The Smiley Smile Message Board

We have heard the story of how Capitol used to remove tracks released as singles from the album masters and place them on "single reels" for storage. A duophonic copy of WIBN was placed back onto the PS master reel by Cap somewhere, sometime.  The master reel (with the duophonic single) is also now missing along with the original mono master of WIBN.

Well, here is my quandry. I have pulled my mono re-release of PS from 1984 and the Sunshine Dream collection from 1982 and both of these contain the original mono mix if WIBN. Then comes Made In The USA in 1986 and that rough mix of WIBN  is on there and slowly starts to show up on all releases after that until the 1993 boxset. 

I was just wondering if this marks the timeframe that the mono master of WIBN went missing and is it possible to pull the Sunshine Dream master for WIBN. I ask this because the NY copy version of WIBN is so freakin' noisy where the SD one is not (even on my 24 year old cassette!)

Bob

Huh ? This is the first I've ever heard of Capitol releasing any DuoPhonic singles. Brian handed them mono masters for the singles, up to and including "H&V". DuoPhonic (and later electronic rechanneling) was applied  only to albums.

Yes, the single was mono. I don't know 100% about any reissues, though.

I will write what I know. If Mark Linett has some corrections or additions, I would gladly welcome it; I don't pretend to know any absolute truths.

1. Wouldn't It Be Nice is in mono on the Carl & The Passions/Pet Sounds double LP, released in 1972. The master must have still contained the mono WIBN at that point.

2. Wouldn't It Be Nice is duophonic on the Pet Sounds LP reissue from the early 1980s. I don't know what tape they used for that one, though.

3. When Capitol used the master tape for the first digital transfer in 1987, they found WIBN in duophonic. Therefore, they used the NY copy tape for that song. Conclusion: Somebody replaced the mono WIBN with a duophonic version on the master tape, and this must have occured between 1972 and the early 1980s, probably when the master tape was in possession of Warner Brothers.

4. The Made In USA CD (1986) and Still Crusin' (1988) both contained the alternate mix of WIBN.

5. When Steve Hoffman got the master tape in 1993 for the DCC Pet Sounds release, he also found WIBN in  duophonic and used the NY tape for that song instead.

6. The master tape went missing at some time after that. For the Pet Sounds Sessions Box Set and all later releases, the NY copy tape was used for the mono mix of the entire album. Only the new 2006 remaster will be sourced from a flat digital copy of the master tape, made in 1987.

2. Wouldn't It Be Nice is duophonic on the Pet Sounds LP reissue from the early 1980s. I don't know what tape they used for that one, though.

My copy has a mono WIBN  on it. I even have the cassette as well.

Bob

Steve Hoffman has said, and I'm not sure if he was speculating or he knew for certain, that it was damaged while at Warner Reprise for the 1972 CATP/Pet Sounds 2fer and subsequent solo PS reissue.  After those were issued, the tape had the duophonic version on it replacing the orignal mono.

I don't mean to speak for anybody, but I think the original poster, when mentioning the "duophonic single" being placed back onto the mono reel, was simply referring to the single song "WIBN." Perhaps a confusing use of the terminology (a more clear explanation probably could have been something like "the single song taken from the duophonic album master"), but he clearly mentions right before that that the mono mix was what would have been removed for use on the single (had the scenario of WIBN being removed for that purpose been what actually occured, and I don't know whether that's true or not), so I think he understands that the single would have been mono and not duophonic. But again, I'm not anybody's official spokesman. :)