From Acoustic Sounds - OK I'm sure the mono listing is a mistake. Mastered by Kevin Gray - could this at last be the digital transfer that captures the magic analogue sound of Stephen's original vinyl release? The description says mostly from the original master tapes ( and best available sources) so I'm not sure if that's a bad omen.
Pop over to the 14 SACDs... thread to see some great commentary from Stephen D talking about why the release won't capture D'magic (
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,16766.msg488485.html#msg488485) - there are more posts if you scroll through.
I expect/think this SACD release will be an marked improvement on the trebly reissues of late, but won't get the definitive full glory as per the Study guides or an Artisan vinyl.
As for the source, this is just a guess, but I'm gonna assume the tape used is the recently ('09?) unearthed "flat" copy, used on the Capitol vinyl and '12 CD reissues.
FYI - …and this may have been the first time that SUNFLOWER has been remastered from the first generation tapes, as the tape box itself had been mislabeled. Mark Linett did a great job with these vintage source tapes, the two albums sound great, and I'm hoping we'll be able to redo the CD versions as well now that we have these new masters to work with.
Also, there's a little surprise in the SUNFLOWER LP. I found an interesting unused item filed away with the surviving artwork elements, and Tom Recchion at Capitol was inspired to integrate it into the package....
Alan
BTW the lp was remastered from the newly discovered original flat master of the album which had been mislabeled in the vault for who knows how long. It is likely that this is the first time since possibly the album's release 40 years ago that this master was used.
Perhaps someday we'll get to see it on CD.........
On SUNFLOWER the 16 track masters had so much shared information - snatches of vocals on a track that's mostly guitar, for instance - that Steve placed swatches of colored adhesive tape on the back of the 2" tape, in order to provide visual cues for the mixdown. Mixdown automation was still years away, so all eyes would be on the 2" machine, and they'd see a red rectangle coming off the reel and heading towards the machine heads, and this would be a cue for a particular fader adjustment or a level change, etc.... Pretty resourceful, eh?
The only drawback is the fact that after 30 years, the adhesive from the masking tape has "bled out" and caused massive dropouts, big clear sections on the tape where the oxide has come in contact with the adhesive tape and peeled right off. Thankfully, these huge, rather scary-looking droupouts aren't as noticeable as one might imagine. The A capella mix of "Add Some Music" came out OK despite this problem.
Those songs are so very rich sonically that some of them might have filled 48 tracks if not for all of the dubdowns and shared tracks. Steve and The Beach Boys were way ahead of their time. Honestly, I noticed this when I got the "Sunflower" LP when it was released in 1970 - and I was only 8 at the time! I listened to that album with headphones the day I got it, and even then I could tell it was something very new and special. I'd never experienced an audio "landscape" like that. I suppose, in a way, I've spent a good portion of my life since then trying to figure out how they did it...
Alan
And, yea, the mono thing is I believe/hope a lazy copy/paste templating gaff by web administrator x.
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