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On a recent trip to London, I got a chance to tour storied speaker company B&W’s factory. They asked if I’d also like to tour Abbey Road Studios.
Yes. Yes I would.
And I did. It was awesome and I have pictures.
This is the first of three behind-the-scenes tours I did on my recent UK trip. Also check out storied speaker company B&W’s factory, and electronics and speaker manufacturer Meridian Audio.
Abbey Road is probably the most famous recording studio in the world. The artists who’ve recorded there reads like a who’s who of the great acts of the 20th and 21st centuries: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Adele, Queen, Oasis, Radiohead, and many more. The zebra crossing in front was immortalized by Iain Macmillan for the cover of the Beatles album that gave the studio its name.
Abbey Road Studios Tour (pictures)
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What’s shocking, perhaps, is that for a building with such an incredible musical history, it doesn’t look like much from the outside. In fact, it looks like a pretty boring and basic house, which of course it was originally.
It is amusingly bigger on the inside, extending back throughout the lot. Inside is one of the largest recording spaces in the world (Studio One), along with the iconic Studio Two (where the Beatles recorded most of their catalog), and the smaller but no less important Studio Three (Pink Floyd’s home for “Dark Side of the Moon” and others).
Narrow corridors, stairwells, and tiny rooms fill out the interstitial spaces, and in many, magic happened as well as artists pushing the boundaries of what was technically possible, used every space they could to get the sound in their head, onto the rolling magnetic tape.
Check out the gallery for the full tour.
Hannah Boan
My thanks to B&W for setting this up, and to David Allen for his fantastic and informative tour.
As well as covering TV and other display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, massive aircraft carriers, medieval castles, epic 10,000 mile road trips, and more. Check out Tech Treks for all his tours and adventures.
He wrote a bestselling sci-fi novel about city-size submarines, along with a sequel. You can follow his adventures on Instagram and his YouTube channel.
