Abbey Road Studios' tradition in the field of classical remastering can be traced back directly to the founder of the Gramophone Company. Recordings that span the entire 20th century are preserved in the EMI Studios Group Archive.

Recordings that span the entire 20th century by artists such as Caruso, Patti, Gigli, Bjorling, Beecham, Barbirolli, Karajan, Callas and Barenboim, are all preserved in the EMI studios group archive. These original analogue recordings, whether on tape or 78 rpm disc, are used to reproduce masters for the modern digital age. They contain some of the most significant milestones in recording history, and the know-how that created them has been passed down the generations of Abbey Road engineers since 1931.

This heritage, coupled with the huge range of unique equipment at our engineers' disposal, enables us to offer an unsurpassed remastering service.

Our approach to remastering is to transfer the original analogue source from as good a replay machine as possible to a digital workstation, using the best analogue-to-digital converters. We can then work with problems such as tape hiss and extraneous noises by reducing or removing them to leave the recording sounding as close as possible to what was heard in the studio at the time of the original session.

The original analogue tapes would have been edited together from different takes and, although these edits are inaudible on a vinyl LP as they are masked by surface noise, they can be heard on a digital master. Wherever possible we improve these audible edits with digital editing tools. We don't enhance or change; this is not the aim of the process. Equalisation and other mastering tools may be used sparingly to aid the remastering, depending on the context and the music.

Our engineers have worked on a huge variety of high-profile projects over the years, including EMI Classics’ Great Recordings of the Century and Great Artists of the Century series and, most recently The Beatles album remasters and the works of Pink Floyd and John Lennon.

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