What it's like to remaster the Beatles – Giles Martin takes us inside the titanic task

From studio assistant via classical producing and film scores, Giles Martin has remastered the Fab Four for a new generation, starting with the Love project in 2006. Currently, he’s knee-deep in Rubber Soul and Sam Mendes’s blockbuster Beatles biopics.

IN THE FAMILY

Growing up, we didn’t talk about the Beatles – in our house, they were almost a dirty word. It’s something my dad [“Fifth Beatle” George Martin, the Beatles’ producer] had done, and was now doing Ultravox or whatever. When I was a teenager in the early 80s, the Beatles were very uncool. Then the whole Britpop boom changed people’s perception – bands were saying, “The reason why we’re good is because of the Beatles.”

AUDACITY

I suggested the Love project in 2003 to Neil Aspinall, who ran Apple Corps [which was established by members of the Beatles in the 1960s]. The idea that George Martin’s son would take the Beatles’ tapes and chop them up to create a show in Las Vegas [by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage Hotel] was so disgusting as an idea, I thought I’d get fired from it at some point. I’d never worked at Abbey Road Studios before, and at the time, I was getting sneered at in the corridors because people knew what I was working on. As a hippy punk, it suited me... I thought, I might as well just do what I think is going to be good. Love only closed two years ago because they knocked down parts of The Mirage, including the theatre. The show ran for 18 years, 12 million people saw it and it made $1.7 billion [almost £1.3 billion].

ENJOY THE PROCESS

When I remastered Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 2017, we were syncing the tape machines together, going back to the earlier takes... it was quite complicated. But when Peter Jackson did The Beatles: Get Back, he was able to use AI to recognise a guitar or a voice and separate that from what’s going on behind it. It’s a bit like baking a cake, then getting the flour, eggs, milk and sugar back. That’s what we’ve done with Rubber Soul.

GUARDIAN OF THE LEGACY

I suppose when it comes to the tapes, I am the custodian. I’m trusted by the Beatles, and they’re really kind to me. I work for Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Olivia Harrison [George Harrison’s widow] and Dhani [their son], and Yoko Ono [John Lennon’s widow] and Sean Lennon [their son]. I’ll suggest things to them and they have final say. But I have to ask every time – you can’t expect to be invited to someone’s birthday party just because you were the year before!

ACT NATURALLY

Sam Mendes’s new Beatles biopics are unlike anything I’ve worked on before. It’s extraordinary, so comprehensive and so detailed, and Beatles fans are going to go nuts. I mean, I’m there and I can’t believe it. I’m heavily involved all the way. I think we have another year and a half left on it.

Rubber Soul: Special Editions are available now on vinyl, Blu-ray, CD and streaming.

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