The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://tongal.com/project/smile#
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Well, I've gotta say, 3 WHOLE days! Great job Capitol!

So... what do we think?

(Also, Phil, If you read this, THE BOX IS COMING OUT, I've heard it now and like they say, "I don't believe it till I've heard it!")

Well, technically this was their idea  :lol

I just about fell off my chair listening to Heroes and Villains, btw. IT SOUNDS INCREDIBLE.

I totally wet myself at the ending, I was like WHAT IS THIS!?!?!?!

Haha, it's times like this where it makes me happy to be a SMiLE-Holic!

Now, SOUND wise, I've never been a fan of mono recordings, but Hell, it's SMiLE!

It's downloading as I type this

WHOOO HOOOOO

Just gonna roll a fatty bombatty and get me headphones on.

What end, Tell me, no don't tell me

I won't tell you so you can explode with awesome when you hear it... hehe

I honestly just realized... after the few "Inside" people, I WAS (ONE OF THE) FIRST PEOPLE TO HEAR IT!! YYYYEEEAAAHHH!!

Oh my god!

To listen or not to listen

This is like, the richest sounding mono I've ever heard. It rocks so much. Mark Linett is such a hero.

Sadly, the artwork folder of intriguingly large size on there is nothing but the cover (with 'full dimension SOUND', natch) in varying formats/sizes....

I figure, I've waited soooo long, what's 2 already released tracks gonna do? haha

Son of a.... it's not letting me sign in on the contest page. I wanna hear the SMiLE goodness!!!

Sure is taking a long time to process my registration.  ::)

are you doing it with fb? the window went blank and did nothing for me, but i found i could just go to the project files thing anyway....

I've just loaded it into iTunes, Sure enough, the metadata was there, TRACK 3- THE SMiLE SESSIONS!

Also... If you can't get it on the site... PM Me....

I think the site is crashing from the traffic

I'm creating Apple Lossless versions.... Oh gosh I can't wait for headphones...

I too am willing to help a brother out with a perspex mandolin if the site is screwed...

Oh hey guys, I'm being cute and testing the moderators!lease Help Yes yes yes, I don't know how to follow the rules!e

Site crashed

Guys, if you don't want to listen, let me tell you, with headphones, this is musical acid...

It's a bit clunky but it gets you there eventually.

Holy shiiiit! H&V is awesome!!! Doesn't sound like any other version. Good Vibrations also rocked, bringing together the best parts.

I'm downloading  ;D

I think we should give this Mark Heggen guy a big hand for talking Tongal into getting these tracks--on the discussions page, it seems that he told them the 'old' versions were up, and that 'new' versions would make more sense to have there...

Thanks, Mark, wherever you are...I feel like we should take up a big collection of money to send you as a token of our appreciation. You rock, man.

H&V sounds just like it should!

How do you make a lossless file out of an mp3?

OMG... the ending of H&V...

Guys, this H&V is a COMPLETELY NEW MIX.

I kept wondering what was going to fill the space at the end of GV--fantastic!  It actually outdoes the original.

I'm much less impressed with H&V.  But maybe there will be something much different in the two-part H&V single.

Encoding, it's magic :D

A perfect meeting would be excellent right now

Yeah we're gonna need some of them Personal Messages

First, the pause before the chorus, stunning

All Smiley Version so far, up barbershop accapello

Cantina.............

Cantina with train whoooooos!!!!!

Still 2 minutes left!!!!!

At last chorus.......

The end, I've heard this on one of the boots, but the quality here is sublime.

This sounds stunning

But I miss the Baldwin in and out of the choruses, what can I say.

If this is how the box is going to sound then we are in for a serious treat.

It's beautiful. The edits are great. Seeing as Brian created cut and paste it seems only fitting we get the pro-tool style complete silence gaps. Very modern but it works so well.

Now for some Vibes

Goodness gracious great balls of fire! Downloading now.................. Downloading now.................. Downloading now..................

You're aware that it won't make ANY DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER in sound quality, right?  ::)

Yeah, listen to the chorus for example. They've added this ascending bass that I've heard somewhere in the sessions.

We also need to convince Tongal that we need them to post "You Are My Sunshine", just so that we may compare the wilting string sections...y'know, just to get a better idea of what to visualize in our videos...

Any further suggestions are of course welcome.

Are the trombones higher in themix than on Hawthorne? I really hope so...

I thought you weren't listening to SMiLE music until it was released? Shoo!  ;)

Oh my god, they are perfect

I'm happy with just these 2 tracks, Now I have something to obsess over until NOV 1st!

We're freaking out over these, and we KNEW they were going to do this with them! This box is going to be off the chain.

It's the Smiley version with Cantina as we suspected, but a completely new assembly/mix. The vocals are so clear, and this is only an mp3 remember! I love Cantina.

Some interesting new reverb.

The ascending chorus bass was on the Hawthorne CD

Prelude to fade is a montage of several takes. The strings and trombone were tried earlier in the session, and didn't make the final cut. I have this on boot, but very bad quality.

This version of H&V is truly the proper follow up to good vibrations!!!!!! ;D

Sweet Jesus, real tears!  How can music possibly sound any better than this?  Mark Linett, Alan Boyd you'd better hide; cause if I see you dudes I will not be able to avoid the urge to kiss you both.  Seriously though, Thanks to you both, and all involved for taking such good care with this important historical ear candy.  You gents are artists in your own right.  Off to listen again and again and again...

Wow wow wow wow....

I think I prefer the stereo "Good Vibes (original lyrics)" from Purple Chick with Brian's "gotta keep those lovin good vibrations a-happen with her" on top of the "hum dee dums" but really we're nitpicking.

But "Heroes" is freakin amazing...

Time for another listen...     8)

Augh!! Where is "project files"??  I can't find it   :'(

Good Vibrations-Has the hum-be-das in there and an extended ending.

Heroes and Villains...STUNNING. Breakdown-
-Verse 1: has no more "carnival" organ. Ends with the dum-be-doo-be-do-waa vox.
-Chorus: Same as the single version (Heroes and villains, just see etc...)
-Verse 2: This is the "la-la-la" section. Same as single, has the organ in it.
-Section 4: Same as the single (doo doo do doo, etc...) with the exception of the slide whistle going off at what seems to be a different time of the section.
-Section 5: Cantina section. Has the laughing and "DAAAAAANCE" backing on it. The part leading up to the woo woo woo woo woo's is MUCH clearer then ever before. Still has "YOU'RE UNDER ARREST"
-Section 6: My children were raised...still the same.
-Section 7: Been in this town...same. Transition easier though then before to.
-Chorus 2: Same.
-Section 8: Bridge to Indians (I believe that's what it's called. "Ahhaahahahahah" you get the picture :P) Transitions nicely into
-Section 9: Western theme and this is also much clearer then before.
-End: The flutter horn with the strings that's been booted but nicer sounding.

I conclude with PLEASE MAKE IT 11/1/2011 NOW!

I totally agree Jeff. I prefer them layering of the "hum dee dums" over the "gotta keep those lovin' good..." section. But still, what a great couple of tracks!

This is actually not even a leak. It was put out by Capitol themselves.
So... It should be alright to post a link: http://www.mediafire.com/?z1ihxrro9wh5zv1

That's what i'm thinking, as a studio musician, I know there is a STARK difference between the file types (including 2x MB!!)

True, and to think! Had I not checked out that weird contest we'd probably never have seen it!

Haha, oh Capitol, just release it tomorrow k?

Not exactly... The Baldwin organ (from the Smiley Smile sessions, so a logical decision) is gone and replaced with the ascending bass & percussion.

We are the chosen few

True... instead I put them through my mixing board, bass + 3!

Ahhh... beauty...

WOW!!!! H&V sounds amazing!!!, Heard lots of things I've never noticed before but esp the strings at the very end WTF!!! Never heard that ever!!! So looking forward to buying this!!!!

Like I said, First a price drop/raise that saved me 10$ THEN Mp3's!?!?!

I must be dreaming!

So in theory, this completes the "Advance SMiLE EP", what with Cabinessence and Wonderful already out in the world.

Four tracks down! 372 to go!!!

I have wanted that "dum de dum" bit to be part of "Good Vibrations" ever since I heard it on the GV box 17 years ago. Finally. Sounds great.

Wow, i just realized... I've heard the Mojo 45 AND these 2 mp3's that makes 4 SMiLE tracks 2 MONTHS before release! wow...

So out of those 4, 3 are drastically different - Wonderful, H&V and Good Vibrations all have significant musical differences! Damn, that's good.

Did you guys get the artwork too?

Hi-Res SMiLE cover anyone? Earcandy will be wanting these. Multiple formats including Adobe Illustrator. Zoom in on those little SMiLES

How long before the nit-picking starts. I wouldn't be a SMiLE fanatic unless I thought there were a few things I would have done differently.

This is incredible music, made more incredible by adding more of it.

Take it to church...

This is a great gift to us hardcore fans isn't it?, Since March we've all been bitching and moaning about this box set esp me!!!, But now all we can do is just SMILE ;D, A big thank you Beach Boys for making all our dream come true 8)

The fucking site won't load for me. It crashed as I was signing up. GRRRRR

Not listening, just asking...!!  ;D

(http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9396/philhaha.png)

so happy they used the flutter horn with the falling strings!!!!! :police:

Tis Pissing Me off too! Thing wont load

Holy hell this is awesome!!!

Bump because people are still asking :D

Give him a break eh? He has the balls to come back under his own name.

Could be someone else though.

Tonight's a night for SMiLES, and gracious forgiveness.

Listening on Bose headphones...good God almighty.  

Give a brother some love...

Hey, I didn't say anything, it just made me SMiLE that even a "Non-Believer" can finally experience SMiLE :D

  ;)

H&V is unreal - the ending is sweetness!

*I* was never known as a non-believer.

Sounds so good I'm half tempted to give my hand some love.


How won-won-wonderful. :D

What? lol? Is that you Phil?!!

People are going to wake up to a 10 page spoiler thread and have an aneurysm.

Grimace meanwhile has a stroke

:lol
Ironically, I actually had a real stroke back in March.

Lol, like I almost did the day of the Box Set Leak!
I put on Alternate BWPS and meditated for the first time ever, ironically, waiting for H&V to come out, and look!

Sorry to hear this. I know you know I meant no offence :-[

I like these mixes, although you'll never convince me that the "cantina" section has a place in the Smiley Smile version. It just bogs down the song's momentum. It makes way more sense in the much faster versions Brian was experimenting with earlier in the year.

Was really hoping for the "often wise" version..

But this will do  :lol

**wishful thinking** i have a feeling this may show up in Pt1/2

I'm sure it will, just gotta wait two more months to hear it  :-\

 ;D

sites down :(

That's what happens when a thousand manic SMiLE fans try to create an account simultaneously.

I hope it's temporary and because so many people are logging on.  Haven't heard this sucker yet.....

 :lol

They never saw us coming

GV is awesome, love how they edited in the "hum-be-da" section and how it flows so perfectly into that glorious "ahhhhhh" we all know and love.  The extended ending is great too!

Heroes was a little underwhelming honestly, although that's probably just because I've never been a fan of the single mix.  I concur with DaDa that "Cantina" really doesn't fit this version.  That ending though, damn - definitely didn't see THAT coming.  I'd never heard it before, but it works really well to close out the track.

Of course, the sound quality on both is outstanding - this whole set is going to be one giant aural orgasm.

Yep, already grabbed 'em!  Got some ideas for the video, too.

Tongel MD: Isn't today the day we put some SMiLE tracks up on the site? Should we expect some traffic?
Site Administrator Naw, thing can run itself. I'm off home.

somebody help meeeee. sitting in class watching this thread grow HAS SUCKED. I JUST GOT OUT AND IT WON'T LOOAAAD

Any chance someone could PM me the MOJO 45 mp3s so I can put all the new mixes on my ipod? This trickling out of new tracks reminds me of discovering smile for the first time and celebrating any time you found a new piece of the puzzle!

The site's up; you just gotta wait awhile for it.

how long lol.

I think it'd be quiPcker if a friend heMlped me out ;)

my heart is hurting...i must hear them....

The awesome part at the end (that mirrors Brian's mirrored BWPS version), was that already booted, or was it part of a booted multitrack and they've stripped away the other stuff?  I think I've heard it before but I thought there was other stuff going on.  

That would coincide with the Capitol announcement then? :lol

bump for those who are having trouble with the site

Actually, you lessen the quality re-encoding from lossy mp3 to another format, whether lossy or lossless. So, best quality will be if you leave it at 320 mp3.

Heroes is majestic.

In fact, I'm considering driving down to KINK-fm tonight and demanding the DJ put it on the air, as an exclusive.

I've consulted the charts and this should be a good time.  8)

Patience My friends, scrub that, clasclas has done it already

and we can make Tee shirts using the eps file.

Just noticed: no theremin on H&V this time! Which is fine with me, it seemed out of place with the whole Western thing.

Consider it done, expect a PM in a few...

One minute left from the Mediafire link

Thank you, good people-1am here. Sometimes insomnia can be a good thing!

That part resides in my collection only as part of a heavily edited session tape for Prelude to Fade. You never get a real good, unmolested, full picture of it, but you hear the descending strings against the french horn, only to have the talkback interrupt, etc. It has long been one of my favorite little "lost" bits. I even Frankensteined my own version of it (using the descending strings at the end of YAMS, pitch-adjusted) for my own homemade SMiLE. SO glad it's present in this mix.

Thank you greatly good sir. The smile you send out returns to you :D

Thoughts on Good Vibrations.  Love the edited PARTS but it seems like it's almost sacrilege to cut and paste those parts into the final version of the song. Always thought they belonged in the early version (w/Tony Asher lyrics) or in a GV sessions comp. The edits are very well done, and fit, but it seems like something that was part of a SMiLE mix tape compiled by a fan. I dunno - I have mixed reactions about creating something that wasn't intended for release.

ALL BETS ARE OFF, however, if Brian approved it or told Linett/Boyd that his original intention was to include those parts in the final release but had to trim it down or other reasons.

Didn't they do this edit thing before on the GV EP release of Good Vibrations a few years ago?

Again, have always loved those parts (except for the kazoo) and it's a very clear version of Good Vibrations!

Will always wish to hell that they find the vocal sessions......

so i wonder if this mix of Heroes came from an acetate or some other newly-discovered source?

i do miss the theremin. love the mandolins on the Cantina section. this new ending will take some getting used to.

wow. "new" Beach Boys music. what a day!

It's a newly compiled version based on the BWPS version, with, as you've heard, a slightly different end.

That was amazing-thanks so much for the link!

Going to try and sleep and listen to them on the way into work tomorrow-I may be a bit on the late side getting in

Night all!!

Any chance of sending me those MOJO mp3's too?

(http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/2527/sr101ssmile.png)

Also: Sure, anyone else for MOJO?

I love this!! Can't wait till that album is full of tracks in my iTunes

Mixed feelings about Heroes. Cantina fits nicely. Vocals seem more spaced so you can hear different parts better. The mix is less muddled - crystal clear and clean! Again, the edits seem almost sacrilege (but they fit perfectly). Not sure about that new ending - agreed that it will take some getting use to....

Hope the "Three Score and Five" section has been cleaned up too and is in the box somewhere!

Those weird strings at the end underneath the flutter tone...when were those first booted? I’ve never heard that little bit before.

Also, i always assumed that Brian's verse vocals on this version, the softer delivery (as opposed to the more aggressive almost shouting takes) were from the Smiley sessions? He did these vocals during Smile sessions proper? 

I've only ever heard the strings/fluttertone on the Project SMiLE iso

I love it, but I miss the Baldwin.

I don't think it was an omission for historical reasons, as most of this track is from the Smiley re-record. It is absent in the Hawthorne stereo mix as well, so it must have been dubbed on during the mono mixdown. Without it the lead in and out of the chorus sounds a little empty. Brian knew exactly what he was doing when he dubbed the Baldwin on. He was a master of dynamics.

It's a tiny gripe though. Personally I'd have got a surviving wrecking crew keyboardist to dub the Baldwin back on. We couldn't complain about that could we?

And I'd have dubbed the clarinet back onto Look. Its VINTAGE OK.

Yes...that would please me!


I know...I found it funny!

I'd love if you could send me a "PM"  ;) of the Mojo songs. I have the vinyl, but no turntable.

Yes please!

I miss the Baldwin too. Exactly what Iron Horse Apples said about the chorus lead in and out. But it's there during the boys/girls part.

The cantina section sounds SO good, Mike sounds amazing.

 :banana

I hate to be a bit of a downer here but I've listened to Heroes and Villians a few times now and just find it to be sort of muddy and not terribly clear when in comparison to the version off of Smiley Smile. It's nice that the cantina bit is included and the ending is great too but the entire thing from the vocals to the instrumentals just sounds a bit less clear than what I'm used to hearing.

Am I crazy? I've listened to it through a decent set of earbuds too and can't notice any real improvement in sound quality...

You are crazy

I slightly agree, but then again, don't talk about quality till we've heard a lossless WAV (on the cds!)

I love the new Heroes and Villains mix! And I'm just now realizing that from now on when I listen to this song, or introduce this song to people, or eventually show my kids this music, it's going to be this version. Although the purple chick version sounds much clearer, that is probably just because it's in stereo. This is Heroes and Villains from the master tapes and I love it. Good Vibrations as well. So glad they kept the original lyrics and didn't use Asher's. When I saw the track length I was a little nervous. I'm not sure why they didn't just use the original single mix remastered, as that would have likely been the one used on the album, but oh well it still sounds great and it's something new.

damn....went to work in dad's garden tonight and just got home. missed all this...... lol
just my luck

Just my luck: I go on vacation the day the set goes on amazon. Thankfully, I ordered the boxset at $110 from my cellphone lol. But I'm sad i've missed all the conversation! Really glad this is coming out, this set looks AMAZING!!!

Can't wait to listen to these new tracks (still on vacation haha).

so glad we have an official expanded version of Good Vibrations. i agree the single would have gone on the album in '67, but it's not '67 is it? the original single has been released plenty of times.


i gotta say, aside from sound quality, i still prefer my own personal 'H&V' mix.  8)

Yes, please!  :)

Hi, I can't get on the site...well, I can, but I can't do anything, can't even sign up...I would like a pm...

Alright, there's a mediafire link on page 2, please use that.
Also: I can't give out any more MOJO 45 mp3s because I don't
Feel right about that... So if anyone wants it please ask someone who already has it.

Thanks :)
I just can't copy and paste those 3 links a million times! Haha

I wonder why the little theremin part got replaced by the toy siren (which sounds really shrill).

What do you all think of the extra silence before the chorus? And the added reverb?

I feel weird tonight. Somethings seems a little off. I think my brain is feeling the culmination of five straight days of absolute overload. Where is reality?

On youtube already

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ck7iQxsk0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ck7iQxsk0)

Have I somehow stepped into an alternate reality? Or is this heaven? Am I alive or dead? If this is all a weird dream, please don't wake me up. I didn't even listen to it with headphones, but it still damn near lept out of the computer speakers at me. I don't think I've ever heard something sound so good in my whole life.

Please don't post bootlegs.

Thanks so much for this link clasclas!

WHY does the toy whistle come in so early?! THEY ARE FUKKING WITH OUR HEADS.

I don't really like the humbedum part of Good Vibrations. There was a reason it wasn't included in the single. Heroes and Villains sounds soulless without the Baldwin. These are my current thoughts.

It's interesting that they decided to push up the backing vocals on "Heroes & Villains". It creates a decent leap in volume at 0:20 that's not there on the Smiley Smile version (where the background vocals are mixed lower). It's a different effect. I wonder if they're basing this new approach on a vintage Brian mix, or simply because they thought it sounded good?  Either way, I'm not complaining... I just wonder how they made these decisions.

The Heroes version on this official YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ck7iQxsk0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ck7iQxsk0)

Go to 1:26 into the track...what's with that edit? You can still hear the fluttertone horn from another section, and it sounds like one of the "La's" got snipped.

Is any of this a Brian edit from '67? If so, it may explain it since the higher quality audio reveals those edits and things that could be buried in '67. If not, I'm confused at what that might be...

That beautiful string coda is and always will be one of my favorite Smile sections or pieces of music in general. Best quality yet...awesome.

Hmmm... I don't think any la's got snipped. And what you're actually hearing isn't the 'fluttertone' horn, but part of the original chorus arrangement that was previously buried by the organ overdub. I'm thinking it's a cello or some other string instrument making the noise, or maybe even a horn. Or both. I'm not sure.

Both sound great, esp the backing vocals on H&V which sound much less muddy than before. But isn't using parts of Smiley Smile recordings going against the concept of The Smile Sessions?

It's the fluttertone horn note trailing off, and the hard consonant "L" of the La gets cut. I know what I heard. :)

Go back to the Smiley Smile 2-fer, and find track 23, the "alternate mix" of Heroes which I believe was a Chuck Britz mixdown.

Cue it up from exactly :18  to :25 into that track and you'll hear the exact same fluttertone extended over the verses. Not a cello, but the horn. On subsequent edits heard on the Britz mix, the fluttertone is heard then the trail-off is lopped off leading into other sections. That trail-off horn note is what the edit I pointed out on the "new" track seems to be. Hear those shortened horn notes at exactly :42 and 1:55 on that Britz mixdown. It may be a case where Brian did a primitive ProTools editing method there, where he'd use the same verse track, copy and paste it using razor blade editing (using real analog tape of course in 66-67), and record new verses over the same instrumental bed. He did it on Smiley Smile too.

That's always been there, you can hear it on the Smiley version.


I wouldn't say sniped, but the Smiley edit sounds cleaner to me than this one. Also, on a side note, the equivalent sections of the Smiley version have more energy than this one. Do an A/B. Also, i really miss the "circus" organ phrases at the end of the verses. They're so damn good.


Yeah. It gives me the chills in this version.

But the hum de dum part of GV is my favorite piece of music in existence. Needless to say, i am happy about its inclusion.

 

I was listening to the GV sessions from the 1993 box this weekend. Of course I maybe totally wrong, but I think the "Gotta keep.." vocals actually replaced the Humbeedums in the development of the song. They are both sung over the same backing track, which is in its originally recorded form only long enough for one of the two vocal parts. The Humbeedums weren't cut from a longer version, but instead, just as you said, cut and pasted into the session tape in 1993 or 1990.

Screw historical accuracy, I like it that way! ;D


I wonder why nobody minded openly yet that on the session CDs for H&V contain Smiley sessions. Now we know for sure that the revised "My children were raised" was recorded June 14, 1967, including the harpsichord. (In my own mixes I always used this version as intro to Wonderful.)

I honestly think their number 1 motivation in this mix is making it sound as much like BWPS as possible.  You can hear the backing vocals better in BWPS, so they pushed them up on this mix.  They are treating the 2004 album as canon.  This leads me to believe that either A. Brian is serious as a heart attack that 2004 was his original intended vision, or B. there are mixes/acetates/something showing that his 2004 album was pretty damn spot on.  So somebody in the mix, whether it's Brian or Mark or whoever, FIRMLY believes that the 2004 album was pretty close to what would have been released in 67.

You may know much more about it than I, but I've always noticed, in the "hum be dum" mixes I've heard over the years, the bass either makes a mistake, or is edited badly just before the vocals start.  So they could have been cut out just to clean up that area, although Brian probably could have fixed the bass mistake anyways.  It's kind of still there in this mix.  There's an extra note, or a missing note, or something, listen to it and you'll hear what I'm talking about.  There's a nice bass groove going on (in the single) in that part, but if you listen to the 'hum be dum' take on the Pet Sounds box set (I think!), that nice bassline has a hicup in it just before the humbedum part starts. 

Exactly, it's just that on this modern version the rough quality of that edit jumps out at you more than it did buried in a rather muddy mix from '67. But it is definitely the fluttertone horn.

 well wow!

Thanks for whoever posted the YouTube link as I'm on holiday and can only listen on my phone.

Had really been wonderng how ML would get around the key mismatch of heroes followed by worms and I think the answer is in the use of the descending strings version of the flutter tone. Genius solution! Think we onlyhad a really bad version of that flutter tone on the boots too, right? What a blast - so excited about this release although might keep a low profile in these threads as think there will be a lot ofgriping soon about the bwps influence. Persoannly I love it. Much respet to mark linnett - this is going to be fab!

Oh, I see what you're talking about now. My mistake. I think that sound was put there by Brian on purpose. I actually used to think that was Mike doing a bass vocal part! It blends nicely if you ask me.

BTW... now that we're already listening to stuff from TSS... is it time to start pining for a complete "The Shortening Bread Exercises" box? With liner notes by Iggy Pop & David Bowie?

I'm most reliably informed "you ain't heard nothin' yet".  ;D

Smiley Smile two-fer, track 24 GV "various sessions" exactly 6:23 is that "hiccup" bass note. I'm hearing it as deliberate, just what the bass player played to rhythmically accent that beat. I say that because he does the exact same thing at 6:29 on that track under the vocals, but it's on a different beat, accenting a different part of the beat, and it's not an edit there.

That "hicup" is the place the Humbedum section was originally spliced in. That extra note is the one the bass starts with at 2:27. This time the Humbeedum section was spliced in with more care.

And this mix of H&V is obviously a 2011 or 2010 creation. The reason the first La seems chopped off is that that section isn't available as multitrack but from the final mix only. Remember, they had to do fake stereo on that section for the Endless Harmony stereo version. So they had to use the single version of that section, starting after the organ stops.

Sorry to FatheroftheMan, I PMed him before I read rhrough the thread. My bad. :-\

It's not an edit or a splice, it's the way it was played by the bassist  - read my post just before this one and check those examples on the Smiley Smile two-fer. It's very easy to hear on that track.

O.K., if it's deliberate then, though, and it's not on the original single, doesn't that show that there were either two instrumental parts like that recorded (one with the extra notes, one without), or that the recording was originally longer and could have had both parts?  

(Not being argumentative, this is just something I've noticed for years)

You are not making the wait any easier!  :p

I agree, it's something that stands out and sounded like an edit or tape splice. But check out track 24 on the Smiley 2-fer, and it's a continuous recording with the "hiccups" coming from the player. That's not saying the continuous track wasn't edited and spliced, but the hiccups were not a result of that splice if they appear on the session tape where no edits were done. 5:48 to 6:52 is the entire unedited take of that section, and the bass player repeats that hiccup several times.

I know.  >:D

I checked it, and I still think that's a splice at that spot. Listen to the flute (or harmonica?): It stops at the exact moment of the "hiccup" and starts again at 6:30.

IMHO the 6:23 "hiccup" note is the same note as at 6:01. The flute (or harmonica) starts at 6:09, about the same time it starts after the 6:23 "hiccup" note. The missing flute in between is to me proof that it's not a continuing backing track but a splice.

Hope I worded it in a way that could be understood? Not sure about that.
6:01 hiccup note, four bars later flute starts.
6:23 hiccup note, four bars later flute starts.

Go to the SOT: Volume 15, disc 3 "Session #5". Tracks 2 through 9 are the clearest ones. The hiccup is on every track. My guess is Brian had the "hum be dum" vocals part available as 2 vocal overdubs, and on the released version he simply didn't have those faders up, or had the vocal tracks muted, whatever the case in '66 when they did the final mix they added instead the "Gotta keep those..." vocals instead of Hum Be Dum. The instrumental bed of bass, percussion, etc. is exactly the same. And he could also remove the bass harmonica overdub at will since it was an overdub. The released '66 version is that same bed onto which the hum-be-dum vocals were overdubbed.

What was the original question about a splice anyway? When was it, what was it, was it a splice? Were we talking about the released '66 single?

ARGH ARGH
i just got home from work and this site is down. I need to hear this, please please please somebody help me.

Micha: Are you talking about the version just posted today? There is a difference of 8 bars of music between the two in the organ-bass-"hum be dum" section...the original 1966 session is 24 bars long and the version posted today is 32 bars long.

Maybe I was misunderstanding the original question - I apologize if that's the case. Perhaps I thought you meant the original single version, or was it that you thought the "hiccup" note was the result of the editing rather than the player playing it?

If anything that ending section was *definitely* extended 8 bars from how it was recorded originally on the session, but listening to the session tape the bassist plays the hiccup every time so it was done take after take and was planned out. On one take Brian has him play the accents in a higher octave, and he "hiccups" that pickup note in the higher octave too. :-D

There is a Baldwin in there if you listen closely.

I really think Heroes should always have False Barnyard. I *love* False Barnyard. Personally my favorite version will always be the "alternate version", I was listening to it earlier today and was really thinking about how radical it sounds, it's some crazy stuff.

Not to say that the version just released isn't great, because it is, it's really great.

They sound great! I kind of like the offical Vibrations single, but its great, Hero's is superb

Does anybody have 320Kpbs on the Cabin Essence Vegetables promo 45. so I can hear all four
the ones on you tube are scratchy

And I'd have dubbed the clarinet back onto Look. Its VINTAGE OK.




[/quote]

So where is that missing ?

Wow, just wow. Especially the H&V ending, being a relative SMiLE novice i've never heard that before.

Frankenmixes.

To those who miss the Baldwin in the choruses: I'm one of you. Three reasons why Mark & Alan probably ditched it:

1) BWPS has the ascending bass, not a buzzing organ
2) The Baldwin was from the Smiley Smile sessions
3) They couldn't find/extract the Baldwin overdub.

I guess I'll just have to make my own version...  8)

You can still hear the Baldwin in the "boys and girls" section though.


Also, I love the extra "pause" between "by the Heroes and..." and the last chorus. It was my only "complaint" about the single version (my all-time favorite song), and this new version makes the transition perfect.

I know, you're right. I should have said "improvement" instead of "difference".  :)

Here's hoping the "studio musician" who seems to "know" a lot of things about lossless file types will read your post and learn...  ::)

After listening to these two cuts, and the Cabin essence 45, I think perhaps some of the famous
versions ie singles, Smiley versions or 20/20 are just as good,

However, there is a homogenous feel to this whole thing, it belongs together, and they sound
so good with each other,

this is a masterpiece, that exceeds Sgt Pepper to offer a simple opinion. and I love my Beatles.

This album is arguably the greatest pop album ever made, it breaks my heart they couldnt finish it.
But I am very happy it is finally getting its day.

the arrangement and structure put together on this version of Hero's and Villians is the best. just aces.
the fidelity is good too. I do prefer stereo but what can you do. Mono is so pure, it's not a loss, it's just
what is.

Good Job Beach Boys, Brian and Capitol. Your;e all gonna score big in money and accolades for this
np question. They will be using this box set to teach in music class all across America and Europe.

Wow.  These are incredible.  I've been obsessed with "SMiLE" since early 2004 and after millions of listens and dozens of bootlegs, it feels like a fresh new listening experience.  I was already excited about this enough, but these samples have taken it to another level.  And being able to listen to the "Cabin Essence/Wonderful" tracks from Mojo would really Please Me, as well. 

So where is that missing ?
[/quote]

It's on BWPS. Whilst Darian was researching he heard the clarinet line on bleedthrough, though it had been erased. It's vintage SMiLE.

I seriously doubt they would dub new instruments on, but it wouldn't bother me if it was a proven vintage idea and was done correctly.

Oh yes, "False Barnyard" is quite possibly my favourite Smile section of all!

Just heard the new versions at youtube. Personally I think the "hum de dum" part always should have been part of the original "GV" single version (though I know I'm in a minority here). The extended outro is gorgeous! Now the new "H&V" sounds amazingly good too but I think I still prefer the Smiley Smile version because of its perfect flow.

It's on BWPS. Whilst Darian was researching he heard the clarinet line on bleedthrough, though it had been erased. It's vintage SMiLE.

I seriously doubt they would dub new instruments on, but it wouldn't bother me if it was a proven vintage idea and was done correctly.
[/quote]

Thanks - thought you had another TSS track - lololol >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D

Thanks Tansen, thought I was in a minority of 1 for a mo'. The sound is pretty rough even for a 320kb MP3 (which is what I thought they were - they're fairly big files). Maybe they've been mastered for the iPod earbud generation?

I have it on my iPod, but my turntable isn't fantastic. So, yes please :D

found the mediafire after I'd posted...sorry...

May I ask for a PM for the Mojo tracks-thanks to FatherOfTheMan for doing them originally, by the way

Cheers

Yeah, might be. H&V actually sounds 'better' on my AKG Q350's earbuds then on the better quality Grado SR-60's. Oh well, let's wait for the CD's/LPs and we'll hopefully be blown away!

I think your third point is the main reason. If they were excluding on the grounds of it being post SMiLE, then the majority of the song would be gone.

I think Brian dubbed the organ on during mixdown, so it couldn't be extracted. It's missing on the Hawthorne stereo mix of the Smiley Smile version, so there you go.

And the ascending bass is on the Smiley version, it's just obscured by the organ.

I agree and I'd like to add something. Now, I love SMiLE a lot more than I do Sgt. Peppers but I just feel that it is not as commercial as Sgt. Peppers. I'm not saying that like its a bad thing. Sgt Peppers, to me, is a lot more straight forward. But SMiLE? SMiLE is just pure ART! I feel the same way about Pet Sounds. This is true pop art. The Beatles were amazing of course... but nothing touches Pet Sounds and SMiLE. Nothing!!!

The new H&V version brings out a lot more of the 'spookiness' i love so much. One thing that really struck me when i first heard the Smile boots of H&V (and GV) sessions was just how spooky it sounded, especially the harpsichord stuff.

I think dropping the organ from the My Children Were Raised section allows more room for the vocals to sparkle, and the ascending bassline part too. The vocals in general have more room to breathe. The Smiley version is quite cluttered with too much midrange.

Still not sure what I think about the woo-woos interrupting the "Dance...You're Under Arrest!".

Have listened on buds and it does sound better. Is this possible?

I'll swear it isn't, and that it's utterly mixed out for Smiley. A little bit of the clanging percussion is still there (just two of the many original 'clangs', if I remember rightly), but not even much of that, and that rising bass-line... is completely absent. If you analyse everything below 160Hz in that mix, which is where that bass-line ought to be, spectrally speaking... then like the Zombies nearly said... it's not there.

And to Loaf:

Whoa, whoa... some things to point out here, too. First, some opinion. While I agree that the rising bassline chorus is spooky, it's not like the Baldwin in the Smiley chorus *isn't*. Especially in the parts on the 45/Smiley version where the whole track fades out leaving just that Boris Karloff drone. Disconcerted the beejeebies out of me when I first heard it, that did (though I kinda loved it, too).

Second... whaddya mean by 'dropping the organ from the My Children Were Raised section allows more room for the vocals to sparkle'. The organ is still IN that bit, even in the new mix! It's the only thing left droning after all the voices in that section have finished their beautiful harmonies, right before the lead vocal starts the 'I've been in this town' line in the 'Sunny Down Snuff' section.

And third... to borrow your terms for a moment; the 'woo-woos' interrupt the 'dance...you're under arrest' section on the original recorded tapes, if I remember my boot listening sessions correctly :o . That part was edited to cut more quickly to the 'You're Under Arrest' on Brian's February 'cantina' mix of H&V, but the woo-woos weren't interposed there for this mix. They were on the original tapes in that position all along. You could argue with some justification that as Brian edited them out and cut more quickly to 'You're Under Arrest' in February 1967, this mix should have been edited similarly to reflect that decision... but I'm guessing that as we'll be getting the Feb 67 mix somewhere else in the set anyway, Messrs Linett and Boyd chose to leave the 'woo-woos' in on this version. After all, for close-harmony approximations of a steam-train whistle, they sound pretty damn fine - a sterling piece of the brothers singing at their finest, I would say. Why not give these vocals their moment in the sun SOMEWHERE on the set, at least?

MattB

I wanted something different from these mixes and I got it!

I'm thinking this sets a precedent that Disc 1 is not about trying to honor to the letter what was might have happened in '66/'67, but to create something new and fun based on what Brian decided was new and fun back in 2003. Clearly, BWPS is the template, but as we can tell from the timings, there are going to be some twists that may be closer to the spirit of the original test edits/sessions.

Mark has tried to de-SMILEY SMILE as much of "Heroes & Villains" as possible (note how the a cappella section after "Peace in the valley" seems to be missing the vocal overdub done for the 45 single) while sticking to what was presented on BWPS. Sure, there are a few rougher moments in there, but this is being cobbled together from incomplete tapes. This, to me, is what a SMiLE version should have sounded like (even though I prefer "Heroes..." without the "Bicycle Rider" theme chorus); I'm really looking forward to hearing this in stereo!

Similarly, the new additions to "Good Vibrations" are there not because Brian wanted that in '66 but was forced to edit those additions out, but because that's how Brian/Darian et al decided to do it in 2003. I like it because it gives this SMiLE-version of the song a twist not heard for the last 45 years. If you're going to end the "album" with it, why not give it an extended ending (the quick fadeout of the single version would have felt very abrupt). I imagine Steve Hoffman feels somewhat vindicated since he extended the ending himself a number of years back without asking permission!

Mike Love IS the Balwdin Organ on "girls, boys" part. his voice merges with it.

I still say, after listening through speakers and my (not fantastic ) iPod headphones, that its just a bit too trebley. or maybe its because of my favouritism for bass (always turn it up a bit on the turntable). Ah vell.

Also will I be the first with the guts to suggest that besides the better sound quality there is nothing much better than many fan mixes here? And certainly not better than the singles - Heroes and Villains on the single is like it or leave it THE one, because Brian felt strongly for it. It was at the height of a big trip for him, it meant a lot. And the harpsichord is in that version too you just might not have your eq set right. it's low in the mix, subliminal. mozart on acid a couple rooms away. The humbedum was left out of Good Vibrations not for time constraints but because it makes the song drag into mediocrity, the Ahhhhh! becomes a non-climax, deadened. Someone didn't get this in the room. They should've hired me as spiritual over seer of project. Mark Linett, you made the Ahhhhhs a premature ejaculation.

Nothing to add, really - I just wholeheartedly agree with this post. The Baldwin sounds even spookier to me than the bassline. "Menacing", almost.

Those "Aaahs" – and the "breath" in Surf's Up '71, which strike on (or a millisecond prior to) the "D" in "Dove nested towers…" – are two of the quintessential moments in rock music. Peerless.

the organ transcends the speakers it is played on. listen to the original heroes single with the bass and mids up appropriately. turn th volume up. the organ is a PRESENCE. it is a sound color that fills the air you're in. you feel like you can grasp it. it gives the sound a motionless motion. the movement of the notes is like phillip glass in the choruses "NA na na na na na, na na na na na na na... etc" sounds like it's from Einstein On The Beach. Brian Wilson influenced Philip Glass.

i know, which is why i am saying that strripped of their context made to follow the mediocre humbedum recording are made to sound weak, inferior, a non-climax. in the single, the Ahhhh is a powerful orgasm. it's perfectly placed.

IMO these mixes are kewl and all to hear but are really just officially sanctioned fan mixes. I'm more excited for the real substance of the box set - the sessions.

In total agreement. Would love to hear both those moments in total isolation – by which I mean without any other instrument's/overdubs etc, just those sounds.  I don't mean I want to listen to them in a big empty field.

imagine that recording slowed down 50% until it sounds like a wave of angelic youthful energy. the reverb is perfect on the single, it works perfectly in mono. in my understanding, "good vibrations" on BWPS is the Key for understanding the relationship of BWPS to Smile. Does that Good Vibrations sound better than the single? Almost as good? Or really not even in the same ball park at all, even though it's 'similar'? That is the rest of the album too, so how can we say it's the definitive piece of Smile when Smile originally was a youthful [teenage] symphony to God. Leonard Bernstein spoke about the youth - that included Brian, he was a leader of the youth and the youth himself.

The only thing I am missing in the new H&V s the spacey WHHOOOOOIIIRRRLLLL!!!! just before the "Cantina" section.

I love the single versions too, but I already have them.

Also, I've never heard a fan mix of Heroes that didn't sound awful. Even Mok's SMiLE (which is my favorite) doesn't get it right and I skip it 99% of the time.

Only an observation -- funny that with the shellacking many want to give BWPS, there is such joy over this mix of H&V.

It's exactly the same assemblage of elements in the same order.

To rejoice in this as some sort of great success is to credit the work that Brian and Darian did in '03. There's no way around it now.

Good call. I was wondering about the writing about BWPS too. In fact, my admiration for that one is undiminished: 5 stars, no gripes.

And the assemblage is the same, and it's a beauty.

That would assume that the assemblage choice is aesthetic and not political.

You've never heard mine...  ;)

Of course this is exactly what a militant would say. Are you never going to buy a Beach Boys product again because you love BWPS so much?

:-D

I think most people hate on BWPS because they don't want to accept an official running order, despite it being the best and most logical way to present the album. They have their own ideas and Brian just doesn't get it, obviously because he's old. They like to dismissively call it Darian's fan mix. It's not exactly what Brian wanted to do in 66/67 so therefore it's invalid and it sucks. Fake harpsichords!

It seems like most of the people who were introduced to the music through BWPS feel differently. They just think it's a brilliant album, probably because it is.

I like BWPS well enough and I have no complaints about the running order or production. My two issues with it are: 1) I heard too many of the RFH shows first, so it lacks in energy. Those first few shows were fantastic and very well done. 2) It's not the Beach Boys. On record there is just no substitute for those vocals, no matter how good Brian's band is on the recordings. The Beach Boys blend is just unique and I'm very prejudiced to it, I suppose. BWPS should have been released as a live album, as the original intent was just that.

Agreed. The only version of BWPS that I listen too has vocals from 66-67 flown in.

Right, I did not mean the original single version, and the funny thing is that it was only last Saturday that I analysed the Humbeedum part on the 1990 "Good Vibrations (Various sessions)" and discovered that hiccup note and someone else brings it up a few days later.

And Yes, having just come home from work and not having had the time to check the SOT session yet, I still think the hiccup results from editing because of the missing flute and the fact that the hiccup isn't in the new version. And I have to leave right away again, but I will check tomorrow, I promise, and may find you are right. I'll get back to you.

One more questions, speaking of bars: In this case 4 bass notes are to be considered one bar? Or is it 8 notes?

In a way, yes, but beautiful!  :)

I recorded the live DVD, burned that to CD and prefer that much to the studio version.

So, I'm off till tomorrow.

Completely agreed.  I wish I were able to listen to BWPS and not wish to hear the vintage production and Beach Boys voices, but I do.  The running order is great, I've never had any qualms about that.  It just pains me to hear the sterile production and Brian's voice trying to sing parts that were never meant for a 62 year old man to sing.  I appreciate it for what it is (that is, the most completed presentation of the music we're ever going to get), but I'll always prefer the vintage sessions, unfinished or not.

Brian and his current band don't even come close to being as great as the Beach Boys, but I still love BWPS, and it's puzzling to me why people trash it the way they do. The running order is by far the best I've heard, and I can't wait to hear an official re-creation with the Beach Boys (Purple Chick's SMiLE nauseates me). The first disc in the box will be the definitive SMiLE as far as I'm concerned.

Mike Love is a Bald Organ indeed. The rest I do not know.

While I agree the choice is most likely the latter, my _point_ was that people on this thread were praising it as the former.

I was actually introduced to the original material through the 93 box set, various boots, etc., etc.

But BWPS was definitely the best sequence I'd heard. And I guess I'm with Robert Christgau in thinking that Brian's older-sounding vocals are part of what make that album so special.

But yeah, quite obviously nothing beats the original sessions for sheer sound and production chops. I guess I just wish that BWPS wasn't being used as the template. It devalues both the work done in 03-04 (making it seem to be some sort of historical reconstruction, when it seems clear there was contemporary creative impulses behind it), and the work done in 66-67 (making it seem as though the BW of that time had no idea of how to fit it together).

In a way, it is the most legitimate sequence Linett and Boyd can produce, being Brian and Van Dykes (with help from Darian, but he himself has stated how deferential he was to the pair) creation. It is the only sequence they have committed to, be it in 2003 or 1967, so I guess if they don't want to be accused of just stitching together their fan mix with no heed paid to Wilson they have to think of that.

I don't think Brian knew how to finish SMiLE back then, because he didn't.

When I talked to Darian, he was in no doubt that some of the sequencing on BWPS is vintage. Brian was very quick to fit some pieces together. The most important in my opinion is Wonderful/Look. These so obviously belong together. Barnyard/Old Master Painter is another, and having CIFTTM before Surfs Up. Also, not sure how many people are aware of this, but putting the Rock Rock Roll lyrics onto Holidays was explicitly a vintage idea. Brian said those lyrics were supposed to go there.

My thoughts on BWPS are many, and not all positive, but I have to say that if you'd told me 10 or 15 years ago that Brian and Van Dyke would not only finish SMiLE, but record a new version of it that worked really well, then I would not have believed it. Also we have the vintage melody to DYLW, and a vintage clarinet line on Look. For these reasons alone it is worth celebrating.

Also, without BWPS, we probably wouldn't be getting this box, certainly not with the quality and presentation it has. The success of BWPS paved the way for this release.

I sat in the front row at the first concert, so got to sit just feet away from Brian as he unveiled SMiLE for the first time. That was unreal. This box will be on a par with that.

I remember hearing the premier concert of BWPS just a day or two after it was performed, and all I can tell you is that I never heard anything so beautiful as Movement 2. Though it was not intended that way for for the 1967 Smile, I have to say that it is one of the most touching pieces of music that I ever heard. Talk about being Moved....

The sequence of the album in 66-67 was clearly a work in progress. My point is that Brian did know (or at least have strong ideas) at that time about how the individual songs should go together. He made mixes of them.

In the case of H&V, he actually released the song as a single. Monkeying with these songs to fit them with a decades-later re-collaging of the material may be politically and practically necessary, but I don't have to like it. And don't get me started on the strangeness of then deciding to mix it in mono. Huh? If you were genuinely assembling the album based on the contemporaneous tracklist, maybe.

Mixing the "album" portion of disc one to mono is the LEAST mysterious "mystery" of the whole project. They simply don't have all the parts to mix all the songs into stereo, so for continuity's sake (and indeed because that's how Brian mixed in 1967), they're doing the "album" in mono. And so far, it sounds fantastic -- and it's not easy to mix mono effectively. Kind of a lost art, actually.

Can you elaborate any on what he said? This is fascinating.
I had never heard of the rock, rock, roll lyrics as part of Holidays being an original idea! Is there more you can say about this? Did you also hear this from Darian? Do you know how exactly the story goes of Brian remembering the DYLW melody?

So glad to hear someone say this. Mono is bad mouthed by a lot of people who don't know what they are talking about. You get a whole different type of dynamic with mono, and it is a lot harder to mix in mono than stereo. Absolutely a lost art.

Mono is great, what you lose in depth, you make up for in impact. Stereo is not better, just different

No, you don't have to like it, so when you burn your own Smile CD you can use the H&V single (or the 3-minute cantina version... or H&V parts 1&2... or the Humble Harv demo... or the live version from In Concert... or yourself playing H&V on a kazoo).  That's the beauty of all this.  Even if they're doing something that's not exactly the way we'd do it, we're getting a treasure trove of pristine-quality Smile material with which we can do whatever we want.

I counted the bass notes as quarter notes, so it would be 4 per bar. My comparison was the SOT session to the "new" mix posted Tuesday, I haven't compared those to the "sessions" version on the Smiley Smile 2-fer.

Yes, I will get the story down tomorrow with pleasure. Funnily enough I had my mini disk player with me, and must have accidentaly hit record!
 
A lot of the details are well documented elsewhere though. Darian asked if there were any more bits to DYLW, and Brian started humming it. Darian had a vintage lyric sheet, but they couldn't read one of the words. They faxed it to VDP, and this was how he became involved in the project

But yes, according to Darian , the Rock Rock Roll lyrics were supposed to go on Holidays as well as DYLW, and that is straight from Brian. Maybe they were once supposed to go together, same tempo and rhythm!

Absolutely- I think what Darian asked Brian after listening to the GV box version of DYLW together, was there any more, to which Brian replied yes, that there was another melody and an Indian chant.

 8)

Well, the "Indian Chant" is there on the multi-tracks under the "Bicycle Rider" chorus, but it would be interesting to know if Brian actually recalled that the chanting was there before re-listening to the sessions. The verse melody is the thing that he just seemed to remember once he heard the backing track and he would be the only person to remember that if the lead vocal was never recorded or lost.

Matt, your post reads kinda like you are attacking me for voicing my own opinion...?

1. My opinion vs your opinion.

2. I didn't mean the organ wasn't in the My Children Were Raised section, i meant it had been dropped (down in the mix) from the levels in the original mix, which allowed the vocals room to breathe. Coulda been clearer? maybe.

3. I'm used to hearing the '...dance' line and anticipating the Arrest, and, as i said, which is my own opinion, i still don't know what to think about it.

I agree with you that the humbedums are awkwardly placed, ruining the climax of the best song ever released. I love the humbedums, but they're in the wrong place. Frankenmixes indeed.

I always interpreted the WooWooWoo's before "You're Under Arrest!" to be police sirens... not a train whistle.


What is the fadeout on the Cantina version from the GV box generally called... false Barnyard? Barnshine?

it's a shame that piece was dropped from BWPS, and now this version of H&V.

Remember we have H&V parts 1 and 2 coming. I have a feeling you'll get your fade bossaroo. The question is will it be the familiar one, or will it be the re-record with Carl singing on it? A piece of late SMiLE period beauty and eloquence.

yes, i'm sure it will turn up somewhere on the box... possibly as part of My Only Sunshine.

still, i think the "tape explosion" and the fade were essential parts of H&V, at least at one time.

The timing looks good for Sunshine, you could well be right. That's the great thing about SMiLE eh? It was an essential part of H&V, but only after it was snipped from it's original place on Sunshine. SMiLE is music in flux, and each piece could have multiple placings. Soon we'll have 5 hours of pristine quality sections to fiddle around with to our hearts content.

Night all

Sweet SMiLE dreams

And the whistling before the tape explosion.

But I really don't think there's any question that a version of the Cantina fade will be the end of Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine, with the "sun" vocals on top.  The 1:57 listed for that track is exactly the length of OMP/YAMS with the fade.

The tape explosion could well be part of Great Shape, though the time for that track is awfully short

Hey Loaf, sorry if you thought I was attacking... I wasn't, honest. I *did* think you'd made a mistake by saying the Baldwin had been 'dropped' from the 'My children were raised' section, because I thought you were saying it was gone from the new mix, when it isn't. But I did misunderstand what you were saying, yes!

And as to your other two points... yes, absolutely, it is your opinion versus mine, and that's great and, after all, why we're here, to discuss variant opinions about this old album thingy that never came out! Regarding point 3, I wasn't sure if you would have heard the boot which includes the 'woo-woos' straight after 'dance...', and whether you might know that they were actually on the tape all along, and Brian cut them out for the Feb 67 Cantina mix. It's funny, I heard the Cantina mix before that boot, so for years, like you, I got used to 'anticipating' the 'You're Under Arrest' straight after 'dance' and the little bit of banjo or mandolin or whatever. But then I heard the unedited boot version, liked the 'train whistle' effect and put that version into a SMiLE mix of mine which became my defacto 'easy listening' version of SMiLE from about 1998 until 2004. And then of course, that's how it sounded in the 2004 SMiLE as well. After listening to those versions for so long, the Cantina version's quick edit to 'You're Under Arrest' now sounds unnatural to my ears, even though I once thought it was the only way for that section to be...

So, in short, sorry if you thought I was leaping down your throat, and yes, you're right, it's all just opinion versus opinion. There's a larger point to be made here about what we all consider to be the 'right' way to experience SMiLE mixes and sections, and how much our individual sense of what is 'right' is influenced by what the versions and mixes we heard first sounded like... but that point is already being made very eloquently by The Heartical Don and others, so I'll just sit back and watch that one develop. I will say, however, that just as there are those who are convinced that the Cantina version of H&V is a worthy successor to Good Vibrations and the 45 version is the failed, dischordant product of a much-diminished mid-1967 Brian Wilson, there are those like me that like much of what's in the Cantina version but find it a bit disjointed, and feel the 45/Smiley version to be the *true* masterpiece. And yes, I *did* hear the 45 version first... so make of that what you will!

MattB

Hi Matt, no hard feelings. Roll on November :)

As Tintin used to say: and how!!!!!

Except, of course, that I very much hope I'll be listening by October 31st, being in the UK. That is, if EMI pull their collective finger out...!

But howsoever and whensoever exactly it comes Loaf, yes, I agree: roll on early November... Nobody here go falling under any buses now between now and then, mmkay??!!!

MattB

O.K., so we know it was deliberate then.  My thing I'm trying to figure out though, is why isn't it on the original single?  No big deal, just in my little head I always thought the original recording had the faded vocals, then also the hum be dummm stuff, but they snipped it right where the bass does the 'accent' note.  Sorry I can't find my Smiley CD to check the part you keep pointing me to :(

It's on BWPS. Whilst Darian was researching he heard the clarinet line on bleedthrough, though it had been erased. It's vintage SMiLE.

I seriously doubt they would dub new instruments on, but it wouldn't bother me if it was a proven vintage idea and was done correctly.
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They've got to draw the line somewhere though, or they'd record new vocals.  Sacrelige.  I mention in another thread, they are going by the book BWPS it seems. 

Do we know if this mix of Heroes is a new mix, or a recreation of a vintage mix from acetate?  Because the compilers had acetates of a loner version of Heroes and it was a longer version of the Smiley version.  This seems to fit that description.

Exactly.  I agree, the #1 reason behind everything they're doing is that they want it to sound as much as possible like the 04 album, and are taking it as gospel that Brian would have somehow released it like that in 67.  I know that's a BIG can of worms, but that's what they're rolling with.  To release the album as any other way, they'd have to say that his 2004 album is incorrect, and they're either unwilling, or Brian won't have it.  OR, like I mentioned somewhere else, possibly they have more evidence than we do that the 2004 album was pretty close to what would have happened in 67 (could an early mix of some sort exist of part of the album?)

To me, it's not the "Aaahhs" , but the moment of silence after them, when you hear the void, with echo, that they leave behind.  It's the 1 moment that the Beach Boys actually DID become angels.  Heaven has to sound like that!

I would prefer Stereo, just me, but hell they don't HAVE Stereo.  If just for Good Vibrations alone they can't do Stereo.  So it is what it is.  Mono is alright.  No complaints.

We don't know, but we do know that it's almost an exact copy of the BWPS version... which Brian rubber stamped as being the way to do it. 

The real question here is: Did Darian have COMPLETE access to the vaults when he helped Brian sequence the album, or did he only have access to what had been booted? 

My initial listen I was disappointed in the construction of this H&V (other than the sound quality, which sounded great to my old ears), but then I put my "fan-boy" expectations away and played it a bunch more times while I did other things, listening from the side, as opposed to focusing every nuance of my being upon every milisecond of it, and suddenly it came together for me.  I really dug it as it was (is), and could see it having been released this way (had it indeed been released this way, which of course it wasn't) back in '67 as just dandy and fine.  

Good Vibes sounds great too, and the extended fade is a plus.  That's the only thing about the original that irked me,  was it faded out too quickly.

I'm not sure I have come across this before (seems likely I will when the box is released :)) - is it just wordless vocals from Carl here?

Ok, the tunes are obvious - but does anybody think it's cool to have a high resolution file of the cover?

Maybe everybody will get to that after they burn a fatty and listen to GV and H&V on repeat for a few hours.

I'm pretty sure the "I'm In Great Shape" feedback reverb will be there (the original only ran through the verse melody once before the feedback begins so it should fit), but I don't see the "Heroes..." tape explosion working it's way in there - that wouldn't make any sense!

I, for one, think it's very cool.  So many of the "unauthorized" releases over the years have had really crappy reproductions of the Smile shop with the colors way off (e.g., wrong shades of green, blue, etc.).  Very nice to finally have JPGs that look exactly right.

The tape explosion would be an interesting way to end side one of the H&V single. Your cue to flip the record over and continue on with part 2.

So wait, if the Baldwin was overdubbed during mono mixdown, how is it still on the boys/girls section?

Not just a JPEG, but EPS with CMYK color. This could print to offset litho full 12x12 size (300dpi).

I for one am going to print a full size copy (or 4) for friends. Large format photo printer and all.
I was never fortunate enough to get my hands on an original printers proof.

Oh well, it's sadly obvious what I'm going to be listening to tonight.
BTW, the mono GV is astounding - the soundstage is huge.
But it is so strange listening to pitch perfect people doing pitch perfect music that hasn't been digitally pitch perfected isn't it?

But won't some of the session stuff be in stereo? Gonna be a hassle to tack on parts and fold them down. But dag nabbit, I'll do it if I have too!

Right, I didn't mean to imply that the actual H&V tape explosion would be in Great Shape, but still A tape explosion -- the one that we hear on the Great Shape session tape.  And I would imagine they've flown in the EH vocals over the verse.

Could somebody possibly pm me a sound clip of this? I don't think I've ever really noticed anything special in that section.

My first impressions from the new tracks;

H&V sounds SO clean! However, the first thirty seconds or so the vocals are much louder than the instrumentals...kind of odd, but I'm not complaining. Very glad they used the 'Boys and Girls' section from SS....I know it breaks the rules I guess, but it sounds so much better than the other more comical version. Also love the ending - that trombone flutter is great!

GV sounds AMAZING. Love the 'Hum De Dum' edit - great to see an official finished version of this.

Anywho, just got back from a weeklong vacation (the above is probably incomprehensible as I've been awake for a LONG time, driving for a long time too). Anywho, wonderful to see the board well and happy again - We'll all be listening to this box set in about 60 days!!!!!

damn right!  ;D

i'm really hoping 'Heroes Pts 1 & 2' is going to blow our minds.

I wouldn't be so sure on that one - unless I'm mistaken, the EH demo is one track of Brian using a single mic for both his piano and vocals.  Unless they can somehow extract the piano and isolate Brian's vocal, no flying in would be possible.  

I've tried my own sync of the piano and vocal over the backing track. I used the instrumental as it was on the Purple Chick mix. It can be done. It'll be quite hard to do though. Well, it was hard for me to do in Audacity. I gave up on it. But I think it can be done with a lot of patience and a lot of cut and paste work. You would have to seperate the piano demo into several pieces, and fit it in a few seconds at a time.

Both items referred to are commercially available and, I would guess at 2350 posts, probably already in your collection!  :)

ghost is right. The Hum de has were left of the final mix for a reason: they're not really very good, and break up the extraordinary dynamism of the track.

And the same goes for H&V - as fab as the extra parts are, the 2nd half as featured here degenerates into a rambling series of... what it is: odd bits and pieces, ideas, sketches etc. The H&V single as released was as good as H&V will ever be as a pop song. All the rest is intriguing but flawed due to its lack of a firm shape.

Wordless. It's on one of the Heroes boots, the second one.

Checked SOT now, and it seems that we talked about totally different things and I totally failed in trying to communicate my point. It might be that I thought I discovered something which was common knowledge. I'll try again:

1. From the SOT it is clear that the whole organ section is 24 bars long, the last note being the first quarter of the 24th bar. That takes up about 42 seconds on SOT. On the 1966 single, it is those 24 bars.
The Humbedums start at the 9th bar, the flute on the 13th bar. The „hark“ is on the 23rd bar.

Now the bass: It starts at the 3 1/2 beat of the 8th bar with an 1/8 note - that is what you rightly claim as "deliberate" - just before the Humbedums start, then from the 4 beat of the 8th bar on it plays 1/4 notes through to the end.

2. The edit "Good Vibrations (Various sessions)", track 24 on the 1990 two-fer. The section runs from 5:48 to 6:52, that's 1:04 minutes as opposed to 0:42 minute as on SOT and the single version, 22 seconds LONGER, I counted 36 bars, 12 bars LONGER than the recorded backing track for that section. This is to me proof that this was edited.

3. Still talking about the "Good Vibrations (Various sessions)", track 24 on the 1990 two-fer: The spot where the edit takes place is right after the 3 beat of the 20th bar at 6:22. It continues with the deliberate 1/8 bass note from the 3 1/2 beat of the 8th bar of the original backing track. Result of the splice: the edited section has two 1/8 bass notes on the 3 beat and the 3 1/2 beat of its 20th bar. This 1/8 note on the 3 1/2 beat is the one that was called "hiccup" note in this thread (because all other notes around it are 1/4 notes), while it was deliberately played in the 8th bar.

4. As this edit was not documented in the liner notes I thought for many years that the section was originally as long as on "Good Vibrations (Various sessions)", and that Brian shortened it for the single version. As I only found out last Saturday, it was originally just as long as on the single, and the longer version is a 1990 construction. Curiously, the longer version is now constructed into the new Good Vibrations version, though without that "additional" 1/8 bass note.

Do you agree with this? If not, I have again failed to communicate my point.

Last edit: replaced wrong words.

I wasn't aware of this, and I'm happy to hear that, because that's my favorite moment of BWPS. I always sing along. I even sing those lines when I listen to the 1966 Holidays. And recently it struck me that in the song I use in my own fan mixes as the earth section of "The Elements" a ROCK is mentioned... :)

Thanks to Heroes and Villains, we know it isn't a carbon copy. The song ends with the horn, so it is clearly now there and not at the end of Gee like on BWPS.

Yes indeed - be interesting to see if it ends Gee as well (as per BWPS)

Micha

Sorry but on the TSS GV - I counted 32 bars from start of organ to when the boys fall off the edge of the cliff - they actually stop on the first beat of bar 32 - does that help?

Umm... I didn't count the bars on the TSS GV, so you may be right. I only counted the bars on SOT, 1966 single and 1990 "Good Vibrations (Various Sessions)". But the fact that the TSS GV has more bars than the original backing track heard on SOT makes clear that TSS GV has put more bars in there by editing. They just didn't do the "hiccup note" like on the 1990 edit.

What did help: I know now that I should have used the word "beat" instead of "mark". I just didn't find that word. The German word would be "Zählzeit". Sorry about that.

Well... Nov 1 it will be "Zahlzeit" for me... :-[

Without the umlaut that translates as "paytime". ;D

...which is exactly what I meant - my retailer will have the box by then...

Cool - I missed your original post but I think its a good "muso" way to compare various mixes and edits - I love the "new" version of GV and its never been my favourite in the past

BTW the BWPS version has 40 bars of the organ hum de dum part

Anyway, I think it just *could* be that the 1990 edit which made that section longer led to the sequence we have now: The "Gotta keep those lovin' good..." part (those vocals being absent on the 1990 mix) followed by the Humbeedum part. A hypothetical 1966 mix that featured both vocal parts rather would have those vocal parts run simultaneously, because they were recorded over the same part of the backing track. I suspect though that the "Gotta keep those lovin' good..." replaced the Humbeedums. The latter start 4 bars later.

I always thought the "tape explosion" was the best spot to put in "I'm In Great Shape" and "Barnyard."  I put it on one of my mixes and it seems to fit pretty well.

And as for "Barnshine" I like it after "Old Master Painter"  I hope there is a better version with Mike singing the "You make happy when skies are grey" parts on that early version. I have only heard it on one booted session track and it has a lot of  static.

I always assumed the HummBeeeDummms were removed because it made the single too longer for radio play than they wanted.

Might be. I fell in love with the Humbeedums when I heard them first in 1981, on that U.S. rarities LP, with the bikini girl on the cover.

It was 32 bars on the "new" version just released this week, I mentioned that comparing it to the 24 bars of the session tapes which is where it all came from.

It would seem that the "long version" on that Smiley CD is a more modern edit. Unless something or someone can confirm or deny it, there is really no other way to explain the difference in times and lengths of that section other than to say they took part of what was originally a 24 bar section of music as recorded live in the studio then overdubbed with harmonica and "hum be dum" vocals, and grafted that onto the existing 24 bar section in order to create the newer mixes and include the "lost" vocal section.

I'm hoping within the liner notes of the box set we get information on where the various sections came from on this and other songs where similar work was done. It's been suggested that will be part of the package, because it gets pretty confusing and time-consuming trying to piece it all together going on pure speculation.

I think that and it also ties in with the theme of SMiLE, which makes no sense out of the SMiLE context.

So we do agree. Nice! :)


So did I, and now I know we were wrong. The original backing track of that section has, as has been pointed out, the exact length as on the released single. Longer versions are due to modern day editing. That goes for the 1990 sessions edit and for the new TSS version.

For those who missed my post and like reading boring explanations, this is how they edited it in 1990:
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10946.msg208203.html#msg208203

Listened again. The edits in Heroes despite what others have said are poor. Vintage BW edits are short, abrupt, jarring, unnerving even. Especially for Heroes & Villains as it saw release originally. Now...  :-X

Compare the last chorus on the single version of Heroes, how it appears with such PRESENCE due to the edit.

It is good to reach a consensus on this, I'm sorry if I was misunderstanding some of the details, but it would seem we are in agreement that the longer versions are more modern and not from 1966.

It is also fascinating to consider some firsthand reports from people who remember hearing Good Vibrations as a new single on the radio in Fall 1966 and hearing a shortened, edited version of it which radio stations may have done to fit into their formats and time limits. Someone here on this board remembered that specifically in Los Angeles, if I recall...maybe they can add to that part of the story if they're reading this thread. I'd like to hear a tape if one exists of exactly what editing was done by those stations.

it was a mix Mike Love circulated featuring a loop of him singing "i'm pickin up good vibrations , she's givin me excitations" over and over.

Oh, good that you point out that version. I wasn't aware of it anymore. That is a completely different backing track for this section, thus different vocal takes too. And the "Gotta keep.." vocals and the Humbeedums are both on it, simultaneously. But it is, like the final version, 24 bars long.

The humdrums make Good Vibes too churchy. It loses the beat to a mediocre wash of baptist hymnal chant. It's a cool piece for a concert context near the end of the show if it's been a good night and the crowd would dig melting into that sound for 40 bars or whatever it is, but it does not make a good single AT ALL.

I agree with this and not simply because i am used to the old edits and am biased toward them, but because that is just how i listen to and prefer music, all music.

In the Smiley single version, right before the “I’ve been in this town so long,” the organ chord (which is mixed a lot louder in the single version, and sounds better) just cuts off abruptly leaving a void, whereas in this version, the organ trails off because of the reverb. That spot in the single version sounds amazing and revolutionary. Now it sounds a little common. 

But you know, i am a big fan of alternate versions/mixes/arrangements, etc. so i am always happy with yet another version of a recording. This is still the best composer/arranger/producer recording his best music at his peak.

Ghost, you should gingerly remove the cap of your skull, take your brain out, put it on a table, take a fine, sharp, clean blade, slice down the middle of your brain and open it up to the humdedums, they transcend everything. 

Let's face it, the people mixing Smile presently are very talented. But they aren't Brian Wilson circa 1966. If they're going to piece together their own versions, it probably won't be as amazing as what Brian would've thought up. It's like we're getting the ultimate fan mix, which is still very cool.

Maybe they should've hired Purple Chick to help out?

It's the leads in and out of  the choruses I'm having trouble getting used to, and I have problems with the Hawthorne mix for the same reason.

When the acapella vocal comes in with that key change into the chorus, that backing track should cut out when the vocal slows down, not fade out. Without the organ this doesn't work, but it could have of they'd muted the track here rather than faded it.

Then in the lead out of the chorus back into the verse, those backing vocals should fade out and the cello should come up here, to do the job of the missing Baldwin.

That's what I'd have done anyway.

But then, I don't think Disk 1 is really aimed at us. A mix of the album as an albumwas necessary to sell this box to Joe Pubic. The sessions are for us

So Mark, if you're reading this, great work, but you knew the old adage would be true

You can please most people some of the time, but you can't please SMiLE fans, none of the time

Fades = safe. Hard cuts = not safe. Disc 1 is most probably playing it safe. Fukk Joe Public. I'm tired of Joe Public. And of Helvetica. Monoculture is suffocating.

I think 5/11/66 was the first recording session of H&V?

If so, does anyone know if that session can be found on anything out there?

So i just noticed that the little organ fills during the trombone line at the end of the verses that were Smiley overdubs ARE to be found in this new version. Once--only at the end of the peace in the valley verse. It’s there. But it’s not in the first verse of the song. I wonder what the reason for this is.

Easy: it seems it was dubbed onto the verses during mixdown. That's why it's not on the multitracks which they used for the first verses. They didn't have the multitracks for the peace in the valley verse. So they had to use the single mix for that section, and that has the organ.

Doh! Good call. I wasn't thinking hard.

Yes, but don't we all really enjoy that part of it?  ;D

Bridge to indians is rushed in this new version. There needs to be that tiny gap of silence between the end of the chorus and that a cappella part. Here we hear bridge to indians start over the trailing off the cello tremolo. BWPS got this transition "right."

I have to respectfully disagree. I personally enjoyed the smoothness of the transition  :afro

Since it doesn't look as if it's appearing on the box, I think the safest answer to that would unfortunately be no.  Presumably, whatever was done that day was either recorded over, erased or lost.

I'm sure if Mark and Alan had gone with rough cuts people would be complaining that it wasn't what Brian would have done, they sound unnatural, etc.

I love the new mixes, maybe because I couldn't care less about historical accuracy. If I want to listen to the tracks Brian produced, I have Smiley Smile. These were produced by Mark and Alan in 2011, not Brian in 1967 trying to assemble the next Beach Boys single. I prefer them to be safe because it's not their music - their job is simply to present it. They are in no position to be as bold as Brian would have been.

I have a feeling that if all the tracks on the "album" were determined to be historically accurate, most of the people complaining here would suddenly find these mixes to be a work of unparalleled genius. Some people can't seem to determine if they like it or not until they know for sure whether this is vintage Brian Wilson or two dudes friggin' with history.

I only see a few options to present SMiLE:

1. BWPS
2. Mark and Alan put it together with input from Brian, using BWPS as a template.
3. Mark and Alan put it together with little or no input from Brian, creating an official fan mix based on their own ideas.

I prefer option 2. I would love more than anything to have a SMiLE produced by 60's Brian, but that is impossible, and I believe what we're getting is the next best thing.

Yeah, everyone's gonna have a different take on it, of course. It's interesting though, because if Mark was using BWPS to the T, would he not have recreated the transition exactly as it appears on BWPS? Makes you wonder what went into the decisions of these minute details. One thing i was thinking: is Mark a songwriter? I wonder if as strictly an engineer, he's so wrapped up in that end of things, that MUSICAL details slip his mind, not really having a producer to pick up the slack? I have no idea obviously. And i wonder, too, Brian at age 69, listening to what Mark came up with and mid-song stopping it and saying, no there needs to be less of a gap there. I kind of can't imagine him caring too much about something like that at this point. I'd love to be wrong. I would love to be a fly on the wall when he was first shown disc 1 for approval. Did he PRODUCE it? No, right?

I'm pretty sure it says in the press release that Brian had a hand in producing it. To what extent we'll probably never know.

I doubt Brian was in there with them as they made these decisions - from what we've heard, it seems like it was just a matter of sending him some CDs and him saying yes or no on a track-by-track basis.  And even if he had been in there overseeing the process, as you point out, at this point Brian doesn't concern himself with little details like that anymore (and he's absolutely earned that right).

the "la la la" verse after the first chorus at 1:26 is definitely rushed. it's been buggin' me...

Before someone starts attacking (because i can feel it coming), i just want to say that as someone who writes and produces music, my ear is tuned to these sort of things. I am a highly critical person when it comes to all music, certainly not just Smile. That said, i know that i am going to thoroughly enjoy the box set when it comes out. That's an understatement, i am going to lose my mind with excitement. If i could, i would have myself cryogenically frozen until October 31st. I'm just overwhelmed and anxious and shooting the sh*t talking about all this. So it would be great if people wouldn't start with the YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE ANY CRITIQUES OF THE MUSIC.

Everything you hear, Brian produced in 1966, or 1967.

Here's a thought that (I don't think) has been expressed before.

Using BWPS as a template, in a way,  gives more credibility to the 2004 release's tracklist, given.

It also makes the new release more identifiable to those who came on board seven years ago, given.

It also lends itself to one hell of a Beach Boys gig, either as an anniversary re-union, as a late promo of the box set, or both. Think about it: Brian's band is already fully conversant with the set list and would only need refresher rehearsals. By taking BWPS back on the road, only renamed as the Beach Boys Smile Sessions gig, you've a tour that would light up the rock press. Instead of Brian sat at his piano, you'd have Brian, Mike, Al and Bruce up front.

Okay, so a few more politics might come into play - like where do you put Ed Carter, Matt Jardine, John Cowsill and a few others – bit I reckon it could work, and work fairly simply.

Might it even have been one of the considerations in collating Disc 1?

Oh come on man, a Smile Sessions Tour is never going to happen. Are you tripping? You seriously imagine Mike Love & Bruce Johnston standing around on stage for an hour singing Smile stuff? Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Johnston, to do a solo rendition of his "la la la" parts from Wonderful. Thank you Bruce, see you next time.

Start of this year you'd've said we'd never see a release of the Smile sessions material in Brian's lifetime.

 You'd've said Mike Love and Al Jardine would never share a stage again.

You'd've said no frickin' way would EMI contemplate re-issuing the Christmas album yet again.

Strange things happen on this beach!

I doubt a tour but any anniversary re-union gig in the wake of this release has to acknowledge it, and go a little bit further in doing so than playing H&V and GVs.  My scenario might not seem realistic but it's an (comparatively) easy answer.

Dude - that's all cool and its good to hear the OPINIONS of someone who is involved in producing music - the SMILE stuff is simply amazing to me. - I am a drummer and hip-hop beatmaker and the Smile stuff has taught me so much

What I object to is people saying they could do better than Brian et al or that the TSS/BWPS album is all wrong

Look forward to your input on other stuff as it appears

Regards

 The H&V blew my brain out. I have never heard this song so clearly before. It finally makes sense to what Brian had in mind for it.

I agree, it's PERFECT!
One of the best outtakes for Good Vibes

Ok, so it just became obvious to me why the edit going out of the chorus into the peace in the valley verse is cleaner in the single version than it is in this new one. Since there are no multitracks for the peace in the valley verse and the single version had to be used for this new mix, it had to be cut right after the organ leading out of the chorus, and, as you all know, there is no space at all between the organ and the first la.

Also, i don’t know if my brain is deceiving me and filling this in, but does anyone else hear the toy whistle in the a cappella break of the single version very very faintly in the same exact spot it appears now in this new version? Was it there all along?

My thoughts:

- On both "H&V" and "Good Vibrations," the edits are MUCH smoother -- except the "La la laaaa..." part of H&V...I too very much noticed part of the "L" was lopped off. It seems that every time there's a new mix of H&V (cf. the stereo mix on Hawthorne, CA), that edit gets worse.

- The sound is amazingly clear. I'm betting they come from much earlier-generation tapes than the previously-released versions, as H&V has noticeably less hiss.

- The Mrs. always said that the edits in "Good Vibrations" are so obvious that you can actually tell what color the editing tape is. We both agree that the edits are MUCH improved...

- Having said that, an "HQ" "Good Vibrations" from TSS was just posted on BW's official Facebook page. I'm not going to be able to hear it for a while (no access to a sound card); anybody listen to it yet? Is it the same GV that's part of the video contest? It clocks in at 4:11.

Pretty much the same as the mp3, S (without the obvious artefacts mp3-encoding will introduce).

Didn't realize they'd go all out fan mix-style editing on the main release. I suppose it makes sense in some ways, but isn't really the most accurate presentation. Ah well, fan mixes have existed for ages and will continue to, I suppose.

Scratch that - what's with the weird, fabricated H&V ending? Again, sounds very fan mix-ish. The great but ultimately excluded on the final version "hum bee"-ness on "Good Vibrations"? I knew they were using BWPS as a template, but they didn't have to go to this extent. I never understood fan mixes (and now official mixes) screwing with "Good Vibrations", which Brian finished back then. Would've been cool as an extra, but on the official tracklist, it feels kind of weird. Just me.

Edit: Concerning the "weird, fabricated H&V ending" comment, is there a legit edit out there of this with the strings? I saw people talking like it exists that way on bootlegs.

I wouldn't mind it. The other 4 discs have the originals if I want them.

edit: oppzz

If you listen to the album version of Crimson and Clover there are edits into the completed mix of the song. Tinkering with GV to "albumize" it seems OK with me. And for the record I think alot of you will be saying WTF? when you hear Teeter Totter Love. To quote Spinal Tap, "...better left unsolved..."

Not a legit edit, really. However, it's on boots in incredibly poor sound quality from the Western Theme session. And now it all sounds clear as a (slide) whistle!

Noice = )

Is your wife Phil Spector?

Something to keep in mind regarding these new mixes/edits is that this kind of reworking has been going on for at least 20 years.

Tracks like "Soulful Old Man Sunshine", "Can't Wait Too Long", "Old Man River", "Fourth Of July", "Loop de Loop", "Fallin' In Love" (CD version), the GV Box Set versions of "Do You Like Worms?", "Vegetables", "Wind Chimes" and "Heroes & Villains (Sections)" all debuted in versions mixed and edited years after their actual recording. These were not historically accurate representations of what the recordings sounded like in the late 60s / early 70s. The same approach is being used for Disc 1 of TSS.

The only way to experience a true historically accurate SMiLE is to listen to all of the unedited snippets on repeat shuffle (which actually sounds like fun). I'm thinking that the TSS set will let us know when a vintage edit has been used (I don't expect this will happen too often); otherwise, I will enjoy the presentation in the same way I've always enjoyed previous archival releases from the Beach Boys.

worth mentioning is that if SMILE had been released in '67, any and all edits would have been done in the analog realm (on tape), which by nature results in less-than-perfect edits ... i don't think "Brian's" edits were intentionally abrupt, it's just kind of an artifact of the process.

i'm personally waiting for the box to play the album on vinyl before listening to any online clips.

Personally, that's what is so cool about GV is the rough edits.  I thought that was the whole 'gimmick' of the song? 

When I made my SMiLE comp, I had only one mission in mind -- and it wasn't "I'm going to finish what Brian couldn't" or "Let's make a historically accurate album based on the hand-written track list." My only goal was to take all the SMiLE bits I liked the best -- spread out over upwards of 20 CDs -- and make a single listenable CD out of them. I think that's the approach Mark Linett has taken with the "album" tracks on disc one. It's not a historically accurate re-creation of what the album might have been in 1967 (not with three LP sides), and it's not even a strictly accurate reproduction of BWPS (with "Great Shape" moved and the variations in "H&V"). Instead, I think he's looking at it this way: "What is the coolest, most entertaining version of each song?" He knows that the casual listener -- for whom Disc One will be their ONLY experience of SMiLE -- will miss out on a lot of cool stuff from the session discs, so he's going to put that cool stuff into the "album" tracks, where he deems them appropriate. A great example is "Wonderful" -- it's nearly identical to the GV box version, but ML added the "yodeling" backing vocals. A minor difference for US, the fanatics, but it may enhance the enjoyment of the casual fan.

Same thing with "Good Vibrations." The single version is a classic, it's available almost anywhere -- so how to make it just a LITTLE more special for the "album" version? Adding the "humbedum" vocals. Yes, it's all a little "fan-mix"-ish, but remember -- this is NOT "1967 SMiLE" and it's not a historical reconstruction. Remember the inscription on the runout groove of the MOJO single? "This doesn't have to be perfect ... it's just gotta be honest." (BW) I think that's the philosophy driving the disc one "album" of SMiLE -- I'm sure they are trying to cling to whatever historical evidence they can, but in the end, it just has to make sense, and be a fun CD to listen to. The historical stuff on discs 2-5 -- "That's for us" is I believe what Alan Boyd said in one of these threads.

As far as it being "honest" -- like you (I think) I would draw the line at wildly artificial hoops being jumped through to cram this music into the BWPS template. Re-creating the transition from "Wonderful" to "Look" might be easy enough, but if they can't do the "Holidays" to "Whispering Winds" to "Wind Chimes" bit without Pro-Tooling it to high heaven, I'd rather they just didn't try. We'll see how it comes out. If the first four tracks we've heard ("H&V," "Cabin Essence," "Wonderful" and "Good Vibes") are any indication, I'm not worried at all -- in fact I'm looking forward to the little surprises that this "ultimate fan mix" will bring. If there's stuff I DON'T like, well, I can just dig into the box and make my OWN versions, can't I?  ;)

How do you know "Soulful Old Man Sunshine" and "Fourth Of July" aren't historically accurate representations of what the recordings sounded like in the late 60s? And how would they have sounded?

It's not how they would have sounded in the 60s, it's how they did sound--and that was unfinished.

Inevitably, any later-day creation is going to sound at least a little bit different than the song would have sounded earlier.  Think about documents you've lost to computer crashes.  When you rewrite them, they're not going to be word-for-word the same as they were.

Really, so many of you guys want to have your cake and eat it too.  You want to hear finished songs that were unfinished at the time they were recorded.  So the record company finishes them for you, and they sound good, at least in many cases.  But then you want to pretend that the recently finished versions are in fact vintage 60s edits, or at least that the new edits are exactly the way they would have been in the 60s, and that cannot be.

I understand that the popular position on this board has become that things ARE a certain way, and that people should not even be allowed to dispute that (especially if a Brian quote can be found to support your position).  But some of you are going way, way overboard with this stuff.

Here's the way I'm thinking about the disc one "album" -- all it needs to be is entertaining. I'm not expecting heavenly light to shine down from the sky as I finally hear what the "Barnyard Suite" was going to be in 1967. Disc One is a big-budget popcorn movie, and the individual tracks are like the sets. No one complains if the city street is a facade, or a green screen, as long as it FEELS real and serves the movie. Special effects, like flying in the yodels in "Wonderful"? Not only acceptable, but EXPECTED in a big budget popcorn movie. I fully expect it to be terrifically entertaining; it will be the SMiLE I urge friends to listen to. The rest of the box set? Those are the bonus features on the BluRay disc -- the documentaries, the interviews, the outtakes, the deleted scenes. That stuff is for the historians -- professional and amateur -- to sift through. Disc One should just make you ... well, you know... smile.

Oh, I also hope the vinyl is sourced from analogue masters and not digital copies used in the box set or whatever, like Brian's 2004 Smile was (I own it but haven't yet played it though I hear it sounds absolutely fantastic). Any word on that kinda thing?

Seanmurd: That's a wonderful thought, and it might just make me feel better about the entire thing. Thanks.

i would say it's highly unlikely (nearly impossible) that this is the case.  Brian's 2004 SMILE is a digital recording.

Perfectly stated.  From all indications, the first disc is going to be one hell of a blockbuster, especially for the uninitiated!

Can anyone make out the split second at the beginning of H&V? Right when you hit play, before the song starts, there is like 0.002 seconds of whatever comes before it. You think the flutter tone bookends the song? If so, it doesn't bleed into the song. Or it could be the ringing out of the last chord on tack piano in Gee. Or something else entirely? Or i need to get a life?

:lol  Are we doing this?

I don't know, probably not. I'm having problems.

I shouldn't make fun, i'm sorry.

I missed GV from TSS that was posted on Brian's facebook but taken down quickly..

Didd anyone catch it, how did it sound?

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150273122998042

This.

Oh wow, thank you

This video happily proved my point, the versions we had were only MP3's, the video is MUCH better quality!

Very true, sounds much better

Can't wait to hear H&V

The LP's were cut from an analog tape copy of the 88.2k original.

Let me joint the queue of admirers. Seanmurd da man.

Does this mean we could get sequel boxsets if this one does well enough?  ;)

SMiLE 2: Electric Boogaloo

I noticed that too and it sounded the last bit of Gee to me, which is exciting. I can't wait to hear it all together.

(http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/3458/hvannaylisis.png)

so.... three Smile tracks have leaked?  :lol

????

Can you show that split second sound at the beginning next to the beginning of the flutter tone horn at the end in order to compare? To me that sound at the beginning sounds like the ending of the horn, not like the last chord of Gee, which, if so, would be interesting that they're bookending the song with it.

People clamoring over the microsecond of 'Gee' just seemed a little absurd....

I've noticed it too! good to see it in Wave form, makes it easier to see whether my ears are playing tricks on me or not. just thinkn,might be interesting to see what the 3 other Wave's will look like? be interesting to see it as i hear it.  might have a check on this when i get a min

Are you all talking about the same H&V that was part of the video contest??? The one with the new string ending???

Because the one I have doesn't have anything like that. Screen shot of waveform is below. It absolutely has NOTHING before the word "I've." Dead silence.

(http://www.banana-and-louie.org/images/HVaud.jpg)

Same with mine. The waveform is COMPLETELY flat before "I've been in this town...".  ???

(http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/6929/unled1zf.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/unled1zf.jpg/)
click for larger version

I have never envied anyone more than now...

Amen brotha, Amen!

People are posting waveforms? I hope Smiley Smile isn't turning into the SteveHoffman forum  :P

 :lol :lol

I don't know that i would say people other than i were clamoring. And a little absurd? It's totally absurd.

P.S. That's really interesting and weird that some people's file doesn't have the little tidbit. Please note that when i say "tidbit" i mean it's literally like half of a second. Hence the absurdity of this. But if your file DOES have it, and you listen to the ending of the flutter tone horn at the end and then start it up again immediately, it sounds like it's the same sound.

I might piece this together myself... but just so you know, you can combine the cantina sequence from the newly released "H&V" and with commonly available bootlegs to make a high quality version of the February acetate version of "H&V". Before, high quality versions of some of the overdubs on the cantina version were missing.

Because of the "Disbelief" I decided to take a closer look...

The microsecond beginning IS the solo trombone "Da, Dada-daada-daaa-da-daa-dada-da".

I Have proof here:

First, I find the wave form by Zooming in Audacity...
(http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/2969/hv1.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/820/hv1.png/)

Then, I isolate it...
(http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9404/hv2d.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/638/hv2d.png/)

Then, I BOOST IT as much as possible...
(http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/9509/hv3f.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/710/hv3f.png/)

Then I hear THIS:
http://www.mediafire.com/?u9v74o0cvoxguv2

Now, it is hard to tell what it is, but it does sound A BIT like the trombones we already know...


So.... any non-believers?

 :brow

Count me in as a non-believer.....because it's NOT ON MY COPY. Seriously, where are you people getting this from??

Listen with (good) headphones. And listen loudly. It's there. There's no way that some people's file would have it and others wouldn't. You're just not hearing it. It's VERY QUIET and EXTREMELY SHORT. And it doesn't matter. It's just the very tail end of the decay of the last note of the trombone. Just like BWPS  ;)

Mark could have indexed the tracks just a tad more accurately, aye?  :police: God, i am so neurotic. When's November 1st again?

Just to tease everybody; when I went and downloaded those two songs, I signed up, downloaded each, and after "Heroes and Villians" was downloaded, I went ahead and hit "Play".  Oddly enough, it started halfway through the first word.  Like almost a second was missing.  So I thought "Oh, my computer is tripping".  So I stopped the song, and started it again.  ONCE AGAIN, it starts in the middle of the first word.

I thought it was strange as hell, because how would you make a music video with it, missing the very first part of the song?  So I chalked it up to maybe this is just to give you an idea, and they'll give you a better version later on.

So My opinion?  Somebody, possibly (this is ridiculous) put the song out with a little piece before it accidentally; then clipped too much off (my version), then got it right and that's the version other people have.

Am I crazy?  You can tell me if I'm crazy.  The song's downloaded on my work computer so I'll check it .... urgh... TUESDAY when I go back.

You are crazy, Ron. It's okay, i am crazy too. Are you on a mac or PC? On a mac, for example, if you play an mp3 on the stand alone player VLC, it often does just what you have described, cut off just a fraction of the very first second. This is only, though, how it's played; it's not something in the file itself. I bet you if you burn the file onto a CD, it'll sound fine. There's NO WAY that someone heard this file and thought that it was revealing too much of what comes before H&V. What we've (mainly i) been talking about is insane. It's nothing. If this were video, it would be like 9 frames, a minuscule flash. I'm just bored. The people who say they don't have it are just not hearing it.

I was playing it on a PC, on windows media player.  I use windows media player all day long to play mp3's and never have any trouble.  I'll check the file out when I get back to work though, and see what the dealio is. 

Lol, maybe it's your sound card or somthing, it's definitely there!

I can confirm that that little sound is on my copy as well, Father is not crazy!

Yeah - be very careful or Capitol will pitch a hissyfit, threaten to pull the set and then I'll have to lie to you for them to keep everything on track. Happened before y'know.  ;)

Also on mine -  a millisecond it is, a mere millisecond. Barely even a shadow. But it's there.

 :lol :lol :lol

It's a Trombone before the beginning. No strings attached though like at the end of the track. (Some neat pun there, isn't it? :-D)

Funny how we can find all these little "pieces" hidden in one mp3!

Once again, I have posted a wave form PROVING THAT THERE'S NOTHING BUT DEAD SILENCE BEFORE THE WORD "I've". I can listen as closely as I want a billion times and as loudly as I want so I can hear it, and I have a good pair of ears -- and as you can see by the wave form, it is not on my copy, PERIOD.

Sweet melt!

Well,  the strings drop out before the ending of the trombone anyway, so there would be no way to tell, but i'll bet a million dollars that it won't have the strings. I kind of like the idea of using the trombone to start and end the track. I wonder if there was a vintage Brian edit that did it that way.


I looked at the picture you posted and the 0:00 marker is out of screen. You have the play head at 0.07. Put the play head at 0.00 and zoom in all the way. Also, don't get too excited, this is much ado about nothing.

Mea culpa - I was trusting Soundforge, that showed a flat waveform (see screencap in previous page, and zooming didn't change anything), and my crappy laptop speakers.

After closer inspection (a 1000% volume boost finally revealed a wave), and with headphones, there's definitely 00:00:00,085 of some sound that shouldn't be here. That's less than a tenth of a second, and quite frankly I don't think we should read anything into that. I don't even know why I'm talking about it  ::)

It's not on my copy, either. Instead, just before "H&V" starts, I faintly hear about 8 minutes of music that I'm unfamiliar with. Sounds like Brian & the boys singing an intricate song about the elements (sample lyric: "Earth, Water, Air, Fire / A hall so costly will inspire"?), set to the tune of "Rio Grande", with the "Johnny Carson" riff running throughout it. Hard to hear but definitely there. Strange.

 :p

There is definitely something there, but I couldn't say for certain what it is. It's got a center frequency of about 817 - 823 Hz.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9381125/Screen%20Shot%202011-09-04%20at%2010.40.10%20PM.png)

It's on my copy - and I probably downloaded mine much later than everyone else (in response to the idea that Capitol possibly switched the tracks).

I just loaded the file into Logic....there's definitely a pattern there...it's almost unrecognizable by this program. I zoomed in on the 0 second mark to 0.1.2.43 - clipped the rest of the track off, turned the volume way up - it sounds a heckuva lot like the tail-end of a trombone flutter. Just my two cents.
_____

Anyone here actually going to enter the music-video contest?

I'm thinking about it - although the concept I have in mind would be quite the undertaking - but it's sooooo tempting!

Just took the new 'Good Vibrations' into Logic on a whim: I isolated the first .0075 seconds of the track and there's also the tail end of something there...it could be from 'Prayer' - an assumption based off of the fact that BWPS was used as a template.

..after hearing 4 tracks from the SMiLE Sessions that I've been able to find, I must say to Brian, the Boys, Mark Linett, Alan Boyd and anyone else deserving credit--BRAVO!

Lol, I thought you were kidding!

MP3 of the now ABSOLUTELY LEAKED OUR PRAYER: http://www.mediafire.com/?z61beb3j4553bnw

How does that link work? Nothing's happening. There is nothing. Nothing is there. Nothing. A black void. Our prayer?

oops, haha try it AGAIN!

Ok, that one i really can't make out, it's like half the length of the other one, haa. But it doesn't sound like the timbre of voices to me. I think it's something other than the Our Prayer reprise?

EDIT: Oh, but it is the same pitch as the fundamental of the last chord of the reprise.

haha that's it! All 10.78Kb of harmonic glory!!! :lol

WHAT THE f*** ARE WE DOING?

Ahhh...okay, so if I do some serious volume boosting, then I can see it and hear it....but HOW ON EARTH WERE YOU ABLE TO DETECT THAT?!!? Seriously....that's nuts!

We're mutating into the Son Of Hoffmann's Board, by common consent. Didn't you know? The mods will emigrate to Tuvalu, for authenticity reasons. Anyone wanting to talk about the music will immediately get a lifetime ban.

Key words: Hertz, Watt, waveform, clipping, compression, bi-wiring, and tin foil.

(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs47/i/2009/247/2/e/Doctor_Who___I_Want_To_Believe_by_RichSC.jpg)

Hmm same fundamental as the Our Prayer reprise ending on BWPS. But that doesn't really have anything to do with The Beach Boys' SMiLE, does it?

Well, we don't know that for sure, do we? I mean, I don't know anything any more than the next man, but there are certainly contemporary reports of Brian playing acetates of Prayer last in a sequence at dinner parties (thanks to Jules Siegel)... and there's that version of Prayer - on the December comp reel, was it? - that had the penultimate section snipped from it. Almost as if that part was being saved for another part of the album...?

This is nothing more than speculation, of course, but I'm just saying - we don't know that Prayer wasn't going to be reprised at the end of SMiLE in one of the many versions that may have passed through Brian's head from Summer 66 to Summer 67. We certainly can't say that it definitely wasn't an intention. But of course, you can say that about so many parts of SMiLE...

MattB

Oh, I'm not denying that there might have been a Our Prayer reprise planned for SMiLE, but you'd think it would be in the same key as Our Prayer original if so. My point is that just because the millisecond of sound heard before the start of GV has the same fundamental key as the ending of Our Prayer reprise on BWPS, that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

They didn't change the key of the reprise on BWPS though.

I just took both tracks,the milliscond jusst beforre H&V and the millisecond before GV and reversed them and slowed them down by a trillion and bi-golly the sound before H&V is the complete works of william shakespare and the sound before GV is the completee bible with all the commentaries and gnostic/apocraphal books,,,,I also notice what sounded like like a slight millisecond blip on my BWPS-Beautiful Dreamer movie right as Brian is saying that he saw "playBoy" that day and decided to anylize it and low and behold there is a hidden easter egg that contained all the playboy issues up to that point..

I know, which kind of proves my point. Because the key that the the snippet of sound has before GV is in a different key to the Beach Boys version of 'Our Prayer'.

I don't have my copy of BWPS handy. The BWPS Prayer and the original '66 Prayer are in different keys? I don't remember them being in different keys. I don't remember anything on BWPS being in a different key than its '66/'67 counterpart, except that new modulation at the end of Song For Children.

Actually, you are right! They are in the same key, but the key of the tone heard before GV sounds somewhat slightly higher in pitch.
lol, what a conversation!

Haha, i don't think so. It's the same pitch. Also, i just heard the millisecond before H&V again, and i am positive that's the trombone. I will happily jump off of a cliff if it's not. With whatever comes before GV, i'm about 98.7% sure that's Our Prayer. These little games are totally pointless and fun. If anything, it's good ear training.

I really hope they didn't go as far as the "Our Prayer" reprisal before "Good Vibration". Those sorts of attempts to mirror BWPS on fan mixes strike me as, erm, ridiculous.

I'm inclined to agree, although perhaps they're working under the assumption that Brian would have done something similar based on the comp reel they found with that particular section of "Our Prayer" spliced out. 

I don't have the time to check it now, but I think it was not the spliced out section that was reprised on BWPS. And it wasn't spliced out on BWPS anyway.

And adding that reprise doesn't strike me ridiculous at all. (Actually on my old fan mixes I had the whole Prayer before Good Vibrations at the ending of the album. One of the few cases where I had songs at the same spot as on BWPS.)

If they do it, I hope they do it because that would have been what Brian intended originally. I don't really care for fanmixes, there need to be some kind of authority behind the mixes in my opinion. It's like random unknown artists covering famous songs - it hardly ever works well (in my book anyway).

unknown to who?

Unknown to more than a small amount of people.

I'm sure that was a 2004 decision. As Brian took the decisions how to finish SMiLE in 2004, this is all right with me. Even the 60+ Brian Wilson has enough authority to me to finish SMiLE, and he is more Brian Wilson than any of us ever will be.

I'm not insinuating that this is indeed what took place, but i want to ask a question to you and those of you who feel similarly about all this. How would you feel, that is, would you feel differently, if what actually took place was Darian making a suggestion, showing Brian a transition, and Brian saying yay or nay, rather than the genesis of an idea springing directly from Brian? And if we pretend for a moment that that was what indeed happened, hypothetically, would that be any different at all from Brian accepting or vetoing a fan mix? In a case like this, he'd be serving the role of producer more so than composer/arranger. Though it's a weird gray area considering that he did compose and arrange the blocks of music that were being fiddled around with to make sense of the puzzle. At any rate, fast forward to 2011, and IF Mark and Alan are indeed just taking cues from 2004, is it not essentially a fan mix of a fan mix, albeit with "official" approval from the man himself? That is, of course, assuming everything i've mentioned in hypothetical terms here were actually true. We don't really know and probably won't ever.

But if he had finished it in 67, might not Carl or somebody played the Darian role? I mean, did Brian not have uncredited input from the others on a variety of issues? I got no problem with it. He made the puzzle pieces, someone helped him put them together. But I can see both sides.

Am I alone in wishing that for H&V they would've used the 'alternate version' lead vocal, at least in the first verse, instead of the normal single/SS lead? I always enjoyed the alternate version lead more, I feel it has a lot more gusto.

It's likely that those vocals don't exist apart from the one tape that is a copy of the mixdown of the "alternate" version. They could have used it for the new mono version, but the sound quality would not be as good as the new mix and it would probably differ dramatically from how the other sections sounded.

Darian has consistently said that the order of the second movement was all Brian, and it happened almost instantaneously, basically Brian said, "that bit goes there, that bit goes there" That would suggest this was vintage sequencing

Also look at the original recording dates. Wonderful and Look were recorded within 2 weeks of each other. I've never thought Brian just randomly recorded songs and sections. Both were recorded near each other because he was working on them as part of a whole. I've always thought a lot of the sequencing clues can be found in the proximity of the recording dates. Brian was a pragmatic worker, in the early SMiLE period anyway. He worked on something, on a piano, in his head, then booked studio time.

The first movement though I can see being realized in the way you hypothesise, and I suspect the third movement was mainly Darian.

I'm happy with a lot of the sequence. There's enough vintage ideas and input from Brian to validate it as a worthy part of the SMiLE story in my eyes, and it is the only finished SMiLE we're ever going to have.

I think if we were to suddenly find ourselves in a parralel dimension where SMiLE had been finished in '67, we would be disappointed. Nothing can live up to the myth. As I said on another post recently though, that myth is more inspirational than any real album could be.

I wish too, it has a rougher sound... thats what I use in my mixes...

I would just like to say, why would there be any doubt about what's before H&V, and before Good Vibrations?  We have the tracklist, plus we have the 2004 album, of course you can hear a trombone in front of H&V and the end of Prayer before Good Vibrations.  They're like that because Mark Linnett made them like that about 3 or 4 months ago. 

Kind of a shitty attitude to have.

imo.

You're not alone. It is certainly more edgy and I think it fits the lyric better.


You're right, that's very likely.


The lalala verse for which they had to use the single mix does differ dramatically, so it would have been ok with me if the first verses did too!

No, I would not feel differently. If I remember correctly, the staccato bridge of God Only Knows was an idea from one of the musicians. That's roughly the same situation. If Brian had felt uncomfortable with any of the track order suggestions, he would have vetoed it. I remember reading that he vetoed He Gives Speeches right away.

Great point Micha, and I can make a similar one from the very core of the 1966 SMiLE recording sessions, too. If you listen to the verse tracking session for 'Heroes and Villians' (sic) from various SMiLE boots, you can hear Brian experimenting with the rhythmic pattern the cello is playing in the verse. Brian eventually tells him to go with the simplest pattern, but only after some back and forth with the cello player, who suggests various unsuccessful approaches before the final decision is made.

So yeah, the cello on the finished, 1967 single version of H&V, and all subsequent recorded versions and bootlegs, was actually the work of a session musician, and accepted by Brian. Does this diminish our love of H&V? Not one bit.

This sort of thing happens all the time when creative teams of people are working together on something that they're into and when they're firing on all cylinders. Songwriting partnerships through the ages have said that the best stuff they wrote often came about when one of them kick-started something, but it was then taken to another level by the creative back and forth between the partners. Often, the people involved in such work find it hard to say who exactly did which parts of whatever after the event. That's the very nature of creative collaboration.

I find it weird that people can give a flying pass to the creative collaborations Brian enjoyed with the Wrecking Crew from 1964-67 (to say nothing of the earlier work with Roger Christian, Gary Usher, Tony Asher et all), but baulk at work he carried out with Van Dyke and Darian Sahanaja in 2003. Even if you think that later collaboration features a diminished Brian, they were using as source material the work that an earlier, *prime-time Wilson* wrote. What's not to like, people...?

MattB

It's a bowed double bass on the track, rather than a cello.  I've always preferred the original Cantina version of H&V, the whole feel of the track works better for me and I prefer the version of the verses where Brian and Mike trade the lines.  That whole 'often wise' bit with the piano, the tape explosion and false barnyard - sublime.

I've never understood how the intro (now used for Fire) would ever work for H&V.  It just doesn't seem to fit musically.  Like how Prayer musically doesn't work, whereas Your Welcome work's perfectly, both being in the key of Db and YW seems like a perfect opener to the album bearing in mind the album cover is a shop front.

Just my 2c worth.

It's not about attitude, it's about experience.

you must have never heard Smiling Pets

I've heard it, and it's not too shabby. And you are forgetting that some of the artists on 'Smiling Pets' are quite 'famous'. Olivia Tremor Control is one of my favourite bands for instance.

Just back from holiday so a bit out of the picture, although, did check in here and there so aware that the box is finally up for preorder and that H&V and GV have 'leaked'!!!

Too lazy to read the entire thread I may be rehashing some tired material but here are my thoughts anyway, having finally been able to listen to the actual mp3s, rather than a crappy youtube version.

I love these new mixes. I was hoping that BWPS would be used as a sequence only, and that the internal structure of the songs would be more in line with what BW was doing in 66/67, but the tracks so far released that have been influenced by BWPS (H&V, GV and wonderful) are done so well that I'm game for the Purple Chick approach.

I've seen a bit of griping about the reliance on BWPS and a yearning for use of the 66 tracklist but I really don't see how else it could've been done. We should be grateful that BWPS happened at all - I think it made this Sessions release all the more feasible.

Looks like Great Shape is out of sequence which is curious. I have seen it suggested that maybe this is because some great discovery has been made that supercedes the BWPS running order, but the cynic in me suspects that Great Shape has been placed in the americana suite primarily because otherwise there would be too much instrumental music kicking off the start of side 3: Great Shape + IWBA + FN. I prefer it preceding Barnyard anyway and if they splice barnyard right out the great shape tape explosion it could be magic. Just praying that the humble harv vocals aren't flown over the great shape and barnyard tracks. You can see why they may choose to do it, given there will be so many instrumental tracks but I really don't want anything that feels too heavily edited the way those humble harv mixes always sound. Wouldn't it be incredible if barnyard and/or great shape vocals had surfaced? Any more news on the likelihood of new vocal discoveries such as these?

Having said Great Shape is in Americana suite for purely practical reasons, it looks like Old Master Painter is getting the barnshine fade (judging  by the track length) so maybe they are mixing up BWPS with some Smile historical finds. Cool that false barnyard will be represented in some form.

Mark L has done a great job with these new edits and I finally have a H&V that incorporates all my favourite bits in a seamless way. I love the fact that he used the string version of the flutter tone. Again the cynic in me wonders why he used this rather than the 'clean' version. At first I thought that the descending strings got around the key mismatch between the flutter tone's last note and start of Worms (the reason presumably that they wrote a new bridge for BWPS), but obviously the strings make no difference as the last note is still the same. Maybe the reason he used the strings is that this was the final version of the western theme flutter tone Brian cut and so is presumably the way Brian intended it - has this already been discussed? Anyone confirm this with the session dates? Maybe I'm being way too anal about the key mismatch. Is it a key mismatch? I find myself listening again and again and the transition doesn't seem as bad as I remember it.

GV with the added hum be dums is fantastic - always wanted an official mix like this.

Fears:

Humble Harv vocals over Barnyard/great shape

Gee into flutter tone sounds overly edited as it does in Purple Chick/Anne Wallace versions

Windchimes ending again overly edited to match BWPS.

Hopes:

Vocals for Barnyard

Clarinet line located for Look

H&V 2 sided single informed by some of the historical sleuthing Dom Priore was going on about.

Okay, so that's at least the second time I hear a mention of the clarinet line in "Look." I've always heard it -- the melody from BWPS follows it almost exactly. Or is there a different line that I don't know about????

You can't argue over taste really, you can just state your opinions, call it "just my 2c worth" like you did. The split Brian/Mike vocals don't work for me, I prefer the vocal from the "alternate take" cantina version. But that doesn't mean I would claim "They should have done it like that on disc one!!!". Im happy with what we will get, I'm thrilled and very much looking forward to the box.

That doesn't mean I will stop using YW as the opener instead or Prayer in my own mixes... ;D

Are we not talking about Holidays with the clarinet line??? - there is one in that as well

Is it just my copy, or is there a bad (and unnecessary) edit in the Sunny Down Snuff section, right between Brian's last word and Mike's first? It's like a hiccup in Mike's (or the group's) breath, or the "ff" in Brian's "rough." It jumps at me every time.

I dunno about an edit, but the Mrs. and I both thought we could hear Brian AND Mike take a breath at that point...

If the sound you mean is the one I think, then it is on the original version too. Maybe that sound is cleaner now and better audible! :-D

I hear it, too. CAN NOT UNHEAR ;(

I think we must be talking about different sounds... the one I hear is definitely an edit, not just overlapping breaths. I'm positive I don't hear it on the SS version--it's definitely smooth there. And if I had any boots, I'd be positive I don't hear it on them, either.

YOU'VE RUINED THE ENTIRE RELEASE FOR ME, EGON.

GOOD. If I can't have a clean edit, neither can anybody else!  >:D

Nothing wrong with that part you described--just two simultaneous breaths, and it's in the original mix. I'll tell you though where there is something f*cked up: the edit going into that section (I've been in this town so long) there is a very audible clip or more like a pop. Totally unprofessional, man. And before someone says it, no, it's not on the original mix. I honestly don't get people's gushing about this mix. It seems their emotions and excitement are making that decision, not their ears, because this is one of the sloppier edits of the song i've heard. In the Cantina section, in between Brian's "spirit high" and Mike's "there i watched her," there's a very quiet "crack." The transition from the end of the last chorus into bridge to indians is too transparent, you can hear when the hiss from the bridge to indians clip kicks in. This sort of thing is SO easy to avoid working on a DAW. It sounds like Mark is not cross fading the very VERY tail end and VERY beginning of the clips of each section. Working on cut and paste music like this in the 21st century on a DAW and still not having the cleanest edits, to me is inexcusable. Sorry to say it.

EDIT: I suppose that the first two things i mentioned could be the result of an mp3 (though i don't think that's the case). If that is the case, i fully retract my criticism. Though the bridge to indians transition, as well as the la la la transition are sloppy and that has nothing to do with mp3 encoding. Regarding the la la la transition, as i said in a post many pages ago, it could be that Mark made the cut so close to the first la to avoid getting any of the organ in there. But, whatever, a cleaner edit could be made there even still.

After the verses, the BWPS version follows the existing backing track to the first SMiLE session for this track perfectly. They might overdub some of the chorus vocals near the end, but everything else (as replicated on BWPS) was recorded in a single pass - no edits necessary, apart from the re-recorded verse section into the first chorus which was edited in the same fashion on the GV Box Set.

Oh ok - thanks for this. I always thought it was slightly altered from that backing track but cool if it will be easy to replicate with existing sessions. I love the tinkling piano coda though and always missed that in BWPS. Anyone managed to glean from the track lengths how WC might be configured on disc 1?

Not sure what you mean - it's the main melody to song for children that they sing over a clarinet line. This melody doesn't exist in any booted sessions but was heard by darian as a headphone bleed on a session we don't have. I was hoping that possibly Mark was able to access this session and that the clarinet line would be prominent in this new release but maybe unlikely if it only exists as a headphone bleed.

I don't understand why some people keep bringing up this idea and concern that the key of the ending of a song has to match the key of the beginning of whatever song comes next. Do you think that this is how albums are made, that keys always match going from one song to the next? And even if you use the argument that Smile is different because it's not individual, unrelated songs but rather a long form structure with seamless transitions (no silence between tracks) it still doesn't matter. The keys don't need to match. What do you think modulating is? What, it's allowed to happen within a song but not when transitioning from one song to another? This thinking/concern with how they're going to "get around the problem of different keys" makes no sense at all. Music is not that rigid.  

My guess is that it will be just like the BWPS version (although the TSS version is 13 seconds longer than the BWPS version - possibly a slower tempo?). I agree that the multiple piano coda heard on the GV Box Set version is very cool and it looks like that will be represented on Disc 4 as this:

6. Wind Chimes (Version 2 Tag) (2:51)

Of course songs within albums don't need to all be in compatible keys. My point is really that the flutter tone within this western theme section was designed as far as I can tell as a prelude to the false barnyard fade, or maybe barnyard, or one of those tags in the same key as Heroes.

Here, rather than being a concrete ending to heroes (as a fade would be), it kind of signals the start of the next song, i.e Worms. In my mixes, Worms always sounded a bit off following the flutter tone, but having played the two back to back today maybe they don';t sound so bad. It certainly won't bother me too much and I wasn't trying to be a downer. Just thought it was an interesting point as in BWPS they clearly wrote a new link section to get around this problem.

Cool  - thanks. Hadn't spotted that!

I actually had another thought on the 13 second timing difference: Perhaps that 13 sec. is the "whispering winds" round which is now part of "Wind Chimes" proper instead of simply being tagged onto the end of "Holidays". Even though the melody is the same between "whispering winds" and the fade on "Holidays", there may not be a cross fade on TSS.

"Wind Chimes (Version 2 Tag)" looks like it's sessions for the tag rather than a completed version of the song with the tag.

I really hope they don't give us a Purple Chick version of Wind Chimes.  It's really dull and lifeless compared to the GV box set version.  The time difference is encouraging though, and I don't think tempo could explain that.

Very possible - fan mixes have a lot of difficulty with these, and although I guess having the mastertapes may solve a few of these problems, the Holidays fade is faster than Wind Chimes so that presents problems.

I wasn't implying that DISC 4, TRACK 6 would be the "GV Box Set" edit of "Wind Chimes", only that the piano tag will be represented by the track which, as you say, will more-than-likely be session highlights.

As I mentioned above, I now retract my "slower tempo" speculation; I feel pretty sure the additional 13 seconds will be "whispering winds" as a lead-in.

Oh. Well, gee, am I embarrassed. I was listening to the .flac version of the Alternate Brian Wilson Mix of SMiLE through Winamp and noticed that it sounded pretty muddy. Then it hit me-- somehow the equalizer had turned itself on and had the treble all the way down. THAT'S why the new mixes sounded extremely muddy to me. Well, listening to them again now, they sound absolutely fantastic. Can't wait for the box set!

quick question:
It had never occurred to me before, but at the end of the Sunny Down Snuff section, it sounds like Dennis has a line there.

Brian: I'm fit with the stuff

Dennis: To ride in the rough

Mike: and sunny down snuff.....

am i just crazy?  :3d

:O

Really hard to tell, actually. I'd always assumed it was Brian, but now... not sure.

Also...

Brian: In the cantina, margaritas keep the spirit high...
Mike: There I watched her, she spun around and wound in the warmth, her body fanned the flames of the...
Brian: Dance, margarita, don't you know that I love you?

Problem is, "In the cantia" sounds 100% like Brian, while the word "high" sounds 100% like Mike. It almost sounds like...

Brian: In the cantina, margaritas
Mike: ... keep the spirit high. There I watched her...

etc.

But that'd be an awkward point to cut off, would it not? Perhaps it's Mike and Brian doubled? ARHGHGGH

Ditto. I had always assumed it was Brian but now, after the H&V spoiler) it sounds like Brian and Mike split it up. I'll have to listen to it again to see if I catch Dennis in there.

I think you had it right the first time - I've never thought "high" sounded like Mike (or rather, that it didn't sound like Brian).  If there was a vocal hand-off for just that one word, or part of a line, it wouldn't be so seamless.  Of course, Brian was experimenting with things like this with "Heroes" anyways, as the edits with the vocal hand-off during the verse indicates, but those are nowhere near smooth.  

Hopefully vocal credits are precise in this set. And hopefully it will then be revealed to all the non-believers that Brian does the bass vocal on "Da Da" and not Mike >: (

I don't think it sounds like Mike on 'keep the spirit high', but of course it is Mike from 'There I watched her..".

I think Brian is "high". :wink When I first heard "Meant For You" I actually thought it was Brian and realized later it was Mike. So when they sing a certain way, their cousin voices obviously approximate each other.

"To ride in the rough" to me sounds rather Carl-ish than Dennis-ish if at all, so I keep thinking it's Brian. ;D

Amen to that.

EEP...my apologies....the only clear clarinet line I can make out in "Look" is the "Where is the father..." part.

I was confusing it with "Love To Say Da Da," in which the clarinet line absolutely is the melody on which the finished product is based.

Interesting that there are so few tracks that appear to be alternates, as opposed to sessions. You'd think they would have the box set version of Wind Chimes, or something very close to it, but it does not look like it's on there.

On Whispering Winds- do you have reason to believe that it ws recorded during Smile?  Because otherwise it would seem like an odd choice, despite its appearance on BWPS.

Yeah, I'm with you on a lot of the "tracks" being sessions instead of just the songs. For instance, when I'm going to want to listen to "version 1" or "version 2" of "Child Is Father Of The Man," apparently I'm gonna have to sit through some session type stuff to actually get to the song, instead of having what is considered the "absolute" track on one track on maybe sessions on another. This won't be a problem for the most part, as disc 1 is there to present to "definitive" SMiLE versions, but its looking like at the least, alternates of "Wonderful", "Child...", and "Wind Chimes" will be somewhat hidden inside "session" material. Not that I'm complaining, but it does seem kinda weird that to listen to "Rock with me Henry" I might need to either listen or fast-forward through some false-starts, talking, or whatever's on there.

But as I said, I'm totally happy that this set is coming out, and I for sure won't be mad about this minor issue. I'm hoping this does so well we get some other awesome unreleased tracks next year.

Do we know whether a complete "Rock Me Henry" version of Wonderful is possible?  One that doesn't break down with "I need some water man"?

Well, what they could have done was had a CD track for the complete Rock With Me Henry backing track, for example. The complete backing track of Child version 1 & 2, the complete backing track of Wind Chimes version 1 & 2, etc. Just like the Pet Sounds box. Every song had its backing track on a CD track. But for some reason it appears that they're not doing it like that on this set.

I just mean I wish I could hear that complete backing track (and whatever is finished of it) without having to go thru other stuff. I didn't mean that I'd get to hear a totally finished finished version of it, cuz I'm assuming it probably doesn't exist.


Yep, I just don't see why they wouldn't do it like this. You'd assume that Mark and Alan would want to shine a light on actual sequences Brian had in 1966/1967. Like for instance, if both "Child" mixes were Brian's from back in the day, wouldn't that be something that a fan would want to access quickly and easily? Same for the Good Vibrations box set version of "Wind Chimes". I'm assuming the sequence of "Wind Chimes" on disc 1 will be more like BWPS, so you'd think you'd have the other version somewhere else on the box. But instead, it'll be split into two tracks apparently. Actually, now that I think of it, only "Child" and "Wind Chimes" are going to be the tracks that we'll have a problem with in this regard, I think.

Given that at least one SMILEY SMILE session has shown up as part of the official finished SMiLE version of "Heroes & Villains" and a 1968 recorded lead appears on "Cabin Essence", I'd say that the TSS set compilers will have no problem including something like "whispering winds". As it is, the nice reverb achieved on that section does not seem to place it as a home recording, so I'm not sure exactly sure when it was recorded.

Whispering Winds is on SOT 18.  Listen if you have a chance ... I tried to figure it out at one point.  Couldn't tell for sure, but to me it sounded more like the home studio than a professional studio.

When BWPS came out, the use of "Whispering Winds" in "Wind Chimes" struck me a lot like the "Plymouth Rock" chorus on "Holidays" that Brian said was his intention back in the 60s.  It fits too well to not be an idea had back then, at the time of composition, even if no actual recording was done.  Same for the vocals on "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (why else would he use them in "Who Ran the Iron Horse" and "Fall Breaks," both based on the same music?).

Similarities in other songs also make me wonder if he had intended to cross-pollinate other songs.  You have the chorus for "Look" reused as the music in "Whistle In," while the vocal melody of "Whistle In" is based on the Hawaiian prayer ending to "Worms."  "Worms" has the line, "Just see what you've done."  "See" as in "look."  And, as I brought up elsewhere, all the "Child" and "Dada" connections (with a pun on "water" and the German "vater," just as Van Dyke hid the german pun on potato in "Vega-Tables").  The possibilities for combining so many song elements, which would be easier than writing a lot of wholly new lyrics, make the incompletion of the album very frustrating.

Possibly Heroes & Villains, depending on whether the Cantina version is encompassed by the two-sided single.

wat


wat


lol


Okay, this one I'm not sure on, but it still sounds dubious.

(sry if that came off mean)

who ran the iron horse
run a lot do a lot never been lazy

maybe cabinessence is based on jogging?

It's not mean, just lazy.

Remember the day  Remember the night
Wahala Lu Lei  Wahala Lu La
All Day Long
Keeni Waka Pula

I think it changes a bit but it's definitely in that same melodic feel. By the way I don't for one moment think this nullifies Whistle In or any song based on Smile feels. Brian wrote like this, one thing could become another thing, the feel - like Shortnin Bread - was a tool, a basis for a song, that you return to and work from, ever perfecting a fundamental feel you enjoy.

Never heard about this. Could you be more specific? Water/Vater, German potato pun?

The vege-table one is in the lyric "Cart off and sell, my vege-tables". Kartoffel is the German word for Potato. Not sure how intentional that one is, but I like it  ;D

I don't think that's intentional. They don't sing "Kartoffel", they sing "Kartoffendsell", which is - er - not German for potato. Actually a week ago I did an unintentional pun of the sort too which made people laugh - plain happenstance. Does VDP even know German?

And now could you point out the water/vater pun please? That didn't strike me yet. Thanks! :)

I would bet money it's intentional. It may not be the exact word for potato in German, but is 'holocaustly' A word? No, but we know what the pun is.

don't you mean, the music hall a costly bow?

hollow costly vow = marriage, lol

Exactly.  I think "Whistle In" has less syllables, but the feel is basically the same.  It's clear one song was derived from the other.


I just meant that "vater" is German for father, but it obviously sounds like "water."  It's something Van Dyke was probably aware of, considering the musical similarities between "Child" and "Dada," not to mention "Child" showing up in "Surf's Up" (water, again).  Water is the source, or father, of life.

The "Vega-Tables" line is the one I was referring to.  I'd seen someone point that out and they said that "kartoffen" was the word, so maybe it's a stretch since it should be "kartoffel" (though the other issue is that a potato isn't even a vegatable).  Still, a weird coincidence.  I guess we'd have to ask Van Dyke.  "Kartoffensell" could be a phonetic portmanteau of the German words "kartoffel" (potato) and "insel" (island).  Perhaps a subtle reference to America's German and Irish ("potato island") immigrants.

Yes, I know what the lyrics are, I was merely pointing out wordplay.

You kids and your acid alliteration.  :old

I was just listening to the H&V mix on Hawthorne, CA and the edits are better than on this new box set mix. From an engineering/mixing/producing standpoint, how can that even be? It's a decade later, man. Does anyone ever think that perhaps Mark Linett is "too close" to the project? He's been working on Smile stuff on and off since 1988. That's a very long time. I wonder if it's just such a part of him at this point that he has completely lost any ability to be objective about the music and approach the project with fresh, discerning ears. For those of you here who make music, you ever work on something for so long that you no longer know what you're doing or what you're hearing, and you need to step back and away from it for a while to gain a fresh perspective and be able to really *listen* to it again? Brian himself even kind of mentions something along the lines of this in, i think it was, a late 70s interview. He follows it by saying that's why Smile was junked. And if you've ever been in this situation, you may recall that sometimes it takes fresh ears, an outside opinion, a friend, etc. to help point out something to you that you no longer can hear, that you've overlooked, because you are so inside of the thing. 

He did! He got Brian round to listen and Brian said yeah great. Then they invited a complete stranger off the street in, and this time even he liked H&V.

I noticed the abrupt edits right off, and I'm guessing that either they are Brians original vintage edits, or Mr. Linett was trying to make them sound like vintage edits to appease the absolute historians.

Uhh the edits in this new mix are nothing like vintage BW edits.

Well, the Smiley '67 edits are better too, though. This version is seriously the worst official version that exists, i think. It's just sloppy and unprofessional and not as nuanced. And there's nothing wrong with abrupt. The quality of being abrupt (or not abrupt) is a matter of playing with silence, the space between two sections (as well as total silence or the decay of a sound). I don't think that the transitions have been done as well on this mix and they have in the past, whether it was in 2001 or 1967. Abruptness is actually one of the things that may be lacking in this new mix. This mix, i think, could afford to have more abrupt edits. But that doesn't mean that a sound should be cut off. But that's what we indeed have--the beginning of the first "la" actually getting cut off (which doesn't sound intentional). And then there's that damn "pop" in the "I've been in this town so long" transition. Do people not hear that?? It's terrible. How can anyone miss that? Is that a glitch that's only on my copy? Can someone please confirm whether they hear this on their copy or not? Maybe it's just an error that occurred when i was downloading the mp3? I really hope so.

Say what? Mark Linett in 2011, 2010, or whenever it was at some recent point, got a stranger to come in to listen to H&V? Uhhh? Who? And where did you get this from? And, sorry, but i don't think that Brian in his late 60s is going to catch little details like this. I mean, you really think that when he was called in to approve of the final mix that he was sitting their intently with dog ears scrutinizing every second? 

It's on my mp3 version as well. It can also be heard on the youtube video.
As far as the "la la la la" part, it doesn't seem so obvious when i listen to it without headphones.

That's weird, i was just going to say that i just listened to the youtube link and i did not hear it on there. But i downloaded the mp3 again from the video contest site just to see it there was an error the first time i downloaded, but it's still there.

I hear it at 3:04 on the youtube video. I hate being so picky, but it bugs me every time.

Wait, i admit confusion. Sorry. I was talking about the brief sound during the "My children were raised" section. Damn song has so many sections! Which audio pop are you talking about exactly?

Oh, i see what you'e talking about--that's more like a low frequency rumble type of thing. I was talking about at 3:11, when "I've been in this town so long" comes in, there's a little digital "pop" sound, in between the word "I've" and "been." But i don't hear it on the youtube video. Like i said though, i did download the mp3 twice to make sure it wasn't a one time glitch that occurred while downloading, but it's there on both of the mp3s that i downloaded.

Is it really possible that Linnet unintentionally clipped the start of the la la la part? I'm an absolute novice, and use audacity to do Smile edits. It's pretty easy to see where a section begins and ends from the waveforms, right? Surely it would be a colossal gaff for Linett to accidentally chop the start of a section out? He'd have to be editing blindfolded, or drunk or both.

It possibly is a planned defect in this "free" version of the song.

Exactly. Editing, in general, is pretty easy. You just need to rely mostly on good ears.

And this wouldn't be the first colossal f*ck up. Beginning of BWPS Our Prayer anyone?  

It finally happened. Mark Linnet lost it. He got too close to the flames on Fire. The man has cracked. Shine on you crazy diamond necklase.

"cart off and" = Kartoffeln = potatoes

What's wrong with our prayer?! Damn I vowed to stay out of this thread!

HUGE UGLY PROTOOLS GLITCH RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING UGHHHHH

No calls from Kartoffeln
Parks or Grillo

It's been said the H&V, GV versions we have are low quality mps..

The one Brian's people accidentally posted on his facebook page sound far superior

I'd hold off on hanging Mark from the gallows till at least October 31st

Pro Tools is not the culprit. It has nothing to do with PT.

Er.....it was a joke

I think that is stretching things a bit. "water" always resembles "Vater", not just on SMiLE. It cannot be an intentional pun. "Vater" is BTW pronounced  "fater" in German.

And the Kartoffel and Insel bit seems really Da-Vinci-Codeish to me. :) "Music hall a cost..." at least sounds like "music holocaust", but the German words bit is really reading things into it. Try that with French words, you'll go insane.

Re: Our Prayer, are you guys talking about the click about 41 seconds in or is there something else?

It's a very noticeable click in the first second or two.

Aargh I hate myself for getting involved in this. I don't think any of the las are snipped. If there is any problem (and this is wholly subjective) it's that on this new mix the las are coming in like 0.1 second earlier than the equivalent section on the Smiley version, so imo you lose a bit of that suspenseful delay (albeit  a minute bit) before the las drop in. There may well be a good reason for Mark doing it this way as others have suggested and I do not have the editing skills to pass judgement. FWIW I love this new mix but if I was to be uber nitpicky that's what I'd change. Presumably if one is inclined to do so it will be easy to make our own edits anyway, once the box is out.