2008-11-12

Alan Parsons held exclusive lectures at SAE London

On 6th November world-famous engineer, producer and musician Alan Parsons visited London and spent the day at SAE Institute. SAE students got the unique opportunity to learn about his way from Tape Operator for the Beatles through engineering Pink Floyd to his status as a hit-producer of international standing. Our students engaged in a dialogue with Alan and got many first-hand tips and anecdotes.
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Alan Parsons started his career at a tape duplication facility. During this time he listened to the master tapes of the Beatles' Sgt Peppers album before its release. This proved to be a revelation to him in terms of sound engineering and sparked his intention to become a sound engineer.

Assisting the Beatles

In his lecture, Alan went on to tell his audience at SAE how he successfully applied at Abbey Road studios and got involved as tape operator with the Beatles' Abbey Road album.
He was then seconded to the Beatles sessions at their own Apple studios in Saville Row. He vividly retold the moving moment when he walked into the studio and there were George Martin, Glyn Johns and all four Beatles - who looked expectingly at a 19 year old Alan Parsons who was just about to make one of the most significant steps into the room where his engineering career would start.
At Apple studios he assisted on the Let it be sessions and also set up the "Roof Top" sessions. Needless to say, Alan had various entertaining stories around this time for his young audience.
He also made various remarks about studio technology at the time. He explained for example how he was performing ADT (which Alan revealed to students stands for 'artificial' instead of 'automatic' double tracking). He pointed out limitations of consoles at the time in conjunction with the use of 4-track and later 8-track machines.
Overall he gave fascinating insight into what it was like working with the Beatles.

Recording Pink Floyd

The next section of the lecture was dedicated to his work with Pink Floyd.
By the time he started engineering the legendary "The Dark Side of the Moon" album, he had already recorded Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" album. Dark Side of the Moon is a milestone in music production history and is still highly regarded amongst sound engineers. Alan explained to our students how several sounds on the album were created, including the famous "Money" loop. He went on to play a surround mix of the album, demonstrating the versatility of surround mixing.
Once more, he gave students a 'behind the scenes' look at one of the most significant recording sessions of the 70s.

Surround production

Being a surround pioneer, Alan demonstrated several mixes in SAE's surround-equipped lecture theatre, including an unreleased surround mix of Al Stewart's 'Year of the cat' featuring a piano in the rear channels. At these opportunities Alan and students roamed the centre of the room for the best listening position.

Alan provided several other points and facts about other productions he has made over the years. Most importantly he encouraged questions and engaged in dialogues with our students.

Music Business

Alan also talked about the music business - which he has experienced from the engineer/producer's side, as well as the artist's side with "The Alan Parsons Project"

It was fascinating for students who are studying audio engineering in the year 2008 to see how a world renowned engineer and producer whose CV is so strongly linked with pop music history, is in some way a bridge between old and new technology and techniques. Alan explained that he is working these days in a very workstation-based, digital environment, very similar to what our students are learning at SAE. Despite the vast differences in technology between 2008 and 1969, Alan managed to convey that core principles of a successful production remained the same, for example creative input and solutions that he came up with on "Dark Side of the Moon".

The lecture concluded with several more questions students had - and several also took the opportunity to get a photo with Alan and an autograph.

Alan Parsons was pleased with his visit at SAE London and also toured the facilities.