Sound on Sound Article

Sound on Sound Article

 Beatles Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night was recorded at EMI Studios in a session taking place from 7-10pm. It took nine takes to record, and complete the number of songs needed for the film soundtrack. There may be more inventive Beatles records, Sgt. Pepper’s, for example and there may be better ones, Abbey Road, for one. But no one Beatles album better encapsulated the essence of the band than this one.

AKG D19c (One of the mics The Beatles used)

The Beatles used an AKG d19c. It was a general-purpose mic and was liked for a lot of things. They also used U67s and AKG C12s. The backing track - two rhythm guitars, bass guitar and drums - was recorded onto track one of the four-track tape, and Lennon and McCartney's lead vocal were recorded live on track two. They added more vocals on three, along with percussion, more drums and acoustic guitar; and George Martin's piano and the jangling guitar that ended the song were on track four. On 16 April 1964, the Beatles gathered at Studio 2 of the Abbey Road Studios and recorded "A Hard Day's Night". It took them less than three hours to polish the song for its final release, eventually selecting the ninth take as the one to be released.     

In contrast to their first two albums, all 13 tracks on A Hard Day's Night were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, showcasing the development of the band's songwriting talents instead developing more quieter more melodic songs. The album contains some of their most famous songs, including the title track, with its distinct, instantly recognisable opening chord, and the previously-released "Can't Buy Me Love"; both were transatlantic number-one singles for the band. This album marked a new phase, a "middle phase". In a sense, it was a new phase for pop music generally, with attention swinging for the first time from singles to albums.

Officially, the song doesn't have a music video, like all songs of that era, but most view the opening sequence of the movie 'Hard Day's Night' as a music video for the song. The same is done for some of the other songs in the album. 'Can't Buy Me Love' and 'She Loves You' are two others cases from the film where the clip from the film is used as the music video for the track itself. 

The first two Beatles albums, Please Please Me and With The Beatles, were recorded on the BTR two track machines with the introduction of four-track machines in 1963 (the first 4-track Beatles recording was "I Want to Hold Your Hand" there came a change in the way recordings were made. The tracks themselves could be built up layer by layer, encouraging experimentation in the multi-track recording process. 

A Hard Days Night (Movie Opening Sequence

A Hard Day’s Night not only captures The Beatles at the peak of Beatlemania, the most exciting time in pop music up to that moment, and arguably ever since; when continents fell and music was changed forever, but also sees them perfecting the art of pop.

I myself have made recording using vocals and different instruments. Compared to the Beatles recordings, I unlike them only used a single instrument and vocalist where as they had multiple instruments and vocalists. As well as this, The Beatles used older models of mics compared to ours which a lot modern. The Beatles used an AKG d19c which was a general-purpose mic, as well as this, they also used a U67s and an AKG C12s. Where as I used an AKG C1000s which is a condenser microphone and also a more modern model compared to the ones The Beatles used. The sound quality is probably one of the biggest notable difference between the two recordings. The Beatles is a bit more muffled sounding, but this is because of the technology of the time as well as the track becoming a lot older. My recording is lot clearer because of the updated mic.

https://soundcloud.com/mrjamierox/guitar-studio-recording


Bibliography

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/4mcg

http://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/a-hard-days-night/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Day%27s_Night_(album)

http://www.thebeatles.com/album/hard-days-night

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Interview_Ken_Scott_Part_1_Recording_with_The_Beatles_Inside_the_Studio