Director Peter Jackson is an unabashed Beatlemaniac and this makes the second time he's sat down with the "Things We Said Today" team of Ken Michaels, Allan Kozinn and Darren Devivo. The first was to discuss his "The Beatles: Get Back" documentary, of course.
But in this appearance Jackson talks about how the MAL (machine audio learning, also named in honor of Beatles' assistant Mal Evans) his WingNut Films team created was used to pluck John Lennon's voice from a cassette demo for use in the Beatles' Now and Then. MAL also was used on some of the Beatles tracks included on the new "Red" and "Blue" album reissues.
Jackson discusses it all at (great) length in this more than three-hour conversation. But if you want to skip to the big highlight, go to around 2:25, where Jackson demonstrates how MAL works using the Beatles' "Day Tripper" as an example. The software is remarkable — capable of separating any sound, from lead and background vocals, various guitar parts, bass and even the different components of Ringo's drum kit: snare, toms, high-hat, etc.
Along the way, Jackson also mentions that he's purchased the Beatles' legendary live tapes from Hamburg's Star-Club, which have been on bootlegs and various gray-area editions over the years. He says there's no go-ahead from Apple to date, and he doesn't know if there will be, but MAL could be applied on those, as well, to create much-improved listening experience. There's also no confirmation on what, if anything is next, from the Beatles camp in the way of reissue box sets, etc., but I imagine it's safe to assume that more is, eventually, on the way.
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