There had for some time been puzzlement at Abbey Road as to why records cut in America sounded so much better than British cuts. The bass content in particular was greatly diminished on British records. Jerry Boys has a clear recollection of John Lennon demanding to know why the bass on a certain Wilson Pickett record far exceeded any Beatles disc. Certainly one has to listen very intently to hear Paul McCartney's bass playing on Beatles records pre-1966. But on 'Paperback Writer' all that changed. In fact, the bass is the most striking feature of the record.
"'Paperback Writer' was the first time the bass sound had been heard in all its excitement," says Geoff Emerick. "
For a start, Paul played a different bass, a Rickenbacker. Then we boosted it further by using a loudspeaker as a microphone. We positioned it directly in front of the bass speaker and the moving diaphragm of the second speaker made the electric current." This was another invention of Ken Townsend's — but
he paid the price, being called in to the office of Bill Livy, chief technical engineer, and reprimanded for matching impedances incorrectly! (
- DB)
From his disc-cutting experience,
Emerick knew that record companies were loathe to press a million copies of a record if the high bass content was likely to make the stylus jump. Tony Clark, yet another top engineer and producer in later years, cut the master lacquer of 'Paperback Writer'. "It was EMI's first high-level cut and I used a wonderful new machine just invented by the backroom boys, ATOC — Automatic Transient Overload Control. It was a huge box with flashing lights and what looked like the eye of a Cyclops staring out at you. But it did the trick. I did two cuts, one with ATOC and one without, played them to George Martin and he approved of the high-level one."