The Smiley Smile Message Board

This picture popped up on Brian's facebook today.  The caption says Pet Sounds was mastered on this machine, but I'm wondering if this is the "home studio" Brian briefly had in his house in early 1966:


https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/10390540_10153701426907241_3312348649230184352_n.jpg?oh=d513f08ca50bcc8e615959dafcd69e98&oe=56D2DDAD

Photos with details:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13763.msg301150.html#msg301150 (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13763.msg301150.html#msg301150)

Scroll down the page on this one:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10570.150.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10570.150.html)

... And to simplify what was (a) confusing thread(s), Pet Sounds was most definitely not "mastered" on a Scully 280 4-track, which is what Brian is standing with in the photo above. Pet Sounds was mastered on a mono machine (probably either a Scully 280, [as above but with only one channel, not 4], or an Ampex 350, 351 or 300).

The record would have been mixed at a variety of different studios on the various mono decks they had. Some combination of the models listed above.

I re-watched Love and Mercy the other night ... They didn't get the Scully right in that either ... They used a later deck from the '70s (cream colored electronics rather than silver).

Wait ... Was a McIntosh 240 involved in the mastering of Pet Sounds? Like to drive the speakers?

I sent Brian a better scan of that pic.

(https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlf1/t31.0-8/12183940_980457271976768_4988020489903502369_o.jpg)

Thus, no Oscar for that flick! ::)

The McIntosh is the power amplifier that drives the speakers. The 4-channel device on top left is a 4 channel line-level mixer, a primitive/basic version of a studio mixer that allows basic volume, mute/on-off, and that's about it. Notice the 4 XLR cables plugged into it, they're marked with bands of tape to signify channels 1 through 4. As said in the thread several years ago, this is the "home studio" as of the PS era, and was featured in a European magazine article showing Brian's house. Check the old threads for a photo of Tony Asher there too. This setup was the 1966 equivalent of the "PortaStudio" type of home 4-track that have come back into vogue in recent years among the DIY/lo-fi crowd.

If Brian wanted to record multi-track demos at home, he could do it with this rig. If he wanted to take home 4-track tapes he had worked on in the studio, he could play them back on this rig and also do basic volume leveling and balancing to experiment with mixing ideas. Not saying this deck may not have had more duties than those, but you wouldn't master a commercial album or single in a home studio like this.

It's that simple! Donny, you changed your original post - The thread did get contentious back then because some who actually knew and know what they're talking about got challenged for no discernible reason. Par for the course.  :)

Plus - I think someone already mentioned this - Look closely at the VU meters on the Scully, whatever tape he's listening to is 2-track stereo (or we could assume it's 2-track stereo) because the meters on tracks 1 and 2 are at different levels coming off the tape and 3 + 4 are inactive.

Or... couldn't he be playing back a four-track Pet Sounds-era multitrack? One with complete backing track on one track, a lead vocal playing back on a second track... and no backing vocals playing on tracks three and four at the time the pic was taken?

I seem to recall that there were a couple of Pet Sounds tracks still done on four-track. Or am I remembering that wrong?

DISCLAIMER: I have no idea whether that IS what was playing when the pic was taken, I'm just theorising aloud. For all I know, it was a two-track demo for an idea Brian was kicking around at home during early 1966 called the Barnyard Suite...    ;)