Recording, editing: Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, The End

Studio Two, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald

The final studio session for the Abbey Road album was final edits of two songs, plus some unused recordings.

Work took place from 2.30-8pm in Studio Two. Beginning in the control room, seven seconds were edited from the master tape of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, to remove the song’s introduction.

‘The End’ was the next song to be edited. It lost 36 seconds, bringing its length down from 2’41” to 2’05”. Various sound effects were also recorded for ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ during this session, but they were never used.

With Abbey Road finally complete, the day ended with the creation of a safety copy of the master tape. Both the master and the copy were then taken away by balance engineer Geoff Emerick, who gave them to Malcolm Davies to be cut to disc at Apple. It was the first UK Beatles album not to be cut at EMI by Harry Moss.