Online music marketplace Reverb.com have announced that the console used by The Beatles to record their iconic Abbey Road album will soon be up for sale. The EMI TG1234 was custom-built for EMI Studios in 1968 and, in the following year, was used to record the group's last album before their breakup in 1970. A preview of the listing is live now, and the sale will go live on Official MJQ Ltd's Reverb Shop on 29 October 2024.
History
Following the recording of Abbey Road, all four members of The Beatles went to use the console for their solo projects, including John Lennon's standout single 'Instant Karma!' Solo albums ranging from John Lennon's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Paul McCartney's McCartney, to George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and Ringo Starr's Sentimental Journey, were all recorded with the help of the console's distinctive sound. According to Dave Harries, the engineer who participated in numerous Beatles recording sessions in the 1960s, George Harrison asked EMI if he could buy one for himself, only to be turned down out of a fear that the console would be replicated and sold to one of their competitors!
In 1971, the console was replaced in Studio 2 by the TG Mk.II and was briefly stored before being installed into Studio 1. It was decommissioned from Studio 1 a year later, and moved into the basement of No. 5 Abbey Road before being dismantled in the 1970s. Some parts were donated to a language school in North London but were later discarded — a tape machine maintenance engineer rescued them from a skip/dumpster and took them home after being attracted by the look of the knobs! Between 1988 and 2018, Mike Hedges, Abbey Road's principal client between 1979 and 1989, set about painstakingly gathering the original parts and reuniting them with the console frame.
“If you talk to the engineers who have used it, they'll tell you the same thing: It's a beautiful sounding machine… it enhances everything that goes through it. I even once threatened to stop working at Abbey Studios after being told that they planned to switch from EMI to a different brand of consoles. That is how I managed to purchase the consoles. A deal was done for me to acquire the replaced consoles” - Mike “The TG Man” Hedges, Producer & Engineer
The EMI TG1234 up for sale is the only Mk.I model ever made, and has been painstakingly restored under the guidance of Beatles collaborator and former EMI engineer Brian Gibson.After being disassembled and sitting unused for more than five decades, the EMI TG1234 underwent a five-year restoration process under the guidance of Beatles collaborator and former EMI engineer Brian Gibson. Gibson, along with a team of audio engineers and technicians, managed to reunite the console with 70% of its original parts, working with expert British companies to faithfully reproduce the replacement parts to seamlessly work alongside their older counterparts. After years of work, Gibson and his team were able to bring the console to almost exactly the same form as it was when it sat at EMI Studios (now known as Abbey Road Studios).
According to producer Mike Hedges, the console hadn't been used since The Beatles members' solo sessions in the 1970s until this autumn (2024), when Reverb.com gathered artists and engineers at the former home of London's celebrated Decca Studios to put the recording console to the test ahead of its September sale. A behind-the-scenes video detailing the console and the recording sessions has just been released — check it out below!
Console Specs
Of the 17 TG consoles ever built by EMI, the majority were Mk.II and Mk.III models, and two were Mk.IV — the example up for sale is the only Mk.I ever made. The following specs have been provided:
- 24 mic inputs
- 12 dual-microphone cassettes
- Limiter/compressor on every channel (a world first)
- Four dual main mixes
- Eight outputs
- Two-band EQs
- Four-track routing
- Four echo sends
- Two cue sends
- Remote patchbay (disconnected)
- Power supply and associated cabling (220VAC)
Availability
The listing for the EMI TG1234 is live now, and it will be available to purchase from 29 October 2024 at 07:00 US Central Time. To find out more and check out the console in all its glory, take a look at the link below.
