Aspiring producers and mixing engineers — especially those with sizable budgets or deep pockets— will have an opportunity to buy the one-of-a-kind EMI recording console used by the Beatles when it goes on sale next week, Oct. 29, on Reverb.
The board going on sale is the original EMI TG12345 prototype, which was built in 1969 and installed in Abbey Road Studios, where it was used for about a year. The Beatles used the console to track their legendary album Abbey Road, then all four members used it on their earliest solo projects: John Lennon’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Paul McCartney’s McCartney, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and Ringo Starr’s Sentimental Journey. Ace keyboardist, and Beatles collaborator, Billy Preston also used the console to cut his album, That’s the Way God Planned It (which Harrison produced).
Dave Harries, an engineer who worked with the Beatles during those sessions, credited the console as the reason Abbey Road sounds so good. “The album has a distinctive sound that hallmarked the future of pop recording,” he said, adding: “This particular console is a one-off. It’s unique. You can’t replace it. It sounds so good that it holds up against any modern console and, in many respects, it’s probably better. Because in those days, it was built to a different standard — cost, no object. EMI built this to be the best in the world.”
But since those sessions, the TG 12345 prototype has been out of commission. Seventeen more EMI TG 12345 console models were made and shipped to studios around the world, but the prototype was disassembled and stashed away, unused for more than five decades.
Five years ago, however, the console was taken out of storage for restoration. The project was overseen by Brian Gibson, former EMI engineer and Beatles collaborator, working with a team of expert engineers and technicians. They were able to reconstruct the TG12345 with 70 percent of its original parts, and tapped British companies to reproduce faithful replicas of the missing pieces.
This fall, the console was set up at London’s Decca Studios and used for the first time since those Beatles solo sessions. An array of artists stopped by to record, including Better Joy, Jmonq, Duke Garwood, Sam Simmonds, Rosalie Cunningham, Sara Hartman, and Hana Brooks. Video footage from those sessions is featured in a new short documentary from Reverb, which also digs into the history and restoration of the TG 12345 prototype.
It’s unclear what the estimated price for the prototype will be, but a previous sale of a different TG 12345 model suggests the original will likely fetch several million. Back in 2017, the TG12345 MK IV console — which was used to record Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, as well as projects by Kate Bush, the Cure, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr — sold for $1.8 million at auction.
