It goes back to the Abbey Road studio and EMI, and the range of people that were involved in making those records. So I left CBS – sadly, as I rather enjoyed working there - and I joined RCA using this fantastic equipment they had purchased, cutting ABBA, Bowie and a number of great acts. So for five years I was cutting at CBS, with all kinds of fantastic music – ELP, Eagles, the Doobies, product from Europe, from Polydor, Bob Dylan, and all the Columbia classics. Pepper was a worldwide critical and commercial success, spending a total of 27 weeks at the top of the UK Album Chart.

and Most Sought After Pressing of The Origin of The Rarest and Most Sought After Pressing of

DB - In the end, RCA decided to close the factory and I was sent to EMI, as I was told they might have a position for me. There was a whole hierarchy of people involved in the day-to-day maintenance and production of the studio. As a result,, he eventually came to master what many consider the “holy grail” of audiophile Beatles records: the “Audio-5 Sgt.

They had spent two to three weeks mixing it for mono, and just as they were sending it off, someone came running down from the office and said ‘by the way, we need a stereo mix. DB – When I started mastering in 1971, I was told to leave the recordings alone – no EQ or other changes allowed! They said they were special tapes from Abbey Road, and they wanted to produce an audiophile version of the Sgt. I had albums before that – but this one came along, and it was a combination of everything I had been listening to. Apart from Richard Harvey at CBS, who taught me the ground rules - and did a good job of it - I never actually had a formal education in mastering, as there were no courses in those days.

SGT. PEPPER - Beatles Collecting Guide SGT. PEPPER - Beatles Collecting Guide

Those tapes were one generation from the absolute original, and they sounded so good - clean, quiet - just superb, really. We didn’t have much equipment around to do that, but I ended up adjusting the EQ on the tape machine, as well as using a graphic equalizer - that’s how the album was released, and I won my first client. That was also included on the tape, so I was able to match up the lock groove effect as per the original, so I was quite pleased with that!

He adjusted the threshold every time they sang the chorus, and momentarily adjusted an EQ on certain words as it was coming straight off the ¼” tape. For this album, George Martin suggested the collaboration with a professional artist to created the cover and so it was. I have come to realize that, from a sound quality perspective, this may be the most valuable and best sounding of them all. When they built the Australian EMI studio in Sydney, they based their studio operation on the Abbey Road system.

Pepper’s… pressings over the years – the list includes the current re-masters (stereo and mono), the original UK yellow/black/silver Parlophone (stereo and mono), the UK “one box” and the “two box” Harry T. I worked for the Sydney Water Board in their electronic section as a cadet design engineer, looking after two-way radios and telemetry systems. Pepper's was released in 1967 in both mono and stereo version with catalogue numbers PMC 7027 and PCS 7027 respectively.So one of the engineers sat down in front of the Neumann rack and adjusted the acceleration limiter. In stereo, it’s moving around a bit, which makes it interesting in one respect – but the mono mix is a different experience. To avoid exposing themselves too unnecessary criticism, they avoided to include some historical figures such as Jesus and Hitler, both requested by John Lennon. You were not allowed to change the sound at the time, but were told to make it as loud and clean as possible on the lacquer master. Yellow Submarine is one of their more underappreciated albums, but it is still my favorite to this day.