Close Abbey Road?

I was in Abbey Road Studio One earlier this week for a music industry gathering of performers and was struck yet again by the personality of the room. It’s such a big room and so many things have happened in it. Not least of all is the televising of All You Need Is Love. For whatever reason I just couldn’t get the images of it out of my head when I was supposed to be listening to some of the presentations and speeches from the event I was attending. Take a Beatle fan into Abbey Road Studio One and it’s pretty much impossible for that fan to be thinking about anything else other than the thought that you are inside one of the most guarded Beatle sites in the world. Not only the Beatles, I might add. It’s amazing how many of the best known film themes and classical works have been recorded there – in short, it’s just an incredible place and without doubt, one of the premier rooms for recording in the world.
So, imagine my shock, when from the podium came the words….and I'm paraphrasing here... “…we implore EMI to keep this studio open” and that it’s one of the few places left in this country that can “accommodate a full orchestra for recording”. I came to life somewhat. What is this chap saying? Are they going to sell this place, is it going to change hands or worse are they going to close it? Reading between the lines on what was being said at a political level here I have to guess that in this current financial climate, both studio and punters are suffering. Abbey Road is an expensive place to work in and of course the technological improvements made to recording facilities in the wider world mean that largely, similar results can be produced in a bedroom. That’s just a fact. Why would a band want to go into Abbey Road and spend many thousands of bucks when those bucks might be best served investing in a comprehensive recording set up which will give them access to their recordings everyday and all of the time? One reason a band would go there would be to get access to some of the fantastic recording facilities available, and a microphone collection which, quite frankly, would knock yer socks off. Another is more fundamental to the studio itself – it’s the one thing that you can ONLY get in that location – it’s the rooms themselves. As soon as the ambient mics placed in the room are pushed up on the desk, it’s like Abbey Road arrives. I for example simply cannot hear a Beatles track without hearing Studio Two- if it was recorded in there. There is a sound attached to the room and it is impossible to take out. That is the one thing that can’t really be replicated electronically in the form of a plugin and even if they could it still wouldn’t BE the room. The fact is that people don’t just go into studios because of who recorded there in the past, although that does give a clue as to the possible continuing life of Abbey Road Studios, should it close, change hands or function. In fact it’s almost unthinkable that one of the most famous recording studios in the world could! The interesting thing is that when you come out of the studio there are ALWAYS people outside, writing on the wall, nudging each other and taking photographs. I hope it never happens but it would have an afterlife as one of the premier tourist venues in the world and that really would be down to the Beatles. I can’t quite get my head about that idea though. Those rooms are living, breathing spaces of creativity where music is and has been crafted and moulded from nothing into recordings that we hear probably more regularly than we realise. This studio should never become a museum and should always do what it does best – record great music.