Giles Martin performed a magic act last month in the renowned Studio 3 at Abbey Road.
A remixed, revitalized version of The Beatles’ seventh studio album, Revolver.
The group explored new sonic areas and compositional techniques, from the chamber pop of Eleanor Rigby to the kaleidoscopic explosions of Tomorrow Never Know, on their debut album after declaring their retirement from live performance.
As the Beatles experimented with tape loops, back-masking, and LSD, it took 300 hours to record (almost three times as long as their previous album, Rubber Soul).
Fans had long demanded an expanded edition of the album, but there was a dilemma.
In contrast to their later albums, the Beatles recorded the basic songs for Revolver directly to tape while standing in a circle and playing as a band. This practically prevented future generations from separating and isolating the instruments and vocals.
Before now.
Back in Abbey Road, Martin plays Taxman, the strained and fragile opening tune from Revolver.
“How would it sound without George Harrison’s guitar?” he wonders as he pulls down a fader to remove him from the mix. Next, he eliminates Paul McCartney’s bass, leaving only Ringo Starr’s drum kit audible.
It is a remarkable discovery. With every beat, the bass drum pedal squeaks, and the snare echoes off the studio walls. At the time, no one, not even Ringo, would have known about these things.
Martin compares it to being given a cake and being able to disassemble it into its parts. And this is only feasible because of the technology developed by Peter Jackson’s audio team for the documentary Get Back.
“The dialogue editor [Emile de la Rey] was doing an excellent job of removing guitars from the dialogue, so I told him, ‘Let’s watch Revolver. Martin asks, “Can you separate the guitar, bass, and drums?”
“His rough pass was so much more impressive than anything I’ve ever heard. I stated, “Okay, we need to work on this, and it eventually became exceptionally good.”
Martin does not understand how the de-mixing process works, but he is aware that it involves AI and machine learning.
“It must learn what John Lennon’s guitar sounds like, for example, and the more knowledge you can give it, the better it becomes.
“Therefore, we combed through the tapes solely in search of instances in which a guitar was played by a single individual; this is how the computer knows what to extract.
The only implication is that the band members do not have to sit on each other’s lap when the record is played.
Martin eliminates the gimmicky stereo mix from the original version of Taxman, which placed the instruments in the left speaker and the vocals on the right. Now, the band is dispersed around the soundstage, immersing the listener in a Beatles concert.
Martin uses this technique throughout the entire album. Compared to the murky CD mixes that arose in the 1980s, the new Revolver is full of life, presence, and aggression.
Martin explains, “People forget that it’s simply a young band playing in the studio.” “Everything is fairly belligerent. Everything is in plain view. Everything the Beatles recorded is a little louder than you might expect.”
Eleanor Rigby is an excellent illustration. Paul requested that the string section play crisp, staccato strings reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
“Which, if you think about it, is a funny influence – you took the shower scene with the woman getting stabbed and applied it to Eleanor Rigby,” Martin thinks.
A deluxe edition of Revolver captures the recording of strings at Abbey Road, with Giles’s father George Martin organizing the players on the spot.
He asks McCartney, “Do you want them to play the chords without vibrato?” McCartney listens to numerous possibilities before claiming he cannot distinguish between them.
The musicians mutter with good humor, “All those years of study, and he says it sounds the same.”
Eventually, McCartney decides to eliminate the vibrato, giving the track its razor-sharp immediacy.
Martin states, “What impresses me is the rapidity of thought.” “You must recall that 10 minutes before that conversation, no one had ever heard the Eleanor Rigby strings. It’s an incredible session.”
It’s one among the numerous insights in the box set, including a rehearsal of And Your Bird Can Sing when the band can’t stop laughing – “It reminds you that maybe some marijuana was smoked during that period” – and an unreleased demo of Yellow Submarine.
Even though Beatles scholars have long assigned the song to McCartney, the recently uncovered work recording is pure Lennon. He plays a mournful acoustic guitar riff and says, “In the village where I was born, nobody cared / Nobody cared, nobody cared…”
The lyrics Yellow and Submarine are glaringly lacking, but according to Martin, the evolution of the song reflects the Beatles’ most harmonious moments.
“There is an acceptance that, ‘Okay, I’ve got this extremely sensitive and melancholy song, and Paul will turn it into a hit for children.’ This did not occur on Abbey Road or Let It Be, and I believe this is the secret to Revolver: They embraced each other’s direction completely.”
Lennon’s Tomorrow Never Knows, a nightmare sound collage replete with sitar drones, distorted vocals, and horrific seagull sounds, was the first song they attempted in the studio due to their level of confidence (actually a speeded-up recording of McCartney laughing).
It was mocked at the time but is today acknowledged as a psychedelic milestone and a pioneering example of sampling and altering tape loops.
Martin notes that the Beatles never attempted the strategy again. “I honestly cannot comprehend the mentality of the situation or what was going through people’s thoughts.
Even my father, do you know? He had always been very obedient, but he simply accepted “Okay, well this is what we’re doing!”
“I usually compare it to surfing, in a sense. There have been a few moments in my life when I’ve produced creatively excellent work, but the majority of the time I’m either treading water or attempting to avoid being hit by the waves.
“However, the Beatles spent their entire career riding the crest of a wave.”
Which begs the question, why even remix the album?
Some Beatles fans refuse to listen to Martin’s remasters and remixes because he is rewriting history.
Martin states, “In a way, I embrace them because they’re accurate.” There is no justification for listening to these mixes. I haven’t erased anything.”
Instead, he compares the procedure to sandblasting the façade of St. Paul’s Cathedral and perceiving it as Sir Christopher Wren did in 1697.
The surviving Beatles supervised the mixes (McCartney reprimanded him for being “too polite” with “And Your Bird Can Sing”), and the goal is to preserve their songs for a new generation that primarily listens on headphones, whereas the original hard-panned version of “Taxman” is awkward and disorienting.
“I recall mixing Strawberry Fields with a young man at Abbey Road who had never heard the song,” Martin recalls. “And there is no reason for him too. It is quite old.
“However, there is no reason why 26-year-old Paul McCartney would not sound the same as he does now.
“Essentially, we are engaged in time travel. And I appreciate that 56 years later, we are still attempting to break new ground. Since this is what the Beatles accomplished.”
