Sound engineer turned work into art form
Sound engineer Geoff Emerick died Tuesday at age 72.
The Beatles had become a phenomenon with Rubber Soul and Meet the Beatles, crafting intricate, melodic tunes, but the Fab Four were growing creatively restless. They wanted to expand the band’s sound, to push the limit of what a song could be — so by 1966, they quit touring and focused on doing just that.
And now Lennon wanted to sound like the most important Gelug monk sitting on a mountain for the psychedelic Revolver cut Tomorrow Never Knows. In today’s world, computer programs for such sonic alteration abound — just look at the rise of Auto-Tune. But at the time, the studio itself was considered a place to record musicians, not an instrument in and of itself.
"When I was asked by George Martin, 'Do you want to do the Beatles?' I was just terrified, and the little eeny-meeny-miney-moe thing (in my head), it stopped on 'Yes, I'll do it.' — Geoff Emerick
Source: Travis Andrews/winnipegfreepress.com
