Recording and mixing "Within You Without You"

The basic track of George Harrison’s song “Within You Without You,” featuring some Indian players, was recorded on March 15, 1967.

On this day, from 7 pm to 2:15 am, work continued on the track, with all four Beatles in attendance. Double-tracked dilrubas were overdubbed onto Take 1, which Indian musician Buddhadev Kansara likely played. The dilrubas were added to track three of the four-track tape. The recording machine ran at 52½ cycles per second instead of the usual 50, causing a slower pitch and tone upon replay.

A reduction mix, named Take 2, followed, freeing up two tracks for additional overdubs.

A mono mix, named Remix Mono 1, was then created for George Martin to score the string sections for the song, which would be recorded on April 3, 1967.

Between 11 pm and 12:30 am, in the control room of Studio One, tape operator Graham Kirkby held a playback of all the Sgt. Pepper recordings to date for The Beatles.

A week later, a refreshed, rejuvenated George Harrison came back to the studio and oversaw the overdubbing of a couple of additional dilruba parts (a dilruba is a bowed instrument similar to a sitar, but smaller). The other three Beatles were present at the session, but boredom set in quickly, so arrangements were made to have them listen to other works in progress in another control room. Deep in concentration, George barely even noticed that the others had departed; he may have even welcomed them leaving him to work on his own. As much as I didn’t care for “Within You Without You” at first, 1had to admit it grew on me as we were recording it.

Geoff Emerick – From “Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles“, 2006

And you don’t remember the other Beatles being there for that session?

No, they were never there … there was one, and if you listen very carefully at the end of one of the sessions, there’s a little bit of tambourine. Now, somebody walked into the studio while we were doing whatever it was, picked up a tambourine and started playing along. And that’s the only bit – an exclusive here – that’s the only piece of somebody else other than George or his Indian friends.

Who was that?

Don’t know.

Not much of an exclusive is it then!

It’s an exclusive. It was either John or Paul or Ringo. They walked in downstairs, we couldn’t see who did it. But we thought ‘Oh there’s a tambourine playing along, who’s doing that?’

Richard Lush – Interview with ABC News, May 25, 2017:

Session activities

1. Within You Without You

   Written by George Harrison

   Recording • SI onto take 1

2. Within You Without You

   Written by George Harrison

   Tape copying • Tape reduction take 1 into take 2

3. Within You Without You

   Written by George Harrison

   Mixing • Mono mixing - Remix 1 from take 2

Staff

Musicians on "Within You Without You"

Production staff

Going further

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