As the man looking after the microphones at Abbey Road Studios for five decades, Lester Smith has worked with every major star from Sir Paul McCartney to Pink Floyd.
Now, the Kilburn resident has retired after a 56 year career at the St John's Wood studios - just weeks after being handed a long service award by Sir Paul, who he says likes to pop in occasionally for a chat.
When Lester joined the company in 1968 - after his mum spotted an ad for a technical engineer - it was called E.M.I. Recording Studios.
Back then he was a teenager "passionate about 'pop' music", who had bought himself an acoustic guitar with a pickup, and a second hand ¼ inch four-track EMI tape machine to record himself.
He worked for two years at the studios' site in Hayes looking after rows of machines copying the master tapes of recording sessions by the likes of The Beatles, and transferring them to reels of ¼ inch tape for sale to the public.
By 1970 he had become an assistant engineer working on the top floor at Abbey Road, known as the 'Laboratory'.
In his personal story of Abbey Road, published to mark the studios' 90th anniversary, Lester describes how working as a ‘calibration engineer’ he looked after the six top floor cutting rooms.
"Disk cutting of 12” LP’s and 7” singles is a very precise affair and the ‘cutting lathes’ needed very careful alignment to get the very best quality from the recordings. After all, the recording has to sound as good as the live performance!" he said.
From there, Lester graduated to testing and setting up the studio mics to ensure they all recorded at the same levels - as well as servicing Abbey Road's bespoke recording console.
With Abbey Road's Studio One able to record orchestral pieces for the likes of The Lord of The Rings trilogy, The Return of The Jedi, and Barbie as well as sessions for Noel Gallagher, Little Simz, Dua Lipa, Harry Styles, there were a lot of mics - 450 in fact, including the studios' priceless collection of vintage equipment such as the Neumann U47 and U48s used by The Beatles.
"In time," says Lester, "more ‘digital’ devices came along, but our analogue equipment, in particular the microphones, with their valves and transistors, are very popular and still in daily use."
He recalls his 'biggest thrill' was being asked to bring the original Royal microphones used by King George VI, back to life for the film The King's Speech - which were used in the opening credits.
"Another time, Tony Bennett and his son and manager Danni came to record Christmas songs in Studio One. During the lunch break Danni asked me if I could show him around and later took my photograph with Tony in the garden. Also Paul McCartney comes by occasionally and likes to have a chat."
Sir Paul presented Lester, who lives in Dyne Road, Kilburn, with a framed certificate in honour of his years of service to the studios at the Global Graduation of the Abbey Road Studios Institute in June.
Smith's last official day as technical services engineer was on August 1, but he was back the following day as a guest at the 'Stories In Sound' masterclasses, an annual event presented by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, authors of Recording The Beatles.
They were also joined by former studio manager Ken Townsend and engineer Dave Harries, who spoke on stage about their experiences with The Beatles during their studio sessions in the 1960's.
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