Recording the Beatles

I finally had a chance to delve into some of this book. If you are a big fan of the Beatles, but not
a musician (or have no real interest on HOW records are made with the equipment and instruments),
this book may be a bit over the top for you. I am a HUGE fan, plus I am a musician AND have a small
recording studio, so I am interested in all parts of this book.

BUT, the massaive amount of the book that is dedicated to instruments and recording equipment is
really only there for reference. It isnt enjoyable reading. It is like looking through a Chilton's

terra...

Not really. It is of interest to those of us who are also interested in
recording and who always heard of famous equipment but never really had
access to using it and therefore never really knowing WHY this equipment
was supposed to be so good for the time. At least, I found it
interesting in that manner.

Car Manual. The best part of the book is the PRODUCTION section. But it is only 180pgs out of the
530 pages of the book. I just got through the Rubber Soul album and there was plenty of info there.

tom...

The book does what it sets out to do. Complaining that it doesn't
itemize each song is a little like saying "Day in the Life" is a nice
song but you can't dance to it;)

But sooooo much isnt there. There are only about 8 pages about Rubber Soul. And a lot of those pages
are pics and charts on how they recorded the songs (bouncing, multitracking,etc). I would have liked
every song to get a treatment of how it was recorded instead of a general overview like Paul pretty
much overdubbed his bass lines from Michelle onward instead of being recorded as part of the basic
track. Dont get me wrong.... that is good information, but not many specifics are here. Why was
there no mention that Wait was actually a left over instrumental from the Help LP and then the
vocals were added for Rubber Soul (according to Lewisohn's Recording Sessions, if I remember
correctly)?

terra...

because you already knew that (as we all do) from other books. Why
repeat info already otut there if there is new info to add? obviously
much of what you ask would have made it a 20 year project rather than a
ten year, and it would have just compiled everything known into one book
(which would be twice the size! Unreadable!). Likely Lewisohn's three
volume tome will be that BOOK for you, but this fills in the gaps and
codifies the process as had never been done before, so it is quite a
valuable resource for those into this stuff...

So, this is definitely not THE BOOK, although, it's size and weight make it look like it is. I am
not complaining overall. I am glad I bought it and I am really glad that I am into the engineering
side of the music business, but I know that I have major Beatles fan friends and when they see the
book, they are no interested in this much technical information for the price of the book.

terra...

I too wish it had stories about all my pet questions and favorites, and
have been dsappointed to look up a song not even covered in it, but then
that is not what it was written to do. There probably is no one book
that will ever be all things, it's like asking for just one book about
WWII.

I'll keep posting as I read along.