Unheard Jimi Hendrix Recordings May Get Beatles AI Treatment

[5.1 4 Life]

From UltimateClassicRock.com-

Eddie Kramer is the producer and engineer charged with working on the late guitarist’s archival work. In a recent interview with The Vinyl Guide podcast, he admitted AI technology opens the doors for further exploration of Hendrix’s material.

“It’s really very advanced digital manipulation, and now the technology has become so evolved,” Kramer explained, noting that AI is the next big step in audio production. “I’m sure if we found another tape [on which] Jimi’s voice is buried, I know I could use something similar, which I’ve done before, but now it’s going to be on a much higher level.”

Kramer is part of the Experience Hendrix team – along with Janie Hendrix (Jimi’s step-sister) and archivist John McDermott – which handles the guitar god’s catalog and legacy. The engineer admitted he already knows of some unreleased material that he’d like to revisit with AI technology.

“Yes, there are tapes that I would love to get my hands on with John and Janie and say, ‘Hey, maybe we can do X or Y,” Kramer confessed. And though he cautioned no release was imminent, the engineer said he was “very curious to see what the future holds.”

“This whole concept of restoration, it feels sometimes as if I’m part archaeologist with the little brushes brushing away the dirt from the stones and the bones and then revealing something spectacular,” Kramer explained. “I love it.”

 

[jimfisheye]

Came in here to say something like shades of Crash Landing...

Thankfully, there's Eddie Kramer describing his intentions around restoration and not even a hint of suggesting anything AI related or anything like those Beatles remix experiments! Kids and their rage bait titles...

I'm still not going to start holding my breath for anything but my heart rate is back down.

 

[ctoelle]

How about they get to releasing this instead?

 

[5.1 4 Life]

How about they get to releasing this instead?

I Hear You! I've still got the order that I placed for that set Two Years Ago! They should release the Electric Lady Studios box set that was promised (or at least explain why it's being held up for so long).

 

[fetchmybeer]

The thing is nobody cares about Jimi's vocals really. They want to hear his guitar in combination with his voice. So if you pull out his vocals, you best pull out the guitar too. I worry in that case though what kind of tonal variations you get on his guitar. They did do pretty amazing things with John Lennon's vocal track on that new (and ho-hum) Beatles song though.

 

[Bill B]

They've been scraping the bottom of the barrel so long that you have to wonder how much could possibly be left that's worth releasing. I have a shitload of Hendrix discs and I think I'm about done worrying about being a completist. If they start releasing the core albums in surround/atmos I am in, otherwise, good luck with that.

 

[jimfisheye]

Hendrix and Beatles are the main ones I still have to pull out vinyl to listen to. There just aren't full fidelity digital versions of any of them save 1 or 2. I thought these bands were popular? Getting proper album masters that at least hit the quality of the original UK mono vinyl (for those) and maybe Deutsche Grammophon vinyl for the latter ones. (And then masters that at least hit the MFSL vinyl quality for the Beatles!)

Will I still remember these bands and still have my hearing when that finally happens? I can't believe ALL the tapes are fully ruined. Someone is hoarding all this waiting for some corporate stars to align or something.

I have what seems like endless hours of the studio tapes and his personal recordings from various bootlegs over the years. There are certainly moments and gems lurking about in all that that someone could produce. A few things have trickled out from some of that but nothing that hits like the core albums. I think there could be something found and produced just because he was so prolific if the right person could work with it.

Things sure got rough! That Crash Landing debacle should have never been allowed to happen. Those hacks had no business anywhere near those tapes and their damage is irreparable. Those 3 original posthumous albums are pretty thrown together (Rainbow Bridge, War Heroes, & Cry Of Love), great as they are! Remember that original Isle of White single album? Weird choices and presentation.

 

[Electric Moo]

Amen

 

[stoopid]

Having grown up with (now rare) UK pressings of The Beatles, some were mono, I can't say I feel nostalgic for them.

 

[stoopid]

They've been scraping the bottom of the barrel so long that you have to wonder how much could possibly be left that's worth releasing. I have a shitload of Hendrix discs and I think I'm about done worrying about being a completist. If they start releasing the core albums in surround/atmos I am in, otherwise, good luck with that.

I'm largely ignoring stereo re-releases for pretty much everything now. There's only so much more enjoyment and improvement they're going to realize past what's already out there. Unless an album was shit coming out of the studio, they won't be milking me for incremental improvements. There's very few albums released by record labels that could fall under that low bar.

Based on the mere age of other albums being released in recent years in atmos/5.1, it would seem sometime in the 1967 - 1968 time frame the studios took a multitracking leap, where there's enough separation between instruments and mixdowns that leaves enough discrete material to make a decent surround sound stage. I'm sure there's a specific point in time where certain pieces of recording equipment were manufactured and installed, but without even knowing that we can tell with our ears and the depth of the surround work being released, that most anything 1967 and older is lacking enough raw material from the original master tracks to make a "good" surround mix. The exception would be the Beach Boys and Beatles, who were at the cutting edge of multitracking and supported by their labels to spend the studio time and money. Maybe someone with knowledge of the 4 to 8 to 16 to 24+ track studio timeline can chime in. I'm sure it's listed somewhere out there or on wikipedia.

Maybe AI will further evolve this field in music engineering, and maybe in our lifetime they can approach something near 'acceptable'. I'd hope this would be the primary objective, rather than some hokey and uninteresting cutting room floor material that the artist abandoned for a reason. But for now, we're stuck living with the limitations of studio recording in an era that produced several prodigious records by artists who shone bright but for a brief time.