Remixing "Abbey Road"

Beginning in 2017, Giles Martin embarked on a mission to bring a contemporary sound to the Beatles album, aligning these remixes with the 50th anniversaries of their original releases. This journey of sonic rejuvenation started with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 2017, followed by the White Album in 2018 and “Abbey Road” in 2019.

Giles Martin, assisted by mixing engineer Sam Okell, remixed “Abbey Road” in stereo, high res stereo, 5.1 surround, and Dolby Atmos.

It then continued with “Let It Be” in 2020, though the latter’s release shifted to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and “Revolver” in 2022.

The Beatles will celebrate Abbey Road’s 50th anniversary with a suite of beautifully presented packages to be released this Friday [September 27]. The album’s 17 tracks are newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell at Abbey Road in stereo, high res stereo, 5.1 surround, and Dolby Atmos, accompanied by 23 session recordings and demos, most of which are previously unreleased.

Martin and Okell worked on the new Abbey Road mixes with Abbey Road’s expert team of engineers and audio restoration specialists. All of the editions feature the new stereo album mix, sourced from the original eight-track session tapes. Giles Martin used the original stereo mix by his father George Martin as his guide.

An integral part of the Abbey Road family, having produced and mixed many projects at the studios, we sat down and spoke with Giles about the process behind remixing The Beatles’ last recorded album, what we can expect from the reissue and his work at the studios.

From Giles Martin on Remixing The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’

The original album does sound great. The stereo positioning is pretty modern, with most lead vocals in the centre, for example, and there were no major technical issues that needed fixing. After we had remixed Sgt. Pepper’s and The White Album, Apple Records [the Beatle’s record label] was indeed concerned about whether it would be worthwhile remixing Abbey Road. So Giles and I had a go to see what would happen, and whether it was justified. We ended up making changes that are far more subtle than those that you hear on Sgt. Pepper’s, but we felt that they were valid. There are many subtle changes in the balances and positioning, and we expanded on many of the mono sources that are hard panned and hard positioned, in order to try to create a more cohesive stereo image.

Sam Okell – Mixing engineer – From AudioTechnology, November 18, 2019

TRANSFERRING ABBEY ROAD

As with the other albums, the first step of the remixing process for Abbey Road was to transfer all the original analogue tapes to Pro Tools. “All tapes were running at 15ips, which means each tape can contain about 28 minutes of material,” explains Okell. “Each tape has successions of different takes including the initial takes, the take that was used for the final mix, and numerous overdubs and bounces. We also had two different test tapes — CCIR and MRL — to align the tape machines; one sounding slightly brighter than the other. So we did numerous transfers from each tape. The first transfers were of the entire tapes, which gave us all the bounces, alternative takes and so on to refer to and perhaps even use – allowing us to go back a generation or two as we did with Sgt. Pepper’s and The White Album.”

The next transfers were a little more complicated, as Okell explains: “The speed those old tape machines run at depends on the fluctuating voltage of their power supplies; one day they would run a tiny bit faster or slower than another day. These were tiny fluctuations, not like with Sgt. Pepper’s where there were sometimes differences of a semitone. For speed references we decided to use the earlier 2009 remasters of Abbey Road, that I’d been involved in making, because our idea for the 50th anniversary version was the same as our idea for the 2009 version: we wanted to get as close as possible to what it sounded like at the time in terms of speed and pitch. So for these transfers we created a Pro Tools session for each song, and at the top of that session we loaded in the 2009 stereo remaster of that song as a sync reference. Then we’d go through the original tapes, find the take that the final mix for that song was built from, and transfer that into the session in sync with the 2009 remaster.”

“Because Abbey Road was all recorded on eight-track they were able to do a lot of bouncing of tracks internally on to that one tape. In many cases they then deleted the original tracks to make room for more tracks, which meant that we could not go back a generation. In some cases they worked with two eight-track recorders, or a combination of an eight-track and a four-track recorder, bouncing from one tape to another, and those tapes did enable us to go back a generation to get separate tracks, like we did with Sgt. Pepper’s.”

REMIXING ABBEY ROAD

After all the tapes were transferred into Pro Tools, Giles and Okell tried to approximate the original mix of each song as closely as possible in terms of levels, panning, EQ, compression, delays, reverbs and other effects. This involved many hours of close listening and comparing. When they did the Sgt. Pepper’s remixes they used a lot of the same outboard gear that was used for the original mixes, including the classic REDD valve mixer that was used at the time, along with some some choice plugins. According to Okell, things were different for the Abbey Road remixes.

“We had some mix notes, but for the most part we had to recreate the original mixes using our ears. We did the Abbey Road mixes in-the-box, and treatments tended to be more plugin-based than analogue-based because we were not looking for a lot of extreme processing. We often used plugin approximations of vintage gear. What we had with this album were good sounding recordings; when we simply played back the basic sessions we got a pretty good representation of the final mix. So what we had to do for Abbey Road was more subtle than Sgt. Pepper’s or The White Album: how can we improve the tonal qualities of some of the sounds, and how can we improve the stereo sound stage? These subtle changes could, for the most part, be achieved by using plugins.”

Two years earlier, when remixing Sgt. Pepper’s, Martin and Okell relied heavily on vintage goodies like EMI’s RS124 compressor and RS127 Brilliance Control, Fairchild’s 660 compressor, EMT’s 140 plate, and the studio’s REDD desk. They also used a process called ADT (Artificial Double Tracking) – a technique devised by Abbey Road engineer Ken Townsend that involved two tape recorders playing back two identical signals, with the varispeed of one of them used to vary the playback speed by a few milliseconds to create a phasing or ‘wobble’ effect (depending on how much varispeed is applied). For the Abbey Road remixes the only hardware Giles and Okell used were an EMT 140 plate, the tape recorders required to recreate the ADT effect, and the REDD desk – the latter because the original Abbey Road sound engineer, Geoff Emerick, felt that the transistorized TG12345 desk had a less punchy sound, contributing to a “kinder, gentler” feel.

According to Okell, “Geoff has said that he couldn’t get quite the same sound with the TG desk as with the REDD desk. The TG is a very good desk; it’s cleaner, but it does not overdrive in the same way as the REDD desk does. The REDD also has a different approach to EQ, with just a high shelf and a low shelf, and you tend to max these out and get this big ‘smiley face’ EQ curve. So for many of the songs on Abbey Road we ran individual parts through the REDD desk, sometimes EQing and sometimes overdriving them to different degrees to get some of that character that might have been missing in the original mixes of Abbey Road due to being mixed through the TG. That was quite effective.”

“On Sgt. Pepper’s they were into using the ADT for the phasing effect, most famously on John’s vocal in ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.’ For Abbey Road they were more in love with the wobble effect, for example on the Moog synth sounds. There is no real plugin equivalent for ADT. There’s Waves’ Reel ADT plug-in, which is fine for when you want a general phasey sound but it is too much of a sledgehammer if you want to do very detailed stuff, such as vary a very small amount of delay. If you do ADT with analogue tape machines you can control it as you print it, and if something does not sound right you can go back and do it again. It’s amazing that the tools they had at the time, apart from EQ and compression, were all tape-based – from simple tape delays to the psychedelic comb filtering effect that you get with very close ADT.”

“Vocals were an important part of our focus during all of these remixes. The lead vocal for ‘Here Comes The Sun’ is fuller and louder than in the original, and we think it sounded better. We did the same thing on ‘Something,’ pushing the lead vocal to be decidedly louder – it seemed oddly quiet on the original. And on ‘Oh Darling’ we did quite a bit of work with FabFilter’s ProQ to make Lennon’s lead vocal less harsh. It makes the song more attractive.“

“All mixes for all the songs were sent to the Stereo Process aux, which is the master track. The signal chain was Waves Redd 37/51, UAD Chandler Abbey Road Curve Bender Mastering EQ, a Kush Audio UBK1, FabFilter Pro-Q2, Waves SSL Bus compressor, Waves Abbey Road TG12345 channel strip, UAD Studer A800 emulation and a UAD Fairchild 660, with the settings tweaked per song. I printed each mix at the top of the session and sent it to Miles Showell, who mastered the album with Giles present. We weren’t too bothered about the mixes needing to be loud in general, or being louder than the 2009 master. When you compare our remixes to any contemporary stuff, they are way quieter. It is not about loudness!”

Instead, as Giles Martin had noted earlier, the remixes were about “improving the mixes for modern ears.” Whether any of the “trying to break some new ground” approaches taken on the Abbey Road remixes will meet with universal approval, or finally have the purists up in arms about ‘repainting the Sistine Chapel’, will be clear by the time you read this…

From AudioTechnology, November 18, 2019

The Abbey Road studios were equipped to record the Beatles the way they needed to be recorded by 1969 standards, and so there a long way had been come, as you’ve said, just from “Sgt. Pepper” two years before, in terms of not having any compromises in the number of tracks that could co-exist on tape without folding them over, and not having to reconcile the merits of separate mono and stereo mixes. So going into an “Abbey Road” remix, were you thinking, “Well, there’s not much to improve on here,” or is it just as fun when there are subtler things to do?

Giles Martin: Yeah, it’s more subtle, I suppose, would be the answer. As you rightly say, the technology had changed, so “Abbey Road” to a certain extent is a much more modern-sounding Beatles record than the others. Simple things like the desk could change in the studio, so they could plug in more microphones to record the drum kit, to give a really rough example, and so that gives you a more modern recording. In a way, “Abbey Road” sounds a bit more like a ‘70s record, say, than it does a ‘60s record. It’s a bit more hi-fi. And so therefore when you go to remix them, not only are you competing with the great engineering talents of somebody like Geoff Emerick and Glyn Johns and my dad, but also there’s less of myself and Sam Okell sitting in the studio and going, “Oh, we can just use technology on this one.” To give you an example, we remixed “Come Together” I don’t know how many times before we felt like we were getting there with it, just because every time we did something, it didn’t sound as good as the original.

“Come Together” does sound astonishing, and part of that is how unusual and perfect Ringo’s drums sound, once you start thinking about them on this track. There are quotes in the companion book about how happy he was with the new calfskin drumheads on his tom-toms at the time. How do you go about improving a drum part? Is it panning, as some people have pointed out?

You know, it is a bit of panning to a certain degree. I mean, I had an idea way back when we did “Sgt. Pepper” that we could chop each individual sound and then use that in panning. So we did this with “Come Together,” where the drums actually pan slightly, because we took each drum hit and just panned it slightly across the sound field. Now, modern-day recordings, they have all drums in the center, because they sound stronger. And actually we did that with “Come Together,” and then we realized it that it didn’t sound as good. The drums need to be slightly to one side — they need to be slightly off-kilter, if you like — in order to make it sound cool.

Because the thing about the Beatles is, they’re playing this live. I mean, it’s bass, drums and guitar live, and John singing live into a microphone. And if you lose that sense of them being in a studio together, it falls apart — even on psychedelic Beatle tracks, I find. The beauty of them is the noise they make within themselves. And the more studio gizmos we put on top of that, the less it’s Beatles. The hardest thing to achieve is obviously natural talent, which they had. So the attention always when we approach these remix projects is to actually peel back the layers, you know, not to add too much technology.

I love the idea that records don’t get old. We get old around records. And when Paul McCartney or John Lennon are performing, they’re in their late 20s, and they will always be that age. And nowadays with the global jukebox we have to deal with these days, people listen to Ed Sheeran next to the Beatles next to Duran Duran next to whoever it is, and there’s no reason why the Beatles shouldn’t sound (as aurally impressive as) Ed Sheeran, who is the same age as the Beatles were when they did “Abbey Road.”

With “The End,” that’s a celebrated moment with the three different guitar solos. Did you want to do something there to sort of bring out the distinctiveness of the guitar solos, how they were spaced or placed?

Yeah, because the three boys went in and recorded the guitar solos live — they’re all playing that live onto the same piece of tape — and so now we can just select each one and put them in a different space. It’s nice to know now you can hear, because they’re in different positions, Paul, John and George playing. Or Paul, George and John, I think, is the order; I’ll probably get it wrong as usual. But one’s in the center, one’s left, one’s right. Again, that’s just because that’s probably how it was (on the studio floor). Going back to the non-gimmicky side of stuff, you get the sense that that’s what they’d have done if they’d been able to. It’s a terrible presumption to make, you know, obviously, what the Beatles would have done. But I did have the great fortune of working with my dad for so long that I kind of knew the way he thought about stuff.

Speaking of your dad, one of the great highlights on this is the pure orchestration track of “Something.” There’s also an orchestra-only track of “Golden Slumbers”/”Carry That Weight,” but in that case, there are parts that drop out to just let the band play. “Something,” though, really stands as a piece of great symphonic music that you can listen to on its own.

I’m really happy you’re saying that. Because in putting this thing together, you kind of don’t want to be … People think I’m biased towards my dad in this stuff. But I agree with you. I think it’s a really beautiful piece of music. I’ve always thought “Something” was the most beautiful song; I didn’t realize how much beauty was in it. And I think that hearing something like that string arrangement on its own reveals the intricacy that goes into this. I can’t think of many records now where you would be able to just solo an instrument or a track and go “Oh, yeah that sustains itself.”

Among the outtakes, an obvious standout is “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” with the three and a half minute organ solo by Billy Preston. It’s fascinating to think of that as a road not taken, like people probably would have loved if it had been on the album, but it’s also very 1969 — more of its time then what they ended up with.

Yeah, and I suppose it’s typical of the Beatles, and typical of John Lennon, that you have this phenomenal keyboard playing, and what do you replace it with? You replace it with white noise, the most discordant, all-frequency sound there is. But the white noise becomes iconic. It being the Beatles, I suppose their thought process would have been, “Well, everyone’s heard a great keyboard solo, but how many people have heard this?” It’s very typical Beatles that they would do that. What I also love about the outtake of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is John’s reaction to the complaints from outside that they’re making too much noise. I love the fact that here we are with what I guess was known as the angriest Beatle, and he’s like, “Oh, okay, we’ll turn down, then.” That’s what his attitude is, not like: “We’re the Beatles! We can play as loud as we want!” I think he’s really charming in that, and I think it just shows what a good place they’re in.

The book tantalizingly mentions another, faster version of “I Want You” that they did, maybe as a lark, while the engineers were doing a test, and it’s not included in here. It seems like maybe there was some quality control exercised, because there are fewer outtakes on this particular set, and there are probably several different reasons for that…

It’s a really good question, or good point. In all honesty, there’s no discussion (to pre-determine) how many tracks we’ll have. The record label often wants to know how many tracks we would have because they’ve got to start working out how many CDs in the package. But the way we made those decisions is purely down to what’s good. It’s down to the Beatles as well. And so we will listen to everything. And I think the key thing we think about is that we do this so the music can be enjoyed. We don’t try and do this so it can be added to a collection.

And we think carefully about it. Because for instance, George thought doing the “Anthology” (collections of outtakes in the 1990s) was scraping the bottom of the barrel. And he was a Beatle, and I think he’s got a point. I think we have to make sure that the quality is there. And I think with the White Album we had an abundance of riches, where, possibly because of the way “Abbey Road” was recorded, with fewer takes, more rehearsal time, no acoustic demos, etc., we had less material to use. It wasn’t “for this album, we’ll put on less extras.” If we are doing “Abbey Road,” we’re going to do “Abbey Road” as best as we can and not hold anything back from it. That would be no good at all. We’re not saving anything for the 60th anniversary!

In the book it says a majority of songs on “Abbey Road” were actually recorded in some form at some point during the “Let It Be” sessions. So it seems safe to guess that when the “Let It Be” box comes out, that will have some of the roughest versions or snippets of “Abbey Road” songs.

In all honesty, I have actually started working on the “Let It Be” film, which is this Peter Jackson project, but I haven’t been asked to do any record stuff yet. So I don’t honestly know the answer to that.

Again, if there’s material that’s good and it’s worth listening to, then we always try and get the fans to be able to hear it. But you’re talking to the son of someone who strongly believed that singles shouldn’t be on an album because you’re making the fans buy the music too many times! So there’s that spiritual level of, if people are going to part with their hard-earned cash, let’s make sure it’s all good enough.

From Beatles Remixer and Curator Giles Martin on Re-Crossing ‘Abbey Road’

The Dolby Atmos version

For the first time, we have produced a Dolby Atmos version of the album alongside a 5.1 surround mix. But, whether in fully immersive audio or in stereo, this is still Abbey Road. It is not a record that sounds like the greatest band in history winding down. Far from it. It is one of their greatest ever achievements in a recording studio – a masterful combination of performance and technical expertise. I am so grateful that this album exists and even more grateful to Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia for asking me to work on this 50th anniversary edition.

Giles Martin – From 2019 “Abbey Road” Deluxe Edition

What are some of your favorite moments in the Abbey Road Atmos mixes?

“Because” is three tracks of vocal, three tracks of three Beatles singing together. John, Paul, and George sang harmonies together and then did it three times. We also put that back into Studio Two. You get to create this beautiful sound field that wraps around you and you fall into it. It sounds unearthly.

“Sun King” is an interesting example, because you have the crickets in the back. And then the guitar on the [original] record pans left to right. But now in Dolby Atmos, I pushed the sound field further so it comes to the side of you and goes around. You’re dealing with a record that’s been around for 50 years that everyone loves, and no one’s ever said sounded bad. So it’s a bit of a tricky job. But what I like to do is follow what they wanted to do. They panned, so I follow the panning, but we pan around you, as opposed to just side to side. And that’s a really good example of immersive audio.

In “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” you have the organ in the back right. It’s simple, but very striking.

Yeah, it works well in the back. And then of course there’s that white noise in that song that goes on for years. We have that swirling around you. Yeah, that moves around. And again, if I had the whole record swirling around, it would probably make you feel a bit sick. It’s like being in a tornado — you need to be stationary to feel the tornado. If you’re in the tornado, you’re gonna be just moving round and round. You want to be stationary so you can feel the wind around you.

Giles Martin – From The Beatles in Spatial Audio: Giles Martin on How It All Works (rollingstone.com), July 28, 2021

Session activities

1. Come Together

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

2. Something

   Written by George Harrison

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

4. Oh! Darling

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

5. Octopus's Garden

   Written by Ringo Starr

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

6. I Want You (She's So Heavy)

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

7. Here Comes The Sun

   Written by George Harrison

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

8. Because

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

9. You Never Give Me Your Money

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing

   AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

10. Sun King

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

11. Mean Mr. Mustard

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

12. Polythene Pam

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

14. Golden Slumbers

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

15. Carry That Weight

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

16. The End

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

17. Her Majesty

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

    Mixing

    AlbumOfficially released on Abbey Road (50th anniversary boxset)

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

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