Information On Abbey Road Studios

File:Abbey road studios.jpg Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road (street) St John's Wood City of Westminster London, England. It was established in November 1931 by a predecessor of United Kingdom music company EMI its present owner. Apart from the facilitys use as a recording studio, the premises have also been used to remaster many of the classical music recordings made at Kingsway Hall It is most notable for being the venue in the 1960s for innovative recording techniques adopted by The Beatles Pink Floyd and others. At the end of 2009, the studios came under threat of sale to property developers, but the studio received historic site status from the British government in 2010 to protect it.

History

File:Abbey Rd Studios.jpg Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian architecture townhouse built in the 1830s on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey the building was later converted to apartments where the most flamboyant resident was Maundy Gregory The premises were acquired by the Gramophone Company in 1931 and converted into studios. Pathe filmed the opening of the studios, when Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music.http://www.youtube.com/watch?vFpDP9VTamZY Sir Edward Elgar, 1931 "Land of hope & glory"] http://www.britishpathe.com/thumbnails.php?id94678&searchwordEdward%20Elgar&searchwordEdward%20Elgar THE MASTER OF THE KINGS MUSIC] The neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-1900s the studio was extensively used by leading British conducting Sir Malcolm Sargent whose house was just around the corner from the studio building.Discography in Sir Malcolm Sargent: a Tributelt;/ref> The Gramophone Company later amalgamated with Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI which took over the studios. The studios were then known as EMI Studios until EMI formally changed their name to Abbey Road Studios in 1970. Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre of rock music in 1958 when Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later Cliff Richard and The Shadows recorded "Move It" there, arguably the first European rock and roll single. It was the Beatles who broke with tradition, changing recording techniques and forever changing the boundaries of what was considered popular music Innovating with flanging backwards recording, automatic double tracking and controlled audio feedback the Beatles utilised Abbey Road studios to full effect. File:Abbey Road Zebra.jpg Abbey Road Studios is most closely associated with the Beatles, who recorded almost all of their albums and single (music) there between 1962 and 1970. The Beatles named their 1969 in music [[Abbey Road]] after the street where the studio is located (the recording studio would only be named Abbey Road after the Beatles record in 1970). The cover photo for that album was taken by Iain Macmillan outside Abbey Road Studios, with the result that the pedestrian zebra crossing outside the studio, where the Fab Four were photographed soon became a place of pilgrimage for Beatles aficionado from all over the world. The crossing is no longer in the same location as it was in 1969, having been moved further east in the 1970s. Looking across the street in the direction the Beatles crossed it, the crossing was moved from the left side of the Belisha beacon on the destination side of the street (the side John Lennon is closest to) to the right side of the beacon. It has been a long-standing tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the studio fence in front, although it is painted over monthly. Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums, returning only in 1988 for mixing and overdubbing subsequent albums. The Shadows named their Live At Abbey Roadalbum after the studio, with the cover spoofing The Beatles album. Notable record producer and sound engineer who have worked at Abbey Road include George Martin Geoff Emerick Norman Smith (record producer) Ken Scott Mike "Clay" Stone Alan Parsons 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 recorder operator. He worked his way up the ranks to get to the top. A highlight of Blairs career was receiving an award for Radiohead s [[Kid A]] Blair died on 7 November 2005. File:Abbey Road Studios Wall.jpg In 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record "Britains first digital recording single record" at Abbey Road Studios.http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July%201979/125/750999/AUDIO+NEWS GramophoneAUDIO NEWS: "EMI digital recording" July 1979] Retrieved 19 August 2010 From 18 July to 11 September 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 Beatles Anthology]]project over a decade later.[[The Beatles Book]]July & August 1983. In March/April 2005, Abbey Road Studios held a film festival. It included a tour of Studio One and Studio Two (excluding control rooms). They displayed several films in Studio One associated with the studio and an exhibition in Studio Two consisting of photographs, and a fully-autographed sleeve from every original UK Beatles album. Also on display were several microphone , two upright piano , and a Hammond Organ American rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers included a photograph of themselves walking across the zebra crossing naked, except for the infamous socks, on the front of [[The Abbey Road E.P.]] released in 1988. They never actually recorded at the studio.

Location

File:Abbey Road Sign Sander Lamme.jpg 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 intersection of A41 road (Finchley Rd./Wellington Rd.) and Acacia Road (to the left)/Grove End Road (to the right). The studio is along Grove End Road, passing Waverley Place and Loudon St. 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 (since moved). The studio, at 3 Abbey Road, is the unaddressed white building across the street.

Recording and mixing consoles

* Studio One: 72 Fader Neve Electronics 88RS * Studio Two: 60 Fader Neve VR Legend * Studio Three: 96 Fader Solid State Logic 9000 J * Penthouse: 48 Fader Neve DFC Gemini

Film scores

Abbey Road Studios got its start in the film score business in 1980 in film 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 in film when EMI merged with THORN Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI Abbey Roads success in the scoring business continued after the partnership ended. John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra recorded every Star Wars music (from 1977 to 2005) at the Abbey Road Studios.

Controversy

On 17 February 2010, it was reported that the studios owners, EMI have put the world-famous studios up for sale due to increasing debts. There is reported interest by property developers with the intent of redeveloping the site into luxury apartments.lt;/ref> It has also been reported that there is a possibility that the studios could be purchased by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty lt;ref>http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-global/w-news/w-latest_news/w-news-should-national-trust-save-abbey-road-studios.htm in an effort to preserve what in effect is an 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.lt;/ref> The Save Abbey Road Studios campaign has also been mounted to ensure that the studios remain working studios and not become a museum.http://saveabbeyroadstudios.org EMI has released a statement saying that it plans on keeping the studio under its ownership and is actually looking for an investor to help with a "revitalisation" project.lt;/ref> Meanwhile, the British government has declared Abbey Road Studios a Grade II listed building as it is an historic site, which protects the site from major alterations.http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id9919000 Paul McCartney speaking to BBC Newsnight on 16 February 2010, said that there have 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", he added. "It still is a great studio. So it would be lovely for someone to get a thing together to save it".lt;/ref>

Notes

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

External links

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