Paul McCartney reveals AI has been used to create ‘the final Beatles file’ – that includes John Lennon’s vocals

Artificial intelligence has been used to create “the last Beatles record”, set to be launched later this 12 months, Sir Paul McCartney has revealed.

The Beatles star, 80, mentioned his late bandmate John Lennon‘s vocals from an previous demo had been extricated and made “pure” due to the expertise.

It took place throughout the making of the documentary sequence The Beatles: Get Back, which was launched in 2021, directed by Lord Of The Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson.

Sir Paul made the feedback on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after being requested for his ideas on synthetic intelligence (AI).

“When Peter Jackson did the film Get Back, where it was us making the Let It Be album, he was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette and a piano,” he mentioned. “He may separate them with AI. They inform the machine: ‘That’s a voice, it is a guitar – lose the guitar’.

“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on and we just finished it up. It will be released this year.

“We had been in a position to take John’s voice and get it pure via this AI so then we may combine the file as you’ll usually do. It offers you some form of leeway.”

Sir Paul mentioned lately he had been instructed about tracks that includes Lennon “singing one of my songs – and it isn’t, it’s just AI”.

There is a “good side” to the expertise but additionally a “scary side”, he mentioned, including: “We will just have to see where that leads.”

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This shouldn’t be the primary time Sir Paul has embraced AI, having been given the de-aging therapy within the video for his monitor Find My Way in 2021.

In the Today interview, the singer-songwriter additionally spoke about his forthcoming images exhibition, titled Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes Of The Storm, to mark the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery.

‘With The Beatles, you’ve gotten this overwhelming stuff taking place to you’

The exhibition incorporates beforehand unseen pictures he took on his Pentax digicam throughout the early days of Beatlemania, together with portraits of Sir Ringo Starr in addition to late bandmates George Harrison and Lennon, and supervisor Brian Epstein.

“It is very poignant, it’s great because, whenever you lose someone, I think your natural thing is ‘Well, we’ve got beautiful memories’, and you hold fast those memories of the good times,” Sir Paul mentioned.

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“I don’t tend to dwell on the fact that you’ve lost someone. After a while – it’ll maybe take a year or two – and then you can look back and you just remember where you met them, things you did…

“And when it got here to The Beatles, and you’ve got this overwhelming stuff taking place to you, you knew one another so properly that you would lean on one another – that is what I see in these footage.”

The exhibition will run from 28 June to 1 October.