AI makes Paul McCartney’s voice youthful
AI-generated drawing.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is in vogue, and has been used for a lot of things. At the moment, a big debate is going on about the virtual friend in Snapchat, MyAI. Also, people use the AI service ChatGPT to write articles and essays for them. However, the artificial intelligence does not hesitate to lie and make things up without fact-checking, so you cannot trust that what it writes is true. There are also drawing programs that you can ask to draw anything, the illustration above is that someone has asked for a drawing of “famous UFC fighter, Paul McCartney”. There are many similar ones, perhaps it’s Paul’s facial features resembling Sly Stallone’s that make people request this.
And lately, a service has emerged that has amazed many music fans: AI can imitate voices. This has been used both to rejuvenate Paul McCartney’s voice on his new songs, and to hear songs by others performed by Paul. Here is the Beach Boys’ song “God Only Knows” in Paul’s voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFV7k3n_LN0
Then there are some songs with Paul’s older voice that has been altered with the help of artificial intelligence to sound like a young Paul singing. Here’s “New”, also featuring some lines from “John Lennon”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q83fHq8I_4Y
So it remains to be seen what happens, will the artists themselves or their lawyers react to this? It is, after all, taking the hated “auto tuning” technology a quantum leap further. Maybe Paul himself will rejuvenate his voice on his next album?
Something we would have liked to listen to ourselves are recordings of “Free As A Bird”, “Real Love” and “Grow Old With Me” with Lennon’s demo cassette voice replaced by a strong Lennon vocal.
Here’s a final sample:
Impressive! Scary. Nothing is real indeed. (John sounds like Julian 🙂 )
Not convinced by “God Only Knows” but “New” is very impressive. “My Valentine” less so. I can still hear little artifacts of the “old Paul voice” at the end of lines when he gets a bit hoarse and breathy, also some tuning wobbles.
It will improve and there’s a lot of fun possibilities to change vocalists on songs. Ringo singing “Hey Jude” anyone?
Hi I really can’t appreciate this practice by “using” voices or regenerating them. This is simply fake ! It should be forbidden
Fans have been using technology to create “outfakes” of Beatles recordings for over 30 years, so your objection is a bit late .
I agree! I hope Paul stops this.
So if AI will resing his recent albums, which version will you be listening to? The better sounding or the authentic version? And what if he endorses the technique?
At a guess I reckon Paul’s intrigued by it all; he’s actually used a similar visual technique in his Find My Way video with Beck. A young AI Paul’s face was morphed onto the face a model/dancer.
I’m pretty sure I heard Paul saying that if he and John had today’s technology at their disposal they’d have been all over it!
My dream to hear AI George Martin sing John’s “Well Well Well” may come true.
Hilarious….the needed comic relief….thank you
There’s an amazing AI version of “I Don’t Know” from Egypt Station from 4 days ago. It’s startling.
Amazing version, even better than the “original” one, shall I dare to say. Speechless. Morally, it sucks but musically, I am bluffed. How long before the record company comes and bans it all?
Do you have the link to this version?
Found it allready
i think it’s amazing. i know it’s not perfect but it’s pretty close, specially on using a young voice for and old voice of the same artist, in this case, paul mccartney
The pic of Paul is amusing and it had never occured to me that he looks a little like Sly but I guess he does when you think about it!
I have no interest in listening to anything Beatles related that has been created or altered by AI. AI is going to cause a lot of trouble in the world in the coming years.
AI has turned Paul’s eyes blue, too. For Blue Too.
The Beatles always pushed the envelope in the studio. Look at Sgt Pepper. Look at Free as a Bird – wow. Paul has utilized autotune a bit in that spirit.
I’m not suggesting it’s the same but one wonders how tempting it might be for an artist going forward especially if they can somehow incorporate themselves in the project like Star Wars will be doing going forward with James Earl Jones.
Even trying to improve Lennon’s vocals on the reunion recordings (released and not) must be at least contemplated.
Roger you said what I said initially. Use the tech on poor Lennon demo vocals,
Paul kind of went there with the Find My Way video, but I don’t think he has ever acknowledged the current state of his voice, has he? Using this technology would be seen as doing that, which is why I suspect he wouldn’t do it. But you never know. I think when people are talking about improving the sound of John’s vocal on Free As A Bird, or whatever, we have to be careful about the line between improving and simply re-imagining (no pun intended). And that’s a very difficult line to draw with this stuff.
It’s like everything in life. 1984 is here. Thankfully I have my 70s and 80s bootlegs so I know what everything should sound like.
Good job I have my 70s and 80s bootlegs to know what they really sound like.
God Only Knows sounds like Paul’s throat and Carl Wilson’s sinuses, tongue and teeth.
“New” is fairly convincing at first, but John’s accent is wrong, and I think one verse is supposed to be George, but doesn’t sound much like him.
is that a joke or something? There is not one hint of Paul on God Only Knows. Sounds like the straight Beach Boys recording.
Well, I think you’re wrong. More than a “hint” of Paul – it sounds exactly like Paul’s voice, the only thing that stops it being fully convincing is the pronunciation of certain words, in a way he wouldn’t have sung it.
It sounds exactly like Paul, apart from the pronunciation of some words, and clearly doesn’t sound like the “straight” Beach Boys recording, because it has a different voice.
I wouldn’t waste a second listening to this garbage.
If you didn’t waste a second listening to it, how do you know it’s garbage?
i am torn on this. YES, to have paul sound like hes 30 again why not? i mean, being an older recording artist myself i would love to enhance my voice any way i could. i mean, we cant stop ageing BUT take auto tune for instance. They have been doing that for year on ALL the new artists out there , making them sound better and fixing the flats and the sharps !!! Its just show biz folks, not brain surgery AND we could literally have a Beatles reunion on record for the first time ever…. Sure, its not the lads and never could be since they and their songs were sweat, blood, tear, pain, pleasure, hate, love, ect…. whereas a computer well….. you get the point i am trying to make here. STILL, it IS something brand new and never been done before so i say go for it. As for the world stage in politics ect… i say no. Reason being that the holy christian bible warned us about A.I. 2 to 6 thousand years ago taking over the world and ruling over us ( as in the image of the beast or anti-christ). i have a good knowledge of this and trust me, bible prophecy is over 75% fullfilled as of right now and every day you can literally add another percent whereas in a decade ALL prophetic writing WILL be completed. I dont want to preach here but this is fact. So, it will come and there is no stopping it. A.I will take over everything including jobs, medicine everything and the question is , perhaps we should at least get SOME pleasure out of the darn thing before all hell breaks loose. Just my lil humble opinion. ps. i miss the old sounding paul as i am sure he does too…..
Clearly not the right place for pontificating about religion, but I’d love you to message me about this topic, if that’s possible
There’s now a version of Grow Old With Me with John & Paul. Sounds like the George Martin score from the John Lennon Anthology version was used as well.
I really don’t know what to say about this. I was definitely against AI until I heard Grow Old With Me. Not to sound nutty, but it nearly brought me to tears. After all the incarnations of it from John’s cassette Demo, to George Martin’s scoring of it, right up to Ringo’s version of it, it finally feels like a completed piece. Every bit the standard that John hoped it would be(IMO) I guess it’s alternate reality, but just hearing it stunned me with it’s beauty…
I agree, I have just listened to Caroline, No with Paul’s AI voice and I almost cried too.
I have been wondering how AI could be used to reconstruct the Star Club recordings. It’s a fine line but I believe there is a space where AI can coexist with the actual sound recordings.
Using AI for entertainment purposes should clearly belong under the control of the artist, period full stop. They can then decide for themselves whether or not it truly is reflective of them and their work however it is used. It won’t stop hobbyists from using it, but when it comes to sale of an artist’s work, then that is where the permission for use from the artist must be central to it.
We are now at a time that a new (credible sounding) Beatles song could be composed, performed and sold simply by using AI. It will actually improve the mimicry as time passes.
The biggest threat from AI is deviousness. It has already shown it can lie when writing answers.
At https://mccartney.ai we are doing exactly the opposite of this. We are creating provenance of true voices and their authenticity, not that Pol needs proof of what he sounds like, but for authors, actors, voice, artists, tribal elders, etc., we have created the verified voice vault, so that we will have digital proof of their voice, Patton and Tom Bruh. Should they ever be the victim of these kind of deep fakes. It just goes to prove that you can no longer believe anything you read, hear or see any more. My lovely Leight stepdad, Jim McCartney used to say “the only thing you can believe in the newspaper is the date and the price“
I’m not wholly convinced with the Paul voice. It sounds like a man doing an impression of him. It’s not real, obviously, but it’s clever. Any serious Beatleperson would spot it a mile off. At the rate of progression that AI seems to be going at, by 2030, we’ll have totally “new” Beatles albums with their voices, guitars, drums and bass and whatever else perfectly matching JPG&R’s playing styles. New songs. So long as it’s clearly marked as being an AI release, I see no worries. I’ll still credit the Beatles for it, rather than the boffins, as without the boys, it wouldn’t be happening.
I’m more interested in what AI can achieve with actual Beatles recordings, such as was done on Peter Jackson’s Get Back, from which we are already benefitting with the new Yellow Submarine. I’m hoping that we will have stereo mixes of She Loves You and Love Me Do, as the mastertapes don’t exist anymore. Then there’s the first two albums (UK albums, I should say).
How do I remove my duplicated comments?
I don’t know, but I removed one for you.
Thanls. Don’t know why that happened’
This is bloody awful. AI – like protools, autotune and the demise of the guitar/bass/drums/vocals group is another nail in the coffin of popular music. People can create ‘Beatles’ tracks all they like with this AI crap. But it isn’t them and it never will be. Also, there’s a lack of respect. John is sadly dead. He should be left to rest in peace.
The Beatles, I truly believe, are bigger than Jesus. And, at this point, the Beatles are now vastly bigger than than they ever were, one billion streams later, 60 years removed. The original recordings are still with us. This is how the new generation discovers the magic and makes it their own. I think it’s really beautiful.
The technology gets more impressive by the day. It will become more and more difficult to differentiate reality from algorithm.