News - Abbey Road Studios

Categories

Fairchild 660 #GearThatMadeUs

The sound of a Fairchild 660 tube limiter helped to create the legendary drum and vocal tones found on countless Abbey Road records. Invented by Rein Narma in 1959 for American manufacturer Fairchild Recording Equipment Corporation, these highly prised volume-control devices are used not only on initial recordings, but also on final mixes. ...

28th April 2022

Studer A80 #GearThatMadeUs

In 1970 when designing the follow up to the successful J37, Studer invited Abbey Road engineer Ken Townsend to his factory to preview a new 8-track machine known as the A80. This entirely new design concept had outstanding characteristics: 8-track capabilities, a sturdy tape transport mechanism, electronic tape timing and electronic speed control. ...

14th April 2022

The Curve Bender #GearThatMadeUs

The RS-56S UTC Equaliser (Universal Tone Control) was designed in 1952 by one of EMI's most skilled technicians, Mike Batchelor. It received the nickname ‘Curve Bender’ for its ability to shape a sound. At a time when most equaliser devices were simple affairs, this was a complex and very flexible tool. It controls the volume of different frequencies with great detail and is an early example of what we now know as 'parametric' EQ. The original specification states, “one of nearly 14 million pre-determined frequency response curves can be selected at will”. And that was just for the mono ...

BTR 2 #GearThatMadeUs

The BTR 2 was EMI’s second magnetic tape recorder, introduced at Abbey Road in 1954. This machine was the workhorse for many recordings in the ‘50s and ‘60s, handling all mono mixes. Abbey Road engineers devised clever ways of creating audio effects by manipulating the BTR 2 recorder functions, creating echo, doubling, and flanging effects. This is the machine that allowed technical engineer Ken Townsend to achieve a milestone in the history of sound recording, the invention of ADT (Automatic Double-Tracking). ...

31st March 2022

RS124 Compressor #GearThatMadeUs

This tube compressor is a key component of the Abbey Road sound. Specially modified by Abbey Road engineers, it was used on recordings by The Shadows, The Zombies and of course, The Beatles. As the story goes an Altec 436B compressor was brought in from America to be used as an automatic volume-control device. Finding it not quite up to their high standards, EMI technical engineers Bill Livy, Len Page and Mike Batchelor redesigned it in 1959, and the RS124 was ...

24th March 2022

REDD.37 Desk #GearThatMadeUs

Next up in our 'Gear That Made Us' series is a fan favourite, arguably the most celebrated valve console of all time. Boasting eight inputs and four outputs, we present the REDD.37 desk. This console was designed in 1958, the same year its predecessor, the REDD.17, was installed at Abbey Road. On 8 September 1960 the first session using the REDD.37 took place - a Dickie Pride LP, recorded in three hours by engineers Peter Bown and Michael ...

17th March 2022

Presence Boxes #GearThatMadeUs

In this week’s 'Gear That Made Us', we bring you the EMI presence boxes. The importance of these subtle units is not to be underestimated. Based on an earlier Abbey Road design from 1955, the original RS127 was created in 1962 to be used with REDD mixing consoles, adding midrange and high frequencies to ...

12th March 2022

My Abbey Road: Nainita Desai #AbbeyRoad90

Find out the esteemed composer’s favourite memories and recordings from Abbey Road Studios. Getting her start as a sound engineer, Nainita worked in various studios around London and ended up an assistant engineer for one of her idols, Peter Gabriel. Since following her conviction to become a composer, she has written music for loads of projects in film and TV, from the BAFTA-winning documentary ‘For Sama’, to Channel 4’s ‘Lonely Planet’, to her incredible score for the new Netflix film ’14 ...

10th March 2022

Steinway Vertegrand #GearThatMadeUs

The Steinway Vertegrand or 'Model K' is one of the oldest instruments in the building. This 1905 model has lived and worked in the studios for the past 69 years. Abbey Road engineers Stuart Eltham and Ken Townsend had the piano modified in the late ‘50s, lacquering the original felt hammers and keeping it purposefully out of tune to give the piano its signature "honky tonk" sound - helping to define the careers of the legendary Russ Conway and Mrs. Mills. It has since been affectionately known as the Mrs. Mills ...