'The Completed SMiLE'

[creebobby]

Hello everyone,

I'm Jacob Borshard, a musician and cartoonist from Austin, and I wanted to share what I just finished.

I've created my own fully completed version of the Beach Boys' 1967 SMiLE with all missing vocals recorded by me (using BWPS as a guide).  It's also mixed in full stereo (my own mix) and fully dovetailed with some new edits and transitions.  I also created new artwork that includes the boys inside the SMiLE store.

I wrote new lyrics for 'The Old Master Painter' as well as new lyrics and melody for 'Tune X', which I placed in the center of The Completed SMiLE.

As far as I know (and please correct me!) it's the very first fully completed (no missing vocals) version of the 1967 recordings.

I dare not post a direct download link, but you can easily find where to get it from my website:

http://www.creebobby.com

Here's the front and back cover:





Enjoy!

[rab2591]

Just listened to Tune X (your youtube video)...WOW!!!! That's incredible!

Eagerly waiting for the entire album to download!

[SMiLE Brian]

Tune x is blowing my mind...

[Runaways]

i think my favorite part was hearing the lyrics for old master painter. good stuff

[seltaeb1012002]

Dude! Love what you did with TUNE X & Painter!
Great segue into Barnyard!

[rab2591]

Standouts for me: 'Tune X', 'Look', and 'Roll Plymouth Rock'.

I love hearing vocals on those tracks! And your voice sounds great on them!

I'll be playing this mix for quite some time!

[pixletwin]

Nothing new to add from me, just that I enjoyed Tune X. Really nicely done.

[Paul2010]

Thanks a lot! These mixes sound great.

[Biggus Dikkus]

I'll be listening to this very soon.

[rogerlancelot]

Help! I think my head is stuck again!

[SMiLE Brian]

Help! I think my head is stuck again!

Your an odd one...

[Biggus Dikkus]

Just finishing this up and I've got to say I'm very satisfied. Some of the added vocals sound odd in some parts, especially with the leap in quality between BB voices and your voice. But I'd say I would prefer this over hearing mashed up versions of BWPS w/ SMiLE.

thanks a lot for the mix!

[bossaroo]

cool idea.

Boundless Love is really nice. great work!

wondering why lyrics were slightly changed on Song For Children and Child. was that on purpose?



really love your cartoons too 

[Surfs Down]

Great Job - Were the vocals/lyrics for Tune X based on any Beach Boys source material or did you come up with all that? 

[creebobby]

Thanks all!

"Great Job - Were the vocals/lyrics for Tune X based on any Beach Boys source material or did you come up with all that?" - Surf's Down

I invented the lyrics for Tune X, except of course for:

1.  The 'Beer - Cold Beer - Gimmie That Root Beer' bit from the Surfin' Safari classic 'Chug-A-Lug'.
2.  'Dance Marguerita Dance' obviously comes from Heroes and Villians, as do a couple other vocal tags on the end section.

I wanted to give the song a definite 'Carl' feel in theme and delivery.

I sped up the track to make it a little faster and one half-note higher.

"Wondering why lyrics were slightly changed on Song For Children and Child. was that on purpose?" - Bossaroo
I don't remember what I changed.  I probably liked whatever I sang better.
I do know that on 'Holidays' I shout 'Yaargh!' instead of 'Child!'.  When BWPS came out, I thought he was saying 'Yaargh!' and was dissapointed to find out that he wasn't.  It's a pirate song so I felt there should be some 'Yaargh'-ing.

"Some of the added vocals sound odd in some parts, especially with the leap in quality between BB voices and your voice." - Biggus Dikkus
I completely agree with you.  I was limited by being only one voice instead of five and even more limited in that I don't have the vocal skill, experience, range or facility that the boys had.  In any case, I put my heart in it, and I hope some of that comes through.

When I finished this I had a cocktail listening party for all my friends.
We listened to the album straight through really loud with no interruptions, no cel-phones, no talking, just seventeen people crammed into a living room experiencing SMiLE together (and most of them for the very first time!)  It was pretty magical.





  

[Biggus Dikkus]

Well you did a fantastic job with what little you had. Do you think you could split each song into seperate tracks though? I would like to a combination of your mix with other mixes I've used, and it's kind of difficult with having 4 songs in one track.

[Summertime Blooz]

Wow, Jacob! You are super-talented! I actually prefer your vocals to BWPS (sorry, Brian). That Tune X song was awesome and fit in so well with the rest of it. Thanks for sharing your talent.

Is that your vocals on Barnshine? It sounds phenomenal.

[onkster]

Wow. This is surprisingly impressive. Though I liked your artwork at first sight, seeing "The Beach Boys, with Jacob Borshard" kinda made me giggle, like that old movie that had "By William Shakespeare, with Extra Dialogue By Sam Taylor" for its writing credit.

But no: you brought the goods. Your voice truly has that young BB sound, moreso than just about anybody else I've heard doing BB covers. And your treatment of Tune X is imaginative and very, very faithful to the spirit of SMiLE.

Can't wait to hear the rest of it! My expectations are now high.

Great job, man!

[KokoNO]

Your "Tune X" is so damn amazing, especially the lyrics. Wow.

[Dunderhead]

You did a really good job....
Seriously, you should be proud, you gave a whole new life to Tune X. I could never imagine it on the final album, but you totally showed what it might have been. Thanks so much for sharing.

[Dunderhead]

Oh man, the use of that little bit before Barnyard is so clever!

[Freddie French-Pounce]

3 things:

1. Fantastic, maybe even try doing the whole album if you can get all the instrumental parts together!

2. I assume where you have made the tracks stereo, there are some odd noise clashes, nothing major, just a small point

3. maybe see if you do anything with 'I Don't Know'

P.S Can we have your carrot muching overdub 

[creebobby]

"Wow. This is surprisingly impressive. Though I liked your artwork at first sight, seeing "The Beach Boys, with Jacob Borshard" kinda made me giggle, like that old movie that had "By William Shakespeare, with Extra Dialogue By Sam Taylor" for its writing credit." - onkster
Obviously I felt a little guilty, which is why I wrote my name as graffiti on the back of the building.
A few other details about the artwork - I drew the Beach Boys in the order they appear on the back of the original SMiLE sleeve, but I added Brian to the end.  On the new back cover, I added the poster for the 'Psychic' to reference the goofy Astrological signs on the back of the original.

"Do you think you could split each song into seperate tracks though? I would like to a combination of your mix with other mixes I've used, and it's kind of difficult with having 4 songs in one track." - Biggus Dikkus
Do you mean separate tracks as in completely individual tracks that don't overlap the song or segment before or after?
Basically turning each track into a 'single' that could be shuffled with any other Smile track from any other mix?  That's a good idea.
I mixed each 'cluster' together in ProToolsLE, then mixed each of those down and joined all the clusters together in another big Pro Tools session.  I added all the new recordings to that mega-session - so to chop up the clusters, I'd need to output my new recordings solo, go back to the original files, drop in the new recordings and mute the overlapping tracks at the beginning and end so that I could get clean un-dovetailed snippets . . . yes it could be done.
After finishing this concise version, I was listening to some old sprawling bootlegs, and do I miss the 'am-radio station from another planet' quality that the disjointed all-inclusive collections have - I thought it would be neat to have a playlist meant for shuffle that would 'un-finish' SMiLE, basically turn it into as many different strange, rough and fragmentary elements as possible - like a four hour version.
This could all drive a person nuts!

3 things:
1. Fantastic, maybe even try doing the whole album if you can get all the instrumental parts together!
2. I assume where you have made the tracks stereo, there are some odd noise clashes, nothing major, just a small point
3. maybe see if you do anything with 'I Don't Know'
P.S Can we have your carrot muching overdub  Grin
 - mrmoustachioto

1.  I'd rather not - the advantage of singing the BWPS parts is that they were written by and for a more limited Brian singing solo - so it's easier to approach than tackling the vocal parts that got finished in 1967, which cannot be bettered, in my humble opinion.
2.  In a lot of spots I'm mixing the mono master mix with the stereo instrumental track - I don't have software to sync the two up perfectly, so I had to choose between a phasing effect or a delay effect.  I chose delay, since Brian used delay on some tracks, and since delay is a natural element of reverb / true stereo recording.  I tried to make the delay as subtle as possible, with my ear pointed towards what sounded 'the best'.
3.  I don't know - It seems like it's almost a sister segment to Tune X, doesn't it?  I think I was influenced by it's downward marching melody on the vocal intro to 'Tune X'.
'P.S.' - do you really want the carrot munching by itself?

[Aum Bop Diddit]

Wow -- a major tip of the cap.  I did not expect to dig this so much.  Still 95% Brian/BBs to my ears (or whatever percentage) but that minority % is way inspired and delivered.  Nothing hard core to say but I really really appreciate your connecting the dots between "Smile" and "Chug a Lug"!

[AllIWannaDo]

I was skeptical before i listened, but... after a listen
I'm impressed, hearing vocals in a ismiliar pitch now all the way thru the album makes me appreciate the (what f it had been completed...) album feel like it shouldv been a beauty - such a shame it never was

i like some of the chordal bv pads youv added in parts here and there
tune x for me is one tune i do skp tho, altho ican see youve spent some time on it, so fair does, a good effort

i lament a full BB SMiLE, this gives a nice hint of what coulda been, more so than mixing up BWPS with TSS does.

good effort!