What is Reddit's opinion of Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles?

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Geoffrey Emerick, who would go on to win the Grammy award for engineering for Abbey Road wrote an enjoyable book called,

Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles

Good read if you're a Beatles fan.

Here, There, and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick isn't only about Revolver but Revolver was the first album he played a prime role on and it's covered in the book. Really interesting book anyway. Highly recommended if you haven't read it yet. https://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Everywhere-Recording-Beatles/dp/1592402690

According to what I've read in Here, there and Everywhere and various videos including the one someone posted (featuring K. Townsend), it seems that fiddling with the speed (using Varispeed) is really part of what we call ADT. (He insists on this in the book I mentioned).

That's also why, by default, in the Waves ADT plugin, there is a LFO that fiddles Varispeed automatically, thus creating delay variation and thus, slight pitch variations (as a consequence of delay variation).

Look at Geoff Emerick’s Here, There, and Everywhere, My Life Recording The Music of The Beatles. Emerick was the engineer on many Beatles albums.

I second the recommendation of reading his book, an easy, fun read for both anyone involved in audio, as well as engineering. Might be the best $15 bucks you ever spend! I am reading it slowly, as I just don't want it to end. As I stated in an earlier post, while working with the Beatles, they discovered loops. In fact each Beatle got themselves a two track recorder (Studer, I believe) and, especially paul at first, were bringing in bags of loops. During Revolution # 9, they had every tech, who wore lab coats then, using pencils as spindles with loops going around them, Now, looping is it's own music form. Geoff Emerick broke EMI's (abbey road) strict rules - he got away with it because the Beatles got anything they wanted; they brought in more money than anyone else EMI, or anyone, had. They always wanted to outdo themselves in writing and relied on Geoff (though George Martin took the credit), to make them sound different as possible on each recording. Sometimes, in outlandish ways.

He suggests that Revolver, Pepper and others of that era, where best mixed in Mono and recommended it you wanted to hear the best mixes, get the mono versions of the album. The Beatles generally attended the Mono Mixing but hardly the stereo mixing sessions, for the most part, as Stereo was new and there weren't too many Stereo Players out there. Therefore the mixing techniques you described were actually just a quick mix with not nearly as much care, not extreme for they were trying new sounds; they were just getting it over with quickly, for they didn't even know, at that time, if Stereo was a fad or not.

Geoff went as far as taking really expensive mikes, where the prescribed edict in EMI was X feet away minimum ( to protect the mic, mostly) and putting them up close and limiting them greatly, for an in your face sound. Listen to the horns on "Got He would record strings, which up until Geoff where recorded with overheads, with mics inches from their instruments. One of the stuffy orchestral musicians said to him, "You can't do that, you know!", but, yes he could, and did. The musicians were afraid that ANY slight mistake would stick out, and they would, as you can hear the bow and resin on the strings, not just the sound emanating from the F holes! Now, it's common micing practice with mics and bridges to accomplish it. Even Violins without ANY sound holes, just relying on close mixing of the strings.

Same with Brass. He stuffed mikes right into the horns. He very easily could have blown out the condensers in those really expensive mics, due to the pressure, but he did it, heavily limited the signal. First heard on "Got to Get You Into My Life" and again, that's standard Brass micing techniques we do today.

As Paul got into the practice of adding the bass lines in as the last, or almost last overdub, He would bring the amp into the middle of this huge, plain vanilla studio to take advantage of the cavern like space (as in overly large, not as in the club, The Cavern). He also figured out that, since a mic and headphone are both fundamentally transducers, he would use a large speaker in front of the Kick and an inefficient mic, but with a signature sound that a mic would have trouble reproducing. Look up a Side Kick, not a bunch of google data on it, but it's essentially a speaker being used as a mic and are really common. You've probably seen it, it looks like a snare drum slapped onto a kick. . Quality aside , basically a transducer is a transducer. You can make a recording plugging your headphones into your mic jack, without any harm, to prove it. Please don't plug your mic in to use as a speaker. Though it wold work, your mic might never be the same :"

Geoff has his biases in his book, he couldn't be more pro Paul (almost always nice, reasonable and diplomatic ), or anti John (angry young man) or paint George as stand-off-ish and suspicious of so many things, and repeatedly pointed out that George had difficultly playing his leads and they were often pieced together. I have respect to George's playing, personally. Paul and John always rolled their eyes when Geroge presented a song he wrote and generally treated him like a tag-along little brother. And Ringo was just being Ringo. Quiet, but when he had an opinion, he spoke it and they paid attention. They always wrote a song for Ringo, one brilliantly, with only five notes (help from my friends) to accommodate his vocal limits. but did Gorges songs because they had to. Fun Fact, at the end of, I believe it's Helter Skelter, it is Ringo yelling about Blisters on My Fingers - Everyone I spoke to, as well as I, always thought it was John.

Geoff is also quite frank in the book, sadly describing the implosion of the Beatles, the changes they went through, the constant fighting that got so bad, he couldn't take anymore and quit as their engineer. Even as they looked to the ground in shame, and John nicely and sincerely pleaded for him to remain, he couldn't take it anymore. Though he did help out on problematic technical issues, as a favor to not only the Beatles, but producer George Martin (who I once had the pleasure of meeting). He would later be hired by Paul for Apple and things got somewhat better.

Too, he described how Pepper was mostly Paul and the White Albume as mostly John. Fun Fact: as he was hired by Apple, he took part in the White Album. When they decided to continue recording at EMI/Abby Road, Geoff was looked at, and treated as an intruder, though he gave EMI many years of Blood, Sweat, Tears and sleepless nights. Some of the other assistants refused to work with the Beatles too (can you imagine!) so they brought in a young assistant by the name of Alan Parsons. Wiki him, amongst other things, such as the Alan Parson's Project ( Listen to I Robot), he is responsible for the sound of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

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I could go on about Geoff Emerik forever, as you see. Geoff influenced, significantly influenced, the art of recording, the way Hendrix influenced guitar playing (Hendrix had everyone saying, "I have a guitar, but it don't do those things"). At 19, you've heard Hendrix's influences both in and out of Rock Genre, for the sounds are available at the push of a button for us now. PLEASE: listen to 'Machine Gun' on the Band of Gypsies Album, where he protests the Vietnam war by making the theater a sonic battlefield, live! Listen to Little Wing on Axis Bold As Love album, the most beautiful progression the guitar ever kissed. That along with other songs on that album: you can't find a line dividing lead and rhythm.

They both stood their art on it's head, changed it forever and did so without the equipment available, which now replicates much of their sounds, in a pedal or plugin, many which are standard stuff, without anything depicting its lineage to Geoff or Jimi.

Get the book!

Celebrate his life, as you see fit,

Get the book

Be grateful for the passed down knowledge, techniques and technology created so we may utilize his discoveries.

And, if I didn't mention it, GET THE BOOK

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Warmly,

Mr-Mud

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Buy it online.

https://www.amazon.com.br/Here-There-Everywhere-Recording-Beatles/dp/1592402690

He is terribly biased, so you also need to read: https://www.amazon.com.au/Abbey-Road-Ziggy-Stardust-record/dp/0739078585

Ahhh - What A Universal Question!

I've been in the music industry for a long time. During my career, I was a gun for hire on the road, I was a session guitarist/bassist, a full time Mix Engineer, for 37 years so far, and I've been a self recording multi-instrumentalist since I was 13 YO.

So, I'm old school; when I was 13 there weren't computers, DAWs, Portastudio's or anything like that. If you wanted to be recorded, you either had to fork over more money than anyone I knew had, get signed and get that money lended to you, to record; same as today (an advance). But I found another avenue for myself, creating a primitive bedroom studio, with a Consumer Reel to Reel Tape deck by JVC, that had Sound on Sound capabilities, a couple of mics, plus a really, REALLY cheap, volume only*** Radio Shack mixer .

The Sound on Sound feature is what let me create full songs, even though, as a consumer Tape Deck, there were only a left and a right track, I could bounce those tracks, to make full songs. This means recording the first instrument on the Left channel, and bouncing that track to the Right channel, while playing and recording the next instrument, as well, so the Right channel then has what was on the Left plus what I just recorded. This cleared the left to record over, along with bouncing the two instrument that now sit on the right channel, now giving me three recordings on the left; leaving the right channel available.

This was repeated over and over until the song was done. How did I know when it was done? Well, since I couldn't go back and change anything, I needed to plan the song out, instrument by instrument, track by track, until I knew exactly what I wanted & I was able to hear it in my head. However, what I heard in my head was in much higher fidelity than what I was able to accomplish in my bedroom.

Every time a track is bounced, each recorded part loses fidelity, so I also had to consider the 'importance' of each part's fidelity, in my recording order. The first thing I recorded would wind up with the lowest fidelity and the most recent the best. As everything, except the last track, was permanently baked into the song, I had to do it right all the way through, for I couldn't go back and fix anything or punch in, once bounced (which trained me well for session work!) Since I did't have a Bass, I recorded the Bass part on guitar at a faster speed, which became an octave lower when I cut that speed in half. That worked out quite well.

My experience at 13 had great influence on how I did things as a Mix Engineer.

• I had to really plan out my recordings
• I had to learn to construct the song, prioritize the instruments and be able to hear the final song in my head
• I would then create that, to the best of my ability.
• It was done when I had a recording that, at that time, resembled what I heard in my head.
• Today, with a full studio (Mixing Studio, I opted out of a Live Room) at my disposal, it needs to match what I hear in my head

Now, I spend most of my time mixing other people's music. I get the gigs and their Rough Mixes through various people I do business with. I always ask whom had done the rough mix, trying to find out how much of it is actually the Producer's or Talent's intentions.

If I have some different ideas or hear some different sonic opportunities, I'll discuss it with the Music Producer (in the classic sense, not meaning a self recording, self promoting instrumentalist) or someone at the Label, before moving forward with it. As I've done business with most of these people for a decade or decades, they usually let me do as I see fit, but if the Talent is very specific when they create the Rough Mix, I make sure I retain the essence of that Rough Mix in the Final Mix

I do schedule time every month to track my own songs, for publishing. These days, all of the options are open there is nothing holding me back. However, I still plan every project out instrumentally and plan out how it should sound, before I lay down my first track.

• When it sounds like it does in my head, it is done!
• I say, establish a goal, whether it is the content of the song, the feel of the song, the sound of the song. When you then meet that goal, you know you are finished.
• You get what you plan, so don't plan nothing!

The other part of this, a REALLY important part, is the ability to Commitment. A creative musician MUST have the ability to commit. When you are writing a song, tracking the song & Mixing the song, you must have the testicular fortitude to say, "It's done!" and move on to the next stage. Without Commitment, you will never get off first base, and will take a song or mix and micro manage it until has past its best, like a peach kept too long and is starting to rot. Taking it past its best version, to where it isn't what you wanted any longer and put it in the 'turned out bad' folder.

YOU MUST BE ABLE TO COMMIT or you will never move forward!

Hope this helps. Oh, and as for my primitive Volume Only mixer:

*** In the fifties and early sixties, before I started making music, Volume Only control was considered standard and sufficient. The quality of the recording was determined by how well you recorded it, which kinda makes sense.

Mixing hardware was considered primarily a tool of Balance and to keep it out of the red, for headroom was precious then - not at all like today's historical levels.

Recording Engineers were often called Balancers then. The only mastering that went on, if it went on, was to 'tame' the bass, so the needle didn't jump out of the groove. The final mix was essentially what was sent to duplication. Mastering, in fact, was so elementary then, that in the early 60's, Geoff Emerick was hired, at 16 I believe, knowing nothing about recording studios, by EMI (now Abbey Road) for an entry level position.

Without any experience, they started him out Mastering. That meant sitting in a very small room everyday with a very large two track tape deck, Mastering to acetate, so the Producer could take the session home and listen to it, or Master it, keeping within the instructed guidelines, for duplication.

The late Geoff Emerick moved up at EMI and, in fact, went on to be the primary Recording Engineer for the Beatles. HIS BOOK was, in fact, one of my best reads!

yeah, their library of work, for the Beatles, and others, ex Rolling Stones (gave them their first hit), Peter and Gordon, Mary Ann Faithful and others, are incomparable.

Anyone writing their own songs can appreciate that, starting every Wednesday but movie and other deadlines needed them to get together more frequently and worked until they had a good song. Remarkably, really remarkably, they had never left empty handed - they always created a great song to bring into the studio, each time they got together - Pure magic!

At almost 80 at the time of this writing, McCartney he STILL goes into his 'home studio', in his Eastern Long Island, NY, home, to write songs almost daily.

an associate of mine, whom also lives out East on Long Island, ran into McCartney in a restaurant. Paul though he had a couple of body guards, was not just approachable, but took time for a friendly conversation. After the meal, as my associate and his wife were leaving, Paul called out his name, and inquired how he liked his meal, what he got, and was just so warm and friendly.

He and John's music affected not only every teenager in the world, but was such a household name, so big that my 65 YO Grandmother, when my hair started to grow a bit long, said,"Cut your hair, what are you, a Beatle?" They changed not only the music industry, but an EMI client, of so much clout, created an open canvas for their Chief Engineer to change the technical means and ways of recording. Technical approaches that he did "incorrectly", which since has became standard MO in studios ever since.

Because the Beatles were EMI's (now Abbey Road) greatest source of income, by far, the white coated engineers, whom wrote EMI's Engineer rulebook about how everything must be used - ie "one XXX mic for the brass section, use Mic XXX and it may be no closer than X feet from any brass instrument". Geoff Emerrick shoved the mics right up to, and slightly inside of each horn, a mic on each instrument in a string section, driving the white coats crazy. We, of course, now usually clip mic's on the edge of each horn live and in the studio.

In what may be my absolute favorite book, the incredible writings, by their Chief Engineer, the late Geoff Emerick titled "Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles". It is a remarkable insight of both the Beatles, including details of their breakup, Apple Music and more importantly, the details of all of the rules that he broke, and would normally get fired for, if the Beatles' clout didn't back him up on everything single thing he wanted to do and deem him necessary. But, more importantly, the technical side of recording the Beatles, details of those broken rules of each song, how he got those and so many more things that made The Beatles recorded sounds, setting the recording industry on its ear.

Don't miss this book if

- You like the Beatles or

- Are curious of how those recordings were made

- How Geoff Emerick had changed the way we record, to this very day.

- How a masterpiece like Sgt Pepper was done on only four tracks!

- Why YouTube's Produce Like A Pro's host, Warren Haurt, keeps his copy right on top of his board.

He mic'd everything from drums to orchestras, with a mic on every instrument, and into a limiter. Orchestras and quartets really didn't like his mixing techniques, but, like most of the things Geoff had done, it is how we do it now. What he did was taboo at EMI.

His 'experiments' on drum mic'ing is how we now mic drums now and ever since, for, at the time, it was not uncommon to use a single overhead for drums. Ringo was not considered good enough during an early session. He was relegated to a Tamborine and I believe it was Andy White (Later of early Prog group Yes, I think) who played drums on an early hit.

There are so many examples of his 'rule breaking' becoming standard stuff, with the exception of some really unique oddities, which I won't post and spoil the book, but, because of the Beatles clout, it gave the Geoff, perhaps the most experimental Engineer of the time carte blanch, He also worked tightly with George Martin, whom supported his ideas and helped improve some, Emerick changed recording as we know it today..

It's a $15 book ($5 and change used) which, once you get past the first chapter, about his growing up and landing a 'nothing' job in EMI, (not why I bought the book) is undeniably fantastic. It includes peculiarities of each Beatle in the studio, what they were really like, and a glimpse of what it the most creative Writers of Music in a century, was exactly like.

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles https://www.amazon.com/dp/1592402690/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_NKXrxb4EHPW44

Record a full album. A lot of press won't cover EP's. I look at this way, at this level you don't know if you'll ever record again due to many factors. Why not just go for broke?

Buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Everywhere-Recording-Beatles/dp/1592402690

It'll really expand your mind on what you can do when recording and how there are no rules by the guy who helped break all the rules when recording.

> John was certainly every bit as talented as Paul

I disagree with this statement. Lennon may have been a better lyricist (I think so, anyway), but McCartney's ear for arranging horns and strings was (and still is) truly otherworldly.

EDIT: It helped, obviously, that Paul had George Martin as a mentor. This is a great book on the topic, if anyone's interested.