Geoff Emerick, Beloved Beatles Engineer, Dead at 72

[rdmtimp]

Source: Rolling Stone

Geoff Emerick, the audio engineer who worked on several Beatles classics including Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road, died Tuesday. Emerick’s agent, David Maida, confirmed the engineer’s death to Rolling Stone, adding that the cause of death was a heart attack. He was 72.

Emerick’s manager, William Zabaleta, posted a video, in which he said he was on the phone with Emerick when the engineer suddenly fell ill. Zabelta immediately called 911 but by the time an ambulance arrived it was too late. “Geoff suffered from heart problems for a long time,” Zabaleta said. “He had a pacemaker and, you know, when it’s your time, it’s your time. We lost a legend and a best friend to me, and a mentor.”

Dr. Kenneth Womack, who is the biographer of storied Beatles producer George Martin, shared a statement with Rolling Stone, saying, “Geoff Emerick was a groundbreaking engineer, particularly in terms of his eagerness to try anything and everything to meet his artists’ expectations. He famously captured John Lennon sounding like the Dalai Lama on a mountaintop for Revolver‘s ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ later bringing the Beatles’ career to a close in fine style on Abbey Road. Like his mentor, producer George Martin, Emerick was always laser-focused on getting the best out of the track that his artists presented. Working at that granular level, he proved himself to be the greatest engineer of his generation.”

Emerick first worked with the Beatles in September 1962 when he was just 16 and had only started as an assistant at EMI Studios – later known as Abbey Road – the day before. Over the next few years, Emerick worked a variety of jobs at EMI – lacquer cutter, mastering engineer, balance engineer – and periodically helped out on early Beatles sessions that produced classics like “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Martin officially asked Emerick to serve as the Beatles’ sound engineer in 1966, and the first track he helped cut was Revolver‘s “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/geoff-emerick-beatles-engineer-dead-obituary-732363/

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[lunamagica]

1. ...

[Make7]

2. Sad news.

[ZZenith]

3. "Here, There and Everywhere."

Do yourself a favor and get your hands on that memoir. You’ll get a keen grasp on what a gentle and creative soul he was.

I owe him so much...

[emulatorloo]

8. Yes it is a wonderful book

[FakeNoose]

4. Sad news :(

Geoff Emerick wrote a fascinating book "Here, There, and Everywhere" (2007) about the early days of the Beatles' recording studio at Abbey Road. Recommended reading.

RIP Geoff Emerick

[dhill926]

12. I'll have to check this out...

thanks...

[ElementaryPenguin]

15. I talked to Geoff once at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

When he was promoting his book. An incredibly sweet and humble human being. I thanked him for his efforts with the Beatles and he was most appreciative, and said about that "we were just doing our jobs."

For big Beatle fans: I asked Geoff who's riff it was for "And Your Bird Can Sing" - and who played it: He told me it was John's riff, and that John and George tracked it together at the same time (a harmony - a 3rd, I would guess).

He signed my book, and it's one of my favorite Beatle books.

[FakeNoose]

16. Cool & awesome story!

I'v been to the R&R Hall of Fame a handful of times because I'm only about 2 hours away from Cleveland. It's a great place to see Beatles memorabilia. But also many other rock bands and the Motown and singing groups of the 60's. So much to see there.

[C Moon]

5. ...

[peekaloo]

6. he also worked with Elvis Costello

on one of my favorites 'Imperial Bedroom'. Lovely orchestrations by Steve Nieve were wonderfully produced by Mr. Emerick.

RIP

[Nitram]

7. The Beatles were a remarkable collaboration between the 4 musicians, their engineer and their

producer. Credit should probably be given to some studio musicians who recorded for them, too. The Beatles were a Phenomenon.

[turbinetree]

9. Our generation is passing..........and great engineer is gone.......

And a single that did not make the Revolver Album ....................

[ProfessorGAC]

10. RIP Geoff

Wow, that was a young crowd to be doing such work. Everyone but George Martin must have been in their 20's and Martin just a little older.

[hunter]

11. Sound engineering in the days of tape and vinyl was a magical mix of art and science.

Sound engineers played their analog equipment like musical instruments.

The last musical instrument in the chain was the phonograph, a profoundly difficult device.

[ZZenith]

13. It's still a magical mix of art and science!

The tools are different but the objectives have not changed in the least.

We have the “undo” button now, which takes a bit of the pressure off, I’ll grant you that.

[hunter]

14. Audacity is free...

https://www.audacityteam.org/

It's power unimaginable to anyone who worked with 'sixties electronics, and it all fits in an ordinary laptop computer. Throw in a high quality USB sound card and you are good to go.

Perhaps more importantly than the "undo" button, is that the quality of digital recordings doesn't degrade with each generation. And unlike tape, the original multi-track digital recording doesn't degrade slightly every time it is replayed.

Modern sound engineers don't have to have a deeply intuitive understanding of RIAA equalization unless they are producing primarily for vinyl.

The limitations of RIAA equalization had a profound effect on the sound of music produced for vinyl albums. It's easy to produce music that sounds fine on a CD but horrible on a phonograph. Default RIAA compression settings can do terrible things to music that wasn't recorded for vinyl.

Music produced for LP records had to sound good on everything from inexpensive record players to very expensive turntables. That's still a very difficult target, and one a sound engineer had to be thinking about from the very beginning, before the first track was recorded.

[ZZenith]

17. All true -

And now we have to be thinking about vinyl, CD, mp3, and DVD. And it has to sound good on cheap earbuds, car stereos, cellphones and expensive home systems. The biggest challenge with digital is that it’s almost too pristine, and getting everything to glue together into a cohesive sound can be a huge task.

I started out in the days of tape and vinyl and have had to make the transition into the digital world - reluctantly at first, but now I embrace it fully. People like Geoff Emerick showed us what’s possible with multi-track and now, with enough effort, if you can hear it in your head you can make it come out of the speakers. But it’s still really easy to make bad-sounding music and really hard to make a perfect recording!