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Episode 3 of PET SQUARES, a Geek's Guide to the Beach Boys, is up! A thorough deconstruction of the SURFER GIRL album with input from some of the most knowledgable Beach Boys geeks in the world. Lots of new information and irreverent fun. Check it out and if you like it, spread the word!  Also let me know if you hear a low G on "Surfer Girl" or not (see the video to understand the reference).

https://youtu.be/-iDFkXOV1Fw

I'm watching right now. Enjoying it, just as last time. Thanks for sharing!


Re: The mysterious part on "Surfer Girl" (song)

Now, I haven't listened to the original and basically I'm not the one you should ask when it comes to multi part harmony. I just can't hear it. But I love it. What I was reminded of though, is an interview with Murry that I'd read in "Back to the Beach" (the german translation). Murry mentioned that he and Audree from time to time would fill out the voices on songs wthout the Boys' knowledge (IIRC Murry mentioned "409" as an example). I don't know if there's anything to that. Maybe he was just telling bs. But since this question came up I thought I would mention it.

Oh great info! Thank you for that. I wonder how they could have done it without the boys' knowledge though? Microphone in the booth? I'll ask Craig about that.

No idea. But it's certainly possible that Murry was just talking crap. So it should be taken with a grain of salt. I just remembered that interview when you talked about that "missing" part. But it would be interesting if Craig knows something about it. Even if it's just to debunk Murry's claim.

I think we're all pretty certain that Al is the phantom fifth part. But prior to Al's re-entry into the group there are a few places where it's theorized that there's an extra voice in the mix with various possibilities...David Marks, Bob Norberg...Murry's certainly possible.

I just found the article I was talking about. Here's the specific part:


Beach Boys: A California Saga, Part II
New developments, musical and political, in a group that has already influenced rock more than we probably know.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beach-boys-a-california-saga-part-ii-233192/



See, the whole trade has given Brian credit for everything. Truthfully – I’m not beating myself on the back, but knowing them as a father, I knew their voices, right? And I’m musical, my wife is, we knew how to sing on key and when they were flat and sharp and how they should sound good in a song. And we put the echo on they wanted, and we got the balance; we used Telefunken mikes and we surged on their power here and there to make them sound better. When they’d run out of wind at the end of the sentence, we’d surge on the power to keep the level of their musical tone the same. Or if they were singing a phrase weak, when Mike was singing ‘She’s fine, that 409,’ we’d surge on the part. Without their knowledge, at first.

“A lot of artists think they’re doing it all because they get in front of a mike and open their damn mouths. But most artists have an engineer, a smart engineer, surging on the power here and there to help them when they’re weak and tired and run out of gas, to put an echo on them here and there and make them sound like gods. He’s got a lot of beautiful people, unsung heroes, under him, helping him make his career. Not to mention the record company and all the promotional people in the field, and the jobbers that push the records and everybody else that helps, you know? A lot of people. Artists don’t make themselves.”

That was Murry Wilson describing how he helped produce “409,” one of the Beach Boys’ earliest songs.



So, it seems I misremembered. I had in mind that Murry specifically mentioned that they'd sing on the track. Maybe it was also a wrong translation into german that I'd had in mind. If I understand correctly, Murry is talking about mastering here.

He's talking about riding the pots (they weren't faders, yet) to adjust the input from the microphone as the boys sang live.  Pretty common practice.  Surge the Power is such a funny way to put it.

Now would be a good time to bring up one of my favorite Chuck Britz quotes...

"I know Murry said things like 'surge, surge, surge' to me all the time. And I just turned up the monitor to make him think I was surging. His idea was to pin those needles right up on the board and I kept saying, 'Murry, you can't do that, you're not going to get anything worthwhile.' I finally just started lowering everything way down on the machines so he could look up and see those needles pegging and then I just turned the monitor up to full bore and he'd think I was surging like crazy."

Yeah, it's pretty clear Murry's talking about, as Joshilyn says, pushing the vocals up in the mix or when it's going to tape.

Yes, damn, I hoped I could add something worthwhile. As mentioned, I somehow remembered Murry talking about singing, but it's clear he's not.

This is still pretty much what recording engineers have to do for clients to this day.

There seems to be two techniques in question here. Chuck implied Murry would just want to pin the levels so they're in the red to create - in Murry's mind I guess - excitement or power in the track, or whatever. That's pretty common for people who are not as skilled in mixing tracks. More volume in the monitors during the mix equals "better". People sometimes think louder is better, call it psychology or whatever. But if it makes clients happy in the moment, they will come back and play you more money lol. I was at a mixdown session at the former Sony studios in NYC where they literally had the volume so loud during the playback it hurt, not just my ears either. Rock track, party atmosphere, with some people who are or would become pretty well-known in the biz...but it was ridiculously loud for no reason I could see (or hear). But that's what the people there were grooving on.

The thing Murry described in the interview is more nuanced, and it's a technique which an outboard compressor (or limiting amplifier for those who want technical accuracy) does electronically, and automatically. When a vocalist starts trailing off on a note, or runs out of breath sustaining a note, both the volume decreases and the pitch will drop too. A compressor will automatically boost the volume at that trail-off point when necessary, and it levels everything out. The old-school engineers would sometimes prefer to manually "ride" the fader pots on lead vocals instead of using the compressor, and I've read that Sinatra's crew at Putnam's studios - specifically Jimmy Bowen who I *think* was mixing those Reprise sessions - would mix all of that manually, riding the vocals the whole time while going with the ebb and flow of the music. Engineers who were even then used to patching in a compressor/limiter device to do that would watch these live mixes go down and be kind of amazed at how musical the fader-riding process was, because it was even then considered old-school in some circles.

And in terms of pitch trailing off as the singer runs out of breath, that was one of the killer apps of Antares' Autotune, where if it was set just right the Autotune would kick in at that trail-off point and correct the wavering pitch as the singer started to lose breath at the end of a note or phrase. That's how that tool is used transparently, unless the singer was really drifting off, no one would notice the pitch-up at the end of those phrases but it would make a pretty significant difference in the mix to have a solid sustained vocal note remaining in-tune the entire time. And that is completely separate from the deliberate overuse of the tool, aka Kanye and T-Pain and 99% of all pop and R&B music in the past two decades.

So according to Chuck, Murry was talking s**t and they just tricked him to appease him in the booth after which they'd do the real mixing of the track. Yet Murry himself - seeming to yet again take more credit than he was due in the process - describes a valid fader-boosting technique that would enhance vocal tracks, but which most engineers would be doing in general anyway with or without outboard compressors, and without Murry's orders.

I guess the answer lies somewhere in between. And I'd *still* like to know both if and when they rigged up a fake console for Murry to twiddle knobs and do all his "surges" while the actual mixing was being done without his input or barking of orders. 

Yep, it seems Murry at least believed he was telling the truth here, and was unaware that Chuck wasn't actually letting him "surge" the vocals.

Adam, was just about to watch this AND damn Brother have pulled it  ::)

According to some sources, including our own Mark Linett, and sort of alluded to by Larry Levine in some interviews he did, and suggested by some photos of Bruce Botnick, Western, Gold Star, and Sunset Sound really didn't use compression for tracking at all.  Although they certainly could have patched any number of compressors or limiters into a single channel input, the primary use of those things was still more programatic, aimed at the mono buss more than anything else.  Easy enough to put one on a vocal buss, too, of course, but I feel like Chuck was someone who preferred to work the pots.  Heck, you can hear him doing it sometimes.

Huh, what for? I didn't spot anything that could be considered copyright material. Hope you manage to get it back up Adam.

Plus, we know how Murry (when he was there) loved to manually SURGE - no compressors needed when he was around!

Not necessarily for tracking, but for mixing too. I remember one of the younger engineers working for Putnam describing a Sinatra mix session, where he was assisting one of those old-schoolers, who I'm pretty sure was Jimmy Bowen or someone like that. This was later into the 60's when compressors became standard, or more standard to where everyone started using them because they wanted that sound. I think in terms of rock and pop music, it was Revolver which changed the game and when clients would say "I want the Revolver sound" on such-and-such track and a lot of that sound after 1966 was compressing the s**t out of everything, especially drums and vocals...oh, and then there's "Mr Tambourine Man" running McGuinn's Rickenbacker through a chain of *three* separate compressors! Then every folk-rock track with an electric 12-string part had to sound like McGuinn and those three compressors chained together. So overusing the tool became a signature sound yet again.

But this engineer was watching Bowen work those faders real-time on the vocal and he described it as watching a human compressor in action, the moves were perfect for smoothing out that vocal track and being purely musical in doing so as well. So yes, when compressors became an electronic "sound" or when they became standard practice overall after '65-'66 or so, of course there were still many old-school engineers doing it manually. But when you have engineers who were most accustomed to patching in an external compressor watching a guy sit there and do manually what a compressor did electronically, it's no wonder they would be somewhat in awe of the skill because it wasn't in their wheelhouse.

It would be like a ProTools engineer watching another engineer splice 4-bars out of a drum track on a 2" tape and splice in a fixed version without missing a micro-second of a beat. What looks like a magic trick in a modern sense because it's old technology was daily operations back in the day, and you needed those skills. But just the same, the ProTools guy could accomplish that same feat digitally in a fraction of the time it would take to copy and splice tape to do such fixes. Better to use a slide rule or an advanced calculator to make the same calculations?

But I still come back to the fact that Murry Wilson was mostly talking s**t and patting himself on the back for things he didn't do or things he wasn't a part of. You know things are bad when the real engineers had to find ways to trick Murry or pull a total sham act on the guy so they could keep him out of the real work they needed to do, and so he wouldn't screw it up.  :lol

Just for everyone's info (not to sidetrack this discussion), BRI has taken down the video and youTube assessed a copyright strike on the grounds that I posted "the entire Surfer Girl album." Since there's no content from the album at all barring a short segment where I break down the harmony parts to "Surfer Girl," this is obviously a clerical error albeit a careless and infuriating one. The video will return once BRI and I have had words on this subject.

Yup, for absolutely no reason. Clerical error, apparently.

AWA#40 came very close to being pulled - after nearly 1,500 views - because CDBaby refused to let me upload a sync license agreement that showed I had the right to use the one song they administered included among the 30 or so music cues in that show.

Good ol' Murry--it sounds as though the engineers quickly learned to do the "two-step side step" when he was in the studio!  :3d

Looking forward to watching the new one, Adam--this series will just get better and better as you close in on the mid-60s.

I wanted to let you know that I just had a look at the german translation of the "A California Saga Part II" article as it appeared in "Back to the Beach" by Kingsley Abott. The translation can indeed be misunderstood, that's why I thought Murry said he and Audree sang on some recordings.

The original says, "when Mike was singing ‘She’s fine, that 409,’ we’d surge on the part." Now "surge" was translated to "unterstützen" which itself translates to english as "assist so.", "support s.o" or even "back so." "Surge" is actually translated "hochschlagen" and similar expressions. That's why I understood it as "when Mike was singing ‘She’s fine, that 409,’ we’d support him on the part." Sorry again if I caused any confusion.

Strange to imagine an alternate universe where the Wilsons were German and Murry would yell "Hochschlagen!" and tell Brian that "Ich bin auch ein Genie, Brian."

I have to check out the german synchro on "Love & mercy"  ;D

Just to be clear: "hochschlagen" is not the way it would be used in this context. You probably would say something like "hochdrehen" ("turn it up").

Funny enough, I don't think there is any confusion in the translation at all! Something Stephen Desper said would suggest the word "surge" and the translation of the word as used by Murry is accurate to what Murry would say during a mixdown. Stephen reported that when Murry was there with him in the control room, Murry would grab Stephen's shoulders and squeeze them and say "surge here! surge here!" at various points during the playback. You can read Stephen's own words and description somewhere on this board's archives, I just can't recall where.

But yes indeed, Murry is on the record from the Boys' engineer as saying "surge!" during a mixdown and using the word to emphasize certain sections of a track, and again back to the two different techniques being discussed, in Murry's case it seemed to be as much a case of raising the volume for emphasis as it was the other technique described above.

And in "409", the part described would be a prime candidate for such a volume-boosted "surge"...no reports if Murry also squeezed Chuck Britz's shoulders during that mixdown.  :lol


EDIT: Stephen's description of Murry saying "surge!" during mixing can be found on page 142 of the Peter Carlin book.

What’s funny is the Murry was essentially bragging about how he was an integral part of the sound of the early records by (oddly) describing something any staff engineer could do. Not to discount the skills of an engineer but ... it’s kinda like saying “I was the guy tapping my foot to the metronome!” Sure it’s needed but it’s also not what made The Beach Boys successful. Not to discredit the teams that he was referring to either- clearly a team effort at play but also clearly something that was essentially based on Brian Wilson as a visionary.

I don’t think compression was used much on West Coast records in the ‘60s, except on vocals. Bones Howe mentioned in an old interview that there was no compression used on the Association “Windy”, except the vocals. Surprising to me was that he mentioned they did not use limiting on the 45 master either- possibly a couple dbs here and there.

There are some notable exceptions of course. I know the Monkees Pisces Aquarius record has a lot of 176 limiting on there.

Yeah, it's too bad that the engineers are mostly not with us anymore, because it would have been a really interesting question to pose across a wide sample size of engineers working in LA in the 3 and 4 track era, attitudes towards using compression.  Yet another component of the 3- and 4- and a little bit of the 8-track eras that is missed because it's so alien and unintuitive to the true multi-track recordist.

Also interesting that there would be 176s on a Monkee's record, considering how great those RCA BA compressors are.

Once "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn Turn Turn" became smash hit records for the Byrds, featuring a super-over compressed sound on the lead electric guitar as I mentioned in my earlier posts, a lot of records also began featuring over-compressed electric guitars. And also, that sound was being considered a "West Coast Sound", and if it was selling records like those Byrds singles, other records and producers went for it too.

One very notable example is "Nowhere Man", where the Beatles were consciously going for a Brian Wilson/Byrds sound both on the production and the song itself. Harrison and Lennon were now playing Fender guitars, which was a big shift for them, and Harrison's solo on Nowhere Man is literally compressed to death, much like McGuinn's was on those Byrds records.

If you take this in the years 1965-66, that's when things started to change in terms of compression and its use. Of course there would be old-school engineers who still did it their way, but when you have clients saying "we want that sound", whether it's Mr Tambourine Man or Nowhere Man or any number of other records with that West Coast Sound from that era, they'd have to do it or they'd lose the client to a studio or engineer that would.

Speaking of The Monkees, that over-compressed guitar sound goes back to the very first notes anyone heard from The Monkees in 1966, even before the TV show had its debut in September '66. "Last Train To Clarksville" features an intro from Louis Shelton's Telecaster with massive amounts of compression...those opening notes defined that record and became the hook that drew listeners in. Louis himself said after that became a radio hit, his phone began to ring for other session work once calls were made and they found out in LA who had played that guitar lick. And likewise, that massively compressed guitar sound also became a thing among those in the biz chasing a hit record. So literally the first notes anyone ever heard on a Monkees record in '66 featured heavy compression on electric guitar, and it became a thing.

Worth noting too is if you have the "Headquarters Sessions" Monkees set, there is a track where you can hear Hank Cicalo dialing in the compressor setting on Mike Nesmith's electric 12-string, and I've actually used that example to demonstrate the difference between not using compression and heavy compression when recording electric guitars, specifically electric 12's. Once Cicalo dials it in, boom - That's the signature sound.

So I disagree that compression wasn't being used  often, but it does come down to an issue of timing, as in *when* did these different studios and engineers start using it. If we're talking 1964, then yes, it was rare except perhaps on some vocal tracks. But after the folk-rock boom with Tambourine Man, that sound was everywhere and engineers eventually had to use it.

Then bring in Geoff Emerick and Revolver, and I've heard old-school engineers who had clients at the time that album had come out being asked for that sound, and the reply was "but that's wrong, that's not how to record drums, guitars, etc...". So I'll always come back to Revolver (and later Pepper, especially the use of compression on Ringo's drums) as the benchmark album that literally changed the game in terms of recording rock music. And the way Emerick used and deliberately over-used compression was a big part of it, even if the old-schoolers thought it was "wrong" to cut tracks which sounded like that. One of the perks of being an innovator is those who think you're wrong to rewrite the rules are the ones who end up following your lead eventually, and that's what happened in the world of recording rock and pop music after 1966-67.

Very interesting.

Also noted that being a Beatles fan myself, Harrison played the Fender guitar throughout the song, but the solo itself was both Harrison AND Lennon. It did sound much more prominent than the other lines too so it makes sense.

Another interesting little thing about RCA and guitar compression -- I think it's really, really interesting that Dance Dance Dance is the only Beach Boys song to really feature something approaching the classic LA compressed guitar sound, and their only track cut at RCA.  And it was recorded a few months before the Byrds (who of course recorded not at RCA, but at a very similar facility at CBS), and well before Last Train.  Chuck never did guitars like that.

Back to Murry Wilson and his over-taking of credit for the band's success and their hit records...

I think it's easy to sum up. Brian Wilson knew how to make hit records, Murry Wilson did not. If anyone would doubt that, listen to the Beach Boys' discography on Capitol from 62-66. As soon as Murry was out, Brian's records started to grow amazingly in sequence from one to the next, and he had a magic touch with producing great sounding records that others in the industry knew and recognized. Brian's track record includes a body of work that is still considered among the greatest pop and rock music ever recorded, and what exactly is Murry's musical legacy? The records got better and better after Murry was out, and Brian didn't have Murry in his ear constantly nagging him about how his records should sound.

Confirmation of this also came from Hal Blaine in an interview. Hal said Murry would be telling Brian he should make records the way Lawrence Welk made records, "clean" records with a clean sound. What Murry perhaps didn't know is that Hal had done sessions for Lawrence Welk, and Lawrence would ask Hal about certain sounds on the records he was playing on, from producers like Spector and Brian, because Lawrence wanted his music to appeal to younger record buyers and he wanted the sounds that were selling.

So it's a twist of fate or irony or whatever that Murry was telling Brian he should cut records like Lawrence Welk, and Lawrence Welk himself was asking musicians like Hal Blaine how Brian was getting those sounds on Beach Boys records.

Murry in many ways just didn't get it, and he took it out on his son in some truly pathetic ways. Not much more can be said about it.

That is very interesting, yes. We can trace the lineage leading up to "Mr Tambourine Man" and that signature guitar sound (again, it's still amazing to me that they chained *three* compressors together to get it!). McGuinn says the groove came from Brian's "Don't Worry Baby", and with Terry Melcher producing, a guy who had been observing Brian produce hands-on, no doubt the influence was there. If they took the groove AND the 12-string guitar sound from Brian's productions, it makes sense. Then the whole notion of electric 12-string coming from McGuinn seeing Harrison play one in the Hard Days Night film comes full circle when The Beatles and Harrison in particular took influence from both McGuinn/Melcher and Brian when they cut Nowhere Man and repeatedly compressed Harrison's solo lines to get that same sound.

If some sonic/production origins were pulled from Dance Dance Dance, it would not be surprising. And it is fascinating that the song was cut at a different studio where the engineers perhaps had a different way of doing things than Chuck or most of Putnam's guys at that time. Was there a frame of reference for that sound on Dance Dance Dance, or were they trying to go for the George Harrison sound from that time leading up to those sessions?

Another question: Does Harrison's intro to "You Can't Do That" or any of his earliest uses of the Rickenbacker 12 sound compressed? If it were, I don't hear it being overused as an effect to any degree near what McGuinn did, or what they did on Nowhere Man. 

The show is back up for what it's worth...surge on over there and watch!

https://youtu.be/-iDFkXOV1Fw

I'm finished watching it. Just like the last episode, really enjoyable and insightful! I'm looking forward to the "Little Deuce Coupe" album. That one gets overlooked quite a bit, but there's some very strong material on it. Wondering if you will go into "Cherry, cherry Coupe"'s chorus where Mike is rapping underneath the backgroundvoices, something that Brian would later do in "Cabin essence" as well.

Mike would also do that under the choruses of "Kiss Me, Baby" ("Kiss a little bit, fight a little bit").

I never noticed that part until Brian isolated the vocals in the Endless Harmony documentary.

*Sorry, I think Nesmith said it was an 1176, and I assumed 176 because I was unaware of the 1176 being even available in 1967.

In any case, I have actually corresponded with Bones Howe in the past, and read old interviews with him. He did not use compression on anything but vocals from what I gave gathered, and probably a little on mixdown.

The compression angle is likely variable depending on the studio, engineer/producer, artist, and really just limitations of the day. I think it’s safe to say sessions which were recorded mostly live on the west coast did not feature much compression in general, other than vocals during the 4-track (and into 8-track a bit) era. I personally think you can kind of tell by listening, but the reality is the various elements were not really patched individually much in those days, and I don’t imagine studios had more than a couple limiters on hand.

This is to say I think the Byrds guitar sound thing was the exception rather than the rule. Though I do think the Monkees were maybe a little early to get into the Beatles-style of making records. Lots of UK records seem to have tons of compression everywhere, likely during each bounce stage etc. By 1968, we hear this happening on US records too and the sound begins to change. I’m thinking of things like Lemon Pipers “My Green Tambourine” as an example where this is really audible. Drums are limited to hell on Del Shannon’s “Charles Westover” record (1968).

And not to be pedantic, but I think it’s worth differentiating compression and limiting. To me, the use of the limiter changing the sound and vibe of West Coast records in the late 1960s corresponds with the rise of the use of the 1176 unit. IMO this was a result of people chasing the Beatles sound and style of recording more than the Byrds’ guitar sound.

Totally fair, and I agree that that guitar sound was an exception up till the time it wasn't, as you say.

Back to "Last Train To Clarksville", that intro is classic compressed electric guitar. And whether it was an LA-2A limiting amplifier or an RCA compressor or whatever else, it's definitely what most hear as a compressed electric guitar. It would make sense even if that specific element of the guitar intro/hook were not a Beatles influence because the song itself was directly inspired by The Beatles, specifically "Paperback Writer" and a misheard lyric, and the "no no no" vocal tag was supposed to be their version of "yeah yeah yeah" - conscious choices by the writers. If the writers like Boyce and Hart were taking direct cues from Beatles songs to write Monkees songs, I'm sure the productions would have made similar nods to the sound of Beatles records (and other popular records of the time). Heck, the whole show was built on the concept of an American TV version of Hard Day's Night. I hear a lot of Beatles musical and production elements in the early Monkees albums, some subtle and some like Clarksville pretty obvious.

I do think it gets a little wonky though when you play something like that Mr Tambourine Man intro for most musician types and ask what is on that guitar sound, they'll say "compression", not "a limiting amplifier".  Even Rickenbacker built a compressor into McGuinn's signature model guitars, if they wanted to be truly accurate would they have billed it as a built-in limiting amplifier? It gets into tissue versus kleenex or ketchup versus catsup territory  ;D. I think Louis Shelton himself even said it was a lot of compression on his Clarksville guitar part, and again that would make sense since it was recorded at RCA.

I agree the variable is whoever happened to be recording the tracks at whichever studio, and Bones Howe may have had his way of recording and using outboard gear, but he was one out of dozens of engineers working LA studios in 1965-68. They all did things their own way to some degree. The 1176 made it more readily available across the industry perhaps, when UA began marketing and advertising it in '67, but compressors were being used on guitar in more cases than Tambourine Man, I disagree that record was an exception when you have any number of "folk rock" tracks and others after that record became a smash going for the same sound before the 1176. Clarksville just happened to be a prime example from the summer of '66, and I'm guessing that was patched into an RCA unit.

Can you think of a handful of examples of heavily compressed guitar coming out of LA other than what we've discussed so far, Craig?  I can't think of much off the top of my head, and I just looked at the top 200 hits of 65 and 66 and didn't see much either.  I'm curious if you had some specific tracks in mind.

Thanks for flagging that part; I never noticed it but will keep an ear out.  I'm actually not that familiar with the next few albums so it will be fun for me.

Look for the folk-rock genre to start, I'd say. After Tambourine Man and Turn Turn Turn became #1 hits in '65, that sound and specifically the guitar sound was very influential into 66 and 67. Whether it's on charting hits, I don't know, but across the folk-rock genre there were a lot of bands cutting records trying to sound like the Byrds and sell as many records.  ;D

The interesting element to consider too is exactly when did Putnam's LA-2A unit start making the rounds? I ask for a specific reason which I'll try to outline here. Mr Tambourine Man was cut at Columbia in January 1965. The engineer on that session at Columbia LA and also the subsequent early Byrds albums and singles was Ray Gerhardt. According to some accounts, the reason why they chained multiple compressors together to record McGuinn's guitar was because Gerhardt was concerned about a hot guitar signal overloading and blowing out his channels on the board. So they rigged up the multiple compressors (sorry, it was *2* in the chain and not 3) so Gerhardt could get a present sound and keep the levels under control on McGuinn's 12-string.

It's always been said that the LA-2A was the compressor used. Yet some sources say the LA-2A didn't really come out until 1965...so did Columbia and/or Ray Gerhardt specifically get a really early set of them to use or were they using another type of compressor? I think most just assumed it was the LA-2A based on what's been reported through the years, but if the song was cut in January '65 would the LA-2A have even been available outside Putnam's own studios that early? I'm just throwing out scenarios and dates there. Maybe it came out that early in '65, I'll have to look that up.

But some commentary out there also suggests Gerhardt would do this with the compressors regularly on sessions he worked, because he was worried about blowing out his channel strips on those boards. Which means who knows what else Ray was engineering at Columbia in the 60's where he did this, separate of course from the Byrds and McGuinn which became the signature sound of those records.


Just a note for Adam, and sorry for taking your thread in so many directions (hopefully more people who are reading are also watching and sharing your video too!), but Ray Gerhardt also engineered sessions for Evie Sands later in the 60's, and I know you've worked with her quite a bit. So I guess the discussion somehow gets related back to the original post and author!  :)

Such as?  Everyone I can think of that starts in on the guitar sound isn't quite there yet as early as we're talking about.  After '67, sure, that sound is all over as the 8-track takes over, but before that I would still argue that it's an exceptional sound that is not at all common in LA.

As for the LA-2A AT CBS, I've always thought that these anecdotes about gear tend to default to the popular units in the teller's minds.  There's some pretty good photography of the CBS control room circa 66 and I've never seen anything looking like an LA-2A in there, and I've always assumed that the major label places used a lot of in-house equipment (Like RCA and their BA6A) and why not?  Huge budgets, in-house technicians?  Hard to know for sure, but I think it's pushing credulity that there was an LA-2A in CBS at that time.

How about Buffalo Springfield? It sounds like they ran the entire mix through 4 compressors on parts of their first two albums! Not sure where the mixing was done but I believe much of that first album was cut and presumably mixed at Gold Star in 66.

Check out the interview McGuinn did with Vintage Guitar magazine. He touches on the 4 versus 8 track issues, and about the compression Ray had on his Rickenbacker, he simply says two compressors, doesn't mention a name brand.

The issue of budgets, I would suggest that Columbia being a corporate studio under the CBS Columbia umbrella would have the budget to get anything needed to get better sounds and draw clients, whereas the other studios we always discuss were independents with probably smaller budgets overall. Of course being under a parent company could be an negative too, as Geoff Emerick and the Beatles would attest to under EMI.

Here's some useful evidence that I've been investigating CBS for over 15 years:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/columbia-studios-sunset-and-gower.44945/ (https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/columbia-studios-sunset-and-gower.44945/)

Yep, I started that thread in 2004!  But that's not the point -- the point is the great photos of the place.  I especially like seeing how they used that giant room for smaller pop ensembles.  And of course that huge, high resolution picture of Brian.

I wonder if Brian could have possibly imagined when he was making Surfer Girl that in a few short years he'd be ruling the Hollywood studios.

The west coat folk rock type records that come to mind for me are Turtles, Mamas & Papas, PF Sloan/early Grass Roots, stuff like that. To me that is very much in line with the lack of compression on individual elements but used on vocals and final mix. Tracks like “You Baby”, “Where Were You When I Needed You”, etc. These are very different from the Byrds compressed 12 string sound, and to me that is the sort of standard or normal west coast ‘60s folk rock studio sound.

I think the Monkees would be th early example of a West Coast group beginning to sort of utilize techniques from the Beatles/UK. This was everywhere by 1968. I don’t hear much of it before 1968, and I don’t hear it as an across the board thing for the Monkees (just some key tracks).

I believe the technical distinction between limiting and compression is the ratio. But in practice, I hear compression as a slower, more gradual effect and limiting to be this sort of harder, tight sound. The LA2A is not an aggressive sounding piece of gear as far as my experience. The 1176 is pretty aggressive sounding. Though of course either can be used however anyone wants it to be. I don’t honestly know if the “compressor” on the Byrds 12 string sound is a limiter or not but it’s certainly a more extreme setting than say, anything you’ll hear on Forever Changes.

Yeah it's interesting that the 1176 is a more extreme sound when I feel like the 176 is such a beautiful light touch.  The LA-2A is really chill, you've gotta hit it so hard to make it sound like "an effect."  But the LA-3A is a little edgier.

Yeh I guess they’re both “compressors” for the most part ... I think I’m really talking about the change to the 1176 type sound (along with more individual, separate tracks and less reverb) that seemed to take hold around 1968.

You'll have a ball. I just listened to the album yesterday in it's entirety. Compared to their previous albums the vocals are so much lusher and impressive. Also the inclusion of earlier tracks doesn't take away from the listening experience as those numbers add some street-credibility (no pun!) that is kinda on the backseat on songs like "No-go showboat" and "Ballad of ol' Betsy". It's actually a really good and fun album.








You're absolutely correct, of course. In that case we could probably add Mike's bassline in "Good Vibrations" as going in that direction. Still, I would make a difference between "Kiss me, Baby" "GV" on one side and "Cherry, cherry Coupe" and "Cabin essence" on the other as in the latter two songs the parts of Mike resp. Dennis are almost poems on their own while the other songs are basically short repeating phrases. Probably a question of how you define it. I don't know if there is an actual technical term for that stuff.

It could just be my ears, but I hear elements of The Turtles' biggest hit "Happy Together" being compressed, specifically John Barbata's drums (that snare!), and perhaps some on the lead guitar track too, beyond what sounds like a pretty well-compressed overall mix. I hear it too on some Paul Revere & The Raiders tracks, like "Hungry" with that fuzz guitar track, which might make sense because Terry Melcher produced them too. Both were cut in '66.

Again it could be my ears, or whatever mix we're hearing (radio mono single mix versus album or stereo, etc), but I do hear compression on those '66 tracks that were also associated with LA and the LA sound. So there were other producers, bands, and engineers using it too.

The LA-2A is definitely a less intense and some might say more transparent unit, mainly because it's an optical compressor with tube guts, unlike the 1176 which was solid-state without the light-beam technology, but it can be pushed hard too - Just not as hard as the 1176. The optical compressors by design are more transparent sounding, or even more natural, but they could still be pushed hard.

I don’t hear the drums as compressed on “Happy Together”, maybe “She’s My Girl” but I’m not sure even that one is. Definitely on the final mixes and vocals in both cases though IMO.

This was a Sunset Sound Botnick track, no mention of compressors so who knows ... but based on the simplicity of the recording arrangement, I’d say it seems unlikely:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mixonline.com/recording/classic-tracks-turtles-happy-together-365864%3famp

Maybe someone could email Botnick.

One key element of that track (and song) which no one mentions in that article is Chip Douglas, who was the arranger, bassist, vocalist, and basically the producer of that record!  ;D  Or at least a lot if not most of the credit for the sound of it should go to Chip in a production sense, he took a very bare demo and worked it into the hit record it became. Not a mention!

I've also heard that some of the sweetening like the oboe part and strings was not done by live musicians, but by what was probably a Chamberlain (someone on Wikipedia has it logged as a Mellotron but in '66 they weren't in LA as far as I know). Lot of missing info about that track, one of the most iconic of that era for sure.