Opening remarks were made by AES PNW Chair Dan Mortensen, EMP's Bill Hayes, The Recording Academy's PNW Chapter Executive Director Ben London, and primary event arranger, AES PNW Section Vice-Chair and Academy member Steve Turnidge. The authors, Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, took the stage with the Academy's Steve Mack acting as host/emcee.

The book is a lavish and definitive 12 pound tome describing in great detail the recording equipment and techniques used by The Beatles. It recalls those days of the recording industry in England and shows how far we have come. It is self published by the authors and only available from their Curvebender Publishing company on the Internet. It is a beautiful package, looks like a tape reel box, and has lots of printed goodies inside. Steve Mack jokingly called it "audio porn."

Steve Mack first asked them who they were, how they came to this project, and what made them think they could do such a book. Both described themselves as audio engineers, with Brian later revealing to being the keyboard technician (and keyboard player on the most recent tour) for the Who. They kept hearing people ask how the Beatles got their sound, and no one knew of any source to find out. They began their work completely independently in Los Angeles and Houston. They wanted a book they would buy themselves.

Next, Steve asked how they opened the door of secrecy about the techniques. Kevin said they used the Internet a lot, trying to track down names of workers involved in the recordings. This was tough. There were a lot of cold phone calls. Many people are tired of talking about the subject, and their memories are often faulty after so many years. The authors might call and not mention the B word at first, just saying they were researching the Abbey Road studios of the 60s. Another Beatles book author, Mark Lewisohn, was helpful, but his books were not about the recording techniques and he is not a recording technologist. For their book, they sought a textbook style that would be approachable by non-technical readers.

Kevin had actually starting collecting materials years before thinking about a book. Certainly it ended up being a lot harder than he thought. One of the Lewisohn books might mention a piece of gear, but Brian and Kevin became intrigued with knowing everything they could about these obscure and unusual pieces of equipment. Brian said his first research notes looked like a table of contents: a list of topics to include, and perhaps, he thought, a book that would have a few pages on each microphone, headphone, mixer, and so forth that were used. They ended up with 151 pages on the mixing desks alone, including how they were developed, built and used. He mentioned that while to some, the level of detail may appear obsessive, they really felt that the explanations and descriptions were more like a very thorough car owner's manual, describing things completely but not lingering on schematics or deep engineering.

Regarding the recording equipment, most seemed weird and unusual compared to today. However, those were different times and an ocean away. The majority of the Beatles' music was recorded at Abbey Road with mostly the same equipment.

So why self publish? They said they felt it was the only way they could have complete control over the book's contents, look, and layout. They constantly found more info that needed to be included - they figured another publisher and editor would force them to leave vital information out. Brian had a tip for the audience: they felt passionate about their project and that the book would be successful if they published it, so if you feel likewise about something, you should also go for it.

How did they finally get together? Brian was at Abbey Road interviewing ex-worker Brian Gibson. Gibson mentioned to Brian that there was another person asking similar questions. Brian got a little anxious knowing there was a competitor at work, as did Kevin when Gibson alerted him. However, soon after contacting each other in 2001, they found they were on the same wavelength, and joined forces. They still had much more research to do, and did not want to stop until the story was complete.

As Brian stated, techniques in the studio were very different in those days. Gear was often custom made, and technicians used equipment and methods dictated by protocol without knowing many details. Example: Kevin might ask a former technician, "What kind of compressor was that?" Answer: "A grey one..."

Brian recalled a research process of many cold phone calls, and being relayed to friends of contacts. Some would eventually cooperate after talking to them. Neither Brian or Kevin had written a book before and had to learn their research techniques. They stressed that the memories of people are often faulty and their answers are only from that person's perspective. Kevin said that three people's answers who were all there at the same time could all be different. They learned to always read things with a gain of salt. They used repeated interviews, with as many people as possible, to get as much of the whole picture as possible. Still, some stories had to present multiple sides.

Many graphics and photos from the book were shown, such as the Abbey Road studio complex and a layout of the floor plan. It looks like a house in front, with a large complex behind it. EMI's (parent company of the Abbey Road studios) recording procedures were very different in the 60s. EMI built their own early tape machines. Early Beatles recordings were on mono tape machines, sometimes bounced (rerecorded) to another machine while adding mono vocals. Then came "twin track" recording, a stereo machine used as a multitrack - typically music on track 1, vocals on track 2. They would bounce 2 tracks by mixing down to another 2 track machine while adding more elements. This was not panned stereo, and an Abbey Road specific technique. This was the reason why some American Beatles releases in "stereo" have something like all drums in one channel and vocals in the other.

Many pictures of sessions and equipment were shown. Because of the limited tracks available, George Harrison was shown singing his vocal while the other Beatles recorded percussion effects at the same time behind him.

Then came the 4 track era (1963). There were different answers as to why the Beatles did not use 4 track machines when they initially became available - maybe because no one at EMI felt it was worth it for this group.

Much effort went into getting photos of the tape machines used, such as a movie frame to show a particularly obscure machine. There is also the famous 4 track Studer on the cover. Kevin noted that 4 tracks was not enough for what the Beatles wanted to do, so they bounced tracks by mixing down those 4 to one track on another 4 track machine while adding more sound onto the other tracks, sometimes doing this several times.

Eventually came the 8 track era. EMI initially turned down using the new 8 track machines for the Beatles. Even with 8 tracks, they still played tracks largely as a group so they could bounce grouped tracks, rather than separating everything to a track as done today.

EMI was a large worldwide organization, and could afford customizing and creating their gear. In some cases they may have preferred making their own gear instead of buying ordinary ready-made. Many slides of gear were shown. One particularly elusive piece: an Altec 436B compressor, modified by EMI into what they called an RS124. This was an important element to the Beatles sound. The users at the time didn't know what they were, but the authors found paperwork on the modified units. The meters said Altec, but it was painted a different color and heavily modified - so nobody recognized it. The authors found some of these units at Abbey Road in a closet. Now the studio has dusted several units off and is using them again. That closet had lots of vintage gear, which was not used on the Beatles Anthology projects. Perhaps a reason why the modern remixes have their own sound.

Another famous unit was shown, a Fairchild 660 compressor, which became more famous than the RS124 because it was recognizable. Next was an EMI treble booster box. It only had a few controls, but was important to the sound. Then a microphone EQ box, with the specific microphones it was designed for labelled on the unit. An EQ unit used for mastering was shown, called the Curvebender. Sharp-eyed readers may note this as the namesake for the author's publishing company. A photo of a mike tester was shown - this made noise so the mike could be adjusted.

Next came some discussion of the mixing consoles (desks). Some confusion has arisen over the years over the real desks used because of the similar appearances. The RED 51 and RED 37 desks were EMI custom units. The usual EMI technique for 4 tracks classical was left & right in stereo on tracks 1&2, and spot mikes or second stereo tracks on 3&4. Because of the desk, 1 was L, 2 was R, and 3 was L & 4 was R. The Beatles would be limited by this and so drums & bass were left channel (tracks1,3) and vocals went to the right. The stereo mix was mostly because of the desk limitation and work method, and not a stereo panned mix.

Many stories have changed over the decades. The authors tried to correct them when possible, by laboriously comparing as many accounts as possible and attempting to find the true overall story. For example, one story was that Geoff Emerick got in trouble for putting the mike too close to the bass drum for the Beatles than the EMI standards allowed, but prior photos show many setups like that. The real story may never be known. Other stories got embellished over the years. EMI engineer Ken Townsend had a story on synching two tape machines for the first time. However, the stories didn't all add up exactly as told. How do you tell someone who was there that their memory might be faulty? The engineer was initially angry at being questioned, but eventually realized he really had changed some details of his story over the years. In the end, he was grateful for having his recall of the event questioned and made correct.

The authors did not have access to the master tapes, but wanted to deconstruct songs. It turned out that Beatles DVDs with 5.1 surround mixes were probably about the same as the original masters as far as tracks in isolation. The 5.1 mixers would have had few separate tracks to work from, thus necessitating using them as they were for the surround channels. These can be very interesting to listen to in isolation. Examples were played to demonstrate.

Brian and Kevin discussed some half speed trickery - recording the performer playing an octave lower at half speed in order to do a complicated line acceptably. They played many examples.

The authors enjoyed naming as many names of technicians as they could, giving credit to those unknowns. Oddly, because the Beatles were young, worked long, odd hours, demanded unusual engineering and so on, often the least experienced Abbey Road technicians worked on their records as the experienced chose to go home at night. Often it was for the best, as their flexibility and willingness would be a good fit for the innovative Beatles. Photos of more Abbey Road technicians and engineers were shown. The authors got good information when several people got together to get their stories straight with each other. Lesson learned - you can't completely trust people's memories. The authors have tried hard to mine the truth as best they could figure.

Finally, a door prize drawing was held, with these winners:

• CDs from Starbucks Hear Music:
  • Linda Deneroff
  • Alan Brock-Richmond
  • Rich McPhail
  • John Blattenbauer
  • Pat McCann
  • T.J. Monro
  • David Sabo
  • Anthony Terlicker
  • Stephen Hartwell
  • Alisha Smith
• Grand Prize, Recording the Beatles book provided by the authors: Carla Powell

A splendid time was guaranteed for all (who managed to get in)! Thanks to the Recording Academy PNW Chapter for refreshments and EMP for their JBL Theater. Our apologies for those who could not get in.