The Smiley Smile Message Board

Please post your comments on the mastering of the new songs in this thread. Help keep the rest of the threads clean.

Edit: please include comments on autotune and other audiophile-related issues in this thread.











 ;D

What is this?  Steve fucking Hoffman?

The waveform doesn't look too promising.  :'(

Screw the waveform, it sounds terrible. Period.

Sounds fine to me. It's a bit loud, but not brickwalled. You know how happy I am that this is not a big deal to me? I really feel bad for people that are so afflicted by such acute, good hearing. It must be an unbearable burden to carry through life. My condolences to you all.

You mean that mp3 I bought off iTunes and the .mp3 podcast are BRICKWALLED! How could they?!

You don't have to be an audiophile to appreciate the mastering of a song/album.

TWGMTR is loud, borderline brickwalled. Kind of unfortunate, really.

It happened with TSS, it's going to happen with TWGMTR. People will always complain about sound quality, production, etc.  TSS and TWGMTR are two groundbreaking albums in their own right, and two works of art no one could have ever imagined could have come to fruition.  Nonetheless, people will complain. Oh well.

@drbeachboy, I'm a young kid, I've got great hearing, and none of this bothers me, if it makes you feel any better. I'm so excited and thrilled that this is happening, and frankly a lot of it sounds really good to me.

The truth offends some folks, it seems. Sad.

it sounds fine to me.  Even better when i put my "nice" headphones on

If there weren't people who cared about this sort of shit and spoke up about it, you'd all be offered $1.29 96kbps wma files that were "remastered" by Vladdo Meller. And you'd buy it.

God forbid anyone give two shits about quality in the "GIVE ME THAT, IT'S MINE" age. ;(

Well there's a line between dissecting a product's quality to death and appreciating it for what it really is.  There seems to be quite a bit of dissecting, and much less appreciating, based on my observations.  Sure, I care about the quality of the final product. Yeah, I realize the production is slick and what not.  That doesn't mean everything sounds bad, and that doesn't mean I don't have to enjoy it. So what's your point?

No one said you couldn't enjoy it. I listen to it, I enjoy it, I appreciate it, but it doesn't mean I'm obligated to act like I just snorted my own body weight in cocaine, giving a "love it or leave it" attitude to anyone who is critical over something (complete with "LOL" at the end). Again, where's the middle ground? If someone says, "The song is fine, but I don't see why it calls for this kind of compression," I don't see how that's the least bit irrational. Sorry, a Beach Boys album doesn't call for this type of compression and limiting. Leave that to Slipknot or something.

My previous post was meant in defense to people saying we must be miserable because we care about quality. If no one cared about quality or spoke up about it, they'd be lazier about quality, physical formats, etc. as to turn a bigger profit and would be shafting the consumer even more so than they already do.

Again, I don't think asking, "I like the song, but this is the Beach Boys - why does this music call for this kind of mastering?" is irrational.

I agree, I think a middle ground is somewhere where I stand.  I also think (and in no way am I saying you have, because you haven't), that some people here are dissecting the production to the extreme.  Some have decided to project negativity and spew it every which way in regards to nearly everything about this tour.  To me, that is irrational.  Like I said, I agree with you on the middle ground.  TLOS sounds very organic (IMO), compared to what we've seen so far. I mean, compare Brian's opening vocal bit on TWGMTR to his opening bit on MAD or anything else on TLOS.  BIG difference. 

In any event, I'll have to listen to the entire album before I can state a definitive opinion on production/sound quality.

to my ears this does hit the middle ground.  Sounds like people asking for the middle ground, aren't asking for the middle ground at all

Quality must be subjective, because it doesn't sound nearly as bad as you make it. I was completely serious about feeling bad for you people with golden ears. It must be a bitch not being able enjoy the sound of anything made today.

yeah, i don't have much to complain about here.  The last Arctic Monkeys album pisses me off because certain sounds are so sharp that it's unpleasant to listen to.  That is just straight 5 guys in a room rock n roll and it has that awful mastering.  I don't hear that with TWGMTR, it's not 1960s warm but nothing is. Sounds good to me. 

TWGMTR is a groundbreaking album?

Completely serious.

Not in an artistic sense, but in the fact that the Beach Boys, after all of these years, after all of the lawsuits, and at the average age of 70 are creating an album of new material. I'd say that's pretty monumental.  Perhaps groundbreaking wasn't the right word. Monumental fits, however.

Luckily, not everything being made today sounds terrible. Shock horror, I know.  ;)