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Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles |  | Authors: Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey
Brand: Alfred Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: jwbooks10
Rating:  217 reviews
Sales Rank: 27780
Media: Paperback
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1592402690
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42166092
EAN: 9781592402694
ASIN: 1592402690
Publication Date: February 15, 2007
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Product Description
Here, There, and Everywhere is the story of The Beatles' amazing recording sessions at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, as told by Geoff Emerick. Emerick started out as a staff engineer at the studio and eventually became The Beatles' engineer of choice for most of their career. This is a must for any sound engineer and/or Beatles fan.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 217
 Fascinating insight into the MUSIC of the Beatles August 27, 2010
Chicago Bookworm (Chicago)
What makes Geoff Emerick's book refreshing, and worth the time of anyone interested in the Beatles, is his focus on their music. As the sound engineer for most of their work from "Revolver" forward, he gives specific details about how the Beatles worked in the studio and what went into achieving their groundbreaking sounds. At times Emerick gets a bit technical, but if you want to understand just how a track was built, there's no substitute for the descriptions of miking and mixing he provides. He and George Martin would stop at nothing to attempt to create the sounds the Beatles wanted, and I came away with a more informed perspective on how much they contributed to the Beatles' body of work.
Emerick doesn't go into depth about the Beatles' lives outside the studio, which is a nice change of pace from books that feel heavy on everything BUT their music. He does give his impressions of each of the Beatles, and that is of course subjective. It's obvious he had the easiest rapport with Paul and the most distant relationship with George Harrison. While I agree with some earlier reviewers who thought that Emerick seems too harsh a judge of George's musicianship, he also talks about how much George developed as both a songwriter and a guitarist during the 60's. Both John and Paul come off as great songwriters and -- in different ways -- great musicians, as well as flawed people.
This isn't the whole Beatles story, but it's a valuable perspective on their music-making. The parts of the book in which Emerick is writing about things other than his work with the Beatles (the studio generally, his earlier life, etc.) I found less riveting, but that's probably inevitable.
 A Synaesthetic Genius of Sound at Work on Musical Masterpieces! July 17, 2010
The Aeolian Kid (WAMESIT)
Geoff Emerick - A Synaesthetic Genius of Sound at Work on Musical Masterpieces!
Geoff Emerick was the "Balance Engineer" / Sound Recorder / Mixing Desk Console man at EMI's Studios on Abbey Road in London, England who worked on all of The Beatles' records from Revolver till the end. He is a genius! ... The Beatles would absolutely NOT have gotten their records to SOUND as good as they did without him. Before him, their records sounded great - not only because people like George Martin and Norman Smith (their earlier sound man at the controls) were also perfectionists, but because - let's face it - it was The Beatles! They are the greatest band in the world. Their music is majestic, magical, and timeless. Their lyrics, vocal harmonies, and rock energy are "second to none!" ... But before they got Geoff Emerick as their sound man, their outstanding music was still recorded very conventionally. It was perfect, precise, and pristine! ... After Geoff Emerick came on board (pun intended!), their sound became OUT OF THIS WORLD! It was he, and pretty much he alone, who created their third period "psychedelic sound." This was no small feat!
Geoff Emerick is a very humble man - but also nobody's fool, and he's an upstanding individual of very high principle. Also, he has a great sense of humor that lets you in on the fact that he never takes himself seriously. But he takes THE WORK at hand VERY seriously! I would trust him with my own sound recordings in a heartbeat! This man cares. ... His approach to sound recording is one of an artist, an enthusiast, and inspired and gifted co-producer of the work in progress. He is organized, detailed, meticulous, responsible, and highly adventurous, experimental, and inventive. He was the perfect man to record the music of The Beatles. It is no wonder that Sir Paul McCartney himself, very early on, saw the value of his character and the quality of his work and befriended him before any of the other Beatles even took notice. Paul is nobody's fool, either! He and Mr. Emerick have had a great working relationship over the years, both before and after The Beatles broke up. Indeed, it is quite clear that they are also very good mates and the dearest of friends. Such shall it ever be!
Geoff Emerick himself gives credit to all of the working sound technicians at Abbey Road who helped shape the sound of The Beatles over the years; people like: George Martin, Norman Smith, Richard Lush, Phil MacDonald, Malcolm Davies, Pete Brown, Ken Scott, John Smith, Alan Parsons, Ron Pender, Tony Clark, John Kurlander, and even Glyn Johns (who recorded Get Back, Let It Bleed, and Who's Next - all masterpieces! - at Olympic Recording Studio and / or Twickenham Film Studios). Thankfully, he is not part of the chorus of people with praises for Phil Spector and his tsunamic wall of reverbed, overly echoed sound! Thank God! ... Geoff is not one to pull punches or refrain from telling it like it is. In fact, he's probably one of the few people ever in the world to put The Beatles in their place when they were on their high horses and totally out of line, showing disrespect in the studio for George Martin as well as the other crew at Abbey Road at work on their sessions. Right in the middle of a recording session, he walked out on them! ... He had too much self respect to take their disrespectful attitudes any longer. He stood his ground - and it all worked out very well for him in the ensuing weeks and months and years because of it. I have nothing but the utmost respect and appreciation for this man's character as well as his work ethic - not even to mention his masterful synaesthetic sense of mixing the sound of music! The Beatles were very lucky to have him at the controls.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love music more than anything. My first greatest love in the world is playing music live with other people; my second greatest love is creating and composing my own original music, and my third greatest love is recording the music that I and my other musician friends create and perform. Of course, just like anyone else, I love to listen to the music of the greatest artists in the world, like The Beatles, and knowing HOW that music was created in the studio by people like Geoff Emerick who worked together with them and was highly instrumental in helping to shape their sound is not only highly instructional and educational for a person like me who loves to record sound but also extremely enjoyable to say the least. I mean, this man practically, single-handedly created the Yamaha Subkick Bass Drum microphone without even knowing it! That cool bass guitar sound you hear on Paperback Writer and Rain - the first singles released by The Beatles that were recorded by Geoff Emerick - was brought about at Abbey Road by this man! All that weird backwards stuff and the cool sounds that they came up in the studio - especially on Revolver and Pepper - can be attributed to the dedication, hard work, and aesthetic inventiveness of Mr. Emerick. We owe him a great debt!... I would love to work with this man.
I loved this book! I mean, I literally ate it up like a ripe avocado! It was juicy and tasty and highly nutritious. If you love The Beatles like I love The Beatles, you're going to love this book. The fact that it focuses on HOW their sound was created is even more enjoyable to a person like me. I could care less what color shirt John Lennon is wearing or what he and Yoko were up to while the other Beatles were starting to record the Abbey Road album. What I really care about is exactly WHAT was going on in the STUDIO when they were recording their music and HOW it all came about. If you're like me, this is the book for you! It's all there - down to who was holding what pencil on what tape machine to line the recorders up for those special songs we all know and love that we have heard on the radio countless times since they were first released. I mean, this is the holy grail. We've all read books and books about The Beatles over the years, but this is the first - if not the only - one that takes you right there into the studio and behind the control room glass and reveals EXACTLY what was going on and HOW it was recorded. It's amazing and excitingly satisfying - to say the least - for anyone interested in knowing the way that The Beatles went about creating and recording their music. Masterful!
I love what Mr. Emerick wrote here on page 117:
"I'm not a huge fan of any of the Beatles CD releases - their songs were recorded with the intention of being released on vinyl, and as far as I am concerned, that is the way they should be heard. But the "Paperback Writer" / "Rain" single sounds exceptionally good on vinyl, not the least of which because Tony Clark was able to use a brand-new piece of gear when mastering it - a huge monstrosity developed by our maintenance department that had blinking lights everywhere. It was called "ATOC," short for "Automatic Transient Overload Control," and it allowed for the record to be cut louder than any other single up to that time. Unfortunately, the stereo mix of "Paperback Writer" does the song no justice. It's completely disjointed, and it isn't at all the balance that we intended. To me, the mono mix is much more exciting.
Another distinctive aspect of "Paperback Writer" is the fluttering echo at the end of each chorus, added at the mix stage. It was accomplished by routing the vocals into a separate two-track machine and then connecting that machine's output to its input. At the end of each chorus, Phil had the job of slowly increasing the record level until it just reached the point of feedback. If he went one notch too far, the echo would get out of control, so there were many attempts at doing the mix. Every time he'd go past that point, or not far enough, we'd have to stop and remix the entire song again. That's because, in the archaic EMI way of thinking, edits were frowned upon. Management didn't want anyone taking a razor to master tapes, so multitrack editing - which would allow us to join the start of one take onto the end of another - was rarely allowed in those days. Even during mixing, editing was discouraged, although it would have allowed us to create a mix in sections - something that was commonly done in most other recording studios. Somehow EMI just didn't care what was going on in the outside world: we'd have to get the mix right from the start to finish. If we messed up in the middle, or even if the very end of the fadeout wasn't quite right, we would have to start all over again; we couldn't just edit in a replacement for a bad bit. As a result, you got that adrenaline going, and the mixes themselves became performances.
We may have had to do things the hard way, but it also meant we had to put in the effort to get it right. Looking at it that way always made me feel a bit better about the long hours involved."
See what I mean? ... Geoff and his co-workers took pains in every respect, day after day, year after year, to get it right. The Beatles' music benefitted by this, for sure. ... Now as for music on CD, or analog versus digital, or PCM versus 1-Bitstream, or even Mono versus Stereo for that matter, it still boggles me to this day why The Beatles did not insist upon EMI and Parlophone and Capitol Records to release their recently re-mastered recordings just like Neil Young did - in 4 formats: on vinyl, on CD (44.1 kHz / 16 Bit), on DVD (96 kHz / 24 BIT), and on Blu-ray (192 kHz / 24 Bit). I mean, this is The Beatles - the greatest band in the world. If you're going to re-master and re-release all of their music to the world, then you should release it in the highest form of audiophile quality available. As for Mono verses Stereo, I agree with Mr. Emerick - the MONO releases (Get that little White Box while they last!) - are the ones intended to be heard. Those were the mixes that were considered the state-of-the-art, quintessential, archetypal Beatle records for people to hear. Stereo is cool - and we all love it (I love Surround Sound even more!) - but The Beatles music was originally meant to released in MONO - and so that is the way they should be heard, at least up till The White Album. As for analog versus digital, I think if you heard The Beatles on Blu-ray - in Mono OR in Stereo - it would blow your mind! So, why not do it? They've already re-mastered all of the music at 192 kHz / 24 Bit, so why not let us hear it that way, instead of listening to the, obviously, inferior sonic quality of CD's, with their limited dynamic range and lower sampling rate that means the detail and high end is not captured as close to the original, analog masters as could be with Blu-ray? ... Come on, you guys! ... It's The Beatles for God's sake!
I could quote so many great lines and passages from this book about The Beatles, it's not funny! I took 15 pages worth of notes, with 378 separate entries - and I am really tempted to go on and make this review even longer than usual (because you know me, I like to write and could go on forever), but I will leave you with this very touching and heartfelt passage of Mr. Emerick's from page 369 at the end of the book - and you'll have to read the whole book yourself to get to all of the really good stuff that is here on, literally, every page:
"I still love the art of recording just as much as I did when I was a teenager, but the process is simply not as much fun as it was in those days. Then, it took a team of people to get the sounds right and play the parts correctly. But walk into any studio now and all you'll see is someone staring at a computer screen, moving a mouse, cutting, copying, and pasting as if they were doing a spreadsheet: everything is just too clinical. The Beatles were constantly in search of perfection, it's true, but they were looking for the perfect way to convey a feeling, not technical perfection, which seems to be the goal of many of today's records. If someone made a tiny mistake or sang something a little funny in a Beatles session, it would generally be left in if it was felt it added to the character of the record. Sometimes we'd even accentuate the mistakes during mixing, just to underline the fact that the music was being made by fallible beings. Today, there's plenty of technology, but precious little soul."
BRAVO!, Mr. Emerick! I could not agree more, which is one reason why I do not record my music using computer recording software and a computer monitor. Though I no longer use my good old 4-track analog magnetic tape recorder and use a digital multi-track recorder instead, I do not use a computer. Music was meant to be heard, not seen - which is one reason why a lot of these recording sessions at Abbey Road were done late at night, with minimal light, maybe the glow of a lava lamp and the mixing board level lights while The Beatles were out in the studio in almost complete darkness. ... You need to close your eyes and FEEL the music - really HEAR the music - in order to heighten your sense of hearing, because your sense of sight will get in the way! Staring hypnotically and intently at the simulation of wave forms of beats per second on a computer monitor is not my idea of the best way to work with sound. Ever notice how many great musicians close their eyes when they are in a passionate moment of expression? It enhances their performance.
Geoff Emerick knows this. The Beatles knew this. And the best musicians in the world know this. You need to FEEL the music and hear it with your whole body - not just with your eyes! ... God bless Geoff Emerick for his golden ears, his warm heart, his keen mind, and his true sense of musicianship. May people with the same attitude and outlook toward music as him be the ones to pick up the torch and carry it forth into the future of recorded sound! ... YOWZA! - George Koumantzelis / The Aeolian Kid
A Great Resource... June 27, 2010
Alexander (Va, USA)
This book is a treasure-trove for anyone interested in music...whether it be recording music, playing music, or producing it, this book delves into the many aspects of recording and album. Geoff Emerick helped engineer and record the most famous album in rock history: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He was there in the recording booth for many of the Beatles most famous albums.
Not only do you get to hear some great anecdotes, you get to read how some of the most famous albums in history were recorded. For people interested in recording music, I'd say that this book is a must have...it talks about mic placement and many techniques on how to get a certain sound. Sure, these albums were recorded about 50 years ago, but many of the techniques Emerick writes about still apply today.
Most of the book takes place in the studio, so it is not really a bio on the Beatles spanning their whole career...it is a bio about the times the Beatles were in the studio. From the Beatles first recording to the recording of 'Strawberry Fields Forever' to the last page, I was glued to this book.
In the end, I think it is a great read for anyone interested in the Beatles and/or interested in music itself.
5/5
wonderful June 13, 2010
D. Soards
i really really enjoyed this book. im a huge beatles fan since i can remember, its really cool to get the inside scoop on their sessions from someone who was there, but not one of the fab 4 or george martin. not much techie talk, just good storytelling and some great insights into the psyches of the 4 beatles. geoff emerick broke all the rules of traditional recording techniques and the methods he invented are now the industry standard techniques. fantastic book.
Best book about Fabs ever.This man was in the room. May 25, 2010
SUPER MOM (DREXEL, NC, US)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Most people write about what they think or what they suppose when talking about The Fab Four.Geoff Emerick was not only in the room while some of the greatest music of our generation was being made he invented many of the iconic sounds we hear.This is an insiders look that any Fab fan will drool over. The insights into the four are more like listening to a younger brother talk about siblings than just an employee.It's the musical insights that are the real treasure here.Mr.Emerick earns the nickname "GOLDENEAR" and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 217
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