MAL software saved “Revolver” mix
Press conference at the Capitol Records Tower, Los Angeles on August 28th, 1966.
U.S. based Beatles fan magazine “Beatlefan” reported on their Facebook page that Universal held a Los Angeles listening session for the upcoming “Revolver” release this week. Interestingly, a Dolby Atmos mix of the album was played, although that mix will not be made commercially available, Beatlefan writes.
Likely, the Dolby Atmos mix will find its way to capable streaming providers like Apple Music and TIDAL, just like the three recently released Doby Atmos mixes of the self-titled McCartney albums.
Producer Giles Martin was on hand, and talked about how, previously, the problem with trying to remix “Revolver” is that, on one track, you might have drums, bass and rhythm guitar, and you couldn’t separate them. But, with the audio software developed by Sir Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films for “The Beatles: Get Back,” they can take any instrument off a track and place it anywhere in the mix they want. In other words, the Jackson software gave them the ability to do a real remix of the album, Beatlesfan reported.
Ringo shows off the back of the new Revolver boxed set.
Peter Jackson’s team needed to lift out obscured discussions from the mono Nagra tapes of the “Get Back” sessions. The team scoured academic papers on using AI to separate audio sources but realised that none of the previous research would work for a music documentary. They consulted with Paris Smaragdis at the University of Chicago and started to create a neural network called MAL (machine assisted learning – the name MAL was a deliberate homage to the HAL computer in 2001: a Space Odyssey — and to the omnipresent Mal Evans from the documentary) and a set of training data that was higher quality than datasets used in academic experiments. Using MAL, Jackson and his colleagues were able to painstakingly and precisely isolate each and every audio track — be it musical instrumentation, singing or studio chatter. In the end, that endeavor enabled them to also create stereo mixes from the mono tapes, and Jackson was able to provide Paul McCartney with an isolated vocal track from John Lennon on the song “I’ve Got A Feeling”, which Paul put to use in his “Got Back” tour and subsequent Glastonbury concert.
A few of the outtakes to be included also were previewed at the listening session. Among the outtakes set for the new box set is an early version of “Yellow Submarine” that features Lennon singing the unfinished number while playing acoustic guitar — an indication he was much more involved in the song’s creation than previously had been believed, concludes Beatlefan.
The “Revolver” releases are likely to hit the market on or around October 28, is what we have been hearing.
When can we expect the release?
The “Revolver” releases are likely to hit the market on or around October 28, is what we have been hearing.
Where do can I put my order in? Yes, really looking forward to it. Must admit, it is my favourite Beatle album. Just too be a bit controversial, I have no solo Beatle albums in my catalogue, I do not rate any of the guys’ solo albums at all! I M H O
There’s no pre-order links yet. Let’s wait in the coming days till it comes 🙂
Preorders will probably begin as soon as they make the “Official” announcement, which I believe is scheduled for September 13th.
Well, mate, that’s your loss. You don’t know what you are missing!
Well said Mr Marks! We might have to cherry pick some songs, but there’s great stuff by all four.
Can’t wait! Excited for the remixes 😊
Lennon singing Yellow Submarine. Wow!
Growing up I always had Yellow Submarine down as at least half by John (when did he ever have such a blast recording one of Paul’s songs?). I was amazed to see it always credited solely to Paul. If it turns out I was right I will just have to accept it with good grace.
John had a sense of humor. Maybe he wrote the whole darn thing.
Not even the ghost of MAL Evans can save a Giles Martin remix in my opinion… It’s all mixed for earbuds and phone speakers now unfortunately. Outtakes are usually mixed properly and I’m really looking forward to those
I mean, for rubber soul and revolver, Giles Martin mix is better than those original stereo mixes which seem to have been made for people who enjoy inflicting hard-panned torture upon their ears.
Those much maligned 1960s mixes of Help, Rubber Soul etc weren’t designed for headphones or widely separated speakers. Go back in time and imagine a teenagers bedroom….note the dansette record player with two built in speakers less than a couple of feet apart….the only way to hear stereo effect from that set-up….was to hard pan left and right. And if you wanted stereo you paid for it (the mono version was cheaper) so you wanted to hear it. Which is exactly what happened (and not just to Beatles tracks; it was common practice). I can’t stand those mixes either – but I think its worth defending the thinking at the time – they weren’t idiots.
Off topic, but has anyone else seen Paul’s photshoot with Madonna?
Doesn’t Macca know that the horrendous woman shoots animals and wears fur coats?
So much for staunch veganism…
I can’t stand Madonna either and I’m also a dedicated carnivore.
This MAL news is fascinating. My head is buzzing about like a buzzing thing, at the prospect of a proper stereo mix of You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), She Loves You and Love Me Do (plus the rest of the 2-track material).
I’ve really enjoyed the new mixes released so far, I’m happy when I hear something that is new to me. I’m not an audiophile, which means that I’m probably easier to please than some people.
You Know My Name doesn’t need demixing tech, it’s a multitrack recording. There’s a stereo version (edited differently) on Anthology.
what about peter jackson and the 1962 live hamburg recordings? i have watched and heard him on youtube describing how he would LOVE to take those tapes and use A.I. on the to bring out the vocals and make it perfect stereo like an abbey road recording!!! that intervies is from spring 2022 so its not out of the question yet i dont beleive. This whole A.I thing opens the door for a LOT of early bad recordings including bootlegs( studio or live) that has been awful up until now….. Opinions and latest news please on my question, the new revolver and well…. basically ANYTHING and Everything Beatles related. ps. How about 1972-3 early Wings live recordings using A.I tech???
Like one crying in the wilderness: what about the release of the original ‘Let it Be’ movie on dvd? Until then all those remixes, outtakes, special-deluxe-boxes, MAL software, Dolby Atmos, etc. are completely meaningless to me and another sign of The Beatles in their commercial ‘love & peace-haze’ are not taking their fans seriously.
I confess I haven’t even seen the Peter Jackson documentary yet.
Kindly suggest that you give the Get Back film a look. Its long so it’s good to watch in 1-2 hours segments. I would take Get Back over Let It Be any day of the week although I like both. GB isn’t perfect but it’s much more in depth about their dynamic of the time. In Let It Be it they are often, but not always, shown in conflict or seen to be unenthusiastic. For me the treasure trove of remasters, rereleases and so forth are highly welcomed.
Yes, Let It Be is paint brushed out of Beatles history, it seems. I love Get back, but LIB would have made a great bonus disc. Fully (sound and vision) restored. In the original 3:4 format, no letterboxing. Thank you.
I’ve seen let it be twice and I was bored to tears both times. Personally, I think it’s an important piece of Beatles history that most people should never even bother with. Get back is much better
I’ve seen LIB more than twice – and it’s always boring – but it does seem to be revisionism to remove it from access – in exchange for the so-called ‘happy’ version. Mind you, I suspect it’s LIB that played loose with the truth more than Jackson’s version (given when it came out they’d split) – as what director in his right mind would film Get Back being worked out in front of him, or George quitting and the others’ response and not use that footage? It seems very strange to me that so many people accuse Jackson of cherry-picking footage (which is what a director does) and haven’t noticed that his predecessor was the one that made the really strange editorial choices (perhaps ML-H was put out that the band kept ignoring his concert ideas…).
Super excited for the release, but I’m still not signing up for renting music on a streaming service.
I’ve always been a bit skeptical about Giles not being able to remix these pre-Pepper albums because the tracks were flattened. So suppose as a hypothetical you had take 4 of Taxman which consisted of guitars on track 1, bass on 2 and drums on 3. They then ‘flattened’ this to Take 5 onto which they added vocals and say Tambourine. This now was the final. So Giles is saying on Take 5 the guitars and drums are flattened onto one track. However why couldn’t he go back to Take 4 and pull the individual guitars and drums off that. They were used to created the final flat on Take 5 so are the exact same pieces. What am I missing?
Additionally in Love he has sounds from the early albums that are nicely separated so how did he do those? In the pre-Love show as the crowd is taking their seats he has a beautiful isolated Johns acoustic from “I should have known better” playing.
Foolish move by Universal to not include the Atmos mix on Blu-ray with the rest of the material in 24/96 2.0 as an extra disc like they did with Abbey Road and Let It Be as well as 5.1 mixes on Blu-ray with The Beatles and Sgt Peppers. The people most listening to surround on actual surround systems have very little interest in lossy streaming DD+/Atmos and many within this market are saying “no blu-ray, no buy” (I’m one of them). Not only is it inconsistent, but it’s infuriating knowing that the Atmos mix has been done and is only being made available in sub-par low bit-rate mp3-quality. Streaming Atmos doesn’t hold a candle to the fidelity of lossless Atmos on Blu-ray (having compared titles available in both formats like Steven Wilson’s The Future Bites).
Well said dobyblue! I’m sure many others also agree with what you stated. I will not purchase this or similar box sets that offer no 5.1/Atmosphere mix.
UMG, you missed the mark on this one!
Ditto dobyblue’s comment.
An online petition addressing this issue is here: https://chng.it/WjLnXxGfzc
According to the contract of Apple Corps as taken from Companies House in London:
THE COMPANIES ACT 2006
PRIVATE COMPANY LIMITED BY SHARES
ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION
OF
APPLE CORPS LIMITED
Adopted by special resolution passed on 25 August 2020
3. DECISION-MAKING BY DIRECTORS
3.1 Subject to the other provisions of this Article, a question arising at a meeting of the directors where all directors are present shall be decided by a majority of votes but questions arising at a meeting of the directors at which not all the directors are present shall be decided unanimously.
3.2 A unanimous resolution of the directors, or where one director abstains a unanimous resolution of all other directors, shall be required in respect of the following matters:
3.2.1 any use of the name “Beatle”;
3.2.2 any decision relating in any way to the exploitation of Beatle material;
3.2.3 any expenditure on any project in respect of which any individual shareholder of the Company may gain any personal benefit which any of the others do not gain;
3.2.4 any project entailing expenditure in excess of £50,000;
3.2.5 the appointment of any chief executive;
3.2.6 the remuneration of any individual shareholder of the Company whether in his capacity as a director or otherwise; and
3.2.7 the disposal of or creation of any charge or encumbrance on the Company’s shares in Maclen (Music) Limited.
So it’s the directors of Apple alone, that has made the decision of the release of Revolver. So don’t blame Apple, Giles Martin, Universal or others for giving us the product without surround/Dolby Atmos or other songs or not filling the various cd’s with more songs. Blame these directors of Apple Corps and nobody else: Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Lee Vail Eastman and Bruce Victor Grakal.
@Admin, I would please like some help! I am currently making a thesis/research paper for my high school project that is related to The Beatles and the use of the De-mix Technology. We’re trying to explain how de-mix technology could be useful for historical preservation purposes. Could you please provide sources for this part below:
“The team scoured academic papers on using AI to separate audio sources but realised that none of the previous research would work for a music documentary. They consulted with Paris Smaragdis at the University of Chicago and started to create a neural network called MAL (machine assisted learning – the name MAL was a deliberate homage to the HAL computer in 2001: a Space Odyssey — and to the omnipresent Mal Evans from the documentary) and a set of training data that was higher quality than datasets used in academic experiments. Using MAL, Jackson and his colleagues were able to painstakingly and precisely isolate each and every audio track — be it musical instrumentation, singing or studio chatter.”
(WOULD GLADLY APPRECIATE IT! THANK YOU! 😀)
It’s out there, but only for logged-in subscribers: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2302552-beatles-documentary-get-back-used-custom-ai-to-strip-unwanted-sound/
Thank you!