The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hey everyone,

I'm excited to announce I've just completed my revised stereo SMiLE mix, SMiLE A.D. v2.0.  ;D

D/L link: http://beachboyssmilead.blogspot.com/

A few notable mentions:

*WONDERFUL added - Vocal extracted from TSS mix.
*FIRE added - with vocals.
*DO YOU LIKE WORMS - Vocal quality upgraded. No more time-stretch artifacts.
*Overall mix enhanced with better mastering & stereo seperation.

In true SMiLE A.D. fashion, I'll leave some surprises unlisted for that first listen.

However, I will say this:
During the making of SMiLE A.D. v2.0, I made one discovery which just might have some historical significance. It may or may not establish some more evidence for a particular song sequence.  :hat

Thanks for the great response to my first mix. I have taken into account everyone's comments, and tried to incorporate as many suggestions as possible. If you downloaded the first one, you'll definitely want to check this one out, as a good majority of the songs have been tweaked.

Also included is a bonus pack which includes a few cool pieces for other fan-mixers and casual listeners.  


SMiLE  
:3d
-J

Great Job, highly enjoyed it! :)

Enjoy your work dude, thank for this!

Hey! Loved it. Kinda choppy, which was good, cuz i think it gave it kind of a more psychadelic feel, more of a smiley smile feel. Excellent job.

What you did with Fire/I Wanna Be Around-Friday Night was pretty f*cking cool, not gonna lie

And what was this historical evidence you discovered?  Sounds intriguing to say the least, especially if it had something to do with the song sequence

Also, the bonus track file was deleted for copyright infringement apparently  :(, didn't get a chance to see what was included in it

Thanks!
Thanks man. No prob! I love doing this stuff.


Haha, nice. Thanks man!


You found it!

Isolating the vocals for Fire was one of the last things I did when putting together SMiLE A.D. v2.0. While I was inserting the vocals into the mix, of course I had to link it with I Wanna Be Around, which was the next track. At some point I put two and two together and figured out that the last chord of the Fire vocals matched up perfectly with the first chord of I Wanna Get Around. Of course it's just speculative, but I'm just wondering if that was planned out by Brian at some point. I was PUMPED when I first heard it, haha.

Try downloading the Bonus Pack file again. I just checked it out, and it seems to be up and running.

Bonus Pack is all good now, thanks  :)

So, apparently "Surf's Up" got screwed up in the process, and the file is only 7 seconds long.

To everyone who downloaded it already:

Here are replacement links for "Surf's Up"

WAV - http://www.filesonic.com/file/HRp4A6u/14)_Surf's_Up.wav
MP3 - http://www.filesonic.com/file/oQHYvMP/14)_Surf's_Up.mp3

I'll be updating the main links shortly.

Really sorry for the inconvenience, folks!

Best version of "Fire" out there, incredible thing man.

However, CIFOTM could be way better. haha

Haha, I dig it man. Believe me, I'm not thru with CIFOTM yet!

if you're interested i've made a stereo chorus mix using fragments from yours and others mixes.

Sure man!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, all links are fixed with the right version of Surf's Up.

http://beachboyssmilead.blogspot.com

Sorry again for the inconvenience!

Well I'm not a big fan of the flown-in BWPS elements, and over-use of the pitch-shifted elements, I kinda think it's more detrimental, in that the decrease of soundquality becomes a distraction and pretty much over-rides notions of "completeness"...   

But ignoring that, I do like that it is very tightly constructed, and the sequencing is pretty close to what I would have guessed as a more "authentic" order.  I never liked the mixes that were long and bloated, and yours does a great job of being concise.  I liked the stereo H&V Cantina mix, that was pretty neat.  The Child mix is pretty good too, I liked the into, how you layered the demo vocals onto it--I've had trouble believing that bit could fit in anywhere, but you made it work!  I also think that's a clever segue from Fire into IWBA!  I doubt there's "historical significance!!" but it was still very good nonetheless. 

Also, there's something wrong with the mp3 tagging...

Ur killin me dude. How did I overuse pitch-shifting? There's only one track with any significant pitch shifting.

And idk, I tend to like originality in fan mixes. Hate hearing the same tired thing over and over again. Especially all out of sync, like most fan mixes.

With my mix you get a fresh take, with mixes never been attempted before, in 90% perfect sound quality. And the vocals are synched properly!

To each his own, I guess.


Thank you, sir, for putting that thought out there. Next time I'll play it safe...  ::)


Of course. No one has done it before. Glad you enjoyed it.


You never know man. I think there might be something there. That transition is almost TOO perfect!


Care to explain the problem with the mp3 tagging??




Edit: You know what's funny. Here I am defending my mix, which definitely does have some sonic artifacts.

I can only imagine how Mark Linett felt when he read all the negative feedback in regards to TSS!

Salute to u ML. And thanks for making it all possible for fanmixers like myself.

Yeah, there is none!  ;)

When I load the mp3s in foobar, there's just a "?" instead of titles. 

Ahh, gotcha. I've always been one to just name the file, and end it there. Will look into that, thanks!

Just to clarify for everyone, very strangely, Carol makes a reference to IWBA following Fire durring the IWBA sessions.
Of course, it was a joke about the "jazz" take, however maybe she was referring to something she was told by Brian?

I know the backing vocals you put over Fire came from Fall Breaks And Back To Winter, but where did the backing vocals you put over I Wanna Be Around come from?

Newly discovered acetate!

Kidding.

I took the "Can't Wait Too Long" vocals, and rearranged the notes in Melodyne.

I thought we had already established long ago that session tapes confirm IWBA as somehow connected to I'm In Great Shape. 

Different strokes for different folks. I'm sure I've read more than once of people expressing the opinion that the box labeling IWBA as I'm In Great Shape could easily have been simple human error.
Personally, I think IWBA/Friday Night was intended to be the Earth element of The Elements as I've hypothesized elsewhere on this board.

Well, you know, that's true.  And I would be lying if I said I didn't think IWBA/Friday Night sounds good right there inbetween Fire and Water...  But then again, CK's quip that it was "rebuilding after the fire" could also be human error....  ;)

I think

Fire->IWBA/Workshop->Vegatables

Is the best "Elements" I can come up with, IMO

The long slow low notes of IWBA/Friday Night have that inert quality just scream out "earth" to me. Lately I've been thinking that the "rebuilding after the fire" is actually the land, once leveled by fire, slowly coming back to life. The tool sounds are symbolic of  the earth's rebuilding process, not to be  interpreted as someone's construction project. If you accept this theory, then "I Wanna be Around/Friday Night" makes perfect sense as the earth section of The Elements. Aside from that hunch, maybe the title itself is a clue in the form of a pun (Smile humor?)- I Wanna Be A-"round", as in the Earth is round. In the context of new life springing forth from the ground, "Friday Night" could be a Bible reference, Friday Night signifying the end of the Sixth Day of Creation:

" Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." GENESIS 1:27-31

I  structure 'The Elements' as:
Air (Fire Intro)- because it features all those whistles. Air creates and fuels the fire- fire can't exist without it.
Fire- The flame has become a terrifying destructive forest fire.
Water-  (Love To Say Dada) Starts with a rain dance (maybe?)- At first the rain comes down haltingly a few drops at a time until it
             becomes a steady rainfall.  The rain of course will be needed to bring forth new life from the earth.
Earth- (I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night) Over time signs of life start to grow from the ground as the earth slowly rebuilds itself on the   
          scorched land. The vegetation will create life-giving oxygen for the air, and provide food. So the cycle of life goes on.

Within this structure, maybe BW's "The Elements" was intended as a rather abstract story that reflects on nature and the cycle of life that binds the world together. You could also see this cycle of life theme as being a parallel of the Child Is Father of the Man idea, wherein life is passed down from one generation to the next. The Creation could also be interpreted as the theme of "The Old Master Painter", so perhaps there's a cross-thematic reference to think about there as well.

But back to seltaeb's mix. Thank you for your efforts and for sharing your ideas. You are obviously a very creative individual and I especially enjoyed your Elements. The transition from Fire to IWBA is quite dreamy.

You did an excellent job of bringing the BWPS vocals into Do You Like Worms. You seem to have a talent for that. Have you taken a stab at folding the "ribbon of concrete" vocals from BWPS into your mix? I'd be interested in having that if you are ever successful.

I don't get why you went to all the trouble to make Our Prayer sound so bad though. :-D A creative choice I suppose- do you care to explain it?

I also liked the H&V horns added to Barnyard, but you might have overdone it just a bit. Still, it's a very original mix.

Thanks again, buddy!

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it!


As far as Our Prayer goes:

I really wanted to get a stereo mix going for the '66 version, minus the '68 overdubs. I went with the TSS mix w/stereo reverb on the 1st edition. Could've went with the 20/20 version, but that's too typical.

So, the only other options I had were:
1) To sync pieces of the Prayer session with the mono mix. But that wouldn't have worked, due to lack of material.
2) To try and isolate all of the different vocal parts, and pan them out.

I went with 2. I really didn't think Melodyne would be able to sense all the parts, but sure enough it did. I knew right away that the quality was gonna suffer. But for sheer coolness of being able to hear all the different vocal parts isolated, I decided to go ahead and start the process.
It took a lot of editing to make it sound as good as it does now. There were entire notes missing all over the place.

I threw the vinyl crackle on there and made the quality even worse. Kinda gave me the feeling that I was listening to some rare 10th generation cassette dub of a Durrie Parks acetate or something.  :smokin

So, yeah the quality suffers, but it's still a very cool listen. I definitely recommend a headphones listen for that one.


Cool, I'll keep that in mind re: Ribbon Of Concrete.
Yeah, Barnyard's a tough one. I think I've made about 10 mixes of that one so far, haha. I'm determined to get that thing sounding like a record!
 

http://www.mediafire.com/?kbvpu5p0i60izeg

Just for you to check out :D

Hiya,
Loved the first version of SMiLE AD you put out and the second version is great as well! Only comments I have are...
-I sort of miss the definition of Our Prayer in the beginning. I get that it jives better with the bit of vinyl crackle that ends the album but, well-- to me, I've always been trying to get SMiLE material in better quality and it just seemed like an odd choice to sort of regress a little on that.
-Also, any reason why you went with the alternate intro to Heroes and Villains versus the one on the album and the single? I think it sounds a lot smoother and punchier than how the alternate version began.

Great work as always, though! And I love your remade stereo version of Look too!

Nice work! Great sync of Surf's Up. The main reason I'm not happy with TSS stereo mix of Surf's Up is the sync (along with Carl's vocal), which is a shame because it sounds so good otherwise.

I noticed that you were working on a vocals only Surf's Up at one point. Are you finished with that and do you plan on offering it in the future?

I think someone should use Tune X to make a Surf's Up Part 2, I was so close, but I got stuck.

Thanks for listening!
Yeah, Prayer was just an experiment. Really, a lot of this stuff is. Hopefully one day technology will reach a point to where we can extract stuff like the Prayer vocals in higher quality.
Although this extraction definitely served a purpose in the "Look" mix. That one falsetto line Brian sings is probably my favorite extraction thus far.


Definitely. I'd like to get my own sync of just the vocals going. I have a feeling "Surf's Up" is gonna get a nice treatment for 3.0  ;D


Hmmmm.  ;D

haha, there's an idea for 3.0!

Honestly, it fit pretty well without melody changing!

This version of Cabinessence sounds splendid. I feel I can hear every vocal part and instrument with unprecedented seperation. Thank you.

"Permission Denied" on the mp3s.

Yea me too

Apologies for the delay. Here's the latest version (4.0) - http://www.sendspace.com/file/tub01h

I plan on completing 5.0 sometime within the next few months. A few of the things I'm tackling:

1) Surf's Up - with the Tune X strings on part 2

2) levels / mix-quality adjustments

3) new attempts at some of the extractions in higher quality

Why does SendSpace have its own downloader?
Its not very fast -- Down it All one Click in Mozilla can get ave. speeds of 300kb sec
while sendspace is hovering between 30-75kb.  yawn!

Dat Surf's Up. Please do it. I tried and failed, seeing that idea pan out would be mindblowing.

That one's almost done. There's some artifacts but it definitely gives you a sense of what it could have sounded like. Good call on that one.

If anyone else has any suggestions for 5.0 I'm all ears. Definitely looking for new ideas to make 5.0 different from the previous versions.

How do I find that to use it?

I'd love to hear an extended (maybe even just slightly) Barnyard on your 5.0.

Have you ever thought of flying in harmonies or vocals from other BB records (non-SMiLE Sessions) into one of your A.D mixes? That might be a little too far out!

May be tricky, but the 'third section' of Dada (you know, the take breaks down on some CIFOTM sh*t in the Part 2 track) appears to exist as a piano track played by BW on a CCW track on the box set. Any chance you could work with that and sorta 'complete' it? (I realise this sounds kinda a massive undertaking)

Also, a version of You're Welcome that utilises the dumb vocals they do at the end of the session  ;D

Cool cool, I'll see what I can do with Barnyard. I wanna revamp Heroes entirely. Kinda tempted to string together a version based on Andy's description of the DP acetates, but at the same time, I kinda wanna leave an element of surprise when they finally leak. Decisions, decisions. I definitely do want to base more stuff off of BW's test mixes though.

As far as harmonies.. yeah for sure, as long as they're from the "golden era" with all of the original voices in tact. Do you have any specific ideas?


Re: Dada - That's what the f*ck I'm talking about! Will mess with this for sure.

Re: You're Welcome - Hmm, interesting. I'll check it out!


Btw, I just started re-extracting BW's lead on "Wonderful" last night. This time I did it from the 96000 Hz vinyl transfer. The quality difference is pretty awesome. Can't wait to finish it and let you guys hear it.

Re: flown in harmonies - possibly something like the Don't Talk unreleased b/g vox, or the Spanish b/gs from IJWMFTT?

Very Good! This is first radically different SMiLE mix I have heard -- Your ideas are similar to some of my own but what I have mixed is pretty elementary, going thru my collection and finding the discarded bits (like "Dont Talk yodel" bg voc.) and adding them back to the track. 

So far I've just listened to S2.0 on my PC but I will burn a CD so I can hear on the main system.

Will you make WAV or FLAC files of it available?? Thanks for the extra effort you put into these mixes!

 

Love this! Wonderfully creative... you add your own unique touch to each track. Essential stuff for Smiley Smilers!

Love the work you're putting into these mixes!
How about something completely straight regarding heroes? verse, a cappela break down with  verse music in the background, cantina with swedish frog in the background, quick children, 3 sore and 5, stand or fall, barbershop part, and maybe intro at the last note 'by the heroes and'? or finish wit mission pak and fade to pt1-piano part..
Love to hear somethnig like this but since i'm no expert cant seem to get it right!

Laso, loved your HV-DYDW mix from few months back. I think that's the road than BW would have taken for these songs in december 66 if he had support from others and ...well a lot of other stufff.:)

I'm a little confused about where all this stuff is at and what some of your titles mean, so forgive me if this question is totally out of the ballpark (or if I'm asking the entirely wrong person).  I'm also not a Smile expert, so...

I was on the beachboyssmilead website and listened to the "Look" mix.  I recognized the section that sounds like it comes partially from "Good Vibrations" (da-da-da-da-da - da-da-da...) but more extended.  But I can't figure out where you got the light vocal from that section from.  Is that vocal from one of the Smile Sessions tracks or a bootleg?

Thanks, glad you're enjoying them!


Yeah, I wanted to get a vintage feel going for that version of H&V using the early unreleased test mixes. The biggest thing to me though was ending it with the "part 1 tag", which we have to assume was definitely gonna be the ending of the song at some point. Maybe with the Durry Parks acetate version of "Great Shape", we have something close to what would have been part 1. Who knows, it's all fun. I just like hearing alternate versions of these songs.


I isolated the "na na na na" from Good Vibrations, and re-pitched and re-algined it to fit the Look bridge melody.

Nice!  Wish I would have asked you that a long time ago, since I've been pouring thru TSS the last few weeks looking for that vocal.  Excellent mix there.

My only criticism of what I've heard so far is the really heavy use of the "Child is the father..." refrain.  (Of course I may just be over-perceptive of this refrain because it's my least favorite part of Smile.)   

I can't overstate how impressive this mix is. Looking forward  to hearing what you have on deck.

Can I second this request for a recreated 'third section' of "Love to Say Dada"?  I don't know if you can also use some of the drums from the CIFOTM sessions.  Probably, as you may be a genius. 

Also, an extended version of Heroes And Villains based on the "Verse Edit Experiment" would be pretty cool, especially with a number of breakdowns into group vocals. 

Setlab,

I would like to know if you can make it available in a lossless format like FLAC - that is if the quality of the master is good
enough to make a difference in the sound quality between compressed and lossless formats.

If I am going to convert /burn a CD it would be nice to have the best possible quality.  ;)