Paul McCartney used AI to make a new Beatles song | TechCrunch
Paul McCartney has made a new Beatles song, using AI, to be released later this year, featuring vocals from John Lennon recorded in 1978.
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Paul McCartney uses AI to create a new Beatles song. Should radio play it?
- Thread starter cyber
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Many radio stations should play it, or part of it, as an interesting music news item, initially. We'll have to wait to hear what it sounds like for further determination. The first two new Beatles recordings released on "The Beatles Anthologies" in the mid 1990s were both good. I liked "Real Love" the best of the two. The first time I heard the other song, "Free As A Bird" it was on an AC station.
Hope they had enough of George from the '95 recordings to finish his part of the track.
Yeah, this'll be nice to hear.
The technology to digitally clean up and isolate a voice or instrument from a recording has existed for well over a decade. Eric Records has been using it for years to create Digitally Extracted Stereo (DES) versions of mono recordings.
In this case the only thing "AI" about it is that they can use higher-quality solo recordings of John Lennon's voice as a model to improve the results of isolating his voice from the demo tape.
In this case the only thing "AI" about it is that they can use higher-quality solo recordings of John Lennon's voice as a model to improve the results of isolating his voice from the demo tape.
Once again, the problem isn't the technology, but who uses it. One could view Auto Tune as a form of AI. It's been in use for 30 years or more. Same with ProTools. There have been lots of digital techniques used to change the sound of music in the recording process. This is just one.
Should radio play it? Yes.
Should radio play it? Yes.
Abbey Road De-Mix Technology Discussion
Always wanted to get the TR-1 interactive disc as it sounded like in would have been fun to fool with the music. By the time I got around to seriously doing the purchase the CD-I was no longer available. I also recall it being rather expensive at the time. I did get the regular disc - not the...
www.quadraphonicquad.com
Demixing to make fake surround sound is a popular pastime for some surround sound music listeners (I just use Hafler/DynaQuad and Dolby Pro-Logic 2 music mode to create fake surround sound).
Maybe some cleverly worded disclaimer can be devised:
"This song used the latest AI tech to mimic the original song"
Kirk Bayne
Paul and Ringo have also talked about using AI (as they call it) to separate the instruments that were bounced together into a single track on the master tape, so they can do new remixes of Beatles songs.
To me, that's not a good thing -- they're messing with art. I already didn't like it when the remastered versions on the "1" CD edited out a lot of the mistakes and tightened up the tape-splice edits. Music fans have fun discovering those mistakes, like "Easter Eggs" in computer software. Now they're taking that away from us.
To me, that's not a good thing -- they're messing with art. I already didn't like it when the remastered versions on the "1" CD edited out a lot of the mistakes and tightened up the tape-splice edits. Music fans have fun discovering those mistakes, like "Easter Eggs" in computer software. Now they're taking that away from us.
However, it's THEIR art, and they are overseeing all the remixes. That's a very different thing from when remixes are done without artist input. The older versions are still available if you want to hear the originals,
And, of course, there's the original vinyl* if you want to hear the original versions exactly as they sounded when they were first released.
*If you're lucky enough to have original 1960s copies (not newly-made rereleases, of which I'm sure there are many).
c
id play it
I'm curious how it will be mixed.
Will it be mixed to sound like the original recordings (old-style reverb, etc.), or will it be mixed using more modern methodologies?
They did this with Peggy Lee's version of Fever. The original record has a lush, big sounding reverb, but it has been remixed for stereo, and the reverb they used is thin and tinny. It's modern, I guess, but it just sounds flat, boring and lifeless compared to the original record.
c
Will it be mixed to sound like the original recordings (old-style reverb, etc.), or will it be mixed using more modern methodologies?
They did this with Peggy Lee's version of Fever. The original record has a lush, big sounding reverb, but it has been remixed for stereo, and the reverb they used is thin and tinny. It's modern, I guess, but it just sounds flat, boring and lifeless compared to the original record.
c
Probably none, to be honest. Maybe a few spins as a novelty, but classic hits has largely moved on from the British Invasion era.
The Beatles are able to transcend time with a large number of listeners. Every year, I host a "Beatles Marathon" special radio show and, here in 2023, I'll have a 20 or 21 year old co-hosting with me. At Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio, for many years Conservatory students have performed a complete Beatles album during the month of May. My nieces, in their 30s are familiar with, and like Beatles music. Also, to an extant, The Rolling Stones and The Who, at least some songs, transcend time.
I'm sure there are as many opinions as posters here...
I find very few of the pre-breakup Beatles songs interesting or appealing any longer; there are a couple I still like but definitely don't "love". However, I can listen to almost all the big Top 40 Stones hits any time and enjoy them.
In fact, spent about $3,600 five years ago for us to see the Stones at "Desert Trip" and found it absolutely worth the expense.
Peggy Lee's version of "Fever" was recorded in 1958 and first released in widely separated stereo on vinyl in the early 1960s. It still has plenty of reverb, just perhaps not as much as the mono version.
Perhaps it was remixed to make it sound more modern when "Fever" was re-released as a single in the UK in 1983 and again in 1992, but I haven't heard those versions.
As for the so-called "original" versions of Beatles songs, that depends on which side of the pond you were on and which versions of the albums or 45s you bought. There are entire web sites and books dedicated to keeping track of all of them.
For example, "We Can Work It Out" had four mono mixes and two stereo mixes done back in 1965-1966. The U.S. stereo mix was done first, with less reverb and an organ in the center of the stereo image. The UK stereo mix was done a year later, with more reverb and the organ only in the right channel. I don't think the U.S. stereo mix has ever been re-released on CD, since the band deemed it to be "inferior".
The last time The Beatles put out a new song was in 1995. Free As a Bird, which came from the same source as this new song, charted in several formats. The highest was Mainstream Rock at #8. It also went to #6 in the Billboard Hot 100. Adult Contemporary peaked at #19. The classic hits/rock formats don't play currents, and this song would be considered a current. I think there will be a lot of curiosity about this song, so it might get some airplay, but not as much as Free As a Bird. I'm sure this will be a multi-media release across all platforms.
This was a bone of contention with the band and George Martin. Martin wrote about it in his book. Capitol Records thought they knew the American audience better than the folks at EMI, so they took it upon themselves to do remixes and repackages of the Beatles music until the band signed a new contract that established Apple Records and put all control in the hands of the band. After that, they released the original British mixes in subsequent US albums.
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