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Thursday, August 8, 1968

Mixing "Hey Jude", recording "Not Guilty"

For The Beatles

Last updated on October 26, 2024

The twelve-hour session, running from 6:40 pm to 6:30 am, began with the creation of new mono mixes for “Hey Jude.” The day before at Abbey Road, a copy of the mono mix created at Trident Studios on August 6, 1968, had been made. However, listening to this copy brought a bad surprise, as engineer Ken Scott recalls:

I went to Trident to see the Beatles doing Hey Jude and was completely blown away by it. It sounded incredible. A couple of days later, back at Abbey Road, I got in well before the group. Acetates were being cut and I went up to hear one. On different equipment, with different EQ levels and different monitor settings, it sounded awful, nothing like it had at Trident.

Later on, I was sitting in number two control room and George Martin came in. I said ‘George, you know that stuff you did at Trident?’ ‘Yes – how does it sound?’ I said ‘In all honesty, it sounds terrible!’ ‘What?’ ‘There’s absolutely no high-end on it, no treble.’

Just then Paul McCartney came in and George said to him ‘Ken thinks Hey Jude’ sounds awful’. The look that came from Paul towards me… if looks could kill, it was one of those situations. Anyway, they went down to the studio floor, clearly talking about it, and one by one all the other Beatles came in and joined them. I could see them talking and then look up at me, and then talk again, and then look at me. I thought, ‘Oh God, I’m going to get thrown off the session’. Finally, they all came storming up and said ‘OK, let’s see if it’s as bad as you say. Go get the tape and we’ll have a listen’. Luckily, they agreed with me, it did sound bad. We spent the rest of the evening trying to EQ it and get some high-end on it. But for a while there I wanted to crawl under a stone and die.

Ken Scott – Engineer – From “The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions” by Mark Lewisohn, 1988

Geoff Emerick, who had ceased involvement with The Beatles’ sessions after departing on July 16, was requested to help:

It was about an hour or so later that George (Martin) spotted me in the hallway and asked me to help out…’Geoff, are you busy doing something right now?’ he asked. ‘No, I’m just on my way to dinner,’ I replied. ‘Ah, good,’ he said. ‘Would you mind coming in and having a listen to something?’ George opened the control room door and I saw four very unhappy Beatles gathered around a flustered Ken Scott, who was tweaking the controls of a piece of outboard equipment that we called a Curve Bender. The song they were listening to was called ‘Hey Jude’…the recording quality was poor, with no top end whatsoever.

When the playback ended, George said, ‘I’ve got a visitor here who might be able to help.’ Paul was the first to spot me; he broke into a big grin and gave me a wave from the back of the room. ‘Ah, the prodigal son returns!,’ John called out brightly. Even George Harrison gave me a warm handshake and said quietly, ‘Hello, Geoff. Thanks for stopping in – we really appreciate it.’

‘The boys recorded and mixed this track at Trident a few days ago,’ George Martin explained, ‘and we’re having a bit of difficulty getting it to sound right. Would you mind having a go?’ Ken (Scott) looked up from the console. ‘I listened to the tracks at Trident and they sounded fine,’ he told me anxiously, ‘but when we got back here…well, you can hear how bad it is.’ Obviously something at Trident had been misaligned, and the only hope of salvaging the mix was to whack on massive amounts of treble equalization. I walked over to the console and Ken motioned for me to sit down. John Smith rewound the tape repeatedly while I worked at the controls. Eventually we got it to sound pretty good, although the track still didn’t have the kind of in-your-face presence that characterizes most Beatles recordings done at Abbey Road…I might not have done anything that Ken himself wasn’t doing – I think that all they really wanted was my stamp of approval. All four Beatles thanked me profusely as I left.

Geoff Emerick – From “Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles“, 2006

The root cause of the problem was explained in “The Beatles” Super Deluxe edition book (2018):

It was discovered, in time for later Beatles recordings at Trident, that part of the problem was due to the studio’s American tape machines being set to the US equalisation curve NAB, while Abbey Road used the UK standard CCIR. To resolve this in the future, Trident tapes were always copied at Abbey Road with the correct NAB setting during playback.

From “The Beatles” Super Deluxe edition book (2018)

Three mono mixes were then made and labelled RM2 to RM4, with the last one being released as the single.


After the work on “Hey Jude,” The Beatles resumed work on George Harrison’s “Not Guilty,“ which they had started the day before. George Harrison was on electric guitar, Paul McCartney on bass, and Ringo Starr on drums, similar to the previous session. John Lennon switched from electric piano to harpsichord.

In pursuit of a satisfactory basic rhythm track, they recorded 51 takes that day, numbered Take 47 to Take 97. Subsequently, four reduction mixes were made, numbered Take 98 to Take 101. This session marked the first time The Beatles exceeded the 100-take milestone. A fifth reduction mix, Take 102, was made the following day.

[…] They kept going until take 97. There were several reduction mixes of this take in which drums and bass were combined on track one and harpsichord and guitar were mixed on track two. When a third attempt at a reduction mix took the number of takes to 100, Ken Scott made a point of marking this milestone by announcing the number with tape echo on his voice! The final reduction mix – called take 102 – was given overdubs the following night.

From “The Beatles” Super Deluxe edition book (2018)

At the end of the session, copies were made of the mono masters of “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” and were taken away by George Martin.


Session activities

  1. Hey Jude

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 2 from take 1

  2. Hey Jude

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 3 from take 1

  3. Hey Jude

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 4 from take 1

    AlbumOfficially released on Hey Jude / Revolution

  4. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 47

  5. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 48

  6. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 49

  7. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 50

  8. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 51

  9. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 52

  10. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 53

  11. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 54

  12. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 55

  13. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 56

  14. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 57

  15. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 58

  16. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 59

  17. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 60

  18. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 61

  19. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 62

  20. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 63

  21. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 64

  22. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 65

  23. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 66

  24. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 67

  25. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 68

  26. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 69

  27. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 70

  28. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 71

  29. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 72

  30. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 73

  31. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 74

  32. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 75

  33. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 76

  34. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 77

  35. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 78

  36. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 79

  37. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 80

  38. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 81

  39. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 82

  40. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 83

  41. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 84

  42. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 85

  43. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 86

  44. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 87

  45. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 88

  46. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 89

  47. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 90

  48. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 91

  49. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 92

  50. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 93

  51. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 94

  52. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 95

  53. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 96

  54. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Recording • Take 97

  55. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Tape copying • Tape reduction take 97 into take 98

  56. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Tape copying • Tape reduction take 97 into take 99

  57. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Tape copying • Tape reduction take 97 into take 100

  58. Not Guilty

    Written by George Harrison

    Tape copying • Tape reduction take 97 into take 101

  59. Hey Jude

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Tape copying • Tape copying of remix mono 4, numbered 5

  60. Revolution

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Tape copying • Tape copying of remix mono 21, numbered 5


Staff

Musicians on "Not Guilty"

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!

Shop on Amazon

The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 4: The Beatles through Yellow Submarine (1968 - early 1969)

The fourth book of this critically acclaimed series, "The Beatles Recording Reference Manual: Volume 4: The Beatles through Yellow Submarine (1968 - early 1969)" captures The Beatles as they take the lessons of Sgt. Pepper forward with an ambitious double-album that is equally innovative and progressive. From the first take to the final remix, discover the making of the greatest recordings of all time. Through extensive, fully-documented research, these books fill an important gap left by all other Beatles books published to date and provide a unique view into the recordings of the world's most successful pop music act.

Shop on Amazon

If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.

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