PET SOUNDS mono mix -- WHO, WHEN, WHERE, HOW ?

[DonnyL]

FYI/background info for those of you unfamiliar with my previous ramblings: Some songs (8-track recordings from Columbia sessions) have a unique, somewhat jarring fade characteristic that is not smooth -- as the volume fades, it drops in something like 2 db or so increments ... and ends abruptly. Most listeners are probably not aware of this because most CD and LP releases have smoothed this out in mastering.

I'm thinking that this is some kind of characteristic of some equipment (mixer, limiter, etc.) that mixes ran through at Columbia. These kinds of fades are not present on pre-Summer Days tracks, and are present on '65-'66 mixes of BB Columbia-recorded material**.

I've just spend some time listening carefully to the 1993 and 2009 Steve Hoffman 'remasters', supposedly 'flat' transfers from the master tape. The 2009 disc has all of the fades intact (the 1993 disc does not, but still has more than the other CD issues), and you can hear the hiss and noise rise as the music fades if you turn the volume up (confirmation that the fade was not helped along). This is one of only 2 releases I know of that keep the fades intact (the other one I've been searching for and have just recently located ... it's an obscure cassette box set from the '80s).

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Based on the fade characteristics, this is how I think the mixes break down:

Mixed at Western:
* Caroline
* Sloop
* You Still Believe in Me
* That's Not Me
* Pet Sounds

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8-track songs mixed at Columbia:
* Wouldn't it Be Nice**
* God Only Knows
* Here Today
* I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
* I'm Waiting for the Day**

--

4-track songs mixes at Columbia:
* Don't Talk
* Let's Go Away for Awhile
* I Know There's an Answer

I can't think of a logical reason why these three tracks would be mixed at Columbia unless there was an 'album mix' session.

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**On the Hoffman release, 'WIBN' is not from the original master (it's from the 'NY tape' copy), and it does not feature the step fades -- presumably, the step fades were 'corrected' during the transfer. Strange thing is that "I'm Waiting for the Day" does not have the step fades either. This leads me to believe this is also a dub from a safety copy or another dub as well. The sound quality sounds a bit more gritty on this track, and there are audible tape problems which support this theory.

This is just theorizing, but since there is no other info forthcoming ... it's worth guessing on !

[kookadams]

This really is your white whale Donny, isn't it?

Sure is! I think the original mono mix of Pet Sounds is basically the greatest achievement in recorded sound. And it also happens to be a record that was created in a fairly unorthodox manner, even for the era. I'd love to get to the bottom of (or at least more info) regarding how this thing came together. I think it's pretty clear that BW was after that final mono mix, everything else was just a means to an end. And here we are almost 50 years later dissecting the 'means' ... I'm interested in the steps he and the engineers took to get this thing locked down.

It is THE greatest achievement in recorded sound; I would call that probably the best way to sum up Pet Sounds.

[DonnyL]

A little more info for those interested:

Here's a quote from George Schowerer (Mirasound / NY engineer) from the Ampex list:

"Columbia/NY hand built all their consoles, including the remote ones. Everything they built used Langevin pres and line amps...even the remix consoles. I still have mine from the 60's in storage. They tended to use dual Daven attenuators (early on..replaced by Painton's)."

I would assume that Columbia in LA used similar equipment.

I looked up some info on Daven attenuators, and located this post from a user on a radio enthusiast forum:

"I worked with them extensively in older broadcast consoles. The Daven attenuators were usually 2 db per step which I found to be too coarse. You could hear the volume jump in steps instead of a smooth transition."

[Andrew G. Doe]

A little more info for those interested:

Here's a quote from George Schowerer (Mirasound / NY engineer) from the Ampex list:

"Columbia/NY hand built all their consoles, including the remote ones. Everything they built used Langevin pres and line amps...even the remix consoles. I still have mine from the 60's in storage. They tended to use dual Daven attenuators (early on..replaced by Painton's)."

I would assume that Columbia in LA used similar equipment.

I looked up some info on Daven attenuators, and located this post from a user on a radio enthusiast forum:

"I worked with them extensively in older broadcast consoles. The Daven attenuators were usually 2 db per step which I found to be too coarse. You could hear the volume jump in steps instead of a smooth transition."

Not that it's worth much, but I recall reading that the LA 8-track was "knocked up by their engineers out of spare Ampex parts": think that's in one of the Sundazed Rip Chords/Bruce & Terry CDs (which are outstanding, btw).

[DonnyL]

A little more info for those interested:

Here's a quote from George Schowerer (Mirasound / NY engineer) from the Ampex list:

"Columbia/NY hand built all their consoles, including the remote ones. Everything they built used Langevin pres and line amps...even the remix consoles. I still have mine from the 60's in storage. They tended to use dual Daven attenuators (early on..replaced by Painton's)."

I would assume that Columbia in LA used similar equipment.

I looked up some info on Daven attenuators, and located this post from a user on a radio enthusiast forum:

"I worked with them extensively in older broadcast consoles. The Daven attenuators were usually 2 db per step which I found to be too coarse. You could hear the volume jump in steps instead of a smooth transition."

Not that it's worth much, but I recall reading that the LA 8-track was "knocked up by their engineers out of spare Ampex parts": think that's in one of the Sundazed Rip Chords/Bruce & Terry CDs (which are outstanding, btw).

Yes, it was an Ampex 300 transport mated to four 2-channel PR10 electronics. It was essentially 'assembled' by the studio, and they had to pull some tricks to get it to function as an 8-track w/ overdub capability. Presumably the studio felt they could do better (or save money, space or both) than Ampex, who they could have ordered a custom job from. The 300 series 8-track Ampex would have delivered would have taken up about twice the space, but would have (arguably) superior electronics ... or at least electronics that didn't have everything stuffed in half the amount of space.

Wouldn't have been 'spare' parts though ... they probably just ordered the parts from Ampex, or ordered a few machines and took them apart. The transport (or parts of it) may have been from a video machine, not sure.

[DonnyL]

The PR10 was a small, good quality portable recorder with a set of combined electronics (one unit for 2-tracks), which saved space.



Columbia took 4 of these and basically paired them up with a modified 300 transport:



Note the much larger electronic modules (easier to service and more reliable) -- an 8-track from Ampex would have required 8 of these modules in a separate rack. So the final 8-track electronics rack (above the transport) took up about the space of a 300 3-track.

Assembled machine in the background: