The Smiley Smile Message Board

I read that the 2001 twofer of SS/Wild Honey had superior sound, as opposed to the original 1990 release.  It always seemed very muddy and hissy to me.  Perhaps I had a low quality disc.  I went trolling online and got a release from Argentina.  The difference in quality is astounding!  It's like hearing Wild Honey for the first time.  Is this normal for a release to differ so greatly between countries?  Both bear the exact same barcode and Capital numbers.  They both have HDCD 24 bit remastering.  The Argentinian disc only bears the year 1990, but has David Leaf's comments from 2000.  The American disc bears both 1990 and 2001.  It's a bit perplexing how they could sound so different.  The Agentinian disc is so much clearer and myriad details show themselves for the first time.

You've compared it to the 1990 and 2001 disc, and the mastering is different?  The only other mastering I know of is the Japanese Pastmasters Wild Honey, which to my ears is the best of the lot.  Perhaps this Argentinian disc was sourced from that.  There are no other CD masterings to my knowledge.

While we're talking about those CDs, I have to say I really hope for a remixed and remastered Smiley Smile/Wild Honey.I have the 1990 CD, and there's so much noise in the mix that it detracts from my enjoyment of the songs.

 Many of us have heard the unbalanced session mixes from the Unsurpassed Masters series. In my opinion, the greatest thing about that whole series was hearing some of these songs with a little more clairity. The Hawthorne remix of the one song was proof enough of the result. Maybe for the 50th Anniversarry, anway.. :)

P.S. Smiley Smile is awesome.  ;D

The clarity of Let the Wind Blow is equivalent to the Hawthorne stereo version.  I feel like I've been listening to my stereo with saran wrap over the speakers for years and then this Argentinian version removes the wrap.  The Smiley Smile & bonus tracks tracks also sound much clearer though not to the extent of the Wild Honey tracks.

Correction-the comments are from Mark Linett from 2000.  The remastering page in the booklet is exactly the same.

I was hoping to get the twofer remastered again as well but the version I now have satisfies me as far as mono versions go, but I'd sure like to have a stereo version.

As I really like both of those albums, I'm pretty interested if the sound is that much improved. I'm also a fan of mono mixes, when done properly; so I might be pretty happy with that. Sounds like an expensive import though. :(

i wish they'd release everything in stereo.  every time i hear a clip of a past tune (like hearing let him run wild 2 mins ago) in stereo on itunes i crumple at how amazing it sounds.  spitting out a couple stereo songs on compilations can get frustrating!! better than nothing obv.

The Argentinian Smiley Simley/Wild Honey twofer is the local release of the 2001 reissue. A while before that, EMI distributed some import copies from the 1990 Capitol edition. Odd: this is the one of the few -if not the only- Capitol twofer to get a Argentinean edition. rest of the Capitol/Brother twofers were imports.

If it is truly HDCD - and if you have an HDCD equipped player, the HDCD light will come on - then it has to be the 2001 2fer mastering.  It's identical to the 2001 US release.  If it sounds different, the only explanation I could see is that one is being HDCD decoded and the other is not for some reason - a defective disc perhaps.

Was Wild Honey ever released on Duophonic LP??

http://www.btinternet.com/~bellagio/monostereo.html (http://www.btinternet.com/~bellagio/monostereo.html)  ;D

So, does anyone have a Duophonic Wild Honey??

I actually dig the Duophonic Today/Summer Days!!

Duophonic Pet Sounds is horrid, but Wild Honey..... Hmmmmm!

Yes, I do. Sounds like crap.

Wild Honey is not duophonic in the manner of Today.  It is more of the bass on one side/treble on the other variety and it is indeed awful sounding.

BTW: HDCD is not that well-liked by everyone. Go to: www.lampizator.eu.

This is sort of a hilarious version of the Hoffmann boards. Make no mistake: the guy knows what he's writing about. But he is superbly funny. And you can learn how to 'lampizate' your CD deck for beer money...

The disc sounds fantastic on a mediocre car cd player and a cheap, run down, barely working boom box which is about 8 years old.  It certainly doesn't have HDCD capabilities.  I am beginning to think my first disc is defective.

I was just listening to the album (in fact it's not over yet) and lying on the floor near the subwoofer (no, not drunk). And it never sounded so good to me. Don't know why, but I'm tempted to go back to lying on the floor.

Ha! I do the same thing. Lying down with that intense bass pumping though the subs is a great experience....especially with Wild Honey. Aren't You Glad is a great bass song.

Also, definitely lay next to your subwoofer and listen to the Spiritual Suite from SMiLE PurpleChick (especially 'Song For Children') with all your bass settings way up....that's an unforgettable experience.

...Agreed...Love the cover though!

Anyone else notice there is a weird buzzing/distortion on parts of "Country Air" or is it just my copy?

That "buzzing/distortion" is on the master, so therefore it's on the mono mix and the unreleased stereo mix. It was apparently a problem with the organ.

...part of WH's charm and allure.

Interesting. Downloading now to check it out

It's also noted in the liners.

I thought there was mellotron on "Country Air" instead of organ?

That was a rumor for years due to somebody claiming it was the only time they ever used the instrument. But it should be noted that Steve Desper mentioned on here that they only ever used a Chamberlin, and even then just to mess around. It was never used for a recording.

I love the mono vinyl.

Cheers for the info. Makes you wonder why they didn't take another pass at it.

Honestly, I think that organ buzzing is part of the charm of that tune, and of the whole album. The whole do it yourself, warts and all thing. No joke, sometimes if I'm humming the organ bit to myself I actually "stutter" it like the buzzing sound...as far as I'm concerned, like the talking on Pet Sounds, it's part of the record.

Until I read that it was distortion related to the keyboard I always assumed it was a sound effect of bees, and as such always made perfect sense. Knowing it was a mistake deliberately left in doesn't make it any less attractive.

The 1990 release had noise reduction on it and as such it lost a fair amount of its top end. The reason the 2001 releases sound better is because they made the laudable decision not to use it again and just let the tape hiss be. I bought all the twofers again in 2001 and don't regret it as they are genuinely better.

I JUST WISH THEY'D RELEASE AN OFFICIAL STEREO SMILEY SMILE (in case someone important is listening...) :)

One of the funniest moments of the first Pet Sounds shows was when pretty much the entire band yelled "TOP PLEASE !" at the appropriate moment in "Here Today".  ;D

I didn't remember/realise this, so thanks for sharing. I nice touch.  :)

I like that interpretation...worx perfectly.

Is it time to introduce that as a protocol here? Say, when a thread has been sufficiently derailed?

99% of threads would end up having it!

Even with the noise reduction I think the 1990 release sounds better than the 2001 which has boosted high frequencies that hurt the ears when the volume is cranked up and compression so that there's digital limiting and loss of frequency range.

The best sounding is still the Japanese Pastmasters IMO.

Agreed.

The Warner two-fer (with 20/20) vinyl sounds significantly better than my Capitol original!

The Brother/Reprise 2-fer has the duophonic Wild Honey, I believe.

What??????

Gotta go check that when I get home!

A Wild Honey Duophonic is something of a Beach Boys Holy Grail for me!! (there's no accounting for taste :p)

Hey, the last time I listened to Wild Honey, it was on my newly acquired Muntz 4 track tape in duophonic, no less!

Damn,  you're old!

I just ordered the Wild Honey SVLP-219  EMI import,anyone have any opinions on its sound quality?

oops,wrong catalog number.

I keep seeing that about and passing on it, because I want my glorious mono WH. But then I also want a copy of Friends.... It's hard to walk away from it each time :(

I haven't listened to that LP in ages, but I don't recall it sounding terrible. If it is not too expensive, I'd take a chance and get it. Also, Smiley Smile is in glorious Duophonic on the Brother/Reprise 2-fer with Friends.

It's the Duophonic with more bass in one speaker, more treble in the other. Not the best way to hear that record. Anyone have the more recent mono re-press?

I don't think the duophonic Wild Honey is so bad.. It's not as great as a full stereo mix would have been.. I guess when time travel is invented, we'll have to go back and try and talk Brian into approving a stereo mix, so we don't have to wait all these years... I mean it's obvious someone goes back there, that distorted sound that's on Country Air sounds too like when I have my mobile phone too near the speakers.....  :lol

See, that distorted sound on "Country Air" has never bothered me, 'cause I always thought it was a trumpet note where Brian had the player purposely held the note as long as he could, until he started running out of breath and the note began to sputter.  I always thought it was kinda a cool idea, just playing with sounds the way he did for SMiLE for instance.  Kinda like on The Beatles' "Long Long Long", at the end, where the bottle of Blue Nun wine starts to vibrate on top of the organ speaker, and you get a really cool distortion effect.  So knowing now that the "Country Air" sound is really a Mellotron, or Chamberlain, or organ note distorted, I prefer to think of it in the context of that sound on "Long Long Long", and it still doesn't bother me.

I guess as far as accidental noises go, it's pretty good, like the glider that files across on the 'promo' for Piggy In The Middle by The Rutles, according to Eric Idle that wasn't intentional.

Does anybody have thoughts or opinions on Wild Honey SVLP 300 on EMI and its sound quality?

Just in case someone hasn't heard..... the bird is th.... oh wait, wrong..... I meant Country Air in stereo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymhUNr7Yhk&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymhUNr7Yhk&feature=related)