The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just drinking down the stereo VT for the umpteenillionth time on headphones. Good sodding grief, it sounds matchless.

Is there a finer mix on the box?

Gentlemen, start your opinions please.

The first chorus wouldn't have been my first choice - the tempo feels off from the rest of the song. Otherwise, it's pretty good.

Sorry to split hairs, RD0, but the MIX -- plug it into your lugholes again and just soak up the sound. Never mind the construction. Isn't the sound just glorious? Remember, these tapes are 45 years old and have been chucked about like second hand furniture.

Er, thanks to my lack of vinyl-player, I cannot partake in the listening pleasure of the stereo version :-\

However, the album mix is friggin' stunning. Probably the pinnacle of the album - the first and second chorus are just killers.

Absolutely the most convincing of the new edits on TSS. This one would've blown 'em away in '67.

Gonna have to wait for Christmas when I get a record player to hear it.  :-(

I like love the stereo mixing, but I'm still not too keen on the construction.  the GV box mix is great, I wish he would have recreated that...

Verse / sleep a lot / verse / insert / send us your letter (barbershop) / slower sleep a lot / fade

It's as if they took that logical construction and said "Nah, let's rearrange the second half so its more jarring!" 

I'm saying the sound gets significantly faster there, but then slows back down. The 2nd chorus doesn't do this, as it's a different take of the same section.

I have no lugholes in which I wish to plug up, it sounds... uncomfortable.

Love to Say Dada for me...which after listening to all the different versions/sessions, has become my favorite out of all the Smile tracks bar Surf's Up.

From audiophile perspective: Yes. The sound is tremendous.

From BW fan perspective: No the editing is strange like runnersdialzero pointed out and they made it too long IMHO.

I absolutely love the new construction of V-T.  They took what I formerly considered to be rather a lesser Smile track and transformed it into a full fledged cornucopia.  Where the GV box version felt half baked to me, this new construction is fully formed.  (Unfortunately, I don't have a record player, so I haven't yet heard the stereo mix or the single mix--I'm actually half considering getting a turntable now just for this.)  Between the new mix, the cleaner demo and the sessions (which are a lot of fun--listening to that stuff, it's almost hard to believe that the project was in trouble by that point), I'd say V-T has emerged as one of the high points of TSS.

Completely agree

The stereo Vega-Tables is definitely one of my favs on the box.  The first time I heard the initial mono version it felt a little jarring the way it was edited but only because of what I was used to.  But it's not anymore.  It's perfect.  Longer doesn't always mean better, but in this case it definitely is better.

Best thing on the entire box?  Can't really pick one, but right now these 3 are my choices:
Surf's Up (stereo mix)
Vega-Tables (stereo mix)
Surf's Up 1967

Yep, from a song/mix perspective, VT is the real triumph. The stereo mix on the vinyl is sublime. In fact, all of Side 4 is, for me, the highlight of the whole set. It's an exquisite blend of session material and stereo mixes that distills all that's best about TSS into a short, cohesive experience

The SU mix aside (it's not a bad job, but the Anne Wallace mix remains definitive for me - wish that wasn't the case, but it is) the side 4 experience is really worth checking out. The stereo WC - wow!

It's the only reconstruction on the 2011 boxset that undeniably improved on the boots, BWPS or vintage '66 test edits. Any other time they took liberty with a song's structure it was for the worse except this one shining beacon of brilliance. It makes me mad, because I wonder what Linnett could've done with the rest of the tracks if he wasn't hamstrung by Brian's demand that the BWPS template be kept. A standalone fleshed out CIFOTM, unafraid of mixing it up with some Version 1 sections spliced in (why not? It cant be a real track with no lyrics, might as well make it a compelling instrumental) could've similarly blown everyone away I think.


I could not disagree more. Im listening to the GVbox version now and it's absolutely no comparison. The transition to the choruses is so much worse! There's tons of jarring pauses on the 1993 that completely kill the momentum of the song. That awkward crossfade between the Do a Lot chorus and fade sounds terrible--worse than what I put out as an amateur. It sounds so much worse than what Linnett did in 2011. Genuinely I don't understand this opinion...but different strokes.

I am still enamoured with the 1993 version of VT.

By the way, the tag is my fav snippet of Beach Boys music ever: it's not by chance that they left it well alone in BWPS. Without the matchless voices of the Boys, you can do a decent imitation of, say, "Prayer"... but that VT tag? NO WAY!  :bw

I think the 2011 mix is horrible - it sounds like 5 or 6 different songs just smushed together.  I've always thought the verses sound clunky and dreary and underpowered.

Its the only tune where I prefer the Smiley version.  That said I think the ballad and tag sections are genius - some of Brian's best.

Man, I just dont hear what you or sonic are hearing. I dont get it. But thats life  8)