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The legendary recording console used in the Beatles’ Abbey Road is for sale on the Reverb equipment market.
Custom-made for Abbey Road Studios (then known as EMI Studios) in 1968, the EMI TG 12345 MK1 was installed in the control room of Abbey Road Studio 2 and used by George Martin and Geoff Emerick to record the Beatles’ final album at the following year, before being used in solo projects by all four band members, including John Lennon/John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Paul McCartney’s McCartney.
The console was so beloved by the Fab Four that Harrison reportedly asked EMI if he could purchase his own, a request he was denied out of fear that the console would be replicated and sold to competitors.
A team of engineers and technicians assembled by MJQ Ltd, which will sell the console through its Reverb store, spent four years restoring the desk under the watchful eye of former EMI engineer and Beatles collaborator Brian Gibson. The console now contains 70% of its original parts, with the remainder made up of aftermarket parts carefully recreated and custom-made to mirror the sound of the original unit, using the same materials and processes as the original components.
17 TG 12345 were manufactured in total, but as a prototype, this is the only MK1 version in existence. “They had no idea it would be so rare and valuable, precious and sought after, because it is so revered compared to what came next,” says Hamish Jackson of MJQ Ltd., the world’s most famous recording studio.”
After being used in the Beatles’ solo sessions in the 1970s, the console was dismantled and remained unused until this year. Now fully operational following its restoration, it underwent a test run at London’s Decca Studios in a session with producer and engineer Robbie Nelson, documented in the video above.
“Using this console for this session was a great honor,” says Nelson. “It has an amazing EQ. On each channel, it’s just treble and bass, but they’re so wide and so musical that it worked. Yesterday we played a whole band on it, and we didn’t do that. I really need something else. The compressors are insane – it’s almost like having a Fairchild on every channel.” A 24-in/8-out console, the TG 12345 MKII was the first mixing console in history to have a compressor on each channel.
The console is owned by producer and engineer Mike Hedges, who worked at Abbey Road’s Studio 2 in the 1980s. “I once threatened to quit working at Abbey Studios after learning they were planning to move from EMI to a different brand of consoles.” , says Hedges. “That’s how I was able to purchase the consoles – an agreement was made for me to purchase the replacement consoles.”
“It’s unique, it’s unique. This was the first one,” says former Abbey Road engineer Dave Harries. “This was built to be the best and stands up to any modern console. No compromises. You can’t replace this. As long as a bomb doesn’t hit it, it will always stay the same and can be used forever because it does what it does so well.”
The console will go on sale on October 29th at 7am US Central Time. Instead of an auction, the sale will have a fixed price set by the owner, but the seller is open to offers.
How much the console could cost is anyone’s guess, but in 2017, an EMI TG12345 MKIV used in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon sold for $1.8 million. As a rare prototype version of the same console used by the most famous band in musical history, this one will probably be worth a lot more than that.
Visit the Reverb website to learn more.
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