The Smiley Smile Message Board

As I asked a similar question in a different thread, I was wondering if we could compline a list of songs that we know cannot be converted from mono to stereo, without losing any overdubs, etc.

For example, I have been told a true stereo version of the Help Me Rhonda single is impossible. What else can't be done

Also, I'm not hating on mono; for many songs, I prefer it!  ;D

Do You Wanna Dance
I Get Around
Ballad Of Ol' Betsy
Be True To Your School
Car Crazy Cutie
Cherry, Cherry Coupe
Spirit Of America
No-Go Showboat
A Young Man Is Gone
Custom Machine
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
Help Me Rhonda
The Little Girl I Once Knew

I have a question, if I may. Why can't certain songs be mixed to stereo? I've seen it mentioned a few times, but I've never understood why. I'm not an engineer or producer, mind you, so maybe it's just a process that has gone over my head, so to speak.  :)

You require the multitrack master tapes, which are basically the rough elements of the recording as they exist on a reel. They then need to be properly combined in a mix on another tape. If you do not have the multitrack master tapes, or elements are missing from them, it's impossible to create a new mix.

For tracks like Do You Wanna Dance or Help Me Rhonda, Brian mixed to mono and then overdubbed elements on top of them. Unless technology permits isolating those elements from the mono masters so they can be used in a stereo remix, a stereo remix is impossible. Of course, Mark Linett did it for Wouldn't It Be Nice, but that's still a sort of bastard stereo. It sounds great but if you're a PURIST it sticks out. Basically Mark couldn't mix the bridge properly in stereo because Mike's bridge vocal wasn't on the multitracks, having been replaced by a vocal from Brian. Mark was able, later on, to isolate Mike's vocal in the mono master and then make a new mix following his original work.

One more track......Good Vibrations.

errr... aren't those in stereo anyway ?

Thanks for the info.  :)

God Only Knows as well, don't forget.

The Vegetables stereo mix on Hawthorne is also missing a part at the end, so technically that counts too

Also "Girl Don't Tell Me" and "Wild Honey".  And isn't the "Hawthorne" stereo mix of "Heroes and Villains" lacking a part or two as well?

What about "Darlin"? That was a minor hit single, and on many compilations; but we haven't got a remix of that yet.

I know at least some of the tracking session exists.

What's missing?

The vibes overdub. On SOT, you can hear Brian attempting the part himself which takes him quite a few takes to get the melody right.

Vocal parts?

This doesn't exactly explain why, but somewhere in here are all the BB songs still released in mono only.

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

Let's not forget "Do It Again".  If I understand correctly, it's because the processing of the snare drum was done when the mono mastering was done.

I don't know if anything is missing, but I believe there were a few brief segments that got a fake stereo treatment.

You may be right. But if the track is  available unmixed without the snare sounds, it should be pretty easy to redo the effect. Of course some may not like the idea of that, but I'd encourage them to try.

No, the processed snare drum sound is an actual overdub (played by John Guerin), and it may in fact have been added during the mono mixdown (not sure, though).  If this is true, then it would be impossible to duplicate on a new stereo mix. 

How exactly was that snare sound done? I have read something about a bit of tape delay but of course there is more to it than that, as touched upon by c-man.

Ta
Sam

With the Beach Boys Brian produced stuff it's always interesting to hear the many elements that are picked up in stereo. Still I don't consider those accurate as far as what Brian considered his final product. For me mono is the way to go, except on a purely academic level.

I'd think a stereo mix of "Do It Again" would be very easy, seeing as how that snare track is isolated in the very beginning. Wouldn't think it'd be that hard to get something really, really similar out of it.

Is the Concert album in stereo or mono?

All the 70s albums are all stereo, right?

Which 'concert' album ?

And yes, all albums after Wild Honey are stereo*.

[* yes, I know there are UK mono fold-downs of  Friends and 20/20]

They used a special tape delay unit made by philips for "do it again".

the stereo mix of "let the wind blow" is missing an overdub, sounds like an organ.  which brings to mind the way that WILD HONEY as an album was recorded/mixed - it may not be possible for complete stereo mixes of all of the songs

I'll still take what I can get.

The same thing happened when reissuing the early albums by The Who, I believe these reissues were from Japan. But they included mono versions for the songs that were incomplete, and it really didn't effect my enjoyment of hearing all of the songs that were in stereo.

I wouldn't mind shelling out for a 2-CD set of each one of the BB albums only available in mono or duophonic.

Image this: 2-CDs, with both a remastered mono mix, and a more-or-less complete new stereo remix, with nice LP style packaging and insightful liner notes (like the POB reissue), plus bonus tracks from the period. There's Surfin' Safari, The Beach Boys Today!, Summer Days & Summer Nights, Beach Boys Party, Smiley Smile, and Wild Honey. (pardon me, if I've missed any LPs).

That's six albums I've counted; they could release a new one ever two months of the 50th Anniversarry year.

That was the original gameplan for the 2000 reissues.  :'(

For crying out loud, what happened? 

The  band shot the idea down.

Nope, this time send your complaints to the tower. The initial gameplan, tentative to be sure, was for single LP CDs from 1962/69, mono/stereo (new stereo where possible) and expanded period bonus tracks. Rapidly this devolved to a straight reissue of the 1990 2fers. For the post-Capitol albums, the gameplan was single album CDs with ample bonus tracks, then 2fers with just a few bonus tracks. The "Fairytale" was set to be left off the CATP/Holland 2fer and included on a 2CD Brother rarities set. - it was lobbying by a few concerned fans that got it reinstated, and the CD in question released on a double set. Just as well, as it transpired.

While we're on the subjects of "Do It Again" and mixing, has any explanation come up as to why this song is mixed the way it is? The vocals have gobs of reverb on it and it's absolutely buried in the mix - it's always bothered me, Mike sounds like he's a million miles away.

Taken with quite a lot of forgetfulness, the vague gist is Carl and Steve D. made a satisfactory mix at one of the LA studios, then managed to lose said mix out of a moving vehicle, and then went back to Brian's house and remixed it in somewhat of a panicked rush. If that can explain the drums, i'm sure it explains the vocals too.

This is not meant to be me stirring the pot. I understand it might be hard to fathom. I heard it was actually the multitrack master that was happily removed from the situation (read: erased) by a bitter Brian as an attempt to keep them from having another hit. Steve Desper had made a safety copy of the master tape during production of Stack-O-Tracks of which Brian apparently was not aware, hence the song's appearance on 45 and then 20/20.

desper and carl mixed it down (in stereo) and then lost the master mixdown reel on the way to deliver it to capitol.  they had a mono fold-down of the stereo mix (made on a revox a77) that was created solely to check mono-compatibility.  after they lost the reel, there was no time to remix again, so they gave capitol the mono fold-down tape.  

why the master was "lost" or erased ... i have heard that the multi-track master was lost by capitol while preparing "stack-o-tracks", which seems more plausible than the brian story.

since "stack" came out before 20/20, they had no choice but to go back to the mono fold-down (keep in mind this was not a true mono mix) and create a rechanneled stereo version for 20/20 ... so we have a fake stereo version of a fake mono mix!

... with a true stereo tag.  ;D

Oddly enough, "Do It Again" was one of the 8 track masters they de-constructed on the Sea of Tunes bootleg series, with all of the various overdubs (new drum track, vocals, etc) highlighted on the bootleg.  A true stereo mix would definitely be possible.... if we only had that master tape.  It's now missing.  Argh.

FYI - the processing on Mike's lead vocal is actually printed to tape on the original four track master that was later transferred to 8 track for further overdubbing, so there was no way to avoid it in the final mixdown of the song without having Mike redo the vocal from scratch.  It rather sounds as if they spliced (or "flew") in the words "do it again" to replace "surf again" on the final verse, perhaps copying it from the first verse?

The effect really isn't too distracting, but how buried his vocal sounds has always been sort of distracting.

Interesting stories in here - I had no idea.

AAH ... so it was "lost" in 84 then!  i think this is one of brian's (and carl's) greatest productions and wouldn't change a thing.

Wow, I've always wondered why there was an "s" sound right before he says "do" on that verse. I thought it was a mistake by him on one of the double tracked vocals.

Funny, I love the reverb. The song is like a psychedelic take on the BBs old surf music idiom (just listen to those drums on the intro), and the reverb was undoubtedly an artistic choice. Some of the background vocals sound like they could be clarinets or some other instrument. Or how about all of those droning yet melodic background voices during the 'been so long...' part of the song? Just brilliant. Only Brian could arrange voices like that.

I have a clipping from a UK music magazine (probably "Melody Maker") which was published a few months before the Pet Sounds box came out. The general tone was that, following the success of the Good Vibrations box, Capitol were imminently due to issue remixed stereo versions of all of their formerly mono-only albums. This reissue programme was to start with a boxed set of Pet Sounds (which was issued.) There was a cryptic final line about there also being a further box set planned concentrating on Good Vibrations and the aborted Smile album. There was a quote (I think it was from Mark Linett, possibly paraphrased from the Pet Sounds box booklet) about them having most of the multis, but adding that a few cuts would remain in mono as they were recorded that way ("Surfin'" being one that was namechecked.) I cut the article out and kept it, but can't find it amongst my massed piles of junk at the moment to quote it directly.

You should have seen the smile shop board around 2000/2001 regarding this stuff.  Twenty or more threads with five or more pages each discussing the whole Beach Boys mono/stereo debacles.   Seventeen out of that twenty were probably devoted to the Heroes and Villians paradigm alone.  Great posts with an immeasurable amount of interesting information, most of which I was never aware of.   These guys here are some of the best.  Really sparked my interest in different versions of music, plus the Beach Boys stuff in general.