Mirek Stiles, REDD Desks, TG Legends and a New Chapter of Sound
There are studio excursions, after which there are moments the place you realise you might be standing in the course of recorded historical past.
Strolling into Mirek Stiles’ room at Abbey Highway Studios feels precisely like that. It isn’t merely a group of uncommon tools. It’s a working archive of sound, and extra importantly, a laboratory for what comes subsequent.
That is the place EMI’s previous meets Abbey Highway’s future.
The REDD Desks: Fantasy, Thriller and Musical DNA
We started with the query everybody asks. The unique console that stored being bought and resold.
That was the REDD 37.
It was put in in Studio One and is formally the one REDD desk utilized by The Beatles that ever left Abbey Highway. Mirek talked about that periods like All You Want Is Love might nicely have handed by way of it. In different phrases, literal Beatles air travelled by way of these transformers.
The REDD 51, the desk most related to the vast majority of Beatles recordings, survives as nicely. Considered one of solely 4 ever constructed, it now lives at British Grove Studios. Three REDD 51s initially resided at EMI. One was shipped to EMI Italy. That Italian unit is the one which survived.
The others?
Romantically, they’re ready to be rediscovered.
Unromantically, they could be in landfill.
The REDD 17: The place Stereo Turned Actual
What Abbey Highway does have is arguably much more important.
The REDD 17.
In-built 1958, it was EMI’s first stereo console that really resembled what we consider as a contemporary desk. Earlier than this, EMI desks have been upright rotary panels. Useful, sure. Nevertheless hardly the inspiring centrepiece we affiliate with traditional studios.
The REDD 17 modified that.
Eight channels of mic pres, powered by Siemens V72s. The traditional EMI EQ, that 10k shelf and 100 Hz elevate that merely sings when each are pushed. Every sign path strikes by way of three V72 acquire levels, one on the channel, one driving the EQ inter-amp, and one on the output stage. It’s superbly acquire staged, which is why it sounds musical fairly than overwhelming.
Mirek makes use of it consistently.
Drums. Strings. Synths. Samples.
Run by way of the REDD 17, then into the J37 tape machine, and all of the sudden a contemporary sound acquires weight, glue and dimension.
The J37 and Unique EMI Tape
Nevertheless Mirek has taken it additional.
He sourced unique EMI tape from the Nineteen Sixties. Not reissue tape. Not approximations. The true factor.
EMI tape from that period by no means wants baking. It merely performs. No shedding. No residue. Presumably extremely poisonous by as we speak’s requirements, nonetheless sonically outstanding.
He even went into the archives, recognized partially used reels, obtained permission, and salvaged unused sections. Fifteen minutes of 1962 EMI tape isn’t just a novelty. It’s a time capsule.
He additionally has entry to the unique EMI sound results library. Abbey Highway engineers within the Nineteen Fifties and 60s went out with transportable EMI L2 recorders capturing crowds, automobiles, infants crying, bonfires, engaged phone tones.
All of that materials is now being chopped, processed by way of REDD desks and J37s, reamped in Studio One and Studio Two, shut and distant miked, and became new sampled devices.
TG Mark I: The Abbey Highway Album Period
Hidden behind a rack of Focusrite items are three unique TG Mark I channel strips. These would have been a part of the TG console put in in Studio Two in 1969 for the recording of Abbey Highway.
In contrast to later TG variations constructed round silicon transistors, these early items used germanium gadgets. Germanium transistors have a personality all of their very own, barely softer, harmonically wealthy, virtually chewy in the way in which they reply.
The plan is to rack these as floating outboard items. Not museum items. Working instruments.
That philosophy runs by way of all the things in Mirek’s room.
Tremendous Classic: The New REDD 47 Particular Version
The particular version REDD 47 items, constructed with 53 classic parts in every unit. Mullard mustard capacitors. Iskra resistors. French PY resistors. WIMA capacitors. Outdated Siemens elements. Even classic BC transistors stockpiled a long time in the past.
They mild up purple when powered on, a nod to the illuminated EMI logos on the unique desks.
It isn’t nostalgia.
It’s dedication.
Whereas a lot of the business strikes in direction of streamlined trendy manufacturing, this strategy goes intentionally the opposite approach. If classic sound issues, why not use classic elements?
Funky, Quirky, Future
Abbey Highway has lengthy collaborated with corporations like Native Devices and Spitfire Audio, and people partnerships proceed.
Nevertheless what Mirek is constructing now feels totally different.
Unique EMI tape. REDD desks. J37 saturation. Reamping in Studio One and Studio Two. Stacked impulse responses. Outdated Quant reverbs. Marshall Time Modulators. Eventide 910 harmonisers. Chandler RS660 items in THD mode, even stacked again to again for pure harmonic texture.
These usually are not sterile pattern libraries.
They’re residing, respiration devices constructed from the DNA of recorded music historical past.
This Is The place It Occurs
On the finish of the tour I stated, “I by no means knew you have been hiding up right here.”
Mirek smiled.
“That is my lair.”
And that’s precisely what it’s.
Not a museum.
Not a shrine.
A spot the place REDD desks, TG channel strips, unique EMI tape and trendy creativeness collide.
Historical past just isn’t being preserved behind glass.
It’s being recorded by way of.
