Paul McCartney performs on the Pyramid Stage during day four of the Glastonbury Festival at Piltonworthy Farm in Glastonbury, England, June 25, 2022. The Beatles star has told the BBC he has completed a new song using AI to recreate John Lennon’s voice.
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LONDON – The Beatles singer-songwriter Paul McCartney told the BBC that artificial intelligence was used to “salvage” and clean up former bandmate John Lennon’s vocals from old records, making They can be featured in an upcoming song.
“It’s a very interesting thing, you know. It’s something we’re all dealing with and trying to deal with at the moment,” McCartney told the BBC “Today” program When asked about artificial intelligence.
McCartney said that “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson — who released an eight-hour documentary in 2021 called “The Beatles: The Return,” which includes colorized, cleaned-up footage of the band’s archives — — was able to “rescue” Lennon’s voice. From a rope-like small cassette. “
Artificial intelligence was used to separate Lennon’s vocals from instruments and background distractions, and to fine-tune the sound quality.
“So when we started working on the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John asked us to do, and we just finished it. It’s going to come out this year,” McCartney said.
“We were able to take John’s voice through this AI and clean it up so we could mix the record as usual. It gives you some leeway.”
It is expected to be a 1978 Lennon song called “Now And Then,” which McCartney has expressed a desire to “get done” in the past, the BBC said. Lennon was murdered in 1980.
On his most recent tour, including headlining at Glastonbury, McCartney performed the song with a cleaned-up Lennon vocal track and played a video of the artist with him on stage.
Industry experts have been pondering the potential of the music industry’s latest technological advances, and the ethics of rebuilding an artist after death.
ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, whose show “ABBA Voyage” uses motion capture and advanced real-time graphics to have the band perform as de-aged digital avatars, previously told CNBC he was concerned about the creation of “deep fakes.”
“It has a good side and a scary side, we’ll just have to see where it leads,” McCartney told the BBC.