Speaker 1: Pushkin. Giles Martin may be the son of famed Beatles
Speaker 1: record producer Sir George Martin, but he's also an acclaimed
Speaker 1: record producer and composer and his own right. He's won
Speaker 1: multiple Grammys and an Emmy for his work across TV,
Speaker 1: music and film. He's worked on projects with The Rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: Elton John and Metallica, and is celebrated for his work
Speaker 1: remastering albums from the Beatles, including Sergeant Pepper's Abbey Road
Speaker 1: and The White Album. Last October, giles remaster for Revolver
Speaker 1: was released, along with never before heard home demos and
Speaker 1: outtakes from the Beatles. Giles was able to separate the
Speaker 1: original nineteen sixty six mono recording tracks with the help
Speaker 1: of director Peter Jackson's audio team, who used AI technology.
Speaker 1: Giles's resulting mix allows listeners to hear with clarity in
Speaker 1: precision their original recordings like never before. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin talks to Giles Martin about his approach to
Speaker 1: remastering the Beatles and the responsibility that comes along with it.
Speaker 1: Giles also talks about growing up in the music industry
Speaker 1: and how he became his dad's ears and studio sessions
Speaker 1: when his father lost his hearing. This is broken record
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin in conversation with Giles Martin from Shangri La.
Speaker 1: Tell me growing up in the house that you grew
Speaker 1: up in. We didn't have talked about this before, so
Speaker 1: this is interesting. What's it like growing up in such
Speaker 1: a musical household? Let's start like that. Well, it's really hard.
Speaker 1: Like people said to me, what's what was it like
Speaker 1: growing ving George Martin as a as a father, and
Speaker 1: you go, I never had a different father. I never
Speaker 1: had different dads, So I don't know, but it was.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what the difference is.
Speaker 1: And this is what I try and encourage my kids
Speaker 1: and other people with kids. It's like music wasn't something
Speaker 1: that was distant from me. Like playing an instrument wasn't
Speaker 1: something that was a stranger too, because my dad was
Speaker 1: sitting for the piano. When I was about four years old.
Speaker 1: They said in my playgroup, what is your dad doing?
Speaker 1: People come, my dad's a lawyer, my dad's or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and I'd say, my dad just sits home
Speaker 1: and plays the piano, and I think he was running
Speaker 1: the music for the Live and Let Die the Bond
Speaker 1: film at that time. I think that's that was If
Speaker 1: I look at the era, it was around about ninety
Speaker 1: seventy four, So music was natural thing. What's interesting The
Speaker 1: Beatles didn't it really exist to my household. It was
Speaker 1: not that they were banned from the house. I mean
Speaker 1: we had a copy of Abbey Road and that was it.
Speaker 1: I think, really yeah, I did because it was something
Speaker 1: he did. I understood. And you know, you've always been
Speaker 1: progressive in your life. You can always bring your work
Speaker 1: life home. Yeah, but it's also it's what you did,
Speaker 1: what you're interesting about, what you're doing or what you're
Speaker 1: going to do. And that's what people don't realize. Was
Speaker 1: your dad home a lot? Or was he at studio daily? Like?
Speaker 1: Tell me what what were days like? It's hard to
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Yeah, but yeah, no, he he
Speaker 1: was pretty good. He always said that he wasn't around enough.
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I had a nanny. I had a
Speaker 1: male nanny who was There was a band, a seventies
Speaker 1: band called Stackridge he worked with, and the drummer from
Speaker 1: Stackridge was unhappy being the drummer and Stackridge and became
Speaker 1: looked after us kids. So I had a drummers as
Speaker 1: a nanny, and my dad would be at the studios,
Speaker 1: but I would go and see him. I mean he
Speaker 1: was at a place for air studios which is in
Speaker 1: Oxford Street. It's where Nike Town is now if it's
Speaker 1: in London, they got Oxford Circus Nike Town as well,
Speaker 1: and it was the top of that building. And I
Speaker 1: remember as a kid he had two officers. He had
Speaker 1: one he was part of Chrysalas Records at the time
Speaker 1: and that was his that was obviously a record company,
Speaker 1: and I just found that really boring. I was going
Speaker 1: to see him there. And the other was the studios,
Speaker 1: which one would have an elevator to quite high up,
Speaker 1: probably the fourth floor as far as you know us
Speaker 1: Britz goes, which is really high up for us. And
Speaker 1: there were corridors and there was long corridor. At the
Speaker 1: end of the corridor was a hot chocolate machine and
Speaker 1: it was free. But on the doors which corridor, there
Speaker 1: were rooms where things would happen. There were runs where
Speaker 1: they would be musicians and speakers and noise and I
Speaker 1: could sense even then as like a four or five
Speaker 1: year old or six year old, or I could sense
Speaker 1: that this was different from an office. This was different,
Speaker 1: This had a different feel to it. It was perfect
Speaker 1: natural for me to be in that environment because I
Speaker 1: didn't know any different. What would be the music playing
Speaker 1: in your household other than your dad playing piano. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the here's the thing. We didn't have a stereo
Speaker 1: system in our house because my mum didn't like speakers.
Speaker 1: My dad used to didn't like the way they looked
Speaker 1: with the way they sounded or the way they looked
Speaker 1: where they looked. We did eventually get get a high
Speaker 1: fi so me and my sister had had a record
Speaker 1: player and we would listen to and we would get records.
Speaker 1: We weren't I don't think we were terribly spoiled children.
Speaker 1: We get record quite offen. Records we got were records
Speaker 1: from my dad or labels and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: they would be very I remember, like we used to
Speaker 1: listen like even the Quietest Moments by Supertramp, which is
Speaker 1: an album that came out and as Peter Henderson was
Speaker 1: the engineer, like who we knew? Or there was like
Speaker 1: a Carol King album called Chicken Soup and something like that.
Speaker 1: I alays thought Carol King was this sort of New
Speaker 1: England housewife that made things. That I worked with her
Speaker 1: and met her, I realized that she's more like doctor Ruth.
Speaker 1: Funny enough, it's a character. She's brilliant. Carrol Kings, She's
Speaker 1: found like the sort of this hot wire. There were
Speaker 1: there were so there were these records that you know,
Speaker 1: I was worried. We had a stand Gets album because
Speaker 1: he was he worked with Stan Getz, and so we
Speaker 1: had these albums that my dad had made and the
Speaker 1: Maravisional Orchestra for example, Jeff Beck, blow by Blow. These
Speaker 1: albums that they were. They were the albums because they
Speaker 1: were free. And then obviously as kids, you you end
Speaker 1: up buying you know, Bowie records. And I remember I
Speaker 1: had Transformed. I was obsessed by Transformer by lou Reid,
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, away these records. But I remember
Speaker 1: my dad. My buid the memory with my dad's sitting
Speaker 1: outside a house in the car and listening to the
Speaker 1: work he was doing because we didn't have a stereo
Speaker 1: at home in our living room as it were. So
Speaker 1: many people do listen to music in the car. It's
Speaker 1: not a bad place to listen to music. No, it's
Speaker 1: good as you know, you and I both was a
Speaker 1: good place to check mix. It absolutely felt less so
Speaker 1: now funny because cars now do stuff to audio that
Speaker 1: we don't want them to do. But yeah, usually you
Speaker 1: can turn it off though, yeah yeah, yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: like a second. You know, audio has become more sophisticated
Speaker 1: at the same time, less sophisticate in a way, and
Speaker 1: technology companies decide to do things to our music that
Speaker 1: maybe we don't do them to do. They just want
Speaker 1: to go. I want to listen to card because I
Speaker 1: want to listen to what it sounds like. Simply. That's
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing to talk about. I know that
Speaker 1: that was a big when the Beatles catalog was streamed,
Speaker 1: when they decided to stream for the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were involved in the way that was handled and
Speaker 1: it was different than the way most other maybe all
Speaker 1: of their music was streamed. Tell me about that. You know,
Speaker 1: I never planned on being involved with the Beatles, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a singer, songwriter, guitar player, and
Speaker 1: circumstances happened that you know, nepotis and roles or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and so I have been ever since
Speaker 1: the Love Project, which I did in fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: sixteen years ago, been involved in that, and the streaming
Speaker 1: thing came up, and I just I have this view.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit like the kid in Mary Poppins that
Speaker 1: that wants to feed the birds and not go to
Speaker 1: the bank. I think music should be available to people.
Speaker 1: And the Beatles was held off streaming, maybe because of quality,
Speaker 1: but probably more so because they're thinking about, Okay, how
Speaker 1: do we sell box sets and how do we I'm
Speaker 1: getting there's kids that have no idea what this music
Speaker 1: is because they're not buying records, and we have to
Speaker 1: accept that. That's a you know, it's it's it's neither
Speaker 1: good or bad, it's just it is. You know, people go,
Speaker 1: people don't listen to albums anymore. Well, we can't judge hoppy,
Speaker 1: but you want to make things available to people. That's
Speaker 1: what I believe. So when the Beatles went on streaming,
Speaker 1: I just said, I use the power that there's like
Speaker 1: a bullying power with the Beatles saying Okay, if you
Speaker 1: want to be on streaming, let's make sure the quality
Speaker 1: is as good as it can be. And I don't
Speaker 1: believe in that thing where people go, you can't you know,
Speaker 1: artists go, you can't enjoy music because it's not good,
Speaker 1: good quality. I listened to cassette cassettes that were cassettes
Speaker 1: with my my thing. I'd like to be cool as
Speaker 1: I had vinyl, but I was a generation at cassettes.
Speaker 1: I had a cassette, not even a workman, like a
Speaker 1: really bad player with those orange headphones that only did
Speaker 1: fast forward and didn't rewind, you know, and have to
Speaker 1: turn over the tape to get That's what I had,
Speaker 1: and it came with free speakers. Two little speakers came
Speaker 1: in the same box. But I listened to records on
Speaker 1: that which I fell in love with. They sounded like
Speaker 1: to me, it was like I didn't need anything else.
Speaker 1: Our mind fills in the blanks. We can fill in
Speaker 1: the spaces that are there. But you might as well
Speaker 1: make things if they can be good, make things as
Speaker 1: good as they can be. That's what we do in studios.
Speaker 1: So with the Beatles, I went to Spotify, I went
Speaker 1: to Apple, I went to whoever would take me and said,
Speaker 1: how do we make the system better? How do we
Speaker 1: get rid of normalization which compresses music? How do we
Speaker 1: make sure the codecs are good, and so I've been working.
Speaker 1: I started working on that with them. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: what you found out about the way the standards were
Speaker 1: done that you wanted to override, because again it's interesting
Speaker 1: and nobody knows. It's only know it because you told
Speaker 1: me about it. There's this thing called normally nation where
Speaker 1: everything needs to be the same level. It's like life.
Speaker 1: If everything in life is the same level, you're not
Speaker 1: You're anither happy. You're neither happy or sad. I want
Speaker 1: to feel stuff I don't want to. You know, I
Speaker 1: maybe very English, you know if I sound English, I know,
Speaker 1: but I'm emotional. I care about stuff deeply, and I
Speaker 1: get I cry about things. It's the same with music.
Speaker 1: That's when music to be. We want it to be.
Speaker 1: We don't want it to be the same level. We
Speaker 1: want it to be surprising. And I went to go
Speaker 1: and see Spotify and Sweden and we talked about the
Speaker 1: process of imbibing music, how they take the music and
Speaker 1: how they put it out and making sure this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: And they agreed. They and what's interesting what people there's
Speaker 1: the thing in the music industry where the artists and
Speaker 1: the Listener's not the question about how the asser dealt
Speaker 1: with But there's the thing about people perceive that these
Speaker 1: companies don't care, but they do care about it. They
Speaker 1: really do. You know, in my experience, they have teams
Speaker 1: and they just they want to know how to make
Speaker 1: it better, opposed to going we don't care about it.
Speaker 1: And that's what I found. So with Apple, they were
Speaker 1: developing new code. They came to see me when they
Speaker 1: did their master for I Tunes thing. And because because
Speaker 1: the way I grew up being my dad's ears because
Speaker 1: he went deaf, and you know, I was, I was
Speaker 1: in students listening for a long time, and I knew
Speaker 1: what one killer sounded like, maybe at two early in age.
Speaker 1: And I remember saying, I met a guy who was
Speaker 1: head of Corodo Apple and we did a listening test
Speaker 1: down at Bob clear Mountain's place in Santa Monica and
Speaker 1: they played me a remaster of something. I think it
Speaker 1: was a Dawn Life or something, and I just said,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing a weird compression at like four hundred hurts
Speaker 1: and I'm also hearing this leveling out a nine killer hurts.
Speaker 1: And they looked at me like I was some pretentious,
Speaker 1: which is fair enough. And I can only say what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing. And then this guy Bill Stuart William Stewart,
Speaker 1: who was the head of He said to me much later,
Speaker 1: he goes, the weird thing is we just thought you
Speaker 1: were mad. But I said, you know, to the team,
Speaker 1: we should and he goes, we found, we found it.
Speaker 1: We found what you were talking about. We found And
Speaker 1: I went, well, okay, I I don't know, Bill, but
Speaker 1: but I mean, I can only tell you what I hear.
Speaker 1: But the great thing about that is then they engaged.
Speaker 1: And then they said, okay, how do we make things better?
Speaker 1: How can we and I get seen. I mean, two
Speaker 1: years ago someone came to see me from a company.
Speaker 1: I said, it's completely transparent and slee enough for them.
Speaker 1: He had an ab situation and I won't tell you
Speaker 1: what stream of service it was. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: that's I'm hearing. I'm hearing some number seven killer hurts.
Speaker 1: That's not And he said, but people can't tell a difference,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, if I walked into a room
Speaker 1: and you played to me, I wouldn't tell a difference.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. That's a difference. But if you're get
Speaker 1: it right, but if you know, but now you I've
Speaker 1: got a button. I mean I can hear what's going on,
Speaker 1: of course, but that's not the let's get it right.
Speaker 1: And so I find that within that world the people
Speaker 1: want to engage and it's just making sure that getting
Speaker 1: rid of all of the bs around it. And there's
Speaker 1: the thing that I, you know, I get attacked for occasionally.
Speaker 1: I have a pretty good run of stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: like about compressional limiting, people have been compressing limiting records
Speaker 1: since records were recorded. The nature of recording there, that's
Speaker 1: what happened. I mean, my dad flew over to Capitol
Speaker 1: in LA because the Americans were so much louder than
Speaker 1: the English and they still are socially, No, they loud.
Speaker 1: There's so much loud than the English. And he went
Speaker 1: to the Comely, Come fly Me sessions with Frank Snatcher.
Speaker 1: There's my dad. No one ever knew he was there.
Speaker 1: He was young and wet pioneers to see how they
Speaker 1: were doing, see how the Americans could be loud, because
Speaker 1: in those days everything was listening to on a on
Speaker 1: a turntable, and the American records would come on the
Speaker 1: radio and they'd be loud than the English ones, and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't know that. E M. I want to know why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm accused of there's this whole loudness warm of debate. Course.
Speaker 1: And I always wanted my things to sound loud because
Speaker 1: I want them to be like the Beatles. Like the
Speaker 1: Beatles were always louder than everybody else. But you always
Speaker 1: made records just sounded beautiful. I mean, and always that
Speaker 1: was my That's my goal, and they always will do it.
Speaker 1: Like you know, people want to listen to records because
Speaker 1: they doesn't matter what it is, they just and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I went to get these. A guy for this team
Speaker 1: of high fi experts came to see me. This is
Speaker 1: down at Abbeurador while back, and they serted they had
Speaker 1: this conversation with me and I said, you know, records
Speaker 1: have been compressed for a long time. And I said,
Speaker 1: I try, and I try and not make you know,
Speaker 1: I try and have dynamics. And we talked about the
Speaker 1: field and stuff like that in a record. I said,
Speaker 1: but really it's really only from like nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: to Night's and eighty that there was this sort of
Speaker 1: less compression. I like, you know, and I said, so, so,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to sell me your high fis, what
Speaker 1: would you play when they went so Sultan's or Swinging
Speaker 1: by Dire Straits. So I was like, Okay, I think
Speaker 1: it's nineteen seventy seven they went Ducks at the Moon
Speaker 1: by Pink Floating, Okay, seventy four seventy three. I went, so,
Speaker 1: your theory is that the only music worth listening to
Speaker 1: us from this like sixty or seventy eight period of time,
Speaker 1: and give us how crazy that is. Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and then we'll be back
Speaker 1: with more from Rick Rubin and Giles Martin. We're back
Speaker 1: with more from Rick Rubin and Giles Martin, who's talking
Speaker 1: about how the streaming services built in technology affects the
Speaker 1: sound of the Beatles catalog. Tell me about the normalization
Speaker 1: process that they were doing. Was it a compression or
Speaker 1: was it matching levels? It was matching levels, but it
Speaker 1: has to be done. The problem is with all of
Speaker 1: this is that I don't think it was done on
Speaker 1: the input stage, so it feels the input it was.
Speaker 1: Actually when you make something loud quieter, there's a way
Speaker 1: to do it where you're retaining all of the information,
Speaker 1: and there's a way to do it where you're actually
Speaker 1: removing information, yes, removing resolution to get it quieter exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's what was going on. So there was a
Speaker 1: digital compression happening in order to make the track the
Speaker 1: right level. Yeah, And there's that becomes a sound to it, yes,
Speaker 1: And there becomes a sound that's then accepted. Yes. And
Speaker 1: it's a very difficult thing to to negate. And it's
Speaker 1: it's really here's here's the thing. And I can sit
Speaker 1: in now as like as now just turned fifty three
Speaker 1: year old man and go that's the reason why records
Speaker 1: don't last as long. But the same point is that
Speaker 1: you know, when Revolve was made, they didn't plan on
Speaker 1: it lasting very long. No, that's the thing you just
Speaker 1: go us. So there's a there's a there's a there's
Speaker 1: a tangible sort of inner turmoil that goes on in
Speaker 1: this in us, in us on our mountaintops judging this thing.
Speaker 1: But the only thing I would say, and the only
Speaker 1: thing that that I think is is really important, is
Speaker 1: that as time goes on, technology is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: That's the thing people think it is, and technology is
Speaker 1: is you can be in a situation. You know, even
Speaker 1: with spatial audio, even with that, you can bring someone
Speaker 1: closer to the artist. You can you can have that directness.
Speaker 1: You know, you and I are talking now, we're talking
Speaker 1: good microphones and have this conversation. But it's not the
Speaker 1: same as someone being in a room with us. And
Speaker 1: so we or much better people than us that make
Speaker 1: records now, you know, will be in a situation where
Speaker 1: they can they can create something and as it should
Speaker 1: be as close as to what they want someone to hear.
Speaker 1: You know, with technology, with everything going on, what's happened
Speaker 1: is it? With is sometimes we move further away from
Speaker 1: that because of the way it's being delivered and the
Speaker 1: way it's being done, and because of presumptions by technology
Speaker 1: companies that that's the right thing to do. Yes, And
Speaker 1: so you know, I get I get given keys to
Speaker 1: things like I'm now ahead of audience staff for UMG.
Speaker 1: So one of my roles is to look at this
Speaker 1: stuff and go, okay, there's a universal music group for anyone,
Speaker 1: but to go, okay, how do we how do we
Speaker 1: create this transparency? You know, there's no agenda here, there's
Speaker 1: no like and I'm not trying to sell more records.
Speaker 1: I'm not My role is purely how do we create
Speaker 1: this transfers of preservation. It's a preservation. It's also preservation
Speaker 1: looking forward as well. It's not just a question of
Speaker 1: me doing what I do with old records. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm more interesting what you know people are doing with
Speaker 1: their records and go okay, you need to make sure,
Speaker 1: like you know, music, music used to flow out of us, yes,
Speaker 1: all flout of artists and and be in a stream,
Speaker 1: and now it's in a waterfallest like there's cascading collapsing waterfalls.
Speaker 1: Everyone's being hit by things all the time. You can't
Speaker 1: change that. But what you can do is reassure that
Speaker 1: people that spend hours, days and week working on something
Speaker 1: that it can be It can go to someone who
Speaker 1: loves your music in the best possible way. It's like
Speaker 1: who wants who wants a cold pizza in a box? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And one of the things about the well meaning technical
Speaker 1: advances what they can do is you can listen to
Speaker 1: a piece of music and then they press a button
Speaker 1: that would be like the equivalent of let's say a
Speaker 1: loudness button. Everybody knows what the loudness button does, so
Speaker 1: you press the loudness button and it seems like you
Speaker 1: might like that better, but you might like that better
Speaker 1: on some pieces of music and not others. And if
Speaker 1: that loudness button was universally put on everything, where you
Speaker 1: no longer have the button or the choice to turn
Speaker 1: it off. It's one of the things actually with Sonos
Speaker 1: that I recommended early on with Sonos. Sonos has it
Speaker 1: built in loudness button and it comes on, and I
Speaker 1: suggested it should come off, and you can turn it
Speaker 1: on if you want it on. But the first thing
Speaker 1: I do when I connect a new Sonos speaker is
Speaker 1: turned off the loudness but absolutely because it sounds more
Speaker 1: like what the record sounds like. Yeah, and that's the
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's like, you know, that's designed so
Speaker 1: a loudness button in that case is designed so it
Speaker 1: adds more base at lower levels, not high levels. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing as I remember when having a car
Speaker 1: which had a variable volume limit for when how fast
Speaker 1: I was going. Remember the worst it makes me crazy
Speaker 1: most cars happen. Yeah, it's like what is especially if
Speaker 1: you're listening to mixes while you're driving and it makes
Speaker 1: you crazy. It's just and actually I was listening to
Speaker 1: a Shawny a Shanty mix the other days artists and
Speaker 1: it was like and I was listening to on a
Speaker 1: system and with it with the mix engineer, and it's
Speaker 1: like loads of ediwate kicked drum loads the thing. And
Speaker 1: we were checking out and I said, did you mean
Speaker 1: to make the vocal louder here? It's very rave, and
Speaker 1: he goes, no, it stays to stay the same. And
Speaker 1: what happened the system was compressing. And it's the thing
Speaker 1: about compressing. A limit to the system was compressing. So
Speaker 1: once the once the edyway and all that heavy low
Speaker 1: sub was removed from the track. When the guy was rapping,
Speaker 1: when there was no it meant his vocal just came up.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, that's not right, that's not that's
Speaker 1: not that's an example. So I mean I said to her,
Speaker 1: like a senior engineer Apple, who's a good man of mine.
Speaker 1: And this is when they released one of the released products,
Speaker 1: and the same with Snos and all these they said
Speaker 1: in the blurb, you know, we remix the sound. I
Speaker 1: never say if you want the artist, never say your
Speaker 1: product remixes the sound, just say we are you know,
Speaker 1: I want there to be a completely flawless window and
Speaker 1: let the sunlight shine true into our homes. That's what
Speaker 1: I want, or open just to flow, and I don't
Speaker 1: want I don't want anything between it. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: And there's and bizarre. You have to do a lot
Speaker 1: of technical stuff to make that happen. That's the key.
Speaker 1: But it's tasting how even certain things like vinyl. It's
Speaker 1: really funnel list in the vinyl. But I can't say
Speaker 1: that vinyl is more accurate. It's just another filter. It's
Speaker 1: do you know what I'm saying. It's it's maybe a
Speaker 1: filter we like y. Same is true with tubes. It's
Speaker 1: like tubes sound great, but they sound like tubes. They
Speaker 1: don't sound like that they use it. It's like it's
Speaker 1: the it's the thing. It's like I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: the first Beadles out of My Realm that they asked
Speaker 1: me a remix, and I was against remixing any Beatles album.
Speaker 1: I've gotta be honest with you, but you know, Paul
Speaker 1: and Ringo said, you know, we want, you know, can
Speaker 1: you do this? And I said, we'll do. I'll do
Speaker 1: three tracks and then we'll say we listen to them
Speaker 1: and they liked them, and I was like, it was
Speaker 1: Sergeant Peppers, and so I remix Sergeant Peppers and I
Speaker 1: really spent a lot of time over the stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about it because I'm basically penny of my start
Speaker 1: in the Mona Leaves. So I'm doing it stuff. A
Speaker 1: lot of people, like a a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are better than me, would like to be doing this
Speaker 1: job and be a lot of people love this music,
Speaker 1: would like me to not be doing this job. So
Speaker 1: I'm walking. I know that I'm walking this fine line
Speaker 1: at the same time, and I'd done it, and I
Speaker 1: looked at it and I was wanted is it too bright?
Speaker 1: You know? Is it too loud? Is it to eventually
Speaker 1: unhappy with it? And then we cut the vinyl and
Speaker 1: it to me, it sounded really good. It sounded better
Speaker 1: than what I and I found it annoyed because like
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I like to be in control
Speaker 1: of stuff. I wouldn't control stuff. I cut the final
Speaker 1: even the stery imaging sounded better to me. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like, what's what's going on here? Yea, I can't,
Speaker 1: I don't know, But that's a filter. It it's a filter.
Speaker 1: And in all these cases there there's like there's the
Speaker 1: arguments that vinyl is closer to It's like, no, it's not,
Speaker 1: but you may like you might like it more. It
Speaker 1: may be it may be technically better, but it's not closer.
Speaker 1: And there's and there's a whole generation of records you
Speaker 1: know from what Drey was doing, which which the way
Speaker 1: that shifted wouldn't been able to shift if it was
Speaker 1: still on vinyl, yes, or if it was still on tape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because because the amount of base on the low end
Speaker 1: wouldn't exist. Yes, they wouldn't exist. It just wouldn't. Like
Speaker 1: you know, that's the interesting it. Maybe it's not better
Speaker 1: or worse, it just is it's just different. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you use use the equipment that you have. That's things
Speaker 1: like the excuse many people we see they feel like
Speaker 1: they can't do it because the equipment changed. It's like
Speaker 1: it really is the artist and the listener and whatever's
Speaker 1: in between is not so important. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We can, we can use our best efforts to use
Speaker 1: what we think sounds good. But to say, well, if
Speaker 1: I don't have a Nive console, I can't make a record,
Speaker 1: say it's it's a ridiculous idea I had. I had.
Speaker 1: I have a friend of mine who was a great
Speaker 1: mixed engineer, and I was working. I was producing a
Speaker 1: band when I was twenty three, deeply unsuccessful. I'm doing
Speaker 1: a really bad job. So I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing. He wasn't he was. It was at Rack
Speaker 1: Studios in London, which a great studio, old API desks
Speaker 1: and stuff. And he was the room next door and
Speaker 1: he's working in bands of the nineties and it sounded
Speaker 1: great what he was doing. I'd go back into my
Speaker 1: room and it's sud a terrible his room. And we
Speaker 1: became friends and you know, and he actually said one
Speaker 1: thing to Goes Once, once you learn how to make
Speaker 1: things sound good, it gets kind of boring. So you
Speaker 1: have to work out. You know that, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I try not making make bad sound. I don't think
Speaker 1: I make bad selling records. You know, I kind of
Speaker 1: know why. But he said to me, Goes, I don't
Speaker 1: I mistrust anyone who walks into studios and saying I
Speaker 1: can't work in the studios, especially nowadays. We have everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have everything, and it's like, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: makes great sound. It's great musicians. Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like I worked on the first Jubilee
Speaker 1: concert back in two thousand and two which Brian May
Speaker 1: played guitar on the roof for Bucking Palace and we
Speaker 1: had as an artist and Stevie Winwood was one of
Speaker 1: the artists and he wrote to me and he was
Speaker 1: doing give Me Some Loving and was like the band
Speaker 1: was like it was like Phil Collins and drums and
Speaker 1: Peino Padion on bass and Ray couprom percussion and it
Speaker 1: was one of those It was one of those great
Speaker 1: English kind of charity events. And Steve win was one
Speaker 1: of the nicest guys in the world. And he gave
Speaker 1: me CDs of each part of give Me Some Loving
Speaker 1: for the band to learn, which he'd done MIDI like
Speaker 1: on the like DX seven or something else, and he's
Speaker 1: seven of this demo like like Pino said to me, goes.
Speaker 1: I think I know how the baseline from Give Us
Speaker 1: Loving goes. It's like getting remembered and it was like
Speaker 1: on a key like on a keyboard, but then he sang.
Speaker 1: He sang obviously on some like answer phone on this track.
Speaker 1: It was the weirdest thing. It was this terrible backing track,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible MIDI backing track with Steve Winwood
Speaker 1: singing into and it was like he could sing into
Speaker 1: anything and he would sound amazing, like Joe Cockroll, like
Speaker 1: this artist he was on the concert as well. But
Speaker 1: there's these singers like the reason why people go even
Speaker 1: with me with Beetles stock at that. You know, the
Speaker 1: White album sounds great. It's like that's because it sounds great.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you, but I honestly I'm pushing faders
Speaker 1: up and you know, and as we move on, it's
Speaker 1: the unfair thing. You start, you go, you work with
Speaker 1: people who aren't very good, and then you get to
Speaker 1: work people good and you make good records. And we
Speaker 1: get a lot of credit for stuff that's just people
Speaker 1: sound good. That's will sound good, people sound people sound good.
Speaker 1: And if we're in a lucky position to get to
Speaker 1: cast the people who are playing, yep, and if we
Speaker 1: pick the right ones, it sounds really good. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds It's like that's the more than any microphone, yeah,
Speaker 1: or more than any compressor or you know, we have
Speaker 1: favorites like equipment we like to use, but you have
Speaker 1: to start off with the right ingredients. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: lucky to work on a session that Ringo played drums on,
Speaker 1: and he played smaller drums than most of the drummers
Speaker 1: that I work with, and he seemed to hit the
Speaker 1: drums more casually than the most of the drummers I
Speaker 1: work with, and the sound that came off the drums
Speaker 1: filled the room in a tremendous way that was different
Speaker 1: than everyone else. And it's just the way. It was
Speaker 1: the nature of the way he did it. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was in his hands, YEA, in his body
Speaker 1: is where the sound was. Yeah. I sat in a
Speaker 1: room to a concert with Joni Mitchell once and she
Speaker 1: just played the guitar and singing like as close we
Speaker 1: are now. It was like I couldn't work out with
Speaker 1: the music was coming from. Yeah, I literally couldn't work
Speaker 1: out like it was emanating from her. And I love that.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that we look for that secret,
Speaker 1: you know, what's the plug in? And I love the
Speaker 1: idea that you could take someone you could train them
Speaker 1: to be Jonie Mitchell from the age of five, and
Speaker 1: they would never be Joni Mitchell. Now there's a spirit
Speaker 1: and without something pretentious. Our job is to is to
Speaker 1: capture that spirit and pass it it's possible, and to
Speaker 1: not get in the way up really well, this is
Speaker 1: the thing. I mean, even like with the legacy stuff
Speaker 1: I do with the Beetles, I get to walk in
Speaker 1: to Eduar and I get to put the tapest off
Speaker 1: in the same way you did with Paul and listening stuff,
Speaker 1: and you go, wow, how lucky am I? This is
Speaker 1: really touching me. You know, how can I take stuff
Speaker 1: off this so people can hear it? You know, I
Speaker 1: mean opposed to how can I get my sound up?
Speaker 1: You know that has nothing to do with that. You're
Speaker 1: just yeah, you're just basically you know, you're just passing
Speaker 1: things down. And it's the same when we're gonna come
Speaker 1: to the streaming thing. The next stage is the streaming thing.
Speaker 1: How can that be passed to someone? So here you are,
Speaker 1: here's here's not a cold pizza in the box. Here
Speaker 1: is a delicious thing for you to enjoy. Yes, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the White album A little bit. Be White
Speaker 1: album that you did was two years ago? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so, well, I yeah, and I did so. I
Speaker 1: did the whole pit adjective big Deluxe, Big two years ago,
Speaker 1: like it was about because I've been wanting to talk
Speaker 1: to you since then because that it really blew my mind.
Speaker 1: White Album might well be my favorite of all albums. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when I listened to the new mix of it,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like a remix. No, but it shouldn't.
Speaker 1: It didn't. It felt like I was hearing this album
Speaker 1: that I've been listening to my whole life all the time,
Speaker 1: that I was hearing it for the first time. And
Speaker 1: that was a remarkable experience, like I'd never actually heard
Speaker 1: it all before. Was like a blanket was taken off
Speaker 1: the speakers and I could actually hear the clarity of
Speaker 1: what was happening, and it was an amazing experience. So
Speaker 1: tell me technologically, what happened to allow that to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good question. The answer. The answer is, well,
Speaker 1: a number of things, but there's no there's no real
Speaker 1: one thing to pay. And it's certainly it's certainly not
Speaker 1: anything to do with cleansing or cleaning, because I didn't
Speaker 1: believe in that. Like, even when the White Album is
Speaker 1: predominantly eight tracks, there's a couple of four tracks, and
Speaker 1: I let the bleed from the other tracks come through
Speaker 1: because otherwise it becomes you know, sterile. Yes, But the
Speaker 1: White Album, like all Bele's album, was made for vinyl,
Speaker 1: and it was made in different rooms and at a
Speaker 1: fractious time, so people, it's quite It was mixed out
Speaker 1: of anger and mixed by Ken Scott and Chris Thomas,
Speaker 1: who are both brilliant. I mean, like Ken Scott went
Speaker 1: on to do Hunky Dory and Transformed by Lou Reed,
Speaker 1: amongst other things, and Chris Thomas is one of the
Speaker 1: one of the greatest producers. But it was done in
Speaker 1: a fractious time. You know, I think George Harrison or
Speaker 1: George Martin. My dad told the story when they were
Speaker 1: doing Savoy Tucky Truffle. My dad walked into Studio three
Speaker 1: in Iberia, I think they're in. Ken Scott was mixing
Speaker 1: it and goes, it sounds a bit bright, George, and
Speaker 1: he went, yeah, I know, and I like it, like,
Speaker 1: you know, get out of here, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And so it was made at a time where it
Speaker 1: was like the fractiousness is on the mix, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. So therefore maybe and it's I have to
Speaker 1: walk a tight up here because I'm dealing with you know,
Speaker 1: a something people chitthol deer. Sometimes the translation of what
Speaker 1: was intended on the White album, like the aggression or
Speaker 1: not the aggression is leveled out a bit like we're
Speaker 1: talking about what streaming services do is it's it's come
Speaker 1: down sometimes to compress, sometimes too bright, sometimes whatever. So
Speaker 1: I'm having to mix this material, but I'm trying to
Speaker 1: mix it bearing in mind what they want, because don't forget,
Speaker 1: I am not Ringo and paust Live and Livy Harrison
Speaker 1: and Danny Harrison, Sean Nannon and Yoko, So I am
Speaker 1: working for them, playing at him. But my intent is to, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I do as little as possible and get
Speaker 1: you to be in the room of the band, because
Speaker 1: one thing about the be the Beatles records, and I've
Speaker 1: worked on lots of other I've done, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I've mixed Rolling Stones, I've done Beach Boys, now
Speaker 1: I've done There's there's certain artists you a bit like
Speaker 1: an autopsy. You open up the body and you find
Speaker 1: out it's not in great working You order you need
Speaker 1: to sew it up and put it back to go
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. The Beatles aren't one of those artists.
Speaker 1: You open it up and you rise there's beauty that
Speaker 1: lies within. There's performance that you haven't quite heard yet.
Speaker 1: And that's what I try and focus on. You try
Speaker 1: and figure first. It's so the answer is not a
Speaker 1: technical it's not it's an emotional one. It's like, wow,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that this was them live in the room.
Speaker 1: So how do I make it feel like like the
Speaker 1: wonderful work you've done? Like where the great thing about
Speaker 1: what you've done is you've you celebrate the musician in
Speaker 1: all of your work. In all of your work, you
Speaker 1: celebrate the musician. And I've learned from you from doing that.
Speaker 1: You know, I learn from you people from watching like
Speaker 1: the Chili Peppers documentarip was made way back then with
Speaker 1: you know, blood, sugar, sex, magic, that thing in the
Speaker 1: in the house, Well, we all want to be be.
Speaker 1: You will be produced by you Rick. You know that's
Speaker 1: the thing. And it's the same thing. So I walk
Speaker 1: into you know, forget the facts on my father's son.
Speaker 1: I want to be on those sessions because I'm a
Speaker 1: musician and I'm produced. That's what you know. It doesn't
Speaker 1: my dad has nothing to do this, but he does know.
Speaker 1: He's a spirit that I that that's with me, So
Speaker 1: I just go, Okay, Rick, you can't be with me
Speaker 1: listening to stuff, So how can I get you close
Speaker 1: to that? So? How do I mix this? So it's
Speaker 1: like you haven't heard it before. You have heard it before,
Speaker 1: and I'm really careful to ab the old news, so
Speaker 1: it's not you know, I remember listening. I really respect
Speaker 1: Bob Claymounts and he's a genius, but I remember he
Speaker 1: mixed all right now by Free and I was into
Speaker 1: humble Pie Guitar Player and they were like the cow
Speaker 1: babbles loud on the snare d I'm selling different. I
Speaker 1: was like, no, that's not what I want. I want
Speaker 1: you want. You want it to be what it is exactly,
Speaker 1: but what it is where you haven't heard it and
Speaker 1: there's a weird and that's why I don't understand, so
Speaker 1: why I'm asking it. Like it's not like the levels
Speaker 1: are different, it's not like the sounds are different, but
Speaker 1: you can hear it in a way you couldn't. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's kind of like in that mode,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of remastering in a really complicated way. You know.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing, are remastering individual tracks and putting
Speaker 1: it back together again. It's like there's and there's a
Speaker 1: weird psychosomatic thing that goes on here, like so I've
Speaker 1: just you know, just done Revolver and the Responsible Revolve
Speaker 1: has been like the White album has been. But there's
Speaker 1: like a finger snap in here, there and everywhere, and
Speaker 1: I hadn't. I don't remember the fingers snapping here, there
Speaker 1: and everywhere, not like listen to the Beatles. I don't
Speaker 1: listen to Beatles almost spare time. But it's like and
Speaker 1: I think, well, I put it there and then and
Speaker 1: I go, okay, maybe it should be here and come
Speaker 1: and and then you listening to originally go oh, though
Speaker 1: there it is. There's a weird psychosomat I think. People go,
Speaker 1: you make Ringo's drums louder. I don't really, but for
Speaker 1: some reason, there's the impact. And I think what it
Speaker 1: is is is the limiting and compression I do is
Speaker 1: slightly different from what they did then because I had
Speaker 1: more time, and let's face that, I also have what
Speaker 1: they did before to ab and and I learned really
Speaker 1: so my first Beatles experience was the Love Projects, and
Speaker 1: that was basically added desperation. So I was working on records,
Speaker 1: I think successfully, but things I didn't want to do.
Speaker 1: And I said, listen, I reckon. I can create a
Speaker 1: show that never happened just by chopping up the tapes.
Speaker 1: And they went, okay, you've got three months. We're not
Speaker 1: going to pay you. And I went to the album
Speaker 1: and I remixed on in the Wars, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm a genius. This is great, and
Speaker 1: just out of interest, I listened to the original and
Speaker 1: it sounded so much worse, but was so much better
Speaker 1: than my record than my mix. It was so much better.
Speaker 1: It's like claustrophobic and dark and distorted and mono and stereo,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, what I've done is boring, and
Speaker 1: it's preserving that. It's like things don't have to sound great,
Speaker 1: they just have to sound right. Yeah, maintaining the spirit
Speaker 1: of what it originally was it's really important because then
Speaker 1: it's like the amazing thing about the Beetles and the
Speaker 1: people that worked on the Beatles. No, these great engineers
Speaker 1: and my dad is they did things really quickly, but
Speaker 1: they did things so right. That's the thing. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I saw Paul about Revolver and I was playing him
Speaker 1: tax Man and he goes into the guitars. Your guitar
Speaker 1: is just the casar solo which he played, I think
Speaker 1: is you know, it could be more aggressive, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's really aggressive in the original. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: he goes, he goes. I know it's too loud and
Speaker 1: the original, but it should be too loud. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that seems like fresh by Sign of the Family Stone
Speaker 1: is a terrible sounding record, but a great sounding record.
Speaker 1: It's a great sounding reccause it's mixed in the way
Speaker 1: it's mixed. It's like and I speak to make sense
Speaker 1: like Tom Elmhurst and all these people WI go and
Speaker 1: I don't believe in what you do. And I really
Speaker 1: respect what they say, and it's absolutely right. I mean,
Speaker 1: they don't listen to what I do. But you don't understand.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to correct a
Speaker 1: mistake or something like that. I'm trying to. And the
Speaker 1: one thing is that regardless of what you're I think
Speaker 1: it gets people talking about stuff, and then gets people
Speaker 1: to listen to stuff, and gets generations going having arguments
Speaker 1: about it, and then then they engage. They don't they
Speaker 1: don't just hear it, they listen to it. Yes, we
Speaker 1: have to take a quick break and then we'll be
Speaker 1: back with more from Rick Rubin and Giles Martin. We're
Speaker 1: back with Rick Rubin and Giles Martin. I understand that
Speaker 1: for the Revolver there's a new technology available that hasn't
Speaker 1: been available before that allowed this to happen. Is that correct? Yeah? Correct,
Speaker 1: tell me about that. So the pandemic hit, as we
Speaker 1: all know, and I was in the middle of working
Speaker 1: on the Get Back Project with Peter Jackson. We started
Speaker 1: working on that before the pattern and it was meant
Speaker 1: to be a two hour film and it became a
Speaker 1: seven hour, forty minute extravagant Peter Peter, who I love,
Speaker 1: and he's become like a really good, you know, a
Speaker 1: good friend. He loves a trilogy. You know, he can't
Speaker 1: avoid he kind avoid a trilogy in But it gave
Speaker 1: us time to you know, like a bit like wartime.
Speaker 1: It gave us time to look at technology. And the
Speaker 1: Get Back Project was record on Nagra tape, which is
Speaker 1: this quarter inch at least little brown reelser tape and
Speaker 1: not sunk to picture. We have to sink of him
Speaker 1: the picture and this tape had Paul and John talking
Speaker 1: with George Pan, a guitar or, and he has a
Speaker 1: dialogue at It's called Emil de la Rey's name is
Speaker 1: which a great name, who had looked into AI using
Speaker 1: actually American Police Force for search about how you can
Speaker 1: remove transience or things from different recordings. So he started
Speaker 1: taking the guitar off Paul's voice or John's voice or ringer,
Speaker 1: and it started separated these elements so they can make
Speaker 1: the film. And the film became what it is and
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's been really well received and join us.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the last student's process, you know,
Speaker 1: I was mixing the film. I was mixing the music
Speaker 1: for the film, and I said he had these elements.
Speaker 1: I said to him, and I said, okay, maybe we
Speaker 1: should have a look at Revolver. And he goes, what
Speaker 1: do you mean. I said, well, if I send you
Speaker 1: track one from tax Man, which the guitar based and
Speaker 1: drums together, can you separate them. He goes, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so, And I went really want yeah, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know you'd look at it. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: transience I'm missing, what things I'm missing. He did the
Speaker 1: first pass and it's pretty amazing. I said, there's a
Speaker 1: for things. The guitar hits I'm not. And we started
Speaker 1: collaborating on this process and it got to the stage
Speaker 1: where I kid you not and I'm happy to play.
Speaker 1: You know, they had the drums guitar bassed text message
Speaker 1: because guitars with the snare drum, I could have drums
Speaker 1: on their own where I can hear the squeak of ringos,
Speaker 1: kick drum, pedal, the bass separate, guitar separate, and all
Speaker 1: the transience there. So then then then he could separate
Speaker 1: the kick drum and snare drum, and the snare drum
Speaker 1: hits like kids you not, Rick, It's like a snare drum,
Speaker 1: a sample snare drum, It has the tail, has everything.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how I can claim credit for it,
Speaker 1: no idea. How it happens. It's AI and machine learning,
Speaker 1: and what apparently what does is the computer will recognize
Speaker 1: what the sound is. But really important to me is
Speaker 1: that I can then put all these others together and
Speaker 1: play the original tape and sync them up and reverse
Speaker 1: the phase and it completely do you hear nothing, So
Speaker 1: there's no artifacts, there's no distortion. I mean, like listen
Speaker 1: as an idea of what that is. So if I
Speaker 1: reverse the phase on something, it means that's the same thing.
Speaker 1: If I add a little bit of each to one,
Speaker 1: you start hearing it. You start hearing something because it changes,
Speaker 1: there's no changes happening, and it means it opens up
Speaker 1: the door. What's interesting is it opens up the door
Speaker 1: to a whole load of magical recordings that are out there.
Speaker 1: Not that they should be destroyed in any way, but
Speaker 1: just so new generation here, different things or great singers
Speaker 1: that haven't been heard can be heard, or even like
Speaker 1: people can be sampled and used for stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: it does open that. So you're basically taking a finished records,
Speaker 1: let's say it's in stereo, taking that stereo and with
Speaker 1: no back material, turning it back into the components correct
Speaker 1: that it was made from. Correct, and then you have
Speaker 1: those individual components that you can put back together in
Speaker 1: either the same way or in a different way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like being given a cake and then
Speaker 1: suddenly you know, you're handing me about flour, eggs, milk, sugar,
Speaker 1: you know whatever in the cake. Yeah, but they're pure. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the difference. A lot of people have done this before.
Speaker 1: And I did a film with Ron Howard, this Beatles
Speaker 1: film Eight Days a Week, where I had to take
Speaker 1: screams off. Great movie, but it was it was a
Speaker 1: great thank you, It was great. But to get the sound,
Speaker 1: to get any form of sound, because this is like
Speaker 1: the Washington concert is it sounds awful? I mean it
Speaker 1: sounds it's to get you know. I had to do
Speaker 1: some d mixing and just so you could hear the band,
Speaker 1: but it was still really really mentioned. It didn't sound
Speaker 1: very good and it was like I to really put
Speaker 1: it back together again with this. We're going to the
Speaker 1: stage now where the drums from s she said? You know,
Speaker 1: you know the band have never heard the drums from
Speaker 1: she said, because they were guitar and bass. But it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, if I played you the drums from she said,
Speaker 1: which had been in the studio right now, you go, hey, Jiles,
Speaker 1: that's a great sounding drum sound. Yeah, it's kind of cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's something like Revolver. You know, we're used
Speaker 1: to thet the Stereobis Revolved. Wasn't actually the sterming if
Speaker 1: the Stereomus Revolved was done in the eighties by my
Speaker 1: dad at air studios in at you know that people felt,
Speaker 1: how can you destroy history? Let's not actually even history
Speaker 1: was done? Letskan reverbs and stuff like that. So the
Speaker 1: original it was it was Mono. Yeah, Mino was the version. Well,
Speaker 1: Mona was the version, because all of them, because even
Speaker 1: to the end, Mano was still the main version, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because people didn't have stereos. Yes, you know, Mono and
Speaker 1: Vinyl the version, I think, and I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I think if you the stereo was almost like an afterthought.
Speaker 1: The stereo version of the of the recordings were let's
Speaker 1: just say less, had less focus. Yeah, and and like
Speaker 1: no one's listen to the stereo because radio wasn't stereo. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, we're in this world now where we have
Speaker 1: all the music in the world and boxes in our
Speaker 1: pockets and we have everything everywhere. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to access anything, you'll listening to something at home.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a mono who wouldn't have heard stereo.
Speaker 1: And that's why, you know, interesting or non interesting. Early
Speaker 1: sterio was just crazy. I mean, got good fun, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy, you know. And actually in America
Speaker 1: sterio is much bigger I think that was in England.
Speaker 1: So the early Beatles albums that people know where all
Speaker 1: of the bands on one side, all of folks on
Speaker 1: the other side, people go, that's great. My dad was
Speaker 1: so angry about that when it happened, you know, because
Speaker 1: Capital took the records and did this because they wanted
Speaker 1: stereos because that was the new thing. It's like the
Speaker 1: But they didn't do it in a musical way. They
Speaker 1: just did it. They just did it in the technical way,
Speaker 1: exactly right. I've heard rumors, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is true that the reason that the things were separated
Speaker 1: the way they were was if you played one of
Speaker 1: those funny odd stereo through amano system, it sounded better.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true really, that that was
Speaker 1: the theory of why Capital did it was because that's
Speaker 1: what sounded better on the radio. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true. I wonder if that's a response. It's a
Speaker 1: response into into the English saying what have you done this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Maybe they went well because maybe if we play this
Speaker 1: could be an excuse but be fun to do the tests. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would actually see what yes that thing about? Like
Speaker 1: you know, when you take a Mono. It's this thing.
Speaker 1: When they were remastering some Mono stuff, I just said,
Speaker 1: just take one side, don't take both sides and put
Speaker 1: them together choosually get some sort of phase. It's Mono.
Speaker 1: Take one side. Yeah, it's good idea, you know. So
Speaker 1: with with that process, and this is the thing that
Speaker 1: I battle with is that I've had a really happy
Speaker 1: time of things because because people have accepted what I do,
Speaker 1: you know, which is amazing. And I never thought that
Speaker 1: we know, I thought, again, burnt down material you're doing
Speaker 1: it could be catastrophic. Yes, yes, So the fact that
Speaker 1: it's not, the fact that it's not is a really
Speaker 1: good sign because you really are playing with fire. Well
Speaker 1: I think that's I mean, that's one of my great
Speaker 1: marketing things, is that Charles Martin not catastrophic. Yes, that's what.
Speaker 1: But but you're given the tools to really do damage.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, yeah, yeah, I try my best. Um. But then,
Speaker 1: and it's the weirdest thing now, that's it's like I'm
Speaker 1: the person who talks about Beatles albums and the like
Speaker 1: and the bells they want me to. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was in XFM in New York talking about
Speaker 1: Revolver and Ringo was in the in the morning before
Speaker 1: night and then he went, hey, Ringo was and I
Speaker 1: was like, was he and they went like yeah. He
Speaker 1: goes he says, you know, we loved Jarles the best
Speaker 1: and I love Ringo Ringer as you worked him. He's great.
Speaker 1: He's like he not only is he one of the
Speaker 1: best drummers ever to have lived, he's also one of
Speaker 1: the nicest humans ever to live. Like, man, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like, why am I? Why am I talking about
Speaker 1: Revolver and he's it's that thing, but you but the
Speaker 1: technical aspect of it. Everyone's about tech aspect and I'm
Speaker 1: feel like going, yeah, but it doesn't matter. Just listen
Speaker 1: to the music, you know. That's the thing. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: there's with with Revolver, for instance, and I hope people
Speaker 1: like it. It's had a like I didn't interview the
Speaker 1: Sunday time and the guy said, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I listened to my son and it's my favorite album
Speaker 1: and I loved it. It's I come from I say,
Speaker 1: Charles is great. It's like it was mastered a month ago.
Speaker 1: I went, it was mastered a month ago, and that's
Speaker 1: it's this weird kind of thing. But I want people
Speaker 1: to listen to the songs. It's like that thing is
Speaker 1: like with the Beatles, because the Beatles, it's the same
Speaker 1: with the streaming thing. I use maybe in a not
Speaker 1: even a Macavlian way, but I use that influence they
Speaker 1: have as a as a catalog to try and make
Speaker 1: all of it better, you know what I mean. That's
Speaker 1: the if I'm if I'm going to be given this privilege,
Speaker 1: I might as well. Like you know, the interesting thing
Speaker 1: about the d mixing process is not necessarily it's it's less.
Speaker 1: It's it's amazing that we do technology which is helping
Speaker 1: me mix Revolver by the Beatles, and it's one of
Speaker 1: the greatest albums whatever. But for things like stopped by
Speaker 1: dre there's things that stopped on on on MPCs or
Speaker 1: ACAI samplers in the nineties. People don't have their assets. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, the Tom from the Chemical Brothers family wants
Speaker 1: a remix setting some of the Chemical Brothers and he goes,
Speaker 1: we just can't find the drums, Giles, and you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's artists that now and have their things back amazing,
Speaker 1: and so that's what I'm going. That's what we're going, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do we how do we make this available to people?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm into. I'm not into. I'm not into
Speaker 1: the elitism of it. I mean it's the Beatles, so
Speaker 1: it's elitist, but I much offer it to be for everybody. Yes,
Speaker 1: And it's a great tool and for the people who
Speaker 1: also happen to catch the best version of something at
Speaker 1: the demo recording and it was just on a dat
Speaker 1: or digital recorder and that's all you had was the
Speaker 1: digital recording and it doesn't really sound as good as
Speaker 1: it can, but the performance has never been beat Yeah.
Speaker 1: The fact that that could now be turned into a
Speaker 1: proper recording, it's very exciting. And there's so much stuff
Speaker 1: even I mean I was asked to remix, and when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, I went within access since
Speaker 1: they became friends of mine now, they asked me to
Speaker 1: go and you know, mix something, and they could they
Speaker 1: had no one can find the vocal to this track. Wow.
Speaker 1: And it's like a really well known song. Wow. And
Speaker 1: so you know, hey, Peter, can you have a look
Speaker 1: at this? And it's like, here's your vocal back. Just
Speaker 1: things like that. Amazing. The incredible thing about what I
Speaker 1: get to do is I get to get a one
Speaker 1: inch four track tape out of its box and put
Speaker 1: on a machine press play, and it sounds the same
Speaker 1: as when it was recorded. And with the Beatle stuff,
Speaker 1: there's no baking, there's no restoration, and I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to digitally cleanse something. I don't want
Speaker 1: to because it ages things. It's like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like plastic surgery or someone's face. It'll change the quality
Speaker 1: that's there in the world of what our legacy, of
Speaker 1: what we've done or what you've done. How many recordings
Speaker 1: that you play back can be played now? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. That's the thing that happens. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, even a love showing in Vegas after the
Speaker 1: tenth anniversary, we redid it and I was working on
Speaker 1: Protal's nine creating this thing. I couldn't open the sessions up.
Speaker 1: We have to go back and get an old computer
Speaker 1: and you know that's it's that but sort for fifty
Speaker 1: six years ago, get out the box and press play. Amazing.
Speaker 1: There's more of Rick and Giles's conversation, so we should
Speaker 1: have check out part two next week. For to talk
Speaker 1: about the glory days of George Martin studio that was
Speaker 1: built next to an active volcano in the Caribbean. They
Speaker 1: also listened to a song from the remastered Revolver album
Speaker 1: and Giles talks about his father's surprising punk rock facts.
Speaker 1: You can hear a playlist of Beatles songs remixed by
Speaker 1: Giles Martin at broken Record podcast dot com. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: Broken Record Podcasts, where you can find all of our
Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with helpful ly Arose, Jason Gambrel, Ventaladay,
Speaker 1: and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this
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Speaker 1: review us on your podcast apt I thee Musics by
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, h