Editing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "The End"

This was the final recording session for the “Abbey Road” album. From 2:30 pm to 8 pm, the final edits to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “The End” were completed.

Some sound effects were considered to improve “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer“, but the idea was ultimately abandoned. Instead, seven seconds were cut from the master tape to remove the song’s instrumental introduction.

McCartney, along with tape operator Alan Parsons, experimented with the introduction to Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, running the final stereo remix tape (an edit of remix stereo RS 34 and RS 37) backwards while adding tape echo / repeat echo. To review the work, they made the edit of the stereo master with the descending chord progression that was originally the song’s introduction cut from the tape.

Lewisohn noted that sound effects were then “made” for the beginning of the song. It can only be assumed that sound effects were gathered from the EMI tape library, a common source of such material for Beatles recording. The results of this work were not used on the track.

After it was decided that neither the edit nor the sound effects should be used in the song’s opening, the original introduction was not replaced on the master remix. This explains why the release version of the song begins with McCartney’s vocal, and not an instrumental lead in.

From “The Beatles Recording Reference Manual – Volume 5” by Jerry Hammack

Attention then turned to “The End,” which was edited down by removing 36 seconds from the guitar solo section, reducing the track’s length from 2:41 to 2:05.

The day concluded with the creation of a safety copy of the album’s master tape. Both the master and the safety copy were taken by engineer Geoff Emerick to Apple Studios, where Malcolm Davis cut the album to disc. Notably, “Abbey Road” became the first UK Beatles album not to be cut at EMI by Harry Moss.

Session activities

1. Maxwell's Silver Hammer

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Editing • Editing of master

2. The End

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Editing • Editing of master

3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Recording • Unnumbered sound effects take

4. Tape copying of Abbey Road LP masters

   Tape copying

Staff

Production staff

Going further

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions • Mark Lewisohn

The definitive guide for every Beatles recording sessions from 1962 to 1970. We owe a lot to Mark Lewisohn for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - the number of takes for each song, who contributed what, a description of the context and how each session went, various photographies... And an introductory interview with Paul McCartney!

Buy on Amazon

The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 5: Let It Be through Abbey Road (1969 - 1970)

The fifth and final book of this critically acclaimed series, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 5: Let It Be through Abbey Road (1969 - 1970)" follows The Beatles as they "get back to where they once belonged...". Not once, but twice. With "Let It Be", they attempted to recapture the spontaneity of their early years and recordings, while "Abbey Road" was a different kind of return - to the complexity, finish and polish that they had applied to their work beginning with "Revolver" and through to "The Beatles".

Buy on Amazon

Solid State: The Story of "Abbey Road" and the End of the Beatles

Acclaimed Beatles historian Kenneth Womack offers the most definitive account yet of the writing, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road. In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound, and included "Come Together," "Something," and "Here Comes the Sun," which all emerged as classics.

Buy on Amazon