The Beach Boys

[Synthesizer Patel]

Sweet. Little disapointed it's coming out in Mono and that DB Priore is writing the liner notes but as a Smile fan, this is all you can ask for. I hope the running order is a close approximation of what BW had in mind in '66 (what, if any part he can remember) and not the BWPS order. I like the BWPS order but we have that and I would be much more interested in what would have been. Sign me up for the boxed set.

 

Thanks for the post.

 

i doubt it will be like brian wilson presents smile - i think that is too bloated to have been anywhere near what the album would have been like in the 1960s. i'm also really glad they're sticking with mono, it's going to sound brilliant - i'm just really anti stereo when it comes to music that was made whilst thinking about mono production, you just can't record and arrange things with mono in mind and then turn it into stereo without it sounding lacking . anyway, this box set is going to cost a fortune, so i'm going to start saving now.

[dtram]

i doubt it will be like brian wilson presents smile - i think that is too bloated to have been anywhere near what the album would have been like in the 1960s. i'm also really glad they're sticking with mono, it's going to sound brilliant - i'm just really anti stereo when it comes to music that was made whilst thinking about mono production, you just can't record and arrange things with mono in mind and then turn it into stereo without it sounding lacking . anyway, this box set is going to cost a fortune, so i'm going to start saving now.

I wouldn't think it would be anything like BWPS but when the article above says that 2004 will be the blueprint, it makes you wonder. Not sure i agree with 2004 being bloated, its only 5 or 10 minutes longer than a 60's release would have been. Yeah its longer but the three movement thing works for me. Obviously not how it would've been done but i like it.

 

As for the mono/stereo thing, i never listen to the mono pet sounds after the boxed stereo version came out, the stereo sounds so much better to me, richer. I think that has to with the care they took in assembling the stereo mix off of the 16 track reels. I wasn't like they just took the mono master and whacked it in half, but i respect your opinion; there are a lot of mono purists out there. It's weird because i would be inclined to be one. I would never watch a colorized version of a B&W movie but i prefer stereo over mono if it is done well.

[LouieB]

The only music that clearly shouldn't be turned into stereo is material that was actually recorded in mono (which most of the records we talk about here were not). I have plenty of records that were reprocessed to stereo after stereo became standard and some of those do sound terrible. Most records made after 1960 were recorded with various tracks and therefore can be either. Otherwise it is mostly like many things, a personal preference (or pretense).

 

LouieB

[mpolak21]

So how does Mike Love fuck up the release of this?

[dtram]

So how does Mike Love fuck up the release of this?

By getting a bug up his ass that he isn't "represented" enough or some bullshit like that and blocks its release. I think he held up the PS box for a year. I think this will come out this time but wont really believe it until I'm holding it.

[mpolak21]

Yeah, I'm excited for the release of it. But one of the things I've always loved about Smile is it's fluidity, it never tangibly existed so it could be whatever you made out of the boots out there. David Thomas of Pere Ubu once said that Smile was “the only perfect record that was ever made, because it only existed in the imaginations of Brian Wilson’s fans… you would listen to all of the working tapes and you would assemble the perfect track from all these incomplete views of it in your head. And therefore it was perfect because it never existed."

 

So an official release of the sessions ends this idea, but the idea of upgrading my boxes and boxes of session bootlegs into a remastered nice sounding set is great. They just better include the outtake of Brian getting stuck inside of a piano (this might have been staged).

[dtram]

Yeah, I'm excited for the release of it. But one of the things I've always loved about Smile is it's fluidity, it never tangibly existed so it could be whatever you made out of the boots out there. David Thomas of Pere Ubu once said that Smile was “the only perfect record that was ever made, because it only existed in the imaginations of Brian Wilson’s fans… you would listen to all of the working tapes and you would assemble the perfect track from all these incomplete views of it in your head. And therefore it was perfect because it never existed."

 

So an official release of the sessions ends this idea, but the idea of upgrading my boxes and boxes of session bootlegs into a remastered nice sounding set is great. They just better include the outtake of Brian getting stuck inside of a piano (this might have been staged).

I think that was true before 2004 but once it got finished, it kind of ended the mystery thing, at least to me. We're all getting older, i just want pristine copies of it. I just hope they don't compress the shit out of it though.

[Synthesizer Patel]

As for the mono/stereo thing, i never listen to the mono pet sounds after the boxed stereo version came out, the stereo sounds so much better to me, richer. I think that has to with the care they took in assembling the stereo mix off of the 16 track reels. I wasn't like they just took the mono master and whacked it in half, but i respect your opinion; there are a lot of mono purists out there. It's weird because i would be inclined to be one. I would never watch a colorized version of a B&W movie but i prefer stereo over mono if it is done well.

 

i don't have a problem really with what they did to pet sounds, as they also had the mono mix - so it's like being given both choices. like you siad, the thing they did was actually remix it into stereo, as the beach boys only released stereo as duophonic during the 1960s - duophonic was basically the same single mono mix L & R, but with a slight time difference to give it a fake stereo feel.

 

yes, i personally think music in the 1960s sounds better in mono. another way to explain it is to think that when they made the album they thought of the sound spectrum as 100, and they built up the bass, middle, treble etc... to fit into that figure of 100 - you can't overfill that 100 with too much bass, or too much treble etc... as it will swamp the mix and make it muddy. however when you mix to stereo you've suddenly got a figure of 200. you can hard pan a bass track to the left and then have as much bass sound hard panned to the other side. then obviously as you pan things closer to the middle then those sound spectrums overlap with each other. it's bascially like working on an entirely different canvas which is why until stereo became the norm, stereo mixes of albums thought about in mono just sound lacking in stereo.

 

doing what they did with the pet sounds stereo remix does remedy that problem somewhat, but that's really not the norm for stereo albums from the 60s - as shown with how the beatles albums were handled.

[Vacant Horizon]

I think that was true before 2004 but once it got finished, it kind of ended the mystery thing, at least to me. We're all getting older, i just want pristine copies of it. I just hope they don't compress the shit out of it though.

 

now it's compression we have to worry about! us music fans can never win. i'll believe this when i see it. now, i thought some of the original tracks were used in the 2004 disc? i liked the first movement on that disc, but the rest sounded like an original cast musical recording. i wonder if they'll add some vocals like springsteen did to his latest release? anyway, this speculation stuff is fun as hell.

[Synthesizer Patel]

I think that was true before 2004 but once it got finished, it kind of ended the mystery thing, at least to me. We're all getting older, i just want pristine copies of it. I just hope they don't compress the shit out of it though.

 

the back cover of the album artwork they made in 67 was this:

 

Do You Like Worms

Wind Chimes

Heroes And Villains

Surfs Up

Good Vibrations

Cabin Essence

Wonderful

I’m In Great Shape

The Elements

Vega-Tables

The Old Master Painter

 

see it here: http://img140.images...ck300dping6.jpg

 

but, it says "see label for correct playing order"

 

now, that is a very weird running order they used, and it depends what "the elements" was going to include (i thought vega-tables & wind chimes were both part of that suite, but they are listed seperately?), but they might go with that tracklisting but in a different order for the official release. to me that looks a lot more succinct and realistic of how long the album would have been. i'm positive that the brian wilson smile from 2004 included far more just because they were hearing all this music and were too overwhelmed to throw any of it away.

[dtram]

now it's compression we have to worry about! us music fans can never win. i'll believe this when i see it. now, i thought some of the original tracks were used in the 2004 disc? i liked the first movement on that disc, but the rest sounded like an original cast musical recording. i wonder if they'll add some vocals like springsteen did to his latest release? anyway, this speculation stuff is fun as hell.

As far as i know, they were not allowed to use anything from the 66-67 sessions in 2004, everything was rerecorded. They did it on older equipment to get the sound as close as possible. Definitely hear you about it sounding a little broadway but IMO, if all broadway sounded like that, id be a show tunes fan.

 

the back cover of the album artwork they made in 67 was this:

 

Do You Like Worms

Wind Chimes

Heroes And Villains

Surfs Up

Good Vibrations

Cabin Essence

Wonderful

I’m In Great Shape

The Elements

Vega-Tables

The Old Master Painter

 

see it here: http://img140.images...ck300dping6.jpg

 

but, it says "see label for correct playing order"

 

now, that is a very weird running order they used, and it depends what "the elements" was going to include (i thought vega-tables & wind chimes were both part of that suite, but they are listed seperately?), but they might go with that tracklisting but in a different order for the official release. to me that looks a lot more succinct and realistic of how long the album would have been. i'm positive that the brian wilson smile from 2004 included far more just because they were hearing all this music and were too overwhelmed to throw any of it away.

I thought the original Priore book said that that running order was Brian scribbling the songs on a piece of paper for Capitol and was never meant to be the real running order. Yeah there's no doubt to me that 2004 used more than they would have for that reason and, they had more room.

[Synthesizer Patel]

I thought the original Priore book said that that running order was Brian scribbling the songs on a piece of paper for Capitol and was never meant to be the real running order. Yeah there's no doubt to me that 2004 used more than they would have for that reason and, they had more room.

 

yeah, like it says on the cover it wouldn't be the running order, but i think they were the songs that would have made it as the core and all these other things like Child Is The Father Of The Man etc... would have either not been on it or just minor elements within main songs. i think i read that hereos and villians was mixed and completed in 2 parts which was going to be the A and B side of the single, so that song alone is going to be incredible if they do have the tapes of that finished, and maybe that contains the elements of these shorter lesser songs which i think were too expanded on the 2004 issue.

[dtram]

yeah, like it says on the cover it wouldn't be the running order, but i think they were the songs that would have made it as the core and all these other things like Child Is The Father Of The Man etc... would have either not been on it or just minor elements within main songs. i think i read that hereos and villians was mixed and completed in 2 parts which was going to be the A and B side of the single, so that song alone is going to be incredible if they do have the tapes of that finished, and maybe that contains the elements of these shorter lesser songs which i think were too expanded on the 2004 issue.

I think so too. I ve often wondered if the heroes part one and two actually exist or not. You would think if it did it would've made it onto the boxed set. My hunch is that the 6 minute heroes sections is all that there is that is extra but i really hope I'm wrong.

 

It funny, for me, there isn't a wasted note on BWPS, i think it is perfection. I think it flows extremely well and i think the shorter lesser songs you refer to are the right length. They actually shortened Look when it was converted into song for children and i love the way Child was (re)constructed. Regardless, i think we're just debating over degrees perfection here and that the boxed set version of this will be as close as they can come to what it probably would've sounded like in the sixties. That way, we have both ways and everyone is happy.

[dtram]

Nice interview with Mark Linett in Billboard:

 

http://www.billboard.com/#/features/beach-boys-engineer-talks-about-the-smile-1005071622.story

[Analogman]

What will the changes in studio technology bring to "Smile" today?

 

[brian] was doing this with very primitive technology that we now do on a daily basis with digital recordings, reusing sections and moving them around. Its interesting to surmise if he had the current technology what might have happened. It would have been so much easier to do these experiments.

 

The advantage that we have now is digital editing that we didn't even have in 1996 when we were editing for the "Pet Sounds" boxset; it was still on tape with razor blades. So it goes a lot faster but there is still about 20 times as much material [on "Smile"]. But that almost makes it 20 times as interesting to present that much material.

 

I'd say the old stuff sounds better.

 

What will you do. Will you add vocals?

 

Don't know yet. The general consensus appears to be not to do any recording just because this is a historic piece, but its a little premature because we are still trying to get 30 hours worth of sessions down to some kind of playable length. Even at that, it will be at least 3 CD to represent the sessions.

 

I hope they stick to not adding any vocals or other parts to anything.

[dtram]

I'd say the old stuff sounds better.

 

 

 

I hope they stick to not adding any vocals or other parts to anything.

 

Guess I'm torn. The purist in me doesn't want it touched, the other part wants some vocals. I think they should do it both ways, what the hell? You have the choice to listen to it with and without vocals. It could sound like a train wreck though so i would hope if they went with that line of thinking, they would have the self awaerness to realize if it sounded like shit to scrap it.

 

I only feel that way because the songs, especially Blue Hawaii and On A Holiday sound so much better with vocals. I can't wait for this.

[bigideas]

I think 2004 is more the band leader's vision. There was a way he sang vocals on the 2004 that kinda bugged me a little. If they do "just have to add something," surely they will also present the purist untouched form as well. Just don't make me pay for the tampered please, make it optionally or something.

[jff]

Nice interview with Mark Linett in Billboard:

 

http://www.billboard.com/#/features/beach-boys-engineer-talks-about-the-smile-1005071622.story

 

Nice interview, but it left me with the feeling they're going to screw this thing up. Hope I'm wrong about that.

[dtram]

I think 2004 is more the band leader's vision.

What do you mean by that?

 

Nice interview, but it left me with the feeling they're going to screw this thing up. Hope I'm wrong about that.

I got that feeling too when he said they still need to assemble it and then present it to the band, that is the scary part.

[Analogman]

Guess I'm torn. The purist in me doesn't want it touched, the other part wants some vocals. I think they should do it both ways, what the hell? You have the choice to listen to it with and without vocals. It could sound like a train wreck though so i would hope if they went with that line of thinking, they would have the self awaerness to realize if it sounded like shit to scrap it.

 

I only feel that way because the songs, especially Blue Hawaii and On A Holiday sound so much better with vocals. I can't wait for this.

 

The thing is - it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. For various reasons - they are in their late 60s/early 70s now, and Dennis and Carl are gone. I would be surprised if Brian, Al, and Mike could get it together to actually do whatever it is they need to do.

 

And of course - there is the issue of the equipment. As Little Steven once said - at some point these days - you have to go to the digital stage - no way around it. I'd much rather hear the original tapes turned to whatever digital form they have to be made into for us to get them - than I would a bunch of pro-tools effect laden vocals added on at this point in time.

 

I understand this sort of thing does not bother some people. To me, it is like the difference between lossless and lossy files. I notice it right away, and it sticks in my head. One of the reasons I decided not to buy the Exile on Main Street re-issue was due to the fact that stuff was added on, and that the whole thing seemed to be running slower than before.

 

I've heard the Brian Wilson version of Smile, and I don't care for it at all. For me, one of the reasons I have always been attracted to the Beach Boys was due to the sounds they made together.

[dtram]

The thing is - it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. For various reasons - they are in their late 60s/early 70s now, and Dennis and Carl are gone. I would be surprised if Brian, Al, and Mike could get it together to actually do whatever it is they need to do.

 

And of course - there is the issue of the equipment. As Little Steven once said - at some point these days - you have to go to the digital stage - no way around it. I'd much rather hear the original tapes turned to whatever digital form they have to be made into for us to get them - than I would a bunch of pro-tools effect laden vocals added on at this point in time.

 

I understand this sort of thing does not bother some people. To me, it is like the difference between lossless and lossy files. I notice it right away, and it sticks in my head. One of the reasons I decided not to buy the Exile on Main Street re-issue was due to the fact that stuff was added on, and that the whole thing seemed to be running slower than before.

 

I've heard the Brian Wilson version of Smile, and I don't care for it at all. For me, one of the reasons I have always been attracted to the Beach Boys was due to the sounds they made together.

I absolutely agree that it could stick out like a sore thumb and that's why i said that i hoped they'd scrap the idea of adding vocals if it sounded like they weren't working. I think what the idea of adding vocals has going for it, is that this is the beach boys and they were a vocal group. Smile would not have been an instrumental record and to have an instrumental release isn't what it would have been in 1967. It would only be instrumental because they never got around to recording the vocals for some songs.

 

Again, I am not saying i am for adding vocals yet, i need to think about it some more, but i think 2 versions, one 60's pure and one with new vocals could work if done well.

 

Kind of surprised you don't care for BWPS. That backing band of his gives the wrecking crew a run for their money and the vocalists he has are just top notch. For me, in the pro tools world of today, that was the most organic sounding record I'd heard in a long time. I believe it was recorded with old tube equipment. To me, Smile would have been a BB record in name only anyway, more so than even Pet Sounds, so i had no problem with him finishing it with others; and VDP did finish the lyrics. Seeing that live twice was one of the thrills of my life.

[Analogman]

Oh, I respect it - but at least on some of the sessions of the old Smile, some of the band played on some of the tracks. At least I think that is true. I do know that they are on some of the Pet Sounds tracks. I've always admired the Wrecking Crew - particularity Hal Blaine. I also have a thing about drum sounds, and to me, the old stuff just sounds better.

[jff]

I also have a thing about drum sounds, and to me, the old stuff just sounds better.

 

Agreed. This is true for just about every band. Listen to Ringo on "Free as a Bird"/"Real Love" and compare his drum sound to the drum sound on any Beatles track. Listen to any pre 1980 vs. post 1980 Zappa drum track. Listen to Neil Peart on Fly By Night and then listen to anything he's done in the last 20 years.

[Analogman]

Exactly.

 

Speaking of Ringo, the reason he was using the kit he had during the Let It Be era was due to George hanging out with Hal, and admiring the kit he had. George then told Ringo about it. Or at least that is what Mr. Blaine states in his book.

 

I have always rather liked the percussion/drum part around the first 30 seconds or so in Let's Go Away for Awhile.

 

I've always thought Pet Sounds could be a film. When you think about the work it took to create and make that and Smile, you can't help but be astounded.

 

All of those sections and parts of Heroes And Villains that came out on the box set - amazing stuff. It's a like a cheery dark ride to somewhere you may not want to go, but you go anyways.

[dtram]

Oh, I respect it - but at least on some of the sessions of the old Smile, some of the band played on some of the tracks. At least I think that is true. I do know that they are on some of the Pet Sounds tracks. I've always admired the Wrecking Crew - particularity Hal Blaine. I also have a thing about drum sounds, and to me, the old stuff just sounds better.

I thought I read that the BB's really didn't take part in any of the instrumental sessions for Smile, hopefully the release has detailed session notes to clear that up. As for PS, I thought the only song any BB's played instruments on was That's Not Me and I thought it was only Carl and Dennis but haven't read the liner notes in a while. For me, when Brian went off the road and started using the wrecking crew exclusivley is when I really get interested in their music. However, the post Smile era, Wild Honey through Holland, I like a lot. Some really underated and underappreciated music in there.

 

 

Agreed. This is true for just about every band. Listen to Ringo on "Free as a Bird"/"Real Love" and compare his drum sound to the drum sound on any Beatles track. Listen to any pre 1980 vs. post 1980 Zappa drum track. Listen to Neil Peart on Fly By Night and then listen to anything he's done in the last 20 years.

That would be that GD Jeff Lynne. I'm no recording engineer so I dont what exactly those effects are but they drive me nuts. He ruined the Wilbury's records and the Petty records with that sound. Thank God he appears to have left the scene, or at least doesn't produce records I listen to.