NEXT Peter Jackson Beatles film(?) project

[Gringo557]

My first thought was allowing him to use his audio technoology on the Star Club tapes. He made a reference to them in one of the podcasts he did that came out during the Get Back launch. George and the other Beatles have disparaged that tape so much, but if he can do to those taoes what he did with the Nagras....I'll be overwhelmed.

I've had that exact same thought. Just bring up the vocals a tiny little bit and a nice stereo mix please

[Gringo557]

My modest proposal:

Joe Orton's Up Against It script, with Muppet Beatle-played-characters in a live-action world that features a CGI Marlon Brando in three roles, and the real Meryl Streep in two.

Produced by Jackson, but directed by Nicolas Winding-Refn.

Shot in original three-camera Cinerama @ 65fps, with each strip projected on separate IMAX screens mounted side-by-side in an arena.

Sound via the resurrected quintophonic system of Ken Russell's Tommy in a hybrid set-up also featuring 8-foot plywood Sensurround subwoofer cabinets.

Original music and Fabs covers by The Dukes of Stratosphear. End title song by whichever talentless, siliconed pop tart is surfing the charts at the moment.

Medley of the above played live as intermission music by The Black Watch. (selected theaters only)

Fab Popcorn in giant plastc lenticular 3D souvenir tubs featuring the Muppet Lads, all three Brando characters and both of Streep's. Price: $55 (popcorn $7 extra).

Every ticket comes with two complimentary tablets of Advil. 10 oz. water bottle to down them with: $8.

I would really like to see The Beatles Do Amsterdam, a three-part miniseries depicting the events that took place in the whorehouse where John described himself crawling out of the place on his hands and knees.

I recall reading that whorehouse remark years ago but I never saw any pictures either. John also mentioned stopping the Candlestick show to take a group photo with their backs to the audience, I've never seen that photo either. (There is that one super cool fisheye lens pic from the John & Yoko calendar . . .)

[JoeWadley]

My first thought was allowing him to use his audio technoology on the Star Club tapes. He made a reference to them in one of the podcasts he did that came out during the Get Back launch. George and the other Beatles have disparaged that tape so much, but if he can do to those taoes what he did with the Nagras....I'll be overwhelmed.

I've had that exact same thought. Just bring up the vocals a tiny little bit and a nice stereo mix please

May I refer you to Magentophon Band?

[Gringo557]

That's certainly one of the best versions out there. I just wonder how much improvement there is to be made on the tape, now in Apple's hands.

[Lord Reith]

That's certainly one of the best versions out there. I just wonder how much improvement there is to be made on the tape, now in Apple's hands.

It would be very difficult no matter how good the demixing. There are two basic problems:

- there's too much room ambience

- the vocal PA speakers were situated at the sides of the stage and sound much further away than the instruments

There's no way to make it sound like a soundboard because the voices and instruments are too distant. The best you can do is reconstruct the room ambience in a more controlled fashion which is what I did. And even then the voices always sound far away, and they drop in and out because The Beatles had poor microphone technique at the time. Macca's voice in particular drops away almost entirely at times because he is too far off mic, so much so that no current algorithm could retrieve it. So it's not like you can just boost the vocals and put it in stereo. I tried that and it just sounds very unnatural which is what you don't want. You want it to resonate with the listener in some way, to sound familiar to them. That was the problem with the Lingasong version, in that it did not sound like any other live recording in history. There was no way the listener could say to himself, "Oh, that sounds kind of like when I saw that band at the local bar the other night." It just sounded very alien and unnatural, like it was being broadcast from the Moon.

However...

The age of Quantum Computing is nearly upon us. A QC can do calculations in a few minutes that would take a regular supercomputer tens of thousands of years. Of course you need software to run on it and that will take a long time, but one day (probably when we're all dead, sadly) I have no doubt that there will be something like Quantum Demucs which will be able to take a terrible recording and completely rebuild it in perfect quality from the ground up. And very likely if it uses some form of advanced machine learning then we won't even understand how it works. It'll just work, and people will take it for granted. So it would not have any problem with the Star Club tape because it would just identify the vocal on the tape, and compare it to what it knows a Macca studio vocal should sound like, and do it's thing. I can imagine in my mind what that would sound like, but it sure would be cool to actually hear it.

[Doug]

Yes, but it would no longer be Paul McCartney singing - just an advanced simulation of him. No more real than a hologram of Elvis.

[Gringo557]

Yes, but it would no longer be Paul McCartney singing - just an advanced simulation of him. No more real than a hologram of Elvis.

Nothing is real.

[Gringo557]

That's certainly one of the best versions out there. I just wonder how much improvement there is to be made on the tape, now in Apple's hands.

It would be very difficult no matter how good the demixing. There are two basic problems:

- there's too much room ambience

- the vocal PA speakers were situated at the sides of the stage and sound much further away than the instruments

There's no way to make it sound like a soundboard because the voices and instruments are too distant. The best you can do is reconstruct the room ambience in a more controlled fashion which is what I did. And even then the voices always sound far away, and they drop in and out because The Beatles had poor microphone technique at the time. Macca's voice in particular drops away almost entirely at times because he is too far off mic, so much so that no current algorithm could retrieve it. So it's not like you can just boost the vocals and put it in stereo. I tried that and it just sounds very unnatural which is what you don't want. You want it to resonate with the listener in some way, to sound familiar to them. That was the problem with the Lingasong version, in that it did not sound like any other live recording in history. There was no way the listener could say to himself, "Oh, that sounds kind of like when I saw that band at the local bar the other night." It just sounded very alien and unnatural, like it was being broadcast from the Moon.

However...

The age of Quantum Computing is nearly upon us. A QC can do calculations in a few minutes that would take a regular supercomputer tens of thousands of years. Of course you need software to run on it and that will take a long time, but one day (probably when we're all dead, sadly) I have no doubt that there will be something like Quantum Demucs which will be able to take a terrible recording and completely rebuild it in perfect quality from the ground up. And very likely if it uses some form of advanced machine learning then we won't even understand how it works. It'll just work, and people will take it for granted. So it would not have any problem with the Star Club tape because it would just identify the vocal on the tape, and compare it to what it knows a Macca studio vocal should sound like, and do it's thing. I can imagine in my mind what that would sound like, but it sure would be cool to actually hear it.

Two thumbs up on this conversation!

[Lord Reith]

Yes, but it would no longer be Paul McCartney singing - just an advanced simulation of him. No more real than a hologram of Elvis.

I know, but it would be cool all the same. Like the colourised stuff or the demixes. Just another way of experiencing it.

But they could do a pretty good star club set with PJ's help if they wanted. Boost the vocals a bit, retrieve some of the bass lines, include all the unheard material and create a booklet with a transcript (our transcript) and photos and whatever. Also, coming from George's copy it would be considerably cleaner and nicer sounding than what we have. It would be a genuine historical release then, not a fake live-in-concert album. But we know George hated the tapes with a passion, so Olivia may never grant permission for such a thing.

[Doug]

Was it the performance he hated, or that Lingasong issued the tapes without The Beatles' permission? I think his playing on the Star Club tapes is fine.