From “Yesterday” to Today: What you need to know about the new Beatles AI Song
Get all the information you need on the new Beatles (kind-of) "AI-Song".
1. The Beatles have published a new song today. It is called “Now and Then” and contains an original voice recording of John Lennon. “AI tools” were used to clean up the original recording. The link to the song is listed below in the reference section.
2. The AI used in creating the song has not composed or performed anything. It is a tool for separating the voice of John Lennon from his piano playing, enhanced by machine-learning. This process is known as source separation and has been used in music and audio productions for quite some time. As such it is different from the types of AIs used in projects such as a Beethoven X and Robbie Williams “Angels – Beethoven AI Version”
3. The new Beatles song is a great example of how AI is used by musicians and other artists: It fulfills a very specific task and is used as a tool to enhance or enable artistic expression. Think of AIs as tools that help in the composition, production and performance of music. They rarely take artistic decisions nor do they have their own artistic personality.
4. The AI-Tool for the Beatles song was developed by filmmaker Peter Jackson. He started working on it during the production of his Beatles film “Get Back” in 2021. There is a conversation with him from one year ago in which he describes the process and tool in greater details. The tool had two main goals: First, to help with the remixing of the old music tapes and second to separate spoken words in rehearsals from the music playing that was going on.