The story of Abbey Road Studios is the story of recorded music. In 1929, when recordings were still being captured acoustically with a large wooden horn and a wax disc, The Gramophone Company saw an opportunity and began the search for a location to support the new industry of electrical recording. They found a nine-bedroom house with a large garden for sale in St. John’s Wood, NW London, and bought it for the total of £16,500 before spending two years building the world’s first recording studios.

EMI’s new recording hub featured three main studios, all of which remain as magical and profound today as the when they first opened. Our largest space, Studio One, began hosting legends of the classical and orchestral world including Sir Thomas Beecham, Pablo Casals, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Sergei Prokofiev, Maria Callas, Igor Stravinsky, Yehudi Menuhin and later Geoff Love, André Previn, Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim. As well as icons of big band and jazz like the indomitable Fats Waller and Glenn Miller.

Over the last 40 years, Studio One has become one of the world’s go-to places for film scoring, with projects including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Star Wars and Harry Potter films,1917, Avengers: Endgame, Wonka, Wakanda Forever, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Oscar-winners like The Last Emperor, The Shape of Water, Gravity, Black Panther and Barbie. With the addition of a Dolby Atmos Premier accredited Mix Stage in 2017, Abbey Road became the only place in Europe to offer both scoring and film sound post-production.

Studio One’s connection to the screen doesn’t end there. Ever since the very first video game score recorded at Abbey Road (Richard Jacques’ Headhunter in January 2001), the grand acoustics of our largest studio have been called upon to match the grand narratives and visual landscapes in today’s games. Projects include Halo, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Genshin Impact, the Academy Award-nominated and Ivor Novello-winning Marvel’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy and Academy Award-winning Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Game sessions are massive undertakings, it can be like recording multiple film scores in one. Often five, six, seven hours of music is needed to create a unique soundtrack for each potential game pathway. As composers and engineers push sonic boundaries with ambisonics and new surround technology, the world of video game sound continues to evolve.

Studio Three, the smallest of our original three studios, welcomed Abbey Road’s first published song into the world (recorded nearly two months before Elgar’s opening ceremony); a cover of Hoagy Carmichael’s Rockin’ Chair by American bass-baritone, Paul Robeson.

Studio Three has long been a home for ground-breaking music: The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon, Deep Purple’s In Rock, Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin’s East Meets West, Donovan’s Sunshine Superman, Fela Kuti’s Afrodisiac, Radiohead’s The Bends, Florence + The Machine’s Ceremonials, Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett’s Body and Soul, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, Frank Ocean’s Blond and Brockhampton’s Iridescence. Creatively unleashed and then artfully captured within its walls.

To date, it is our only studio to have had some major interiors changes. Its control room has moved from one side to the other and back again, while the most recent (and dare we say it, best) renovation came in 2022. It even housed a mirrored drum room in the late 1980s where the large iso booth now stands. It wasn’t until 1980 that Abbey Road built its next studio, the Penthouse, and in 2017 adding the Gatehouse and the Front Room as more accessible, flexible and intimate spaces built to accommodate new ways of working.

The legendary Studio Two became the birthplace of British rock ‘n’ roll in the late '50s with the emergence of groups like Cliff Richard and The Shadows and Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. However not before EMI engineer Alan Blumlein led the very first stereo recording there in 1932 and popular dance bands like The Joe Loss Orchestra made it their home through the 1940s. As bombs rained down on London during World War II, Abbey Road’s doors remained open, hosting sessions including American bandleader Glenn Miller’s final recordings in 1944. In the ‘60s, bells and whistles and raucous laugher echoed in Studio Two as comedy records by the likes of Peter Sellers and Morecambe and Wise were captured. Then, it became the recording home of the Merseybeat scene with artists like Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Swinging Blue Jeans and Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas.

As the birthplace of stereo, innovation has always been at the heart of Abbey Road. Alan Blumlein, a master inventor way ahead of his time, patented ‘binaural’ (literally meaning ‘relating to two ears’) on 14 December 1931 and oversaw the very first stereo recording here in 1934, though it took until the 1950s for stereo recording to be fully adopted.

Blumlein also developed early microphones like the EMI HB-1, a moving coil unit used on recordings at the studios through the 1930s. Check out photos of Paul Robeson or George Formby singing at Abbey Road, and you’ll see the HB-1. Other rare EMI microphones like the RM-1B, as well as a huge range of Neumanns, AKGs and RCAs, make up what is one of the most expansive microphone collections in the world. For over 50 years up until his retirement tin 2024, our microphone conservator Lester Smith lovingly maintained all our microphones. Thanks to Lester, every mic is available for daily use.

Back to 1955, with the rise of stereo, EMI engineer Len Page creates the Record Engineering Development Department (REDD) in response to what artists and producers want and need. They developed some of the first mixing desks as well as custom speakers, outboard gear and anything else either requested by the studio team or dreamed up by the technical geniuses at the EMI research facility (The Old Vinyl Factory) in Hayes, Middlesex.

The magic within our spaces, instruments and gear is meant to be shared. That’s why our Audio Products team has worked for years to find ways to bring Abbey Road to you. They meticulously re-engineer, sample and emulate the sound of spaces like Studio One, the control room in Studio Three, the long-standing echo chamber in Studio Two, gear like the TG12345 desk or RS56 Curve Bender, and instruments like the legendary Mrs. Mills and Challen pianos.

Our mastering team continues to push the limits of what’s possible in this vital part of the creative process. Upstairs from the studios, discs are still cut every single day as the latest and greatest artists master their tracks in one of six specialist mastering suites. Across stereo, stem and surround, we combine an unrivalled selection of classic analogue and modern digital gear with the golden ears of our engineers, to bring out the best in each track.

Recent mastering projects include Yussef Dayes, Travis Scott, Olafur Arnalds, Dua Lipa, Fontaines D.C., Aurora, Frank Turner, Orla Gartland, Brian Eno, Self Esteem, Glass Animals, Black Midi, Louis Tomlinson, Ruthven and Royel Otis. While the old and the new collide with recent remasters and archive restorations for ABBA, Sade, Paul McCartney, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse, The Beatles, Queen, The Who, New Order, Cat Stevens, Elton John, Cymande, Dorothy Ashby, Sam Smith, The Rolling Stones, The Police and Morrissey.

The next part of our story is all about you. Our learning programmes and events combine almost a century of knowledge with the latest techniques and expertise. We do it through accredited courses at Abbey Road Institute, at festivals like Amplify and Equalise and with filmed series like Lock-In, Live Cuts and After Hours.

Through our events, we’re collaborating with artists, brands and festivals to show how Abbey Road can add its magic, bring people together and curate an unparalleled experience.

Abbey Road Studios is not only a pilgrimage for music fans, but a rite of passage for the music makers of today. A place with a unique and iconic history that can bring out the greatest potential in your music. There’s a whole world of possibilities inside, just waiting to be brought to life. Come on in, and be part of the next chapter of the Abbey Road story.