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