Revisiting God Only Knows - production notes

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

It had been a while since I'd sat down and listened to the entire God Only Knows session start to finish with no other distractions.  So I decided to do that last night, and I was knocked out.  I had honestly forgotten what an incredible achievement it is.  What a production!

The first thing that struck me was the incredible depth of the sound.  It's odd, despite Pet Sounds being mainly tracked live to 3-track tape, I have always found a unique depth to the stereo sound.  I don't know if it's just that I'm biased, or what.  But for a recording always intended to be presented in mono, the 3-track session has as much stereo goodness as I can take.

It's truly a unique arrangement.  I don't think you could even get close to copying it.  The "limitations" of the time actually contribute to the sound.

According to my ears and some documentation, this is what I can figure out for the recording set-up:

L- Horns, Strings, Accordions

C- Main track, keys, percussion, electric basses

R- String Bass

The "Horns" in this case are actually all woodwinds.  Flutes and a Bass Clarinet.  They are likely all around one microphone, perhaps an RCA 44.  This mic is drenched in chamber reverb.  It gives the flutes a very otherworldly sound.  I can't think of another track where Brian put the "horn section" into such deep reverberation.  In fact, he usually has a light touch on horns, if anything, a little compression on them, as they often had their own buss.

The string section may have had a few mics on it which might have been combined by some kind of passive summing box which would have then fed one fader.

The accordions were likely on one mic, no idea what mic...the accordions are the bedrock of the production, giving it that pad of sound, truly the signature sound of the production and a big contributor to the uniqueness.



In the center channel, we have the taped piano and harpsichord providing the straight counterpoint to the "Happy Shuffle" rhythm suggested by the basses.  The taped piano was a really good idea.  Sounds like a little tape slap on it.

The percussion is a saga of itself.  Throughout the session, Percussionist Jim Gordon switches from tenor drums, timpani, finally settling on the temple blocks for the signature clippy-clop Percussion.  Hal Blaine switches from tambourine to various things before settling on the sleigh bells.  Between the percussion and Hal, there are likely three mics capturing everything.  Also of note is Hal's very dry and dampened kick drum.  It was designed to cut through rather than provide a real bassy thump.

Carl's 12-string is barely audible, but it's in the mix too, comping the chords.

Back in the day, I struggled mightily to figure out the bass situation on GOK.  Carol Kaye's recollections of Ray Pohlman on Danelectro bass and herself on Fender make sense...but I could never discern two seperate electric basses.

But, I think I underestimate the musician's ability to play totally locked in and tight with each other.  In any case, I'll just assume Carol is correct and they are doubling.  Likely Shure 545 on the bass amps.

And, from what I can tell, on it's lone channel is Lyle Ritz' String Bass.  It must have been very important to Brian and Chuck to be able to tweak the EQ and volume of that bass to get it to sit right, which of course it does in the final mix.  I've seen pictures contemporaneous to this session from Gold Star with the Shure 55 on the String Bass, so perhaps that was the case a few blocks away.  Or perhaps it was a Sennheiser 421, as I've also seen from around that time.  Would have loved to had the opportunity to ask Chuck about his favorite mic applications at that time...

It's interesting to me how Brian would give a bass it's own track a few times on Pet Sounds, showing his affinity for the bass register and showcasing his excellent writing for it.

One of my favorite moments on the session is at the very beginning, before actual takes start, where Chuck is clearly just setting up the board.  Nothing has any reverb on it, and it's startling how dry and ordinary things sound.  The string bass overdrives the input a little and it distorts.  Would love to hear tape rolling during entire board-setting-up.  Another interesting example of hearing what a track sounds like totally dry is from Caroline, No...where it seems to me Chuck intentionally or accidentally patched the reverb receive from one of the busses to a different buss, so one track is totally dry.  It's very strange.


Anyway, I was so knocked out after coming back to GOK last night that I had to jot down my thoughts here.  And maybe you can hear something new as well.

[c-man]

The "horns" are all woodwinds?  What about the French horn... 

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I forgot to even mention the horn which was silly.  I wonder if it got it's own microphone, actually.

When you think about how the Horn generally serves in an ensemble, timbrally, it functions more like a woodwind than a brass instrument.  But you do have a point.

[Shane]

One of the things that strikes me the most about this session is the uniqueness of the final take.  Throughout the entire session, the musicians had trouble staying together, and most of the outtakes are rather sloppy... probably a testament to the difficulty of this piece of music.  Brian, meanwhile, is experimenting a lot, sometimes seemingly reaching around in the dark for that perfect sound or element that would take everything to the next level. 

And then, the final take occurs, and everything just totally and completely "locks in".  It's as if all the musicians finally got all of their parts planted firmly into their heads, everyone got into that certain vibe that Brain was looking for, and the whole thing became two and a half minutes of pure joy and inspiration.