John Lennon's Double Fantasy. Although 24 tracks were out in 1980, John
recorded this album on two A80 16 track 2" machines, locked up with an Audio
kinetics Q-lock, through a Neve 8068 with (god help us) Necam 1
BRBR

Were you at The Hit factory at the time? I was, and while I wasn't on the
project, I don't recall hearing anything about the dual 16 track thing, and I'd
imagine I would have. There was normally one A80 24 track in the 6th floor
studio where John and Yoko recorded, and we did have a 16 track headstack, but
I was under the impression that they were running a single 24. Your mention of
this is the first time I've heard it.

The Neve was supposedly the last of its kind made until Ed Rak at Clinton
prevailed on them to build two more for him a few months later. It wasn't the
best sounding Neve I've ever used (late builds had evidently downgraded the
design somewhat if I recall Geoff Tanner's comments correctly), and it did have
Necam, which was a very big deal at the time.

By that time the control room had been redesigend acoustically (by Dave Smith
IIRC) for a Paul Simon album produced by Phil Ramone some time earlier. The
improvement in the sound of the room was absolutely tremendous.

I'm not trying to refute your story, just curious how you got the info. Perhaps
we even know each other from back then...


Ted Spencer, NYC

"No amount of classical training will ever teach you what's so cool about
"Tighten Up" by Archie Bell And The Drells" -author unknown