ON A WARM DAY IN SEPTEMBER 2022, ALONGSIDE 40 OR SO PRESS COLLEAGUES, I WAS TREATED TO AN ADVANCE DEMONSTRATION OF THE DOLBY ATMOS MIX OF THE BEATLES’ REVOLVER, AT REPUBLIC STUDIOS ON BROADWAY IN NEW YORK CITY’S MIDTOWN. PRODUCER/MIXER GILES MARTIN—SON OF ORIGINAL BEATLES PRODUCER SIR GEORGE MARTIN—WAS OUR HOST. GILES MARTIN’S DEMEANOR WAS SELF-DEPRECATING, AND HE SEEMED TO KNOW ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT THE BEATLES AND THEIR PRODUCTIONS. AS MARTIN PLAYED SONGS FROM REVOLVER IN SURROUND SOUND, THE ASSEMBLED GROUP SEEMED AMAZED BY WHAT THEY HEARD.
Played through a JBL-based 7.1.4 system in a conference room,1 “Tomorrow Never Knows,” Revolver’s final track (which, however, was the first to be recorded), was transformed. Based on texts from The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and employing radical elements including musique concrète, avant-garde composition, and tape loops, the effect of this new, spacious soundfield—on an album known for its claustrophobic production—was shocking. At the front of the mix, Lennon’s vocal was large; it came across with more texture and nuance than I’d ever heard. Also, up front, Paul’s woozy electric bass and Ringo’s cracking drums had weight and viscosity; Ringo’s familiar 16th note, mounted-tom strike (“da-doom”) now revealed a pitch dip, indicating that he’d tuned the drum’s bottom head lower and looser than its top head.
When the song’s legendary effects came in, all hell broke loose, recalling emotions similar to those I felt when, as a child, I first saw Linda Blair’s head spin 360 degrees in 1973’s . (But this was the Beatles, so I knew we were safe.) Seagulls screamed overhead, flying front to back. What sounded like Mellotrons and calliopes looped maniacally from left to right, as if laughing. Massed strings collided and crashed. Tambura droned. George Harrison’s strangled, backward electric
