Tomorrow Never Knows - Recreating The Beatles Classic

Maybe the Greatest of all Beatles songs? certainly a contender.

On April 6th 1966, the band returned to Abbey Road to begin recording Revolver. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' was the first track to be fleshed out and has now become the vanguard of revolutionising popular music. Its use of tape loops, Leslie speaker vocals and backwards guitar tracking helped pave the way to modern day sampling and a host of production techniques still used today.

To authentically recreate this recording from scratch was a HUGE challenge.

We analysed each of the five tape loops used in the song (including the infamous 'seagulls' (a sped up recording of Dad and I laughing) and recreated them using using various techniques (mellotron flutes, mandolin, violins and horn, recorded at 7.5ips and sped up to 15ips on my 1/4" deck) creating actual tape loops, one of which was also reversed.

These were then transferred onto a Tascam 244 cassette four-track (and a modified portable cassette player for the 5th loop) and 'played' into the song like the band did, using the four-track's faders. The drum part was recorded by the incredible Joe Montague @allyouneedisdrums, using period mics, following the engineering learnings of Geoff Emerick.

For a more detailed look at how we pulled the track together see the full 'making of' video!

   • Recreating Tomorrow Never Knows The Beatle...  

Equipment used:
1964 Vox AC30
1972 Fender Bassman
Epiphone Casino
Hofner Verithin bass
Radel electronic Tamboura
Warm Audio WA-47 tube condensor mic - into a Neve 88M
1966 Philips Philicorda organ
Revox A77 1/4" tape machine, running RTM SM911 tape
Leslie 125 speaker cabinet (for the second half vocals)

Only Abbey Road plugins used in the recording: REDD 51 console, Fairchild limiter, J37 tape machine, RS124 compressor.