Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios

Location	City of Westminster, London, England
Type	Recording studio
Opened	1931
Website
abbeyroad.com

Abbey Road Studios (formerly known as EMI Studios) is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England.^[1] It was established November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, which owned it until Universal Music took control of part of EMI in 2012.

Abbey Road Studios is most notable as being the 1960s' venue for innovative recording techniques adopted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, Badfinger and others. One of its earliest world famous artist clients was Paul Robeson, who recorded December 1931 and went on to record many of his best-known songs there.

Towards the end of 2009, the studio came under threat of sale to property developers. However, the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritage Grade II listed status in 2010, thereby preserving the building from any major alterations.^[2]

History

Abbey Road Studios

Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in the 1830s on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to flats where the most flamboyant resident was Maundy Gregory.

In 1931, the premises were acquired by the Gramophone Company and converted into studios. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios when Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music.^[3][4] In 1934, inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozart's Jupiter Symphony which was conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at the studios.^[5]

The neighboring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-20th century, the studio was extensively used by leading British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, whose house was just around the corner from the studio building.^[6]

The Gramophone Company amalgamated with Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI, which took over the studios and dubbed them EMI Studios. It was under this name that in 1936 cellist Pablo Casals became the first to record Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites No. 1 & 2 at the command of EMI head Fred Gaisberg. The recordings went on to spur a revolution among Bach aficionados and cellists alike.^[7]

In 1958, Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later Cliff Richard and The Shadows) recorded "Move It" there,^[8] and later pop music material.

The graffiti-covered wall outside Abbey Road

Abbey Road Studios is closely associated with the Beatles, who recorded almost all of their albums and singles there between 1962 and 1970 using the four-track REDD mixing console designed by Peter K. Burkowitz.^[9] The Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road, after the street where the studio is located. The cover photograph for that album was taken by Iain Macmillan outside the studios, with the result that the zebra crossing outside the studio has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans from all over the world. It has been a long-standing tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the building even though it is painted over every three months.^[10] December 2010, the zebra crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status.^[11]

Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums here, returning only in 1988 for mixing and overdubbing subsequent albums.

The Shadows named their Live at Abbey Road album after the studio, with the cover spoofing the Beatles' album.

Notable producers and sound engineers who have worked at Abbey Road include Sir George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Norman "Hurricane" Smith, Ken Scott, Mike Stone, Alan Parsons, Peter Vince, Malcolm Addey, Peter Brown, Richard Langham, Phil McDonald, John Kurlander, Richard Lush and Ken Townsend, who invented the groundbreaking studio effect known as automatic double tracking (ADT). The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris "Vinyl" Blair, who started his career early on as a tape deck operator.

In 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record Britain's first digitally recorded single record at Abbey Road Studios.^[12][13]

From July 18 to September 11, 1983, the public had a rare opportunity to see inside the legendary Studio Two where The Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the studio was used to host a video presentation called "The Beatles at Abbey Road." The soundtrack to the video contained a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later.^[14]

The Red Hot Chili Peppers used a photograph of the band walking across the zebra crossing naked (except for strategically-placed socks) on the front of The Abbey Road E.P., which was released in 1988.

In June 2011, South Korean boy band Shinee performed at the studio as part of its Japanese debut showcase in partnership with EMI and the group's local record label SM Entertainment, becoming the first-ever Asian artist to perform in the studio.^[15] In November 2011, Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue recorded some of her most famous songs with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. The album called The Abbey Road Sessions was released October 2012.

In September 2012, with the takeover of EMI, the studio became the property of Universal Music. It was not one of the entities that was sold to Warner Music as part of Parlophone.

Location

Abbey Road has become a London tourist attraction.

Abbey Road Studios is a five to ten-minute walk away from St. John's Wood tube station. From central London, it is accessible using the Jubilee line. When exiting the station, the visitor faces south at the junction of A41 (Finchley Road/Wellington Road) and Acacia Road (to the left)/Grove End Road (to the right). The studio is along Grove End Road, passing Waverley Place and Loudon Street on the right; addresses decrease in number along the way. As Grove End Road veers sharply to the left, Abbey Road is to the immediate right. The first pedestrian crossing is the crossing featured on the album. The studio, at 3 Abbey Road, is the unaddressed white building across the street between Hill Road and Garden Road.

Recording and mixing consoles

• Studio One: 72 Fader AMS Neve 88RS
• Studio Two: 60 Fader AMS Neve 88RS
• Studio Three: 96 Fader Solid State Logic 9000 J
• Penthouse: 48 Fader AMS Neve DFC Gemini
• Studio 52: 24 Fader Solid State Logic Duality

Film scores

Abbey Road Studios got its start in the film scoring business in 1980 when Anvil Post Production formed a partnership with the studio, called Anvil-Abbey Road Screen Sound. The partnership started when Anvil was left without a scoring stage when Korda Studios were demolished. It ended in 1984 when EMI merged with Thorn Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI.

Abbey Road's success in the scoring business continued after the partnership ended.

John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra used the studios to record the scores of four films from the Star Wars franchise beginning with Return of the Jedi in 1983.

All three film scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King), composed by Howard Shore and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, were mixed at Abbey Road Studios. The recordings themselves were done by CTS-Lansdowne Studios at their permanent studios in the old Watford Town Hall with engineer John Kurlander. All technical support by CTS engineers. All recordings up to 96 tracks were in the digital domain.

James Horner had also frequently used Abbey Road Studios as his recording base when recording scores in the UK. Abbey Road sound engineer Simon Rhodes had for over a decade served as his scoring mixer, both when recording in Britain and in the U.S.

Apple's iMovie 11's soundtracks of its trailers were recorded at the studio in early 2010.

Controversy over sale

On February 17, 2010,m it was reported that the studio's owners EMI had put the world-famous studios up for sale because of increasing debts. There was reported interest by property developers in redeveloping the site into luxury flats.^[16] It had also been reported that there was a possibility that the studios could be purchased by the National Trust^[17] in an effort to preserve what was in effect a historical building. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was reported to have put in a bid of £30 million to purchase the studios but was turned down by EMI.^[18] A Save Abbey Road Studios campaign was mounted that attempted to ensure that the premises remained a working studios and not become a museum.^[19] On February 21 2010, EMI released a statement that said that it planned to keep the studio under its ownership and was actually looking for an investor to help with a "revitalization" project.^[20][21] Meanwhile, the British government declared Abbey Road Studios a Grade II listed building, as it is a historic site, which protected the site from major alteration.^[21][22] The following December the pedestrian crossing at Abbey Road was also listed on the National Heritage List.^[23]

Paul McCartney, speaking to BBC Newsnight on 16 February 2010, said that there had been efforts to save Abbey Road by, "a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time," although he did not name those people or include himself among them. "I have so many memories there with the Beatles," McCartney said, "It still is a great studio. So it would be lovely for someone to get a thing together to save it."^[24]

Interior

Pianos used by many recording artists over the years in Studio Two of Abbey Road Studios.

The interior of Abbey Road contains many different works of art; in 2011 a piece of art, by Birmingham-based artist Annemarie Wright, was added which featured a handwritten list of all the artists that had recorded at the historic venue.^[25] Google has created an interactive virtual tour web app of the Abbey Road Studios.^[26]

See also

• List of recordings made at Abbey Road Studios
• List of artists who have recorded at Abbey Road Studios
• List of film and video game scores recorded at Abbey Road Studios

References

• Discography in Sir Malcolm Sargent: a tribute (1967). London: Daily Mirror Newspapers.
• All You Need Is Ears, by George Martin (with Jeremy Hornsby)
• The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, by Mark Lewisohn
• Abbey Road, by Brian Southall, Peter Vince and Allan Rouse

Notes

Further reading

• Lawrence, Alistair (2012). Abbey Road: The Best Studio in the World. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-60819-999-0. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Abbey Road Studios.

• Abbey Road Studios — official site
• Google presents Inside Abbey Road
• Abbey Road Institute

Coordinates: 51°31′54.93″N 0°10′42.07″W / 51.5319250°N 0.1783528°W / 51.5319250; -0.1783528