The Smiley Smile Message Board

In this post-box set era of SMiLE I have found that I have been able to take a more leisurely and definitive approach to fanmixing. This mix which I have had on the go for a while now (and is now complete) is an attempt at making a widescreen musical comedy very much in the vein of the cantina mix but also making use of what I would consider to be 'orphaned' sections of the song.

I've gone for stereo so that it would work nicely in headphones as well as on a stereo. I hope it gives a sense of the original ambition and scope of the track as I've always imagined it and a nice alternative to what is out there already. I have lost track of all the tricks and sources I used but it's mostly from the box set.

Please give it a spin as I think I have cracked it as far as my tastes go and I hope you guys dig it too. All feedback is welcome and remember to keep rollin' yer own!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXk6mPPxKIs&feature=youtu.be

Very nice! The five minutes flew by in a flash…

Nicely done! One of the best fan mixes that I've heard. Good mix and placement of the different tunes.

That has got to be the cleanest sounding mix I've heard so far!  Very well done.....and who knows?  This could be pretty close to one of Brian's early concepts for H&V.





(Heh!  Haven't seen the word "Uber" used in several years!)

Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you like it. This means I can have my evenings back and get back to listening to the music instead of analyzing and tinkering with it!

Sounds great! ;D

Watch the thread title closely: It's "Über" with Umlaut! ;D

I think this is the first time ever saw the Umlaut correctly used when used on this board, where this word is used quite a lot.

While the sequencing makes no sense to me, the mixing is really really great. You mixed the rerecorded verse tracking onto the verses, didn't you? The horns in the verses sound somehow like their from BWPS, but I could be wrong in both of those things.

And did you have access to Brian's Barnyard vox isolated without the piano or did you use the Barnyard mix that was supplied by a short time poster back in 2011?

Really good job! :)

Are the drums in the beginning from BWPS? The snare sounds different.

I knew my little cheat would be spotted on this board!

The major liberty I have taken is by using the BWPS first verse backing track to give the mix the ability to segue into Mike's "in the cantina…" more smoothly and also give the sound a bit more clarity. That's the only time I used it .

I used the rather good remix of Great Shape and Barnyard that was posted back in 2011 but I have lost track of who made that excellent mix, so a big thank you to them!

With regards to the sequencing I have considered the momentum of the track over wrestling with a true narrative because to be honest I've always thought that the order was always pretty much up for grabs with the way Brian was working back then. Also I wanted to include all my favourite parts that don't seem developed enough as standalone tracks.

It's okay, haha. Love it this way. The original drums suck, in my opinion. I've never really enjoyed the studio version of Heroes because of the muddy sound and horrible drums. I'll take any live version or remix over the original studio one :)

I forgot, too, unfortunately. I asked him if he could supply the isolated Brian vox, but he never replied.



I'm always surprised when I accidentally hear a 70s live version how much more powerful the H&V verses sound with real drumming. H&V would have been a bigger hit had it sounded more like that. Brian though was deliberately going for another, more unusual sound.

I really liked the idea to sync the lead vocal with the BWPS  backing track. Not too much fan of the other sections which are a bit random and present no continual flow imo, but hey this song is made of sections and anything can work really!

As many people can attest, once you start messing around with this stuff it can be pretty hard to stop. :-D

Entertaining, but Heroes ain't Heroes without the a Capella break!

How could I forget the a Capella break! It's such a tricky job this fan mixing business!

Wow, this is gosh darned terrific!!  Now I'll forever dream about a proper version of H&V (nothing added, even tho I dug what you did with it) that sounds this clean and wonderful.  Please make it!  And then give us all MP3s of it!!!   ;D ;D

"I wanted out, but they pulled me back in!"

Perhaps one day when I get a free couple of days I will dust down my tools and have another go.

I'll give you a free Radiant Radish t-shirt, since that's your name!!! :)

That's very kind of you and an amazing gift. Mine's a medium charcoal grey if you do them? I live in the UK is that gonna be a problem?