The Smiley Smile Message Board

I thought I posted this last week, but either it fell off the board from lack of interest or somehow it didn't post.  Anyway, Steve Hoffman has commented on the fact that Chuck made stereo mixes of Today and Summer Days (and four songs from Pet Sounds), which I hadn't heard before.

"I only go by the actual Capitol Studio files and they tell me that Capitol had a standing order for every Beach Boys recording to be sent to Capitol in a mono and stereophonic form. Brian cut Capitol off with ALL SUMMER LONG and I GET AROUND and refused to let Chuck Britz mix them in stereo. Capitol just redubbed the mono to awful DUOPHONIC and issued them that way. Chuck Britz mixed TODAY in stereo but Brian refused to OK the test cut. Capitol let it slide for a few weeks and then just shrugged and redubbed the entire MONO album to fake stereo and issued it anyway. Why? They made one dollar pure extra profit on every stereo record they issued.

The SUMMER DAZE album was mixed to stereo AT CAPITOL FROM THE WESTERN MULTIS. Brian again nixed the test cut so Capitol shrugged their shoulders and redubbed the mono to fake stereo.

Brian ordered that NO MORE MULTI TRACK TAPES WERE TO BE SENT OVER TO CAPITOL so PET SOUNDS never had a chance for a true stereo mix.

Chuck Britz did make a stereo tape of four songs from PET SOUNDS for a Jukebox disk for another country. Unissued but the stereo was: MUSIC CENTER, VOICES LEFT/RIGHT. In fact, exactly like the mix of LITTLE DEUCE COUPE or whatever.

What I am not clear on is WHY Brian thought the DUOPHONIC stuff sounded OK. I doubt he ever heard it."

You probably did post it last week Bicyclerider. Last Saturday the board switched to a new webhost. And during that conversion unfortunately post of ca. the last 24 hours got lost. Sorry for that.

Some of that sounds pretty strange to me.  Doesn't "fit" though nothing is impossible.

What doesn't fit? Chuck did all the stereos from Surfin' USA to All Summer Long. SH claims IIRC that there was written evidence at Capitol regarding both albums being mixed to stereo and that Brian nixed both test cuts. AGD, have you heard about this, as well?

Nice story...not saying it ain't true, but one thing that doesn't "fit" is that some "Summer Days" (and some "Pet Sounds") multis were 8 tracks, and reportedly the only L.A. studio who had 8 track at that time was Columbia.  So for the mixes to have been done at Capitol would have meant a bounce from the Western or Gold Star 3-tracks to the Columbia 8-track, then after the vocals were added, another bounce from the Columbia 8-tracks down to new 3-tracks for the mix at Western or Capitol.  Not saying it didn't happen, but...

That was my main yellow flag, Craig--the 8-track issue.  Plus, it seems odd that Chuck would do mixes behind Brian's back.

Plus, remember, the vocal 8-tracks for at least one Summer Days... song - "California Girls" - were lost until the call went out for material for the 1993 box set and they turned up unexpectedly on tapes sent in from the Columbia studio (actually, pretty much all the SD vocals were recorded on Columbia's 8-track, reportedly after Bruce urged Brian to try it out). Also, given union and company procedures, would Chuck be allowed work the board at Capitol studios ? Further, stating that "I only go by the actual Capitol Studio files and they tell me that Capitol had a standing order for every Beach Boys recording to be sent to Capitol in a mono and stereophonic form" doesn't actually prove anything as, patently, Brian stopped doing that in 1965. And... why would the multitrack tapes be sent to Capitol anyway - surely all they needed (wanted) were the mono and stereo masters. So, yes, doesn't fit in several places. I'd like to see those files.

Also, I'd be very leery of a music historian, however respected, who referred to The Beach Boys second album of 1965 as Summer Daze.

One more point, and this is me being famously picky: Chuck didn't actually do any mixing as we understand it, rather he balanced and EQ'd the raw 3-track master to produce form of stereo - hard left-middle-hard right.

Actually, I'd always assumed something like that (a bounce from the Columbia 8-tracks down to new 3-tracks for the mix) is what was done.  Otherwise, how did Chuck mix SUMMER DAYS and PET SOUNDS down to mono?  He was a Western staff engineer and probably wouldn't have been able to do mixes at Columbia, which was (according to the stories) such a strict by-the-rules shop that they wouldn't even let Brian touch the board. I think it would be a stretch to assume that they'd have let an interloper from another studio do it!

So where and how did Chuck mix SUMMER DAYS and PET SOUNDS into mono? If we can accept that he did (and come up with some convoluted explanation of how), then it's not that much of a stretch to suppose that he might also have mixed the albums to stereo, is it?

The tracks were already mixed to mono at Western prior to the vocal sessions so no problem there, and I'd assume that the vocals were mixed to mono at Columbia under Brian's supervision - had to be really, as theirs was the only 8-track in town at the time: also, remember that during the Summer Days sessions at least, Bruce was still under contract to Columbia where he was a staff producer so, and I'm assuming here, possibly he had a quiet word...

Also, which would be easier, more logical - do a reduction mix to 4-track at Columbia then mix again to mono at Western... or do a straight mono mix at Columbia ?

Presumably there is paperwork documentation to back up Steve' s claims, as he says - I'm with AGD, I'd like to see it.  But we still have the problem of how did Chuck do the mono Pet Sounds mixes (and Summer Days) - from some kind of preliminary mixdown to four track at Columbia by their engineer or from the 8 tracks?  I find it hard to believe there would be a "premixdown" reduction mix - you've already limited your ability to mix the vocals, why not just mix to mono then?  If Brian wanted Chuck to do the mix with him, I can't see why he couldn't get an 8 track for him to use at Western (technical people - without the studio set up for an 8 track, could you bring an 8 track recorded/playback and mix it at a previously 4 track studio?) or more probably bring Chuck to Columbia specifically for the mixdown.  Is there any documentation of where the mixes for the album were done?  Even Capitol could have borrowed/rented an 8 track for a stereo mix to be done if that is what they wanted/stipulated.

The other big question is - if these were done at Capitol, and Capitol paid for them to be done, would they have destroyed the tapes after Brian rejected the mix?  I kind of doubt it.  So where are they?

Columbia had, in 1965, the only 8-track in town, ergo tapes recorded on it couldn't be played in any other studio. Probably I'm missing some glaring historical or technical point here, but I can't see any other logical route than to do a mono mixdown at Columbia. Western didn't have 8-track capability until much later (hence Brian using Columbia as he did - last known sessions there was 4/7/67, for "Vega-Tables" vocals. I think Armin Steiner had the 2nd 8-track*). I'm inclined to believe that Columbia's strict union policy might be something of an urban myth. Lookit - you tell Brian Wilson in 1965/66 he can't touch the board, I'd call that very poor customer relations. I can see Brian saying "foda this, I'll go somewhere else". And mixing down to 4-track, then again to mono would play merry hell with the signal/noise ratio. Nope, I say they mixed to mono at Columbia.


* I was right, they did. Funny story regarding this: Jimmy Webb recorded the tracks for the first Richard Harris album at Sound Recorders, then took the tapes to Dublin where Harris was to add his vocals. Small problem - no 8-tracks in Europe, never mind Dublin. So they cobbled together an 8-track, reportedly out of spare Scully parts.  Apparently Western had two 8-tracks installed in May 1967 (a 3M C 401 model): however, prior to that they had a 3M 4-channel Dynatrack, which used two tracks per channel: one set at a higher recording level with the playback signal seamlessly switched between the two tracks to achieve the desired result, so technically, while it did have 8 tracks, it was still only a 4-track setup.

I'd take everything Steve Hoffman says with a grain of salt or two. I can say no more.

I thought of another supporting fact for the multis being mixed to mono at Columbia - if the multis were last used to mix down at Capitol or Western, wouldn't they have been left at one of those studios?  Yet the multis appear to have stayed at Columbia - for California Girls and apparently others.  So that would support that mixdowns were done there, and the multis left there.

Which means Chuck could have made stereo mixdowns at Columbia as well.

Plus mixing at Columbia and leaving the multis would explain why these stereo tapes are MIA along with multis for Good Vibrations and the Smile tracks.

McCartney tells the story that EMI had an eight-track by 1966 or 67 but the stupid people at the head office had forgot to buy the plug.

I recall the date being as summer 1968, after they'd used the Trident 8-track to cut "Hey Jude", and the reason being that they (the white coats) needed to test it. Definitely not 66 or 67. Decca had one of the very first UK 8-tracks installed in 1967 - The Moodies used it for Days Of Future Past - but I think Trident's was the very first.

The consensus seems to be that the SUMMER DAYS and PET SOUNDs tracks for which vocals were recorded on 8-track tape at Columbia Studios probably were not subjected to a preliminary 3- or 4-track mixdown to allow Chuck Britz to make the final mono mixes at Western. And the primary reason for that would be the generational loss of sound quality due to another bounce.

So that means that, regardless of who did them, the mono mixes of the tracks in question were done at Columbia Studios. I would postulate also that trying to avoid further generational loss of quality means the 3- or 4-track instrumental recordings were not mixed down to mono at Western either, because they would have been mixed to another 3- or 4-track tape (or possibly even a 2-track tape), which then would have been bounced to the 8-track tape at Columbia. To preserve the best sound quality, they'd have been bounced directly from the 3- or 4-track instrumental master to 8-track tape at Columbia. That makes sense, right?

That leaves us with the conclusion that the instrumental mono mixes (which were put on one track of an 8-tracks tape) and the final mono mixes (made up of that one instrumental track and up to 7 vocal tracks) all were done at Columbia. Had to be, because Columbia was the only place with an 8-track tape machine.

Which means that either Chuck Britz was allowed to do the mixes at Columbia (is there any way to verify that?), or he had absolutely nothing to do with the mixes of the SUMMER DAYS and PET SOUNDS tracks for which vocals were done at Columbia. In which case, I have to ask: Who did the mixes? It not Chuck, then who?

And if it was Chuck and he did the mixes at Columbia, then why couldn't he have done stereo mixes there, too?

Days of Future PASSED. :)

Can't be a scholar at everything. :)

Who ever said Chuck did the final Summer Days and PS mixes anyway?  Could have been Ralph Ballatin or one of the other CBS engineers.

For what it's worth, Brian's on record saying the final "Good Vibrations" mono mix was done at Columbia.

Well, Hoffman is kind of implying it. 

I love Chuck, and am quite attached to him, but he certainly wasn't the only mixer Brian would use, and of course, mixing meant something different then than it does now.

Summer Days Tracks recorded (either inst or vox) @ Columbia:
California Girls
Summer Means New Love
Your Summer Dream


Pet Sounds Tracks recorded (either inst or vox) @ Columbia:
Wouldn't It Be Nice
I'm Waiting For The Day
God Only Knows
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times

I think you mean "And Your Dream Comes True," not "Your Summer Dream," which was on Surfer Girl.

And add to the list:

You're So Good To Me
The Girl From New York City
I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man
Amusement Parks USA
Salt Lake City
Let Him Run Wild

Just a thought: Who did the 4 Pet Sounds stereo mixes that are featured on AN AMERICAN BAND ?

"Here Today", "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "That's not me" & "I Just Wasn't Made"

They all have missing vocals elements, but perhaps those (not so good) mixes date back to 66?

Fair, balanced and valid points all. And as I'm sometimes prone to do, I've been speculating instead of going back to source material. This from Mark Linett's technical notes to the Pet Sounds Sessions box (emphasis mine):

"Starting with the Summer Days Aum in 1965, he began to make use of the new 8 track tape decks that a few of the studios in Los Angeles had recently received.

Neither United/Western (where Brian did most of his recording), nor Gold Star (his second favorite studio), had an 8-track. So, as he so often did, he adapted to the available technology and continued to cut his instrumental tracks on the 1/2" 3-track and 4-track machines that were then the industry standard.

The difference was that now, instead of cutting the entire band in mono onto a single track, leaving two or three tracks for vocals, the engineers (Chuck Britz, Larry Levine and others), began to spread out the band onto three tracks so that Brian would at least have some control over the mix when he dubbed the instrumental track to mono on a second tape before adding the vocals.

Recording the track in stereo was never the goal of using the four-track this way. The division of the instruments was only done with an ear toward what sounds Brian might want to highlight later. Typically, drums, keyboard, percussion, etc. would be on track one, horns on track two, and bass and additional percussion, or sometimes guitar, on track three.

Track four usually contained a rough reference mix in mono of the track which was used for playback at the session, and that would be erased and used for any additional instrumental overdubs (mostly strings) that Brian added. Amazingly, tracks like "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows" were completed in a single long session without any instrumental overdubs. 30 years later, the work on these sessions is an achievement in both production and engineering that in my view remains unsurpassed.

Although he dubbed some tracks down to mono onto another 4-track, leaving three tracks for vocal or instrumental overdubs, many of the tracks on the Summer Days... album (including such classics as "California Girls" and "Let Him Run Wild") were mixed in mono onto a single track of the 8-track machine (at CBS Recording Studios), allowing Brian the luxury of as many as seven additional tracks for vocals.

He even cut two tracks for that album -- "Summer Means New Love" and "I'm Bugged At My Old Man"--directly to the 8-track, but at this point in time these were exceptions, and Brian didn't record this way again until the legendary Smile sessions.

At any rate, depending upon his need, Brian continued to employ the method of recording sessions on 4-track, dubbing a mono instrumental mix to either a 4 or 8-track machine and then adding vocals. About a third of Pet Sounds ultimately ended up on 8-track, but either way, by the time the vocals were recorded, the backing track was already "locked" in mono."

Maybe I like making things harder than they need to be...  :)

I still find it hard to believe that Columbia wouldn't accede to Brian's wanting to run the board himself (which Chuck says he was perfectly capable of doing) for a mixdown, and given that, I can see Brian saying "OK, I'll bring my engineer too" - and of course, yes, Brian didn't use Chuck exclusively, nor was he a mixer. He was an engineer, an outstanding one... but Brian did the mixing, at least in the context of what we're discussing here, and any competent engineer would have sufficed. Think I know someone who might have at least a partial answer to this...

But, to sum up:

rough mono reference track mix done at Western/Gold Star...
final mono track mix done from 4- to 8-track at Columbia...
vocals/sweetening added...
final mono master mix done at Columbia.

And I think we've collectively proven (at least to my satisfaction) that, purely from the evidence of the prevailing technical conditions at the time, Chuck couldn't have mixed down parts of Summer Days... and Pet Sounds at Capitol, or indeed anywhere else except Columbia. Again. I would dearly love to see the documentation that Hoffman is citing.

Pretty sure those were done by the producers of the documentary. I spoke to them in LA just before it came out (they very kindly showed it to me, in fact) and I recall that being an answer to one of my questions.

I've just posted the distilled essence of that I've said here over on the relevant thread on the Hoffman board. I am now sitting back and waiting to see what transpires.  :whatever

Pretty sure "The Girl From NYC" was recorded entirely at Western, vocals and all.  The final vocal overdubs for this one are included in the "Unsurpassed Masters" series, where those for the other tracks mentioned are not ("Amusement Parks USA" and "Let Him Run Wild" both had an original set of vocals recorded at Western, which are included on the "UM" set, but those vocals were later ditched in favor of new vocals recorded on Columbia's 8-track).

was PET SOUNDS mixed in one session at the same studio?  if so, it would have to have been Columbia unless the 8-track tapes were dubbed to 4-track and mixed elsewhere.  And MOST of the songs (the ones with the final multi-tracks on 4-track) would have been mixed from a 4-track machine, not 8-track.  I'm assuming that Columbia had a 4-track machine as well.  incidentally, the machines of this era are customizable, meaning you can change a 8-track machine to a 4-track by changing the tape guides and headstack and using only 4 of the electronics channels.  

In 'that era' (1965-66) there was only one 8-track, and as Columbia engineers built it, essentially, out of Ampex spares, I doubt they designed a head-change facility into it.  ;D

Mark's piece makes it quite clear - most of the time Brian took the Western/Gold Star multitracks to Columbia and mixed them down to mono on one track of the 8-track. Columbia had 4-track consoles too, of course.

The final Pet Sounds session was on April 13th 1966, and the album was mastered on the 16th (a Saturday), so the album was mixed (the previously released singles excepted) in two days at the most... unless, of course, Brian was mixing as he went along, but Steve Douglas's statements argue against that. That said, according to Badman (I know, I know...), Brian held mixing sessions on 2/16, 3/3 and 3/13.

Y'know what ? I need to:

win the lottery...
fly to LA...
set up camp in the Capitol archives...

Dream on, baby.  ;D

Regarding the final stereo mixes for songs in the Sea Of Tunes Unsurpassed Masters Series. Can those tracks be considered the original “Chuck Britz” stereo mixes for each song or were the takes and vocal over-dubs compiled by the bootlegger to make one final stereo mix?  And stuff like the entire Party album in stereo. Was that Britz’s stereo mix or somebody else’s?

Were those SOT’s the same multi-track masters that Mark Linett used for his stereo mixes? ‘Cause some of them sound damn good!

As an aside:

Al Jardine: “I saw it. There would be people rolling tape behind people rolling tape, secret tape machines running in different rooms when you're mastering. People were running two-track machines while we were mastering in another room, and they were taking it. They were just as good as masters. It's gotta drive poor Capitol Records crazy. I feel sorry for them, but well, hell, they made a shitload of money anyway."

Based on the evidence on UM 9, I think you're right.  But that's not what AGD says on Bellagio 10452:

 May 24 - Summer Days... session: You're So Good To Me/The Girl From New York City/
       I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man /And Your Dream Comes True vocals [Columbia]

 ::)

so columbia put together their 8-track?  i ask because ampex did build custom 8 tracks 1965 and before and most of their machines are modular -- you can change pretty easily from 4 to 8 track.  but in any case, i assumed that they had 4-track decks as well.

so no one knows when and where exactly PET SOUNDS was mixed?  which means the original story from Steve Hoffman could be partially true.  Chuck Britz could have very well made stereo mixes from the 4 track tapes for a foreign market, at least for a few songs.  the story about mixing SUMMER DAYS to stereo doesn't make much sense though.

another idea is that hoffman might be wrong in that britz mixed them ... he might just assume that it was britz.  maybe they were done at western by someone else per capitol's request?  it would make sense that they were done in the britz style of inst. center, vocals hard left and right due to the limitations of the backing track locked in mono.  also, most consoles did not have panning, so the only options were LEFT - CENTER - RIGHT

Ummm ... that's not actually what Hoffman said.

Quoting directly from his comments, these were his main points:

(1) "Chuck Britz mixed TODAY in stereo, but Brian refused to OK the test cut."

(2) "The SUMMER DAZE album was mixed to stereo AT CAPITOL FROM THE WESTERN MULTIS."

(3) "Chuck Britz did make a stereo tape of four songs from PET SOUNDS for a Jukebox disk for another country. Unissued but the stereo was: MUSIC CENTER, VOICES LEFT/RIGHT."

Now, point-by-point:

(1) Hoffman's claim about a stereo TODAY mix seems perfectly reasonable. No parts of TODAY were recorded on 8-track, so there would have been no great difficulty in mixing the album to stereo, just as every previous Beach Boys album had been. And if it was mixed to stereo, it seems logical that Brian would have had Britz do it at Western, just as he did with every previous Beach Boys album.

(2) Hoffman never says Britz did the SUMMER DAYS stereo mix. He simply says it was done at Capitol. I've never seen anything about Capitol having an 8-track in 1965, so that part of Hoffman's claim seems doubtful. But if he's simply mistaken about where it took place, then it seems reasonable that it could have been done - only at Columbia and probably not by Britz.

(3) Since only five of the PET SOUNDS tracks were recorded using 8-track technology, there's no reason that a stereo EP couldn't have been mixed and assembled by Britz (at Western) from the remaining eight tracks. Even without the five 8-track songs, you could assemble a great stereo EP. Start with "Sloop John B" and "Caroline No," then pick any two of "You Still Believe In Me," "That's Not Me," "Don't Talk," etc. Even one of the instrumental tracks wouldn't have been out of place on a stereo EP. It sounds perfectly reasonable to me!

1 - No idea why you're raising this point, as I haven't before. I've limited my comments purely to Summer Days... and Pet Sounds. PS: Surfin' Safari was not mixed to stereo, by anyone, anywhere.

2 - The original poster introduced Chuck into the equation and I picked it up and ran with it, spuriously of course (mea culpa): but as you rightly point out, whoever the engineer was, it couldn't have been done anywhere on the west coast except Columbia. From his statement about the Western multis being used, it seems possible Hoffman has either forgotten, or didn't know, about Brian using Columbia.

3 - Again, basically true: however, I find that an EP which would of necessity omit two of the best tracks, indeed the two tracks that were to comprise the next single, to be somewhat less than 'perfectly reasonable'. I also find the vague phrase "for another country", and that there seems to have been no documentation of exactly which tracks were mixed, curious. Hoffman's writing is quite clever here: he states "I only go by the actual Capitol Studio files and they tell me that Capitol had a standing order for every Beach Boys recording to be sent to Capitol in a mono and stereophonic form.", from which one might assume that subsequent statements about stereo mixes by whomever, wherever were also sourced from Capitol files. Maybe they were, maybe not, which is why I'd dearly love to see those files. There's too much gray in this picture, but one thing has emerged: whoever mixed the 8-track multis had to have done it at Columbia.

As to stereo mixes from Pet Sounds, Bruce Johnston talked about fooling around (probably with Curt Becher) and making some stereo mixes of songs in the early 80s. Because the band tracks were mono on one track, the stereo mixes were mostly inst track dead center with the vox panned left and right. Kind of like some of the SOT mixes of this material.

Why did Brian stop doing stand-alone mono mixes in 1968 with Friends, anyway? Did he like the possibilities of recording in stereo at that point and decided to move to that from mono, or did he get strong-armed into doing it by someone (or groups of someone) else?

edit: Regarding Brian's use of Columbia's mixing board: For what it's worth, Desper chimed in [from this old archive of a message board (2002) (http://surfermoon.com/essays/desperarchive.html)] that "Brian could not touch the console at a union studio. I have seen a Columbia Studio engineer actually slap Brian's hand when, out of desperation, he would reach to make a fader move for a cue that the engineer forgot, while recording a live date."

That's a very odd statement... given that during Desper's tenure, the only live dates they did with Brian were in Hawaii, and for those they rented 2 3M 8-tracks from Wally Heider, and the Whiskey shows, which I don't believe were recorded. Brian didn't use Columbia, as far as we know, after 4/7/67. Odd.

I think that's an accidental misstatement by Mr. Desper. In context, he doesn't see to be referring to live performances as in concerts, but possibly just "live" as in "recording: the light is on." More complete context is:http://surfermoon.com/essays/desperarchive.html

You mean, kinda like the Japanese Party EP not including "Barbara Ann"? (For the record, it included "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away," "Hully Gully" and the Party versions of "I Get Around" and "Little Deuce Coupe.")

And then there's 4-By The Beach Boys, which doesn't include the best track ("I Get Around") from the All Summer Long album.

We don't know when in 1966 Britz is supposed to have assembled a stereo Pet Sounds EP. If it were done after the "Wouldn't It Be Nice"/"God Only Knows" single, it might have been intended to further promote the album, perhaps with an eye toward breaking other Pet Sounds tracks for airplay (much like 4-By The Beach Boys did for All Summer Long). Therefore, it wouldn't have included those two "best tracks."

Agreed.  By "live" Desper means "not an Overdub session or Mixing session."

Early on, and maybe even sometimes later on, Brian had to mix backikng tracks "on the fly" while they were being recorded "live" (meaning everyone playing at once).  That's what's meant here by "live date".

Indeed it doesn't... for the outstanding reason that it was originally a US release (other markets merely followed suit) and "IGA" had already been a #1 hit two months before it was released (said EP, btw, was the first in a new Captiol product line, "4-By (insert Capitol artist here)", which never really took off: EPs back then were much more of a non-US thing). In fact, according to Capitol, "the new product will be complementary to the singles and albums by the artists and not be competitive with any of a performer's hot single product" [Billboard 9/12/64].

However, we're venturing into the realms of personal opinion here, as opposed to structured discussion, and the very vague nature of this whole thing is what makes me long to actually see those documents, or at least an abstract thereof.

I need a glossary of 60's studio argot.  ;D

Well, a PET SOUNDS EP was released in Europe in November 1966 with
God Only Knows, Here Today, Sloop John B & Wouldn't It Be Nice.

Coming that long after the release of the "God Only Knows"/"Wouldn't It Be Nice" single (July), would anybody have even blinked if it didn't include those two hits?  ;)

Heartily agreed!

I wonder if Alan Boyd might have seen anything of the sort ...

Alan, you out there?

Regarding the final stereo mixes for songs in the Sea Of Tunes Unsurpassed Masters Series. Can those tracks be considered the original “Chuck Britz” stereo mixes for each song or were the takes and vocal over-dubs compiled by the bootlegger to make one final stereo mix?  And stuff like the entire Party album in stereo. Was that Britz’s stereo mix or somebody else’s?

Were those SOT’s the same multi-track masters that Mark Linett used for his stereo mixes?

the sea of tunes stuff are not proper "mixes" ... nothing like mixes that Chuck Britz would have done.  they are really just "transfers" of individual tracks to 2-track.  basically like listening to the raw multi-tracks.  some of those bootleg dubs sound like the levels were randomly adjusted.

Just went on a short vacation. I'll ask, but he's more on the BRI archive side of things, not Capitol files. However, he might know a man who can...

In Europe, and especially France, EP's were the dominant non-LP format. Not so much in the UK, to the extent that the separate EP chart was discontinued 12/16/67 (at which point the #1 was... The Beach Boys Hits EP, at the end of a continuous 84-week run, over 30 of those at #1).

The May 24 date was provided for all of these titles in the liner notes of the Capitol twofer reissue.  I've often wondered about the accuracy of that date, but it's not out-of-the-question that there were two sessions that day:  "The Girl From NYC" basic track was cut an 8:30pm-11:30pm session at Western, but the vocals weren't neccessarily done that day.  And vocals for the other songs mentioned above could easily have been recorded earlier in the day at a single Columbia Studios session.

This was alluded to above, but what about SOT C9958 "Today & Summer Days (And Summer Sessions)" "Stereo Version With Bonus Tracks"? 

Not that I've ever laid hands on such a thing, but where would a "stereo version" like that have originated? Was it a straight copy of a pre-existing stereo tape, a new stereo mix (is "mix" the word?) or is it not stereo at all?