giles Martin On…

The journey of bringing new technology to the beatles’ catalog…

I think Sgt. Pepper’s the first Dolby Atmos record. We went back and redid it because technology changed, like it does. Paul and Ringo are always going, “How can we push technology? How can we change the way?” So it made sense to me to do Sgt. Pepper’s, one of most famous albums of all time in new technology, because that’s what The Beatles want. Paul says, “I don’t want to be stuck in a museum. I don’t want to be under a glass case. I want people to discover things. I want people to listen to stuff, to explore. People have an opinion about things”. The Beatles don’t want to be the sort of on some mount going, “don’t touch it.”

Spatial audio becoming more accessible…

I’ve been working in surround for a long time. I did the

Love show in Vegas, which has seven thousand speakers in a room, and we did a surround sound record that was very successful. But then you couldn’t hear it anywhere. People don’t have surround sound unless they’re very niche. And it took a while for a company like Apple to work out how to make it a consumer experience on a grand scale.

I don’t want people to listen to these mixes and go, this is a mix. I want people to listen to the song and go, “How does this make me feel?” That’s the key; kids who have never heard The Beatles, and there’s lots of them. As long as they feel something when they listen to it.

How Spatial Audio allows you to time travel…

I remember when I walked into

Abbey Road and… my dad, you know… he started to lose his hearing and didn’t tell anyone that I became his ears and that’s how I started doing what I’m doing. He started working on the anthology project, and he hadn’t listened to The Beatles since they broke up. I came in and I listened to A Day in the Life on a four track tape machine, and I was in a room upstairs and he pressed play and John was like talking to him, but obviously years old, and it was like he was in the room. It was like there was there was no hiss, there was no crackle…It was literally like he was coming to the speakers in the room. And I thought to myself, that is magical. Records, don’t get old. We get old. John Lennon is the same age on that recording as he was in 1967. And with Spatial Audio and the work we do now at

Abbey Road, you can time travel. You could be there with the band, with Dolby Atmos, you could be there with the band and be in the same space with them and you can just time travel.

How long it takes to remix a

track in Spatial Audio… It really does vary. It can take half a day, or three days, or ages if you get it wrong. In the early material, we’ll go back into the Studio Two where the band recorded, and we’ll find a way of rerecording the room. So you have Studio Two around you when you listen to it. That’s the process, so we’re mixing not just the original tracks, but actually capturing the ambiance of the room that they’re in to make it more real. So sometimes some tracks just take ages because it doesn’t feel right.

The Beatles songs that were challenging to remix in

Spatial Audio…There’re always a few troublemakers, and in all honesty, Hard Day’s Night was tough. Because the way it was done – and I’m going to get this wrong – it’s got John’s vocal, acoustic guitar, and congas on one track. Guitar, drums and bass, another track. John and Paul, another guitar, I think, another track. And it’s that balance, if you start splitting the Spatial Audio as opposed to mono, there’s a lot of technical stuff that goes on. And to get the same feeling was tough with that.

A Day in the Life was also tough. It is a four track, which means you have essentially four things and you can’t separate them. So it’s an acoustic guitar, piano, shakers and maracas…shakers and conga, sorry. And then there’s bass and drums and there’s a vocal track. And then there’s the strings, all on one track and you’re thinking, that’s one of the biggest records ever. And if people listen to that Spatial, they’ll hear the piano and acoustic guitar on this side of the shaker, and they’ll hear

the bass and drums on the other side, the vocals in the middle, and the strings go around. And it’s about getting that balance, getting that feel right.

Starr, Continuing To Embrace Technology, and Paul Saying “We Were A Really Good Band” After Hearing Sgt.

Pepper in Spatial Audio… It’s like a family and there’s pressure involved, but it’s not as though we have marketing meetings and we sit as a board that sits around. It’s like Paul and Ringo, and then there’s Olivia and Dhani, and then there’s Sean and Yoko. We communicate, we send stuff around, we go, “listen

to this” and they’ll make comments and they love the technology, they love the idea of people listening in different ways. I know this from my dad as well. They never thought that in 50 years or 60 years or whatever, people would be listening to this stuff.

We have an Atmos room here at Abbey Road and Paul came to listen to Sgt. Pepper. and we sat and we listened to it. We wandered around the room and he said, “we were a really good band”. I was like, “Yeah, you were”. He goes, “you know, we were really lucky to have your dad”. And I said, “Well, I think, you know, he was lucky.” And he goes “And we’re really lucky to have you” and I went “oh God no, come on, I think about how lucky I am”. He goes “we’re all lucky then.” There’s so much love and passion and care attached that goes into this. And if I can make them happy, and when other people listen to it, they can hear the passion that goes into it, then that’s a job done worthy.

The legacy of Abbey Road

Studios… My mum started working at Abbey Road in 1948 and my dad started working at Abbey Road in 1950. And it took a long time for them to get together, but get together they did. And you know without Abbey Road, they would never have met. Without Abbey Road I wouldn’t exist. I’m not the most important thing I think ever is produced, but I’m personally grateful that my parents met here. Abbey Road was the first studio that existed in the world, you know? I think, 1932

Abbey Road Studio One was built and, and it was the first purposebuilt studio in the world. And so it was the kind of home recording, if you like. And and from those days of Elgar, Glenn Miller, all that sort of stuff.And then eventually The Beatles, and then Pink Floyd…the walls are soaked with sound. You walk into that room and you feel as though you’re in a magic place and you can’t design that. That’s the great thing about the magic of music, it happens. And I think the magic and grandioseness of somewhere like Abbey Road creates that performance space.