Giles Martin, Part 1 | Broken Record (Hosted by Rick Rubin)

Giles Martin may be the son of famed Beatles record producer Sir George Martin, but he’s also an acclaimed producer and composer in his own right. 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 Sgt. 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 1966 mono recording tracks with the help of director Peter Jackson’s audio team, who used AI technology. Giles’ resulting mix allows listeners to hear the original recordings with clarity and precision 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, why he didn’t have a stereo in his house as a young boy, and how he became his dad’s ears in studio sessions after his father lost his hearing.
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ABOUT BROKEN RECORD
For generations of music lovers, the liner notes on albums were a central part of the way music was heard. You bought an album and it came with an accompanying narrative: a digression, an aside, a backstory-maybe even an invented history. We intuitively understood that great music required not just listening but conversation between the artist and the audience and the audience and the rest of the world.
Broken Record is a podcast that restarts those conversations-in a world without liner notes-for a new audience of music lovers.
Broken Record is hosted by Justin Richmond with interviews by producer Rick Rubin, writer Malcolm Gladwell, and former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam.
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[@CraftyMusicTips]

I could listen to these guys chat with each other for hours longer, legends

[@ashleywetherall]

I recently met Giles.. I really down to earth guy..

[@hoisin75]

Two men I utterly respect

[@jppagetoo]

Golden ears. Giles has such great hearing.

[@macfawlty]

Didn’t notice this was just released 2 days ago. Went looking for part 2. Like some others on the Broken Records, I wasn’t sure it would be that interesting, but then find myself deeply engaged, fascinated by the conversation and stories, but also Rick’s brilliant job as an interviewer. The same quality that goes into his producing is felt in his conversation. Accessible, friendly, without pretense… questions that facilitate a truly insightful dialogue.

[@aidenhayward1]

@macfawlty Part two just came out!!!!

[@macfawlty]

@@aidenhayward1 thanks so much. I'll listen now.

[@davidharding200]

There’s some gems here that you just want to listen to over and over again. Rick’s comments about the filter of vinyl and especially comments about Ringo’s drumming. Awesome

[@GudmundurKristjansson]

Well these guys know what they are talking about, that's for sure

[@dreamscuba]

Wow. Wonderful to listen to two great gentlemen talk about their craft.

[@joefeldpausch]

As a lifelong Beatles fan, Broken Record Regular, DIY songwriter in Nashville 46:36 , this is the material that I long for and inspires me. Thank for this upload! Can’t wait for the rest!

[@Heene1028]

Glorious to listen to two enthusiastic geniuses talking history ❤️💫🌹

[@robinwallace1399]

Excellent conversation guys😉

[@olavthyvold2288]

This was a fascinating discussion. It gave me a real insight into what Giles Martin has been doing with Beatles albums. Just to preserve their sound, not to make it better but to preserve it I think he should do all that other albums and singles.

[@TheBella2u]

Loved this! ❤

[@jorgeb555]

What an incredible interview. Thank you! P.S. I got to meet Giles in 1999 at The Birchmere in Alexandria Virginia. ☺️

[@secrethitsongwritingformula]

Great interview. Hope to hear more comparisons to how Rick Rubin approaches a mix vs how Giles Martin does

[@ZJProz]

awesome chat...much respect

[@jaykpjohnson]

This is a great interview, really nice job

[@andrewcoelho3366]

I hope Rubber Soul is next.

[@xxEzraBxxx]

Can’t wait for him to fuck up the remix

[@stylesofsaturn]

I think records/CDs, something physical you can hold is right around the corner.

[@douglasdickerson5184]

💙💙💙

[@LaurenPassarelli]

It was the saxes on Savoy Truffle that were too bright. Even Ken Scott had loved the sound he originally captured but George Harrison wanted them very bright. All the instruments together and all the vocals together were how they were delivered to have control over the final vocal to instruments balance for mono. Never intended by Sir George to be stereo.

[@GudmundurKristjansson]

Well what I think I recalled it right but I had heard Sir Martin said the Capital wanted their Mastering tapes being paned like that, the instruments on one track and the vocals on the other, so they mastering guys at Capital could add more reverb on the vocals.

[@stevewoolford1706]

When will you be releasing part 2 of this interview please?

[@thomosburn8740]

Giles was a little confused on something here - his Dad did not remix 'Revolver' for stereo in the CD era. He did that for 'Help' and 'Rubber Soul' only. Other than that, great interview! Very helpful and informative. Rubin's note that 1960's instruments-left, vocals-right primitive stereo sums better to mono for broadcast was more or less correct. His story that you could drop the separated drum parts back onto the stem they were extracted from, flip the phase on these new elements and you'd get silence from the sum is very illuminating. It means that the machine learning tech they used to split up the drum tracks was essentially flawless.

[@syrupcore]

[D]uck yes. What a fantastic conversation. ❤🤘🏽

[@Leicaphile27]

The point of vinyl and tubes is the beauty of the sound. Accuracy is for scientists, not for me.

[@semmcstevenson]

Giles Martin is a super talent

[@josefserf1926]

Rick Rubin should be remastering the Beatles catalogue and Giles Martin should be making the tea instead of wasting everyone's time with his quick cash grabs. Here we are, almost 40 years on from the 1987 CDs and still no definitive digital releases.

[@mjf8897]

I think Giles Martin is just the man to fix And Justice For All and get Jason Newsted's bass back in there.

[@nwamacman]

The recent remaster sounds great. Check it out

[@mjf8897]

@@nwamacman it doesn't sound great. it sounds better than it did, but the drums still sound like a toy and the bass doesn't exist.

[@mjf8897]

@@nwamacman the best way to hear the album is honestly the demos - the band gave 10/10 performances across the board and the bass exists. it's just grittier - and it's on the official boxed set of the remaster

[@ChipsAplentyBand]

if I had the opportunity to experiment with Peter Jackson's newly UNmixed separate Beatles tracks myself, and if unlimited time was at my disposal, my first inclinations would be to: (1) make each track sound as INDIVIDUALLY good as possible; and then (2) try spatially locating the tracks as if they represented the more or less standard locations of the band members as they would have stood on stage when performing, thus creating a 'live' ambience soundscape as much as possible. Though recorded in the studio without any necessary regard for recreating the sound of a stage performance, The Beatles' early strength was as a live performance band, hence my intuition about wanting to try this out. I wonder if any of Peter's AI isolation work so far has involved separation of the individual elements of Ringo's drum kit (toms, high hat, bass, snare, cymbal) or if perhaps those individual elements might, at least in some cases, be too similar in timbre (e.g., high hat and cymbal) for the AI to be able to discriminate and tease them apart(?). The idea that Ringo's SET could also have its own dimensional soundscape that way is intriguing to me. I've read Sir George Martin's book ALL YOU NEED IS EARS and though that title has a whimsical intent and turn to it, deriving as it does from John's song title ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, it also strikes me as bittersweet now as well since at some point George lost his hearing and then needed GILE'S ears to help him carry on. Deafness must have been comparably devastating to him in light of the work he did as it was for Beethoven. George and I share something in common besides both of us having been classically trained musicians: an admiration for Brian Wilson's writing/arranging/production work. Brian has just recently lost his wife Melinda, who was his anchor and stay in life, and I hope he will be able to survive his grief and be able to 'be there' for their kids. Wonderful interview, gentlemen, and thank you for letting us eavesdrop on your most enjoyable hobnobbing!

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

A new mix of a classic feels comparable to a piece of instrumental/classical music led by a new conductor or vocalist--an interpretation that pulls different lines forward, tips into a legato to move a phrase along, holds the fermata a little bit longer or more briefly. I remember the 40th Anniv Sgt. Pepper remix bringing some wind and string instruments into the foreground on a couple of my fave tracks and it was glorious... you could always hear the lines hinting their colours, but having them shine forth in their full beauty in the mix was a magnificent satisfaction. Giles fits well into my pantheon of fabulous-eared heroes. :)

[@retrovideogamejunkie]

"If you mono to stereo , don't take the 2 sides, just one side and make it stereo ..."

[@ramzizzle]

release the part 2 of the andre 3000 episode already!

[@sub-jec-tiv]

YES

[@sonicstooge]

Please Demix River Deep Mountain High! Please! Please!

[@Whollyworshipministries]

What a great interview. That repeating visual pattern is very annoying!!!

[@thumbsaloft]

You forgot to mention Giles great work on the Beatles Hollywood Bowl!

[@riddellthomas2185]

I wonder if he'll remix the early Beatles albums.. that would be even more interesting..

[@ivancortina4398]

I'm pretty sure Giles will be working on Rubber Soul next

[@xxEzraBxxx]

Can’t wait for him to fuck it up

[@mjf8897]

Giles is gonna remix Death Magnetic and bring in some dynamic range - jk

[@cuebj]

The technology used in Get Back makes that possible at last

[@xxEzraBxxx]

@@cuebj Yeah, but they would have to demix from the a majority of the songs from the stereo mix on the first 2 albums because the original twin-track masters are missing

[@67Pepper]

19:38 Oh no. 19:53 Tubes, more tubes, love me some tubes.

[@freddiebarry93]

Where is part 2??

[@AllesHelptPublicaties]

What’s that, “apple voyage”?

[@funkyjemima]

It was a remix not a remaster.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

That blows my dang mind, that the demixed tracks can be put back together, then summed against the master out of phase and it disappears. That is RIDICULOUS. By all rights there should be weird spectral noise, but… nothing. That’s insane!! Sorry, audio engineer mind exploding over here. 🤯

[@SamHocking]

Most of the AI demix models out there are non-destructive. Not in terms of the demixed stem, but all stems played back will null as a collective playback phase inverted because the algorithms are simply a audio sieve. What falls through the sieve either ends up part of another stem or in an 'other' stem. It is kind of amazing it works as well as it does.

[@MissPerriwinkle]

oh hell, no video

[@ritchie2411]

Should work on Tom’s original Boston tracks from his basement

[@PhatLvis]

Re-MIXed, not remastered.

[@jimhines5145]

Normalization is NOT compression, unless you exceed 0db, in which case you end up with distortion. It does not affect the dynamics like compression does.

[@pablohrrg8677]

Linear vs non linear.

[@robertfields1964]

Very interesting: madness and brilliance overlapping in sound. And everywhere else. That's where health, safety, privacy, and work morale go wrong.

[@cuebj]

Giles Martin sounds surprisingly like Cliff Richard

[@alanarthur9050]

He sounds like his Dad to me but maybe we all sound somewhat like our Dads.

[@richardtribe4424]

Hi Rick, this comment isn't really about the current video - although thank you for the engaging interview for all of us to hear - but have you considered an interview between yourself and Mr. Jordan Peterson? I would love to hear the contrasting points of view between the two of you. Thank you for the works you have contributed to over the years which continue to ever inspire and impact the collective. Love the new book!

[@TheSchemel]

Great interview, but I do disagree to some degree. Fleetwood Mac records would not sound as good as they do without a good production. Lindsay Buckingham is an underrated producer. Post Toastee, by Tommy Bolin, would not sound as good if it wasn't produced right. No offense to George Martin, but if he had put the time into George Harrison's If I Needed Someone, it would have been a Beatles classic, because it's a great song, just not well produced.

[@cuebj]

GM has admitted he ignored GH for years

[@yensilluap]

@@cuebj I don’t think that it necessarily means that he mixed the song poorly because it was George’s. A lot of the Beatle records at that time were mixed for stereo with much less attention - the mono mixes were the ones they spent time on. I too love If I Needed Someone - one of my favorites. A remix of this with the new method would be amazing with all the jangling guitars and the three part harmony!

[@cuebj]

Haha! My mum hated speakers for how they looked. She also disliked stereo but, tbf, early stereo was horrible. We had a Hacker record player with auto stack to play 4 or 5 records in a row without getting up to change them

[@TheFormerkgbchief]

Nepo baby

[@biegebythesea6775]

you are the ultimate nepo baby, Jesus. Your dad is God ffs.

[@Jimmie_Rudolfsson]

He remixes the albums.. not remastering.

[@aleksam6]

This helps me to distract from everything that is happening rn. This helped me to forgot my hate and anger to fckn russians invaded to my country.Slava Ukraini!

[@mjf8897]

SOMEONE SAVE GILES HE'S TELLING RICK ABOUT NORMALIZATION AND DYNAMICS GUYYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[@stephenfisch615]

Giles Martin interviewed by Rick Rubin A little technical at times but interesting.

[@keithbertschin1213]

Love the discussion but to say white album was very true to the original is absolutely false with some songs. He sterilized helper skelter, yer blues and while my guitar

[@joeschwartz2636]

Giles redid Love? like what?

[@fnjesusfreak]

He _did_ Love in the first place.

[@DriveInRetroReels]

You keep saying "Giles Martin about his approach to remastering the Beatles" and what it's like to "REMASTER" them.... etc. Giles REMIXED them entirely. REMASTERING is an entirely different thing. Shouldn't you get it right if you're going to interview him about his work?

[@mikecaldwell4442]

his sgt pepper mix is terrible

[@paulj6138]

That simple animation is annoying

[@paulj6138]

I switched to TUNE IN MARK LEWISOHN'S BOOK ON AUDIBLE INSTEAD

[@lionheartroar3104]

Revolver is the worst of the remixes. With the exception of a couple of tracks it sounded terrible.

[@yensilluap]

Surprised to hear someone say that - I prefer the remix - thought it was amazing. For No One sounded superb for example - ah well, to each his own! By the way I’m not young - I grew up on all the Beatles records as a teenager in the ‘70’s and know them inside out!

[@benjammin4840]

There are some really useful de mixers that are free or cheap if you Google