Is This Genuine?

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Just watched this on youtube:

The Beach Boys/Dennis Wilson - Cabinessence/Truck Drivin' Man

As someone has commented, it sounds almost too good to be true. Is this really the Dennis vocal isolated, minus tampering by the uploader?

[Aegir]

yeah, why is that so hard to believe?

[ontor pertawst]

Sure sounds like a cheap mic connected to a computer and some guy in his boxers singin' over a warbly distorted snippet of Cabinesscence to me.

Then again, that's what I think EVERYTHING sounds like. And I never messed with isolating vocal lines since the artifacts are so horrid sounding when I last tried years and years ago -- are the filters this good now?

[I. Spaceman]

There would be people here who not only wouldn't know about this ten years after the fact, but deny it after hearing it.

[ontor pertawst]

It's such a fun coupla lines, did anyone ever ask why it was so buried in the mix? Did he not watch his oos and ahs? It's pretty well syncopated.

[Roger Ryan]

Because the 20/20 "Cabinessence" backing track is in mono and the vocals are in stereo, the vocals can be isolated pretty easily. Obviously, additional tweaking needed to be done to isolate just the "Truck Drivin' Man" chant, but it's legit.

In my opinion, all the vocals are buried on the 20/20 version. I suspect a 1966 mix would have pushed those vocals more to the foreground.

[ontor pertawst]

Man, I wonder what was going through Brian's head when they were mucking around with his tapes and the sounds drifted through the walls to his bedroom.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

The reason i was curious as to its genuineness-ness (is that a word?) is because we didn't get an isolated Dennis vocal on the Smile Sessions - despite it being clearly being something that'd be a real blast to listen too - and so i'd assumed it wasn't possible to isolate it successfully, or at least not in any listenable way...

[Mikie]

Through the ceiling to his bedroom. His room was right above the studio.

[Mikie]

There's a good thread (or discussion on another thread) somewhere on this topic.  If you search "Truck Drivin' Man" you'll find a couple of them - right around the time of the Smile Sessions late last year.

[ontor pertawst]

Can you imagine, laying around in bed and you hear THAT music drift up? Whew. Talk about mixed emotions. I love the anecdote about him appearing downstairs to add those lines to "Surf's Up."

[Jason]

Lots of fake fans here...you REALLY can't pick out Dennis Wilson's voice in that song even at a low volume and then GASP when someone isolates it? Sheesh...

Some fans make me hang my head in shame...

[Cabinessenceking]

Lots of fake fans here...you REALLY can't pick out Dennis Wilson's voice in that song even at a low volume and then GASP when someone isolates it? Sheesh...

Some fans make me hang my head in shame...

so it's fake?

or impossible to verify because so deeply buried and low in the mix?

[Rocker]

The reason i was curious as to its genuineness-ness (is that a word?) is because we didn't get an isolated Dennis vocal on the Smile Sessions - despite it being clearly being something that'd be a real blast to listen too - and so i'd assumed it wasn't possible to isolate it successfully, or at least not in any listenable way...

Probably because it was recorded during the 20/20 sessions and not during Smile. The boxset only has Smile sessions that's why there's no further stuff from '71 Surf's up (except the finished vocals), overdubs for Prayer and Cabinessence. That's my guess



EDIT:

It's no fake !

[Andrew G. Doe]

If it was recorded during the 20/20 sessions, it would be on it's own track of an 8-track tape, and thus extremely easy to isolate. That it's not should tell you all you need to know.

[Mikie]

Wait a minite.  Wait a gaul durn minute.  It's late in the day and I'm real tired at work, so forgive me if I'm asking a dumb question here.

Right around the realese of the Smile Sessions box last year, I posed the question on this board asking why the isolated "Truck Drivin' Man" section was not included on the Smile Sessions release. After what I thought was a legit answer (from a known Smile-o-Phile) and he wasn't kidding, he said it was because that section wasn't recorded during the SMiLE era, in '66/'67. That's why it wasn't included as its own track on any of the Smile Sessions releases.

Has this since been debuked or am I halucinating? Wasn't it recorded in '66 and mixed into Cabinessence by Carl & Desper in 1968??  Or was it recorded in 1968 and mixed into the existing '66 Cabinessence?

[bgas]

Wait a minite.  Wait a gaul durn minute.  It's late in the day and I'm real tired at work, so forgive me if I'm asking a dumb question here.

Right around the realese of the Smile Sessions box last year, I posed the question on this board asking why the isolated "Truck Drivin' Man" section was not included on the Smile Sessions release. After what I thought was a legit answer (from a known Smile-o-Phile) and he wasn't kidding, he said it was because that section wasn't recorded during the SMiLE era, in '66/'67. That's why it wasn't included as its own track on any of the Smile Sessions releases.

Has this since been debuked or am I halucinating? Wasn't it recorded in '66 and mixed into Cabinessence by Carl & Desper in 1968??  Or was it recorded in 1968 and mixed into the existing '66 Cabinessence?

None of your questions are ever dumb, Mikie

[Mikie]

Yeah, well, after AGD's post above, I guess I'm a little confused now.  Gotta search down that thread that discussed this already.

[Chris Brown]

Yeah, well, after AGD's post above, I guess I'm a little confused now.  Gotta search down that thread that discussed this already.

Yeah I remember AGD saying that the "truck drivin' man" vocals were from '68, which didn't make sense to me (forgive me if I'm misquoting you AGD).  Neither Brian nor Van Dyke participated in the '68 overdubs, so who else would have even known the part?

Someone find that thread!  I have a bad feeling it was somewhere in the ridiculously big thread we had going for the Smile Sessions.

[lance]

Well, they might have had a demo to work from that hasn't surfaced.

[Roger Ryan]

I'm assuming the reason it wasn't included in TSS is the same reason we don't have an official stereo mix of the "Good Vibrations" single: some kind of electronic manipulation would need to be done to isolate the vocals and this was considered a step too far for an official release. Dennis' vocal does not exist on a separate track, so the low fidelity heard on that YouTube clip is about as good as that vocal would ever sound. Since the vocal is already present as part of the second "Cabin Essence" chorus, it's not like it has remained unreleased. The isolation is fun to listen to, but inessential.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I stand corrected - the "TDM" vocal was recorded in 1968. Sorry 'bout that but the last month or so has been some rough and frankly the BB are some way down my list of priorities right now.

[Mikie]

Thanks, AGD.  I thought that's what was concluded back then!   

And again, that's why it wasn't included in the Smile Sessions set(s).

[Mikie]

The isolation is fun to listen to, but inessential.

To me, it's more essential than inessential, Roger. As essential as including the 'Cornucopia' version of Vegetables or the 'Three Score & Five' section of Heroes. The words were written by Van Dyke, so to me it's still a part of SMiLE. But! The justification for not including it on the Smile Sessions is valid since it wasn't recorded back in '66/'67. 

[Roger Ryan]

Thanks, AGD.  I thought that's what was concluded back then!  

And again, that's why it wasn't included in the Smile Sessions set(s).

But it is on the TSS set...mixed, as always, under the second "Cabin Essence" chorus on Disc 1. The same is true of other vocals ("Surf's Up" for example) where the recordings date from later than the SMiLE period. A more pertinent question is why are there no vocal sessions for "Cabin Essence" represented on the set apart from the segments used in the montage vocal track? Was it a space issue? Do the multi-tracks exist for the roughly assembly '66 version, but the vocal session tapes do not? My understanding is that the multi-tracks don't exist for the 20/20 version, which is why the "new" mono mix simply removes one of the stereo channels to eliminate Carl's ADT vocal. Given that Dennis' chant only exists mixed down in that '68 master, electronic manipulation would need to be done to isolate it and the quality would have been too poor to stand along side the true isolated vocals from this song (which appear in the vocal montage track).

I agree Dennis' bit is important, but asking for it to appear on its own is a bit like asking for the "dig a hole in the ground" or the laughing bits from the "Cornucopia" version of "Vega-Tables" to be isolated from the song they were intended to be a part of...and the set doesn't offer that to us either.