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Abbey Road was the only Beatles album mainly recorded on an 8-track tape machine, rather than the 4-track machines that were used for prior Beatles albums starting with the single I Want To Hold Your Hand in 1963 and the album A Hard Day's Night in 1964. This is noticeable in the better sound separation and mixing of the drum kit. EMI's conservative management had not yet approved the use of their then-new 8-track Studer deck, and that accounts for why this was one of the rare Beatles albums to be recorded at three different studios (Trident, Olympic, and Abbey Road). The album was also the first to be recorded and mixed entirely on a solid state sound board, giving the album's sound a noticeably different "feel" from its predecessors; Harrison later remarked that the new sound was too "harsh" for his liking. Also, the Moog synthesizer is featured on the majority of tracks, not merely as a background effect, but sometimes playing a central role, as in "Because" where it is used for the middle 8. It is also prominent on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Here Comes the Sun". The instrument was introduced to the band by Harrison after a stay in Los Angeles where he was introduced to the instrument. (The first landmark pop song to employ the Moog was "Daily Nightly" by The Monkees.) Earlier in 1969, Harrison had released Electronic Sound, which featured dissonant sounds entirely made from a Moog, on Apple's short-lived experimental label Zapple.

One of the assistant engineers working on the album was a then-unknown Alan Parsons. He went on to engineer Pink Floyd's landmark album The Dark Side of the Moon and produce many popular albums himself with The Alan Parsons Project. John Kurlander also assisted on many of the sessions, and went on to become a successful engineer and producer, most noteworthy for his success on the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.