George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin, was an English record producer, composer, audio engineer, musician. He was referred to as the "Fifth Beatle" in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Beatles' original albums. Martin produced 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States. Martin produced comedy and novelty records in the early 1950s, working with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Bernard Cribbins, among others, his career spanned more than six decades of work in music, film and live performance. He held a number of senior executive roles at media companies and contributed to a wide range of charitable causes, including his work for The Prince's Trust and the Caribbean island of Montserrat. In recognition of his services to the music industry and popular culture, he was made a Knight Bachelor in 1996. Martin was born in London; when he was six, Martin's family acquired a piano. At eight years of age, Martin persuaded his parents and Betha Beatrice Martin, that he should take piano lessons, but those ended after only eight lessons because of a disagreement between his mother and the teacher.
As a child, he attended several schools, including a "convent school in Holloway", St Joseph's School, at St Ignatius' College, where he had won a scholarship. When WWII broke out, St. Ignatius College students were evacuated to Welwyn Garden City, his family left London, he was enrolled at Bromley Grammar School. I remember well the first time I heard a symphony orchestra. I was just in my teens when Sir Adrian Boult brought the BBC Symphony Orchestra to my school for a public concert, it was magical. Hearing such glorious sounds I found it difficult to connect them with ninety men and women blowing into brass and wooden instruments or scraping away at strings with horsehair bows. Despite Martin's continued interest in music, "fantasies about being the next Rachmaninov", he did not choose music as a career, he worked as a quantity surveyor, for the War Office as a Temporary Clerk, which meant filing paperwork and making tea. In 1943, when he was 17, he joined the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy and became an aerial observer and a commissioned officer.
The war ended before Martin was involved in any combat, he left the service in 1947. Encouraged by Sidney Harrison Martin used his veteran's grant to attend the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1947 to 1950, where he studied piano and oboe, was interested in the music of Rachmaninoff and Ravel, as well as Cole Porter. Martin's oboe teacher was Margaret Eliot. After that, Martin explained. On 3 January 1948 – while still at the Academy – Martin married Sheena Chisholm, with whom he would have two children and Gregory Paul Martin, he married Judy Lockhart-Smith on 24 June 1966, they had two children and Giles Martin. Following his graduation, he worked for the BBC's classical music department joined EMI in 1950 as an assistant to Oscar Preuss, the head of EMI's Parlophone Records from 1950 to 1955. Although having been regarded by EMI as a vital German imprint in the past, it was not taken and only used for EMI's insignificant acts. After taking over Parlophone, as head of artists and repertoire, when Preuss retired in 1955, Martin recorded classical and Baroque music, original cast recordings, regional music from around Britain and Ireland.
Martin produced numerous comedy and novelty records. His first hit for Parlophone was the "Mock Mozart" single by Peter Ustinov with Antony Hopkins – a record reluctantly released in 1952 by EMI, only after Preuss insisted they give his young assistant, Martin, a chance; that decade Martin worked with Peter Sellers on two popular comedy LPs. One was released on 10 format and called The Best Of Sellers, the second was released in 1957, being called Songs for Swinging Sellers; as he had worked with Sellers, he came to know Spike Milligan, with whom he became a firm friend, best man at Milligan's second marriage: "I loved The Goon Show, issued an album of it on my label Parlophone, how I got to know Spike." The album was Bridge on the River Wye. It was a spoof of the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, being based on the 1957 Goon Show episode "An African Incident." It was intended to have the same name as the film, but shortly before its release, the film company threatened legal action if the name was used.
Martin edited out the'K' every time the word Kwai was spoken, with Bridge on the River Wye being the result. The River Wye is a river that runs through Wales; the album featured Milligan, Jonathan Miller, Peter Cook, playing various characters. Other comedians Martin worked with included Bernard Cribbins, Charlie Drake, Terry Scott, Bruce Forsyth, Michael Bentine, Dudley Moore and Swann, Lance Percival, Joan Sims, Bill Oddie, The Alberts. Martin worked with whom he had a number of hits. In early 1962, under the pseudonym "Ray Cathode," Martin released an early electronic dance single, "Time Beat" – recorded at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; as Martin wanted to add rock and roll to Parlophone's repertoire, he struggled to find a "fireproof" hit-making pop artist or group. As a producer, Martin recorded the two-man show featuring Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, At the Drop of a Hat, which sold for
Phonograph record
A phonograph record is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. At first, the discs were made from shellac. In recent decades, records have sometimes been called vinyl records, or vinyl; the phonograph disc record was the primary medium used for music reproduction throughout the 20th century. It had co-existed with the phonograph cylinder from the late 1880s and had superseded it by around 1912. Records retained the largest market share when new formats such as the compact cassette were mass-marketed. By the 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. Since the 1990s, records continue to be manufactured and sold on a smaller scale, are used by disc jockeys and released by artists in dance music genres, listened to by a growing niche market of audiophiles; the phonograph record has made a notable niche resurgence in the early 21st century – 9.2 million records were sold in the U.
S. in 2014, a 260% increase since 2009. In the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014; as of 2017, 48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide, 18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new and modern record-pressing machines. Only two producers of lacquers remain: Apollo Masters in California, MDC in Japan. Phonograph records are described by their diameter in inches, the rotational speed in revolutions per minute at which they are played, their time capacity, determined by their diameter and speed. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to high heat, carelessly handled or broken, a vinyl record has the potential to last for centuries; the large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression when it comes to the long play vinyl LP. The phonautograph, patented by Léon Scott in 1857, used a vibrating diaphragm and stylus to graphically record sound waves as tracings on sheets of paper, purely for visual analysis and without any intent of playing them back.
In the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008. Along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Unlike the phonautograph, it could both record and reproduce sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no documentary evidence that Edison's phonograph was based on Scott's phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a wax-impregnated paper tape, with the idea of creating a "telephone repeater" analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. Although the visible results made him confident that sound could be physically recorded and reproduced, his notes do not indicate that he reproduced sound before his first experiment in which he used tinfoil as a recording medium several months later.
The tinfoil was wrapped around a grooved metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately; the Scientific American article that introduced the tinfoil phonograph to the public mentioned Marey and Barlow as well as Scott as creators of devices for recording but not reproducing sound. Edison invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. Numerous applications for the phonograph were envisioned, but although it enjoyed a brief vogue as a startling novelty at public demonstrations, the tinfoil phonograph proved too crude to be put to any practical use. A decade Edison developed a improved phonograph that used a hollow wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet; this proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device. The wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Lateral-cut disc records were developed in the United States by Emile Berliner, who named his system the "gramophone", distinguishing it from Edison's wax cylinder "phonograph" and American Graphophone's wax cylinder "graphophone".
Berliner's earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, were played with a small hand-propelled machine. Both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality. In the United States in 1894, under the Berliner Gramophone trademark, Berliner started marketing records of 7 inches diameter with somewhat more substantial entertainment value, along with somewhat more substantial gramophones to play them. Berliner's records had poor sound quality compared to wax cylinders, but his manufacturing associate Eldridge R. Johnson improved it. Abandoning Berliner's "Gramophone" tradem
Data storage
Data storage is the recording of information in a storage medium. DNA and RNA, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, optical discs are all examples of storage media. Recording is accomplished by any form of energy. Electronic data storage requires electrical power to retrieve data. Data storage in a digital, machine-readable medium is sometimes called digital data. Computer data storage is one of the core functions of a general purpose computer. Electronic documents can be stored in much less space than paper documents. Barcodes and magnetic ink character recognition are two ways of recording machine-readable data on paper. A recording medium is a physical material. Newly created information is distributed and can be stored in four storage media–print, film and optical–and seen or heard in four information flows–telephone, radio and TV, the Internet as well as being observed directly. Digital information is stored on electronic media in many different recording formats. With electronic media, the data and the recording media are sometimes referred to as "software" despite the more common use of the word to describe computer software.
With static media, art materials such as crayons may be considered both equipment and medium as the wax, charcoal or chalk material from the equipment becomes part of the surface of the medium. Some recording media may be temporary either by nature. Volatile organic compounds may be used to preserve the environment or to purposely make data expire over time. Data such as smoke signals or skywriting are temporary by nature. Depending on the volatility, a gas or a liquid surface such as a lake would be considered a temporary recording medium if at all. A 2003 UC Berkeley report estimated that about five exabytes of new information were produced in 2002, that 92% of this data was stored on hard disk drives; this was about twice the data produced in 2000. The amount of data transmitted over telecommunication systems in 2002 was nearly 18 exabytes—three and a half times more than was recorded on non-volatile storage. Telephone calls constituted 98% of the telecommunicated information in 2002; the researchers' highest estimate for the growth rate of newly stored information was more than 30% per year.
It has been estimated that the year 2002 was the beginning of the digital age for information storage: an age in which more information is stored on digital storage devices than on analog storage devices. In 1986 1% of the world's capacity to store information was in digital format; these figures correspond to less than three compressed exabytes in 1986, 295 compressed exabytes in 2007. The quantity of digital storage doubled every three years. In a more limited study, the International Data Corporation estimated that the total amount of digital data in 2007 was 281 exabytes, that the total amount of digital data produced exceeded the global storage capacity for the first time. A study published in 2011 estimated that the world's technological capacity to store information in analog and digital devices grew from less than three exabytes in 1986, to 295 exabytes in 2007, doubles every three years. Data storage portal Bennett, John C.. "'JISC/NPO Studies on the Preservation of Electronic Materials: A Framework of Data Types and Formats, Issues Affecting the Long Term Preservation of Digital Material".
British Library Research and Innovation Report 50. History of Computer Storage from 1928 to 2013 History of Computer Data Storage History of Storage from Cave Paintings to Electrons The Evolution of Data Storage
Graphical user interface
The graphical user interface is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation, instead of text-based user interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces, which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard; the actions in a GUI are performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements. Beyond computers, GUIs are used in many handheld mobile devices such as MP3 players, portable media players, gaming devices and smaller household and industrial controls; the term GUI tends not to be applied to other lower-display resolution types of interfaces, such as video games, or not including flat screens, like volumetric displays because the term is restricted to the scope of two-dimensional display screens able to describe generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of a GUI is an important part of software application programming in the area of human–computer interaction. Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for the underlying logical design of a stored program, a design discipline named usability. Methods of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well-tailored to the tasks; the visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to as chrome or GUI. Users interact with information by manipulating visual widgets that allow for interactions appropriate to the kind of data they hold; the widgets of a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the goals of users. A model–view–controller allows flexible structures in which the interface is independent from and indirectly linked to application functions, so the GUI can be customized easily; this allows users to select or design a different skin at will, eases the designer's work to change the interface as user needs evolve.
Good user interface design relates to users more, to system architecture less. Large widgets, such as windows provide a frame or container for the main presentation content such as a web page, email message or drawing. Smaller ones act as a user-input tool. A GUI may be designed for the requirements of a vertical market as application-specific graphical user interfaces. Examples include automated teller machines, point of sale touchscreens at restaurants, self-service checkouts used in a retail store, airline self-ticketing and check-in, information kiosks in a public space, like a train station or a museum, monitors or control screens in an embedded industrial application which employ a real-time operating system. By the 1980s, cell phones and handheld game systems employed application specific touchscreen GUIs. Newer automobiles use GUIs in their navigation systems and multimedia centers, or navigation multimedia center combinations. Sample graphical desktop environments A GUI uses a combination of technologies and devices to provide a platform that users can interact with, for the tasks of gathering and producing information.
A series of elements conforming a visual language have evolved to represent information stored in computers. This makes it easier for people with few computer skills to use computer software; the most common combination of such elements in GUIs is the windows, menus, pointer paradigm in personal computers. The WIMP style of interaction uses a virtual input device to represent the position of a pointing device, most a mouse, presents information organized in windows and represented with icons. Available commands are compiled together in menus, actions are performed making gestures with the pointing device. A window manager facilitates the interactions between windows and the windowing system; the windowing system handles hardware devices such as pointing devices, graphics hardware, positioning of the pointer. In personal computers, all these elements are modeled through a desktop metaphor to produce a simulation called a desktop environment in which the display represents a desktop, on which documents and folders of documents can be placed.
Window managers and other software combine to simulate the desktop environment with varying degrees of realism. Smaller mobile devices such as personal digital assistants and smartphones use the WIMP elements with different unifying metaphors, due to constraints in space and available input devices. Applications for which WIMP is not well suited may use newer interaction techniques, collectively termed post-WIMP user interfaces; as of 2011, some touchscreen-based operating systems such as Apple's iOS and Android use the class of GUIs named post-WIMP. These support styles of interaction using more than one finger in contact with a display, which allows actions such as pinching and rotating, which are unsupported by one pointer and mouse. Human interface devices, for the efficient interaction with a GUI include a computer keyboard used together with keyboard shortcuts, pointing devices for the cursor control: mouse, pointing stick, trackball, virtual keyboards, head-up displays. There are actions performed by programs that affect the GUI.
For example, there are components like inotify or D-Bus to facilitate communication between computer programs. Ivan Sutherland developed Sketchpad in 1963 held as the first graphical co
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In sound recording and reproduction, audio mixing is the process of combining multitrack recordings into a final mono, stereo or surround sound product. In the process of combining the separate tracks, their relative levels are adjusted and balanced and various processes such as equalization and compression are applied to individual tracks, groups of tracks, the overall mix. In stereo and surround sound mixing, the placement of the tracks within the stereo field are adjusted and balanced. Audio mixing techniques and approaches vary and have a significant influence on the final product. Audio mixing techniques depend on music genres and the quality of sound recordings involved; the process is carried out by a mixing engineer, though sometimes the record producer or recording artist may assist. After mixing, a mastering engineer prepares the final product for production. Audio mixing may be performed on digital audio workstation. In the late 19th century, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner developed the first recording machines.
The recording and reproduction process itself was mechanical with little or no electrical parts. Edison's phonograph cylinder system utilized a small horn terminated in a stretched, flexible diaphragm attached to a stylus which cut a groove of varying depth into the malleable tin foil of the cylinder. Emile Berliner's gramophone system recorded music by inscribing spiraling lateral cuts onto a vinyl disc. Electronic recording became more used during the 1920s, it was based on the principles of electromagnetic transduction. The possibility for a microphone to be connected remotely to a recording machine meant that microphones could be positioned in more suitable places; the process was improved when outputs of the microphones could be mixed before being fed to the disc cutter, allowing greater flexibility in the balance. Before the introduction of multitrack recording, all sounds and effects that were to be part of a record were mixed at one time during a live performance. If the recorded mix wasn't satisfactory, or if one musician made a mistake, the selection had to be performed over until the desired balance and performance was obtained.
With the introduction of multi-track recording, the production of a modern recording changed into one that involves three stages: recording and mixing. Modern mixing emerged with the introduction of commercial multi-track tape machines, most notably when 8-track recorders were introduced during the 1960s; the ability to record sounds into separate channels meant that combining and treating these sounds could be postponed to the mixing stage. In the 1980s, home recording and mixing became more efficient; the 4-track Portastudio was introduced in 1979. Bruce Springsteen released the album Nebraska in 1982 using one; the Eurythmics topped the charts in 1983 with the song "Sweet Dreams", recorded by band member Dave Stewart on a makeshift 8-track recorder. In the mid-to-late 1990s, computers replaced tape-based recording for most home studios, with the Power Macintosh proving popular. At the same time, digital audio workstations, first used in the mid-1980s, began to replace tape in many professional recording studios.
A mixer is the operational heart of the mixing process. Mixers offer a multitude of inputs, each fed by a track from a multitrack recorder. Mixers have 2 main outputs or 8. Mixers offer three main functionalities. Summing signals together, done by a dedicated summing amplifier or, in the case of a digital mixer, by a simple algorithm. Routing of source signals to external processing units and effects. On-board processors with equalizers and compressors. Mixing consoles can be intimidating due to the exceptional number of controls. However, because many of these controls are duplicated, much of the console can be learned by studying one small part of it; the controls on a mixing console will fall into one of two categories: processing and configuration. Processing controls are used to manipulate the sound; these can vary in complexity, from simple level controls, to sophisticated outboard reverberation units. Configuration controls deal with the signal routing from the input to the output of the console through the various processes.
Digital audio workstations can perform many mixing features in addition to other processing. An audio control surface gives a DAW the same user interface as a mixing console; the distinction between a large console and a DAW equipped with a control surface is that a digital console will consist of dedicated digital signal processors for each channel. DAWs can dynamically assign resources like digital audio signal processing power, but may run out if too many signal processes are in simultaneous use; this overload can be solved by increasing the capacity of the DAW. Outboard gear and software plugins can be inserted into the signal path to extend processing possibilities. Outboard gear and plugins fall into two main categories: Processors – these devices are connected in series to the signal path, so the input signal is replaced with the processed signal. Examples include dynamic processing. However, some processors are used in parallel, as is the case in techniques such as parallel compression/limiting and sidechain equalization.
Effects – these can be considered as any unit that has an effect upon the signal, the term is used to describe units that are connected in parallel to the sig
Microphone
A microphone, colloquially nicknamed mic or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public events, motion picture production and recorded audio engineering, sound recording, two-way radios, megaphones and television broadcasting, in computers for recording voice, speech recognition, VoIP, for non-acoustic purposes such as ultrasonic sensors or knock sensors. Several different types of microphone are in use, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a sound wave to an electrical signal; the most common are the dynamic microphone. Microphones need to be connected to a preamplifier before the signal can be recorded or reproduced. In order to speak to larger groups of people, a need arose to increase the volume of the human voice; the earliest devices used to achieve this were acoustic megaphones. Some of the first examples, from fifth century BC Greece, were theater masks with horn-shaped mouth openings that acoustically amplified the voice of actors in amphitheatres.
In 1665, the English physicist Robert Hooke was the first to experiment with a medium other than air with the invention of the "lovers' telephone" made of stretched wire with a cup attached at each end. In 1861, German inventor Johann Philipp Reis built an early sound transmitter that used a metallic strip attached to a vibrating membrane that would produce intermittent current. Better results were achieved in 1876 with the "liquid transmitter" design in early telephones from Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray – the diaphragm was attached to a conductive rod in an acid solution; these systems, gave a poor sound quality. The first microphone that enabled proper voice telephony was the carbon microphone; this was independently developed by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, most historians credit him with its invention.
The carbon microphone is the direct prototype of today's microphones and was critical in the development of telephony and the recording industries. Thomas Edison refined the carbon microphone into his carbon-button transmitter of 1886; this microphone was employed at the first radio broadcast, a performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1910. In 1916, E. C. Wente of Western Electric developed the next breakthrough with the first condenser microphone. In 1923, the first practical moving coil microphone was built; the Marconi-Sykes magnetophone, developed by Captain H. J. Round, became the standard for BBC studios in London; this was improved in 1930 by Alan Blumlein and Herbert Holman who released the HB1A and was the best standard of the day. In 1923, the ribbon microphone was introduced, another electromagnetic type, believed to have been developed by Harry F. Olson, who reverse-engineered a ribbon speaker. Over the years these microphones were developed by several companies, most notably RCA that made large advancements in pattern control, to give the microphone directionality.
With television and film technology booming there was demand for high fidelity microphones and greater directionality. Electro-Voice responded with their Academy Award-winning shotgun microphone in 1963. During the second half of 20th century development advanced with the Shure Brothers bringing out the SM58 and SM57; the latest research developments include the use of fibre optics and interferometers. The sensitive transducer element of a microphone is called its capsule. Sound is first converted to mechanical motion by means of a diaphragm, the motion of, converted to an electrical signal. A complete microphone includes a housing, some means of bringing the signal from the element to other equipment, an electronic circuit to adapt the output of the capsule to the equipment being driven. A wireless microphone contains a radio transmitter. Microphones are categorized by their transducer principle, such as condenser, etc. and by their directional characteristics. Sometimes other characteristics such as diaphragm size, intended use or orientation of the principal sound input to the principal axis of the microphone are used to describe the microphone.
The condenser microphone, invented at Western Electric in 1916 by E. C. Wente, is called a capacitor microphone or electrostatic microphone—capacitors were called condensers. Here, the diaphragm acts as one plate of a capacitor, the vibrations produce changes in the distance between the plates. There are two types, depending on the method of extracting the audio signal from the transducer: DC-biased microphones, radio frequency or high frequency condenser microphones. With a DC-biased microphone, the plates are biased with a fixed charge; the voltage maintained across the capacitor plates changes with the vibrations in the air, according to the capacitance equation, where Q = charge in coulombs, C = capacitance in farads and V = potential difference in volts. The capacitance of the plates is inversely proportional to the distance between them for a parallel-plate capacitor; the assembly of fixed and movable plates is called an "element" or "capsule". A nearly constant charge is maintained on the capa
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, England. It was established in 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 2013. Abbey Road Studios is most notable as being the 1960s' venue for innovative recording techniques adopted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, as well as others. One of its earliest world-famous-artist clients was Paul Robeson, who recorded there in 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. A nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in 1831 on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was converted to flats where the most well-known resident was Maundy Gregory.
In 1929, the Gramophone Company converted it into studios. The property benefited from a large garden behind the townhouse, which permitted a much larger building to be constructed to the rear. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios in November 1931 when Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music. In 1934, the inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, conducted by Thomas Beecham at the studios; the neighbouring house is 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; the Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries in 1931, the studios became known as EMI Recording Studios. 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 cellists alike. In 1958, Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters recorded "Move It" there, pop music material. Abbey Road Studios is associated with the Beatles, who recorded all of their albums and hits there between 1962 and 1970 using the four-track REDD mixing console designed by Peter K. Burkowitz; the Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road, after the street. The studio was renamed Abbey Road Studios in 1970. Iain Macmillan took the album's cover photograph outside the studios, with the result that the nearby zebra crossing has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans, it has been a tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the building though it is painted over every three months. December 2010, the zebra crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status. Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums here, returning only in 1988 for mixing and overdubbing subsequent albums.
Notable producers and sound engineers who have worked at Abbey Road include 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. The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris "Vinyl" Blair, who started his career 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. 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 had a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers used a photograph of the band walking across the zebra crossing naked on the front of The Abbey Road E. P., released in 1988. In September 2005, American hip-hop artist Kanye West, backed by a 17-piece female string orchestra, performed songs derived from his first two studio albums at Abbey Road Studios. Recordings of these live renditions formed his live album, Late Orchestration, released in April 2006; the cover art for the album makes use of the famous zebra crossing with West's trademark'Dropout Bear' seen walking across it. 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. 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. In February 2017, a rare BTR-3 tape recorder used at Abbey Road, was found by members of
