Beatles’ studio engineer helped create classics

LONDON — Geoff Emerick, the Beatles studio engineer who entered the music business in his mid-teens and by his early 20s had helped make history through his work on such landmark albums as “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” has died. He was 72.

Abbey Road Studios, home to the Beatles and many other recording artists, confirmed the death Wednesday and vowed to ensure that Mr. Emerick’s legacy lives on. Colleague William Zabaleta told Variety that Mr. Emerick collapsed and died Tuesday while they were talking on the phone. He said Mr. Emerick had suffered from heart problems in recent years.

Paul McCartney, in an online tribute Wednesday, wrote that Mr. Emerick “had a sense of humor that fitted well with our attitude to work in the studio and was always open to the many new ideas that we threw at him. He grew to understand what we liked to hear and developed all sorts of techniques to achieve this.”

John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, tweeted she was “shocked” by Mr. Emerick’s death.

“He was the best engineer,” Ono wrote. “Not only was he the best engineer, he was very, very kind.”

A London native, Mr. Emerick was on hand during the Beatles’ early EMI sessions as an assistant under lead engineer Norman Smith. He was promoted after Smith left to become a producer in the mid-1960s.

His first album as Beatles engineer was “Revolver,” the 1966 release that marked the band’s full embrace of such effects as backward tape loops and double tracking.

Ringo Starr wrote in a statement, “With him and George Martin they helped us to step up on Revolver. He will be missed.”

Mr. Emerick had other innovations on “Sgt. Pepper,” which came out in 1967, including enhancing the sound of Starr’s drums on “A Day In the Life” by loosening the skins and wrapping a microphone in a tea cloth and placing it in a glass container.

Mr. Emerick became frustrated during the recording of the band’s double “White” album in 1968 and briefly quit. He returned for the Beatles’ final studio sessions, for “Abbey Road,” and worked with McCartney on his solo “Band On the Run” album.