Alan Parsons Project | Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Abbey Road is the most famous recording studio in the world. Originally a Georgian townhouse built in 1831, Number 3 Abbey Road was purchased by the Gramophone Company in 1929. The latter built the world's first recording studios in 1931. Since the engineer Alan Blumlein patented stereo at Abbey Road in 1931, the studio is renowned for their innovation in recording technology. The studio's most notable client was the Beatles, who used the studio to implement many of the innovative recording techniques they adopted.

Optimal Media, located in Germany, is a media producer. About 20 years ago, Optimal decided to open a vinyl record pressing plant, which today has the capacity to press more than 25 million records annually. The combination of printing and disc pressing allows Optimal to produce high quality box sets such as the Beatles mono box set, among others.

The slower a record spins, the more it's sound quality is affected. In order to deliver the best possible sound, the record must spin faster (45 RPM). However, when a record spins faster, the amount of information it can hold is reduced. The desire to improve sound quality, while ensuring adequate playtime, is a problem that still persists today. Obviously, the "convenience" drawback isn't an issue when you're willing to pay more for two 12-inch records instead of just one.

Half-speed mastering is a technique used when cutting lacquers from which vinyl records are produced. The cutting machine platter operates at half the usual speed while the signal to be recorded is sent to the cutting head at half its normal playback speed. By halving the speed when cutting, hard to cut very high frequencies become much easier to cut since they are now mid frequencies.