Strawberry Fields Forever

As many of you know, Glenn and I are Beatles fans. We blame them for everything! We could have been doctors or accountants now, happy and fat, but instead, the lure of music was set into us by the boys from Liverpool.

I thought it may be interesting to parallel a recording techniques used by The Beatles against a modern recording. So let’s look at one of their most famous songs, “Strawberry Fields Forever”. The song was the first to be recorded for the new album (unnamed at that stage) but soon to become “Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band”.

As it turns out, Capitol Records started pressuring for a single, So "Strawberry Fields" and "Penny Lane" were issued.  George Martin (Beatles producer) regretted that decision for evermore.  "Imagine what the album would have been like with those two masterpieces on it!" he said.

This was a new era for The Beatles. They had been recording for only four years, but had produced eight albums as well as two singles releases each year. Most acts today only produce one album every four years!  But with all this experience and now being so famous, they could do what ever they wanted.

“Strawberry Fields” was started on the 24th of November 1966. One take with several overdubs and nothing like the finished product. All Beatles recordings at that time were done on four track recorders. Today, you are virtually limitless in the number of tracks you can have, but hardware does set limits. Our systems allows ninety-six tracks at HD resolution. You can buy a four track home system for under two thousand that has a built in mixer and effects. Would The Beatles have used all those tracks???

On the 29th of November, the previous recording was mixed down and John added vocals and piano, with Paul on bass. This mixed and marked as take seven.

Unlike many other bands of the time or future, The Beatles tended to record a number of takes, rather than rehearsing and trying to record one perfect take. This proved to be fortuitous, as not only did they develop ideas ‘under the red light’, but they also had a number of takes which they could edit together later. This method has really made a comeback with digital recording as editing is so fast and easy and disk space is cheap.

A few days later and a few more takes. The best take was then mixed down to another tape, so as to free up tracks. So when we say it was recorded on a four track, it really had more tracks than that. Still, a remarkable feat. Also, you have to wonder at the quality of those recorders.  To be able to mix down even four times and not induce a mountain of tape noise is quite fantastic.

The Beatles could take as long as they wanted to record from this point in their career, so John Lennon decided he didn’t like the effort so far and they recorded new rhythm tracks on the 8/12/66. Cymbals were recorded then played backwards (off tape), mixed with guitars, timpani, bongos and tambourine. Then this was mixed down. Remember that you had to make mix decisions early, as everything was going to one track. If you later decided there was too much cymbal or you wanted to process it, bad luck.

December 9th. More backward cymbals and a swordmandel. Then on the 15th, trumpets and cellos scored by George Martin were recorded to tracks three and four, filling the tape, so another mix was done in stereo, giving two vacant tracks for John to do his vocals. Tracks full again, time to mix down.

At this point in a modern recording, you would have everything separate and have audio processing controlling each sound (if required), plus automated mixes that can be recalled and adjusted at will.

John wanted more, and on the 21st he laid down piano and more vocals. And just so you don’t think sampling started in the eighties, The Beatles used “drum loops” and other loops in many of their songs on Sgt Peppers including “Strawberry Fields”. They had done so in their previous album as well. They made most of these loops at home. A band well ahead of their time.

The recording is a masterpiece and you’d think John would be happy, but not so. He actually liked the old ‘take seven’ and the latest recording, so he suggested to George Martin that they use take seven to start with, then edit to take twenty six. Slight problem, they are in different keys and different tempos. But john is quoted as saying “You can fix it!” The Beatles at that time didn’t believe in the word ‘no’.

On the 22nd of December, George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick started to put it together. They found that if they sped up take seven and slowed down take twenty six, they would amazingly fit together! But remember they have no digital trickery to do it. Today we’d map in the speed and it would be right every time.

Geoff Emerick actually had to manually adjust the speed of the machines to get the pitch and speed right. Then they would edit the recording together and see if it worked.

For those of you who want to know, read on. But you may hear the edit from now on if you do!

It happens at sixty seconds into the song just after one of the ‘Let me take you down” lines.

The only part of the recording process that is the same as when The Beatles did it is the microphone. We still have to stand in front of a microphone and deliver a performance, but the world has changed from there. For instance, chorus vocals are recorded once only in many songs, then just cut and pasted into the next chorus. Then you can just record one line slightly differently to make a ‘new’ feel for that chorus. The same goes for many other instruments. Not all performers do this of course, but the ‘pop’ world is littered with a cut and paste mentality.

So on a rough count & I mean rough, I wasn't there you know!), I'd say The Beatles used about twelve to fourteen tracks to make that song.  They didn't have much in the way of processors for each sound and eq was at a minimum.  Today that song would cover at least sixty tracks, each with audio processing by the bucket load plus a million other effects that didn't exist for The Beatles.

I’m sure if The Beatles had our technology, they’d by cutting and pasting with the best of them, but would they create “Strawberry Fields”? I don’t think so. The organic act of what they did would be hard to reproduce today. It is a superb recording. I’ve read about many performers of the time who said when they first heard that song and the Peppers album, that they felt it was all over. They would never be able to write and record anything that would come close to those songs.

The fact that The Beatles were limited in their technology was probably a huge benefit for them. They pushed it beyond its limits. That would be hard to do today given that you can do almost anything on a modern system.

“Strawberry Fields” is one of the most fantastic recordings you will hear. Take some time out to have close listen a few times and you’ll start to hear things you’ve never heard before. There’s a lot in there.

Reference: The Beatles Recording Sessions