your own technical infatuations. In Howard Massey's Behind The Glass, you recall: "I just fell in love with Fairchild 660 limiters." Without denying the charms of those American-made compression devices, I have to say that I've never encountered that statement anywhere else.

Emerick: I fell in love with those devices because of what they sounded like, not for their technical value. I always talk about sounds in visual terms. If you put a vocal through the Fairchild, it was as if the voice came six feet nearer to you. The same thing with guitars. Suddenly they were smack right up in your face.

Netscape: Did the Beatles talk to you in these visual terms? Did they find it hard to convey the sort of sounds they wanted?

Emerick: Apart from Paul, who knew a little about what was going on technically, the others just weren't interested. They would say, we don't want the guitar to sound like a guitar--and we would start scratching our heads, playing with the EQ or the echo. They challenged us all the time. Which was great!


Netscape: Is there one Beatles track that stands out in particular for you?

Emerick: Well, there's a couple. "Tomorrow Never Knows," of course, because it was the first track I ever engineered for them. But I'd have to say "A Day in the Life." The shivers ran down our backs the first time we heard John singing it, with that echo in his cans [headphones]. He used to like recording that way. He didn't like the sound of his voice straight. I don't know why.

Netscape: I've read that before, and always found it incredibly ironic.

Emerick: That was John. Anyway, the night we dubbed in the orchestra on "A Day in the Life," there was a kind of party in the studio. I set up a rough monitor mix to play for everybody, and Ron Richards, who was the producer for the Hollies, was in the control room. When I played back the rough mix, Ron just put his head in his hands. And he was serious. There was silence after we finished playing it back.

Netscape: Because the impact was so overwhelming?

Emerick: Right. It was like you were watching a black-and-white film, and suddenly there was color and Cinemascope. The feeling in that control room was just amazing. Nobody had ever heard anything like it in their lives.

Netscape: And which song presented the biggest technical challenge?

Emerick: "Strawberry Fields," I guess.

Netscape: Because you had to combine two versions at different speeds and in different keys?

Emerick: That's right. We speeded up one piece of tape and slowed down the other.

Netscape: Your book gives a fascinating glimpse of how the Beatles evolved as personalities and artists. Who do you think changed the most?

Emerick: As an artist, I would say George. He felt terribly challenged at the beginning. But he persevered, and found his niche in Eastern music, and ended up as a great songwriter and a terrific guitar player.

Netscape: Given the other guys in the band, he had a lot of catching up to do.

Emerick: Some people think I was a bit hard on him in the book. But there's a separate little ongoing story in there: the story of George.

Netscape: Let's jump ahead to the present for a moment. You live in Los Angeles now. When did you relocate to the U.S.?

Emerick: In 1984, basically.

Netscape: Are you nostalgic for England?

Emerick: I hate England.

Netscape: Do you really?

Emerick: Oh, yeah, sure.

Netscape: What is it you hate in particular about England?

Emerick: [Laughs] It's great to be a tourist in England. The problem is the infrastructure. My impression is that the place is gradually falling apart.

Netscape: Are you still engineering and producing?

Emerick: Oh yes. My approach is still to work with real artists. I can't manufacture a record in the control room, and I still try to work analogue when I can.

Netscape: What are some recent projects you've done?

Emerick: The last record I made was with Nellie McKay--that was about two years ago. As far I'm concerned, she's just oozing with talent: it was great.

Netscape: And what else have you been up to?

Emerick: I did a television commercial in England for the Automobile Association, which is the equivalent of the AAA in this country. It included the Carole King song, "You've Got A Friend," and the first problem was getting the verse and chorus into just 57 seconds. Also, we had to record the music live, and the people singing were amateur singers. Sometimes they would even start in the wrong key. I ended up overdubbing a symphony orchestra and some choral parts--at Abbey Road, in fact. So I still like a challenge.

Netscape: Back to the Beatles again. I've heard rumors that EMI is about to remaster all the records and make them available via digital download. Are you involved in that?

Emerick: No. It would be nice to be asked, but they never do. I don't know why. I do know that when I meet Beatles fans, many of them say, "When are you going to remaster the records?" They don't want generic versions. It's as simple as that.

Netscape: Were you involved with the original transfer of the records to CD in 1987?

Emerick: Not at all. I find them unlistenable, to be honest with you.

Netscape: Some of them do sound terrible.

Emerick: They sound nothing like the records they were supposed to be.

Netscape: How about the recently issued Love? Any thoughts on the mix-and-match approach to the Beatles catalog?

Emerick: I won't listen to it.

Netscape: Not a single note?

Emerick: People have told me about it. Look, the four artists were present when we did the mono mixes of the original records. And the recordings were fresh in our minds when we did the stereo mixes: even if the Beatles weren't present, they were involved. It's their record--and now it's been messed around with.

Netscape: So you can live without the mash-ups and recombinant mixes.

Emerick: The original records are iconic, they're pieces of art. Would you go and repaint the Sistine Chapel? You don't. Just leave it alone.

Netscape: Do you still listen to Beatles records?

Emerick: Yes, I do.

Netscape: Do you take the purist route and listen to the mono mixes?

Emerick: Oh, no. I don't have them. Most of my vinyl is still back in England, so I'm forced to listen to the CDs.

Netscape: Finally, will there ever be another Beatles?

Emerick: No. The Beatles are the exception to the rule.

Netscape: And why is that?

Emerick: For one thing, the focus is gone. The only entertainment we had back in those days was the TV, the radio, and gramophone records. Now there's video, computer games, and so forth. People don't really listen to music the way they used to. Back then, you put on an album and listened to it all the way through. Then you put it on again! These days, there are probably two tracks on an album worth listening to.

Netscape: I have a 13-year-old son, and although he loves music, he hardly ever buys a CD. He buys a track here, a track there.

Emerick: Yes, it's a shame. And now, with an iPod, you can just randomly play the tracks on an album, which is totally wrong. The way I was brought up, a record was a complete piece of entertainment, and it was presented as such. You wouldn't put a Shakespeare play on your iPod and then decide to put all the scenes in a different order!

Netscape: I wouldn't, no.

Emerick: There's a reason why we sequenced each album in a particular way: it's a piece of art! Also, the Beatles were in the right place at the right time. There was an anti-Establishment thing in the air, and everybody was looking for a youthful leader to latch onto. Everything came together. It just happened, really. And I could never see that happening again.

Tags: emerick,beatles,netscape reports

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