Phil McDonald

About

From Wikipedia:

Philip McDonald is an English recording studio audio engineer, best known as the engineer for EMI and later for Apple Records during the Beatles’ studio years, along with Geoff Emerick and others. McDonald joined Apple as a senior balance engineer, at the age of 25. Aside from his work on Beatles albums, he was responsible for engineering on recordings by John Lennon, George Harrison, the Shadows, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Roy Harper Rhead Brothers, Roger Daltrey, and Squeeze.

On recording the “McCartney” album:

The job of a balance engineer in the studio was to record on to tape (at that time) the sound the engineer heard in the studio, to the best of his ability. Multi-track recording was different as one could overdub instruments separately, one at a time, eliminating the need for other musicians. The album McCartney was done that way as Paul played all the instruments himself. “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Every Night” were recorded and mixed in Studio 2, EMI. Paul recorded a lot of tracks at home, some were put on multi-track and overdubs were added. The title “Glasses” was fun as we ended up with a huge amount of glasses all filled with water on a big table in Number 3. All glasses were meticulously filled with water to the desired pitch of the song. It seemed a very personal and warm album to do at the time, and good fun.

Phil McDonald – Engineer – From “McCartney – Archive Collection” book, 2011

Last updated on March 28, 2022