The Beatles quit performing in live after their concert in Candlestick Park in 1966. They spent more time in the studio, creating music that was more experimental and innovational.
Double Tracking
Although the Beatles weren’t the first group to adapt the use of double tracking, their innovational use of this technique in their album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” brought an impact to the popular music culture.
Double Tracking is a process to of recording the same track multiple times and mixing it with the original track to improve the sound to create a thickness in the sound, or add necessary parts that was missing in the first track. This can be clearly spotted in the vocal sound from the song "A Day In The Life" from the album "Sgt. Pepper's".
John-"We were always asking George Martin, 'Please give us double tracking without having to track it--save time.' And then one of the engineers who was working with us [Ken Townsend] came in the next day with this machine. We'd got ADT--and that was beautiful." (Roylance,2000).
Complying to Lennon's demand of creating a machine that could instantly produce d and desire to create his voice sound like "Dalai Lama chanting from a mountain top", Ken Townsend, technical engineer of Abbey Road Studio, invented Artificial Double Track (also known as ADT). ADT automatically creates double tracked material by itself, without having The Beatles to perform the same part again. This technology was majorly used by almost every artists for its convenience.
8 Track Recorder
Also during the Sgt. Pepper’s recordings, another innovational recording technique was invented. The invention of 8 Track Recorder. Before this technology was invented, the only way for the artists to record their songs was by using 4 Track Recorder. Because it can only record four tracks in a single machine, once all four tracks are filled, tracks then had to be transferred to a different machine by combining the initial tracks together .
For instance, if the initial tracks are; 1st track. Drum+ Bass, 2nd track. Guitar (Lead and Rhythm), 3rd track. Main Vocal and 4th track. Chorus , track 1 and 2 will be combined and transferred to the second track recorder as a new 1st track and initial track 3 and 4 on the original track machine will be combined and transferred to the second machine as a new 2nd track. The remaining 2 tracks can be used to record necessary additional instruments. (Ryan & Kehew, 2006)
However an innovational technique was invented in the recording of “A Day In The Life” from the Sgt. Pepper’s album. The invention of 8 Track Recorder. When the tracks of the original tape (4 Track Recorder with basic recordings) became nearly full, Ken Townsend and his engineering crews created a system to record the pulse tone of the original tape and used it to in sync the second recorder. Substantially, this method increased the available tracks from 4 to 8. (MacFarlane, 2012)
Reverse Tape Recording/ Increasing Tape Speed (Double Speed Technique)
John-"Half the musical ideas I've had have been accidental. The first time I discovered backwards guitar was when we made 'Rain'. I took the tracks home to see what gimmicks I could add, because the song wasn't quite right. [...] The first backwards tape on any record anywhere. Before Hendrix, before The Who." (Roylance,2000)
The Beatles were also the pioneers of the well-known technique of reverse tape recording. It is a technique used to play recorded tape in backwards. In the song "Rain, The Beatles attempted the playing tapes on guitar solo track and vocal track on backwards for the first time in the history. (Lipscomb, n.d.)
Double Tracking
Although the Beatles weren’t the first group to adapt the use of double tracking, their innovational use of this technique in their album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” brought an impact to the popular music culture.
Double Tracking is a process to of recording the same track multiple times and mixing it with the original track to improve the sound to create a thickness in the sound, or add necessary parts that was missing in the first track. This can be clearly spotted in the vocal sound from the song "A Day In The Life" from the album "Sgt. Pepper's".
John-"We were always asking George Martin, 'Please give us double tracking without having to track it--save time.' And then one of the engineers who was working with us [Ken Townsend] came in the next day with this machine. We'd got ADT--and that was beautiful." (Roylance,2000).
Complying to Lennon's demand of creating a machine that could instantly produce d and desire to create his voice sound like "Dalai Lama chanting from a mountain top", Ken Townsend, technical engineer of Abbey Road Studio, invented Artificial Double Track (also known as ADT). ADT automatically creates double tracked material by itself, without having The Beatles to perform the same part again. This technology was majorly used by almost every artists for its convenience.
8 Track Recorder
Also during the Sgt. Pepper’s recordings, another innovational recording technique was invented. The invention of 8 Track Recorder. Before this technology was invented, the only way for the artists to record their songs was by using 4 Track Recorder. Because it can only record four tracks in a single machine, once all four tracks are filled, tracks then had to be transferred to a different machine by combining the initial tracks together .
For instance, if the initial tracks are; 1st track. Drum+ Bass, 2nd track. Guitar (Lead and Rhythm), 3rd track. Main Vocal and 4th track. Chorus , track 1 and 2 will be combined and transferred to the second track recorder as a new 1st track and initial track 3 and 4 on the original track machine will be combined and transferred to the second machine as a new 2nd track. The remaining 2 tracks can be used to record necessary additional instruments. (Ryan & Kehew, 2006)
However an innovational technique was invented in the recording of “A Day In The Life” from the Sgt. Pepper’s album. The invention of 8 Track Recorder. When the tracks of the original tape (4 Track Recorder with basic recordings) became nearly full, Ken Townsend and his engineering crews created a system to record the pulse tone of the original tape and used it to in sync the second recorder. Substantially, this method increased the available tracks from 4 to 8. (MacFarlane, 2012)
Reverse Tape Recording/ Increasing Tape Speed (Double Speed Technique)
John-"Half the musical ideas I've had have been accidental. The first time I discovered backwards guitar was when we made 'Rain'. I took the tracks home to see what gimmicks I could add, because the song wasn't quite right. [...] The first backwards tape on any record anywhere. Before Hendrix, before The Who." (Roylance,2000)
The Beatles were also the pioneers of the well-known technique of reverse tape recording. It is a technique used to play recorded tape in backwards. In the song "Rain, The Beatles attempted the playing tapes on guitar solo track and vocal track on backwards for the first time in the history. (Lipscomb, n.d.)