The Smiley Smile Message Board

So, as of right now, I am assuming that all the session tracks on The Smile Sessions will be in stereo. I know that a lot of us SMiLE fans are pretty versed in music editing and I look forward to having a go at making a stereo mix. What foreseeable problems, aside from "Good Vibrations", do you think will hinder trying to make a full stereo SMiLE?

I am thinking "Barnyard" will be the trouble track.

Not all - some were cut to mono ("Humble Harv" session, for one)

Oh yeah. Forgot about that one.

Oh man! I just got excited thinking that the "Surf's Up" demo version might be in stereo!!

Next to Annie Wallace's SU, George Dusault's Vega-tables mix remains for me one of the sublime touchstone for fan mixes, I'd love to hear his mix with the TSS material. It really wedded the light-hearted side of Smile to its potential power...something the GVBS mix never really managed.

I'd also like to hear people attempt an Elements mix incorporating some of the psycodelic sounds material.

i'm thinking that the boxset will be arranged in a way that you could viably set every stereo mix into your own SMiLE playlist

so there's no need to go through the trouble of making any new fanmixes

unless purple chick releases "the beach boys present brian wilson presents smile 2: higher quality edition"

I haven't come across any true stereo mixes for "Holiday".  I faked mine.

Yeah, the closest I've ever heard was two versions put together (one on the left without flutes, one with.)

Hopefully the sessions will yield something more "stereo-y." (I know...not a word.)

I disagree. I have never made my own fan mix and am waiting for this box to do so. I also expect bucket loads of new fan mixes after the box set! It's a new era of Post TSS fan mixes!

Fan mixes that go for stereo-for-the-sake-of-stereo (such as the Purple Chick mix) are usually a total disaster. No thanks. If it's available in stereo, do it. If not, attempting to patch one together will almost always sound like ass.

I resemble that remark.

you... wat

My mix is stereo... although not just for stereo's sake.  It's mostly not ass-like though.  I figured why mix mono - Brian Wilson has already cornered that market.  :)

The problem I have with fan mixes is that they're seldom produced with any true artistic intent, rather to cram as much of the Smile music in as possible.

In 1966, the album would have been a single disc, 35 minutes, 40 tops. Fact. (source, VDP, private email sometime last century)

True, but there are a select few that were,  and reflected new discoveries and current Smile research. For instance, John Hunt's 'pop-song' style remix CIFOTM and IIGS mixes gave genuine insights based on what were then newly uncovered rough mixes (66 comp reel).

Annie Wallace's SU is a triumph, full stop, and an achievement all the more remarkable given the limited tech available when she executed it. GD's Vega-tables mix was a departure, but its use of the 'rocking' eat-a-lot tag was truly impressive and musical. I'm a massive fan of ML, but the GVBS mix is an interpolation - the SS mix is really the only 'definitive' assembly we have of the tune. GD is/was an engineer in his own right, and his mix is a truly skilful and musical interpretation that imo approaches the validity of ML's.

There are many crap mixes out there, true but some real gems, efforts of real tribute and devotion, also surfaced, so it's not really fair to lump them together. It's long been suspected that some fan mixes actually inspired BWPS...

"The problem I have with fan mixes is that they're seldom produced with any true artistic intent..."

How true - in both senses

Yeah, all my mixes are single-LP length. I've never done stereo either -- because there just wasn't enough material to do so. But now... !!  :3d

This was the great polemic of the Smile Shop - treating Smile like a pop record with discrete songs, rather than the Sgt Pepper-style concept album with link tracks etc envisaged by DP. The fan mixes that brought that to concept to life whilst adhering to the best available research were generally among the better ones imo.

That said, has there been any further revelations about the elements lately? The unveiling of psycodelic sounds material on BBOV was the last real intervention I'd heard about that...and those were really demos and rehearsals.

Any good mixes with that stuff in come to light? 

Not really our place to use said true artistic merit even if we possess it. imo. The sheer volume and incomplete nature of the project justifies the longer tracklists, although something simpler with a second disc of alternate mixes/versions/edits/whatever would be indeed be keen.

I just have no interest in hearing people who weren't involved's interpretations of this stuff, I hate to say. Over-editing and too much reverb, the former being much more common, are the bane of any Smile fanmix's existence. If there have been indications of these things going together from an official source, cool, do it. But I can put my own interpretations down if I really wanted to listen to them in that order.

when Barnyard was transferred to 8 track by Carl and Stephen, I assume it was to at least two tracks, so barnyard shouldn't be a problem.

Wonderful is only in a mono mix (the Brian lead vocal version - Rock with Me Henry is stereo).

It remains to be seen if OMP/Sunshine has the Dennis vocal available on multitrack - if so, it's a recent discovery.  I believe the only mix of that (and of Barnshine, the original fade for OMP/Sunshine) they have is mono.

GV you mentioned.  Everything else should be capable of being mixed into stereo, with the exception of the "peace in the valley" section of Heroes and some Vegetables sections with the keyboard overdub which was overdubbed into the mono mix.