Went to Abbey Road yesterday - Studio 2 in fact!! | Page 4 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Compulsory spoiler alert for anyone who is planning to go: there are spoilers ahead.

The talk was by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, authors of Recording The Beatles (Brian did most of the talking). It was a PowerPoint-style talk, two hours long, including the origins of EMI, how they bought 3 Abbey Road , converted it to studios, early recording methods, the dawn of multitrack and stereo, the move from classical and easy listening into pop, how the layout of the studios changed over the years and how Studios 1, 2 and 3 sounded different (they had clips of one of the studio staff playing a snare drum inside each studio and you could really hear the tonal difference).

Then there was a big section on The Beatles, going from the early recordings and tracing how they changed things over the years. About midway through Ken Scott was introduced, and he told a few anecdotes – not much that isn’t in his book Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust. Ken seemed like a lovely man.

He did tell a new story about how Ringo overdubbed layers of snare drums to bulk up the five “Blap blap” bits on Glass Onion . When they were overdubbing the recorder part he accidentally erased the snare overdubs that came just before it, leaving just Ringo’s original part. Ken said he was convinced he’d be thrown off the session but John Lennon , who was sitting next to him at the console, said “Y’know, people would expect the drum bit to be bigger, coming straight after the loudest bit of the song. I quite like how it’s underplayed.” So that’s why one of the “blap blap” bits is quieter than the rest – Ken hit Record rather than Play at a crucial point.

Brian invited some people from the audience to play the final A Day In The Life chord on three different pianos. It was amazing how the three instruments combined to make something so instantly familiar. He also said how The Beatles really liked the soft tone of the Challen upright, then played the opening chords of The Fool On The Hill on it. So good to hear it right there, in Studio Two.

There were some other interesting audio samples, including Lennon’s vocals on LITSWD without varispeed (he sang it about a tone lower than it sounds on playback) or phasing. They also spoke about the Mellotron, and demonstrated some preset sounds including the Spanish guitar at the beginning of Bungalow Bill. They also played some Mellotron preset rhythms that sounded a lot like the bossanova in You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), but they didn’t say whether it was the same – I suspect it was.

Ken spoke about other engineers and producers at Abbey Road , including a clip of Norman Smith telling the George Harrison /George Martin “I don’t like your tie” anecdote. People laughed politely, but really, is there a single Beatles fan left who hasn’t heard that a hundred times before? I always think of this, from the sketch show Big Train:

There was a bit at the end where they spoke about how Abbey Road Studios has changed into the 21st century, with film scores, digital recording and whatnot. At one point they mentioned how EMI had considered getting rid of Studio One altogether and turning it into a car park, but common sense prevailed.

The biggest jaw-dropping bit for me was when they showed an advert from the 1980s, where the studio auctioned off a load of old recording consoles “used by The Beatles to record Sgt Pepper !”, tape machines and even John Lennon ‘s Mellotron. I knew they’d sold bits of kit back in the day but the sheer scale of it was amazing, as was the absence of foresight that this stuff would be worth millions in future.

Afterwards I bought Ted a “Future Engineer” t-shirt. They had some books, mugs, mousemats etc on sale but I didn’t need anything. Ken Scott was signing autographs and meeting fans – the bloke in front of me got his Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane LPs signed. I got my book signed by Ken and shook his hand, but didn’t really stay for a chat. Afterwards I thought of half a dozen things I wished I’d asked, but never mind.

It was very well done. Tickets were quite expensive but I think it was worth it. At the beginning they had a show of hands asking who had never been inside Abbey Road Studios before, and almost everyone put a hand up. For a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, £100 isn’t that bad.

I’ll post some more photos at some point. I met my dad afterwards for lunch and he took my pic in the entrance to the studio building.