A small gathering of the press, experts on The Beatles from a wide variety of media, and some music industry members gathered at Republic Studios in Chelsea, in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday, September 13th for a sneak listen to the new Revolver reissue from The Beatles, due on October 28th.
The throng was treated to the new sounds at the intimate state-of-the-art facility by none other than Giles Martin. Martin, the son of The Beatles’ producer George Martin, has overseen this new reissue project, as he did for those for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let it Be. Martin began his involvement with these remix projects back with the Cirque du Soleil Love release in 2006. Since 2018, Martin has also served as Head of Audio & Sound for Universal Music.
Martin, resplendent in his trademark waistcoat (that’s a vest for you Yanks), talked about how the latest reissue project got off the ground and played some outtakes that will appear on the reissue in October, as well as the entire new remix of the album and the single “Paperback Writer”/”Rain” in Dolby Atmos. At the end he answered questions.
Work on Revolver was very different than on previous reissues, as the nature of the recording and particularly mono mixing of the original album made it difficult to go back and remix from scratch. The technology that Peter Jackson’s audio team used on the Get Back series provided the springboard to do with Revolver what was needed. Emile de la Rey led Jackson’s team and became the person that Martin collaborated with to “demix” the musical instruments and vocals.
It is reminiscent of Martin’s then more primitive approach, when he worked with Ron Howard on the Eight Days A Week movie and, in particular, on The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl reissue in 2016. The team’s new technology uses Artificial Intelligence to recognize all the elements of sound in the mono mix and then basically to separate out all the ingredients with no bleed-through of instruments or vocals. This method becomes absolutely needed when creating the Dolby Atmos mix.
Early on Martin played a previously unreleased take of “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and pointed out how that version shows just how much the song was influenced by The Byrds, no pun intended. He also played a demo of “Yellow Submarine” by John Lennon, that reflected the early folk roots of the song.
Listening to the new Atmos mix of the album and the single “Paperback Writer’/”Rain” was a revelation. The album truly sounds spectacular, but there really was a light touch in creating the new mix. The feeling of the new guitar-rock sound The Beatles hit upon is prevalent, but even more so are the punch and variety of rhythms, again demonstrating what a truly excellent, versatile, and underrated drummer Ringo Starr was back in the ’60s.
In discussing the sometimes random, often experimental way that new mixes are created for the various box sets, especially the Dolby Atmos mixes, Martin quoted Douglas Adams: “Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” By that he meant that being able to fail with an idea or just going with gut intuition often makes for the best results.
He also talked about what an extraordinary musician Paul McCartney is and how he is the most consummate of The Beatles. With all the talk of digital and Dolby Atmos mixes, he said there is still nothing quite like the sound of people in a recording studio just making music and having it captured on mics for tape.
Martin clearly has great respect for the music of the Beatles and is carrying the torch for his father’s legacy and work, but he also doesn’t take himself too seriously and was full of quips. He joked with the technical team early on after a few glitches and when the Atmos mix of the full Revolver album and “Paperback Writer” ended, he made it sound like the last track we had just heard was actually from Oasis.
Martin really is the perfect person to be the caretaker and curator of the catalog of The Beatles. He learned at his dad’s knee, but is also young enough to embrace new ways to present the group’s music. After the presentation I chatted briefly with Martin. He explained how he wants new generations of music fans to hear the group’s music and indicated that these remixes aren’t done to change the music for them, but to put them closer to the group, and to put the listener right in the room with them.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience being taken on a tour of what is perhaps the group’s best album, or as Giles Martin put it, “ground zero for The Beatles.”
Full, deep dive coverage of the Revolver reissue will appear when the box is released.
