EMI

The EMI consoles at Abbey Road Studios were never sold. Never advertised. Never licensed. They were custom-designed and hand-built entirely by EMI's in-house engineering division, the Central Research Laboratories (CRL) at Hayes — a team of scientists and engineers who reported not to a commercial boss but to a brief: make the best possible recording equipment for our studios.

The REDD designation stands for "Recording Equipment, Designed and Developed." Each iteration — REDD.17, REDD.37, REDD.51 — used all-valve Class A circuitry with Neumann or EMI-wound transformers on every input and output. The signal path was entirely transformer-balanced, entirely valve, entirely hand-wired. There were no op-amps, no VCAs, no integrated circuits of any kind. Every component was chosen by an engineer who understood exactly what it would contribute to the sound.

When The Beatles demanded four-track recording in 1963, EMI's engineers modified existing REDD frames before any commercial manufacturer had an answer. When stereo became essential, the consoles were rebuilt. The TG12345, introduced in 1968, marked the transition from valves to transistors — faster, quieter, able to handle the wider dynamic range that the new generation of recordings demanded. The TG circuitry used discrete transistors throughout, with Marinair transformers on the inputs, and remains regarded as one of the finest-sounding transistor console designs ever produced.

None of these consoles were ever for sale. The outside world learned about them primarily from the records made on them — which is perhaps exactly the way EMI intended it.

The TG12345 consoles have since dispersed as Abbey Road modernised. Several were restored and sold through specialist dealer Funky Junk in London. The Abbey Road Studio Two TG12345 — refurbished for Funky Junk and described by those involved as the most significant individual console ever offered at auction — sold for a sum that made it the most expensive console transaction in recording history. A second EMI console that had spent decades at a studio in Lagos, Nigeria eventually found its permanent home at British Grove Studios, the Chiswick recording facility built by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler. A third TG-era desk, formerly at EMI's Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris, was installed at State of the Ark Studios in London. These consoles did not retire — they migrated, carrying half a century of musical memory with them.