The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've got a question for the BBs sages. I haven't been able to find much info on the production of the American Band movie. What I am wondering specifically is when the voice-over narration was recorded (for instance, BW's narration that plays over the top of the "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" scene.) I know the movie was released in 1985, would it be safe to assume that the BB's voice-over's and filmed interviews were done in 1984, or was the production of the movie spread out over many years?  Thanks for any info.

I think we've discussed Brian's involvement on the film and that based on my (and others on the Board)'s observation, most footage was taken from the 'bedroom scene' era of Brian and that Brian wasn't involved that much because of Landy, thus using old footage/interviews...but that's just my opinion based on observation.

Judging from how Brian looks in the referenced scene, I'd say it was mid-1976.

A lot of it is 1976 special outtakes. Much of the rest is from The Old Grey Wistle Test.

Some snippets come from this interview with Bob Harris:

http://www.globalimageworks.com/clip-brian-wilson-interview-beach-boys-1874_023?id=45092&search_string=brian+wilson&submit_x=0&submit_y=0&search_type=all&startrow=0 (http://www.globalimageworks.com/clip-brian-wilson-interview-beach-boys-1874_023?id=45092&search_string=brian+wilson&submit_x=0&submit_y=0&search_type=all&startrow=0)

Thanks so much for the info! This board is a pretty amazing resource.

Wow, I had never seen the full interview, thank you so much for the link!
I love how he speaks of "Hey Little Tomboy", "My Solution" and "Mount Vernon and Fairway", of all songs!

Other people can actually get the interview to load?! It just loads forever for me.  :'(

I signed up for an account with them (Global Image Works) and am slowly downloading the thing in MOV format. I'll let you know if it works! Piping hot clam chowder enemas.

Sweet, thanks. It actually started playing though, surprisingly. Been trying for a couple days.

Fascinating interview. Is there more stuff like this?

That was fantastic! Odd that the audio only worked in the right channel (Brian's deaf ear of course). I think I'll convert it into a mono AVI..... Oh, and that clam chowder thingy!

I'm actually downloading them without having an account..   :smokin
But lots of goodies there, too bad many are silent.


And yeah, some take ages to start playing...

American Band uses interview footage shot for the 76 special (Brian in bed, his birthday, Dennis and Carl in the studio discussing Murry, etc) also footage shot in 1980 for the Twentieth Anniversary special (Dennis on his boat, Carl on the beach, etc) and some footage shot in 1981 for another TV show (Carl discussing why he left the band, etc) and some linking footage actually shot in 83-84 (such as Al and the Hawthorne Football team)

Not wrong!  Type "Beach Boys" into the search field and see what comes up:

http://www.globalimageworks.com/clip-brian-wilson-in-recording-studio-1874_026?id=45094&search_string=beach+boys&submit_y=10&search_type=all&startrow=0

… for example…

This website is awesome!  In that first clip, the lady at the end looks like the woman that is referred to in a caption in WIBN as Alexandra or Gene's Mother.

The last clip on that first page is hilarious.  Brian: Culture Club is my favorite band that I have heard recently....especially Boy George, how he dresses up like a girl.....we could do that.

Unreleased Zappa album title?  :lol

Great film archive site, but a few quick points on that firehat clip.

Obviously it's not a film of "Fire" as labeled, because the film was shot by Dennis inside the control room of Western #3. Two very interesting things to look for in that clip:

Van Dyke Parks wearing a firehat:
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/vdphat.jpg)

Brian and a mystery engineer or assistant engineer also wearing the hats. Can anyone identify the engineer with the white shirt, tie, and firehat behind Brian?
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/brianhat.jpg)

I could swear Van Dyke said he did not attend the fire sessions. But there he is.

Or...did he attend the fire sessions, didn't like what he saw happening, then split the project?

Can anybody clarify?

It's been established almost since the footage was released on An American Band 26 years ago that this is not the "Fire" session: aside from the presence of people who weren't there (Mike, Carl, VDP), the AFM for "Fire" states it was recorded at Gold Star, as does the Siegel article.

However... when I interviewed him in the control room of Western Three back in late March 1985, Chuck told me a funny little story about the "Fire" session, and it wasn't until I was back at the hotel that it hit me, with almost physical force, that as it was recorded at Gold Star, why was he there, engineering ?  So, unless I totally misunderstood/mistranscribed from the tape what he was saying, maybe there was a further "Fire" session. Go figure.

It's late now, but tomorrow I'll post what he actually told me.

This night is going to seem almost 40 years long.

Could the clip have been from a mixing session, maybe when the crackling sound effects were added? Might explain why everyone's stood around doing nothing, ie, no sign of any instruments actually being played. Presence of Al & Carl etc also… shouldn't they have been touring when Fire was actually recorded?

Other guess would be a session for one of the bells & whistle style variants?

Just shots in the dark…

Mr. Doe, besides your fantastic book and website, what other research have you done over the years? Who and when have you interviewed folks from the BB-Universe? I'd love to read this stuff if it's posted anywhere  ;)

I'm thinking the same thing. Short of hearing the actual story about Chuck Britz, the first thing I had in mind was asking when did they add those sound effects to Fire, and given that this film was Western I thought perhaps this was that session.

A mix session would be a possibility, but so would a vocal session. Or any number of sessions where Brian wanted the folks around him to don fire hats, and we have no way of knowing exactly how many times he made that request.

I also found it humorous that I wrote above the photos "obviously it's not a film of "Fire" as labeled", only to see the very next response ask about "Fire"... ;D However, in light of this forthcoming information from Chuck Britz, the clip may damned well be "Fire" after all! Ironic.

Over the years I've interviewed/spoken to:

Brian
Carl
Dennis
Alan
Bruce
David
Scott Bennett
Darian Sahanaja
Probyn Gregory
Nelson Bragg
Jack Rieley
Steve Kalinich
Chuck Britz
Steve Desper
The Honeys
Dan Rutherford
Barbara Charren-Wilson
Ed Roach
Jasper Dailey
Sharon Marie
Mark Linett
Alan Boyd
Gene Landy
... and others who requested anonymity.

Okay we'll spare you having to break the confidences but what did Chuck say that time? ;D

Interesting interview that Brian did for the Old Grey Whistle Test in August 1976 is there-American Band used large chunks of it as either narration or straight clips.  I never saw the whole thing-its pretty cool.  I've never seen Brian talk about 20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up and Friends anywhere else on a video.  Interesting also that he mentions how much he loves Donavan-I've never seen him mention him anywhere else

Here it is, direct from the piece I wrote in Beach Boys Stomp #52 (12/85) - bear in mind that this was over 25 years ago and I didn't know anything like the detail I do now. I asked him if "Fire" was done here (i.e. in Western):

"Yes, and it was a damned expensive session. Cost us a small fortune in mikes". I pulled a quizzical face. "It was a crazy session. For starters, we had everyone and their dog in here - really. Brian had his dogs, the ones you hear on the Pet Sounds album in with him and they weren't too well trained, ran all over the place. One vanished for about a quarter-hour and just as we were about to send out search parties, back it trots. 'Bout two minutes later someone from upstairs comes bursting through the door, screaming for the dog's hide: turns out this dog had wandered upstairs, into this guy's office and cocked his leg all over him and the desk. Brian nearly bust a gut laughing... anyway, it got worse. I guess you know about the fire in the bucket ?  Well, after a bit it was tricky seeing across the studio, so we doused it, which was a big mistake. The idea took on and about every five minutes or so after that, someone'd let off a fire extinguisher. Like I said, cost us a small fortune in mikes".

Now, isn't there a piece that describes Brian & co having extinguisher fights during the Smile sessions ? I remembered that, oh, maybe 13 seconds ago.

Andrew, have you not yet interviewed/spoken to Mike Love?

Not yet.

Yes, that fire extinguisher fight is described in one of the Smile articles, Vosse's Teen Set piece. It's an overdub session at Western #3 where Brian was adding multiple pianos to a track featuring a "music box melody". Chuck's name is mentioned.

Speaking of Chuck, here he is taking a drag:
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/brianfilm1.jpg)

Another shot of him at the tape machine:
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/brianfilm2.jpg)

Can anyone identify this magazine Carl is holding? I don't recognize the cover:
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/brianfilm4.jpg)


Here's a neat one: Behind a layer of darkness this shot in the film revealed another man sitting in the control room. Does anyone have a guess as to who this guy could be?
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/brianfilm3.jpg)


Now we have two mystery men from that film: The guy wearing the white shirt and tie (most likely a studio employee), and this guy sitting behind Brian. And note the fire extinguisher hanging on the wall to the right side of the photo. :)

Are those all compression units above the tape machine?

(http://s11.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/e/n/ennyuoewyb3dedny.jpg)
Bravo Magazine [Germany] (24 September 1966)

I was thinkin it looked like Ringo

Those units are the Scully 280 preamps, like this one, for the tape machines:
(http://www.trocmusic.com/images/annonces/upload/199683.jpg)

It looks like two four-track machines installed next to each other. If they had an 8 track machine, those Scully units might look more like this:
(http://www.endlessanalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/scully.jpg)

I'm stunned...just amazed you came up with an answer that fast! Incredible. I captured that image last night after trying several times to get a semi-clear shot of the cover, hoping for an ID of the issue, and within an hour of posting it not only an answer but also a full-color scan appears on the board.

Thank you very much!

This would make *perfect* sense for Carl to have a German pop magazine, as the Beach Boys had just returned from their November 1966 European tour which included Munich.

Ya know, I wouldn't exactly call Brian spraying air from a fire extinguisher on David Anderle "A fight". ( Article posted in Media under magazines)
What I'd like to hear is the vocal sounds of Atlantis...
And I'd like to bring up a small dating issue on my part; I'd always thought most magazines came out one month in advance of their issue date. It tuirns out that TeenSets came out two months prior. ( maybe everyone but me, knew this) So this April 1967 issue had a February 1967 street date.

I can watch that video a million times

Chris, back in those days, fire extinguishers were often filled with a nasty yellow dry chemical powder -- especially in areas where electronics were in use -- as opposed to CO2 or pressurized water (which would short out the electronics).  I remember us finding one at our fraternity house that was about 20 years old, and setting it off.  Covered us all in yellow dust, and took us weeks to clean up.  I still don't think my lungs have recovered...

This could be what Chuck is referring to when he talks about damage to the microphones, as that stuff would likely ruin the diaphragms -- although plain water would do the trick as well!

Lee

Perhaps, perhaps; BUT, if you had gone to the magazine section and read the posted article, you would have seen this: 

    (http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww302/bgasnow/scan0090-2.jpg)

And then you would have understood the reference to Air in my earlier post.

So here's something else I noticed reading the TeenSet article I posted( probably not the exact correct thread, but I'm here and I couldn't find the Gig one)
The BBs didn't meet the Maharishi until December 15th, 1967 at the Unicef Gig in France; yet in this article from early 1967 brian is talking about how important meditation is to him already( without the Swami): 
  >>A long and arduous session is underway at Western. A
brief break is called and as the musicians file out for coffee,
Brian huddles in a corner talking to engineer Henry Levy
who is on a break from the Association's session down the
hall. In a few weeks Henry will leave for India for six
months of study under a great religious teacher. Brian has
been attending discussion classes at Henry's house. 
  " Meditation is an important part of my life now. It is
a great source of peace and energy." Brian has recently
built a meditation tent filling a whole room of his large house.
The tent is an oval with a puffed ceiling all made from a
beautiful red and gold Indian print fabric. <<
  Also wondering if the "great religious leader" is the Swami, and whether when Henry returned, Brian still had any interest...

What? No John Stamos? :)

Now see, this is beginning to seem a pattern:  No Stamos, No Love.

actually, it is a Scully 280 8-track (you can see the single transport and 1" tape below); the 8 electronics modules are just arranged differently (this certainly would have been one of the earliest 8-tracks).  Those modules did include mic preamps but they were not likely used.

I signed up for an account with them (Global Image Works) and am slowly downloading the thing in MOV format. [/quote] Be careful with those. I would really hate for some evil despicable bootlegger to start trying to shove them down my throat by way of private means.

Hmm, "blast of cool air" would imply CO2.  I stand corrected...

Lee

There is one major conflict though: Western didn't get a proper 8-track until at least Spring of 1967. Wasn't it reported for years that Brian started tracking at Columbia because they had an 8-track machine and Western did not, which made Brian's stacking vocals much easier? Also, I remember reading a similar thing about Van Dyke Parks' "Song Cycle", and how the tracks he did at Western were still on 4 track, before doing additional recording elsewhere. Same with Bones Howe and the Mamas And Papas, at least on California Dreamin.

There is also a United/Western newsletter heralding the arrival of the new 3M 8-track machines being delivered to the studios, that newsletter dated April 1967.

Since the early 90's I always associated Western #3 and Brian's work there with 4-track recording. Dating this film between November 1966 and January 1967 which is the most logical timeline given the details shown in the film, if that is an 8-track machine at Western #3 I think that news might surprise a lot of people who assumed Western #3 was still a 4-track studio at that time. I'd love to be proven wrong, and I'll look for additional photos and shots of that machine.

Western had a quasi-8 track:

"But Western studio 1 was a new room; there was a new generation of recording console sitting in the studio 1 control room; there were new, clean, solid-state modular channel amps handling the signal, and, against the wall, the 3M "4-channel Dynatrack" recorder. Did he know what to do with all this? Certainly he knew what good recording was all about. But multi-track was a different animal. Only a few years old, 4-track recording was revolutionizing the music world. A new way to conceptualize the process of composing and producing was now possible with this new multi-track mentality. Some were faster than others in getting into it. Breakthrough 4-track recordings were being produced by many in the new rock world of England and the US, but not everybody got the point. The 3M "4-channel Dynatrack" machine had come to United and Western (all machines were shared between the two studios; the machines-on-wheels scooted back and forth all day and all evening). "Dynatrack" was 3M's scheme to provide more headroom, lower noise in 4-channel recording by using two tracks for each of the four channels - one set at a higher recording level; with the playback signal seamlessly switched (that's the trick) between the two tracks to achieve the desired result. It worked fine. But, since the machine achieved its end by being an 8-track recorder, screw "4-channel Dynatrack". This is an 8-track. And as the Wizard said, this is a horse of a very different color! Work with the best.

http://www.precambrianmusic.com/history1.htm (http://www.precambrianmusic.com/history1.htm)

This is a photo of the 3M Dynatrack, seen between Frank Jr. and the engineer:
(http://www.uaudio.com/media/blog/2009/06/heritage_frank.jpg)

It's a totally different machine, and this very tape machine is what the April 1967 United/Western newsletter was talking about. The only 8-track capability Western #3 might have had at the time this "firehat" film was shot would be two 4-tracks linked together, which they say Chuck Britz had done for Brian. I believe that may be what the Scullys are doing in the film.

Also, this from the Wally Heider dot-com site is Wally's own 3M 8-track from this same time period, one of the first three ever built and delivered by 3M and the first one in LA:

(http://wallyheider.com/wordpress/wp-content/mainImages/dale/3M8tr_200x400.jpg)

Note the configuration, with the modules stacked vertically over-and-under. This was a "rolling" unit as well which Wally would rent out.

More to come...

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/briantape.jpg)

Lightened to show the tape machine...

I have to say I'm fucking shocked to see that *is* an 8-track recording on that tape.

Watch it from 35 seconds into that film clip, and watch closely the needles jumping on the meters behind Brian's head...there are 8-tracks on that reel of tape at Western.

I'm almost convinced now it's a playback/mix session and they're listening to a mix with vocals, hence the 8 tracks making the meters jump.

Fuckin A...

Thanks for pointing that out, Donny L. :)

I wouldn't mind hearing about how/where you talked with Dennis.  8)

Ouija board.

OK...

So... we got an 8-track in Western, ergo the session has to date April 1967 at the earliest. I don't think it's a mix/playback as Mike, Carl and I'm assuming Dennis (filming) are there.

April
11 - Smile session: Tones (Part #3) [Western]

June
5 - Smiley Smile session: Vegetables [Western]
6 - Smiley Smile session: Vegetables [Western]
7 - Smiley Smile session: Vegetables [Western]

Question (because I cannot be arsed to get my DVD from downstairs): does the footage show all eight needles peaking, or just four and we're assuming the other four do as well.

Ummm... according to the precambrianmusic site, that's a Dynatrack:

(http://www.precambrianmusic.com/freeman.jpg)

Yes it is, that was Wally's Dynatrack in the shot I posted from his website. Aren't we talking about the same thing? 3M made the Dynatrack, Wally Heider got one of the first three custom made from 3M (as pictured), he showed it off to United/Western and rented his out for a large sum of money, they (United/Western) then ordered more from 3M and got them delivered in mid 1967 (those machines pictured at Western in your B+W shot and the color shot I posted of Sinatra Jr.).

All 8 needles are moving/peaking as they would if 8 tracks are being played back.

It couldn't be April 1967 or later because Van Dyke is shown wearing a firehat, and wasn't he already out of the project by then? I'll suggest again November-December-January 1966 as a rough estimate.

If I remember there was a discussion some time ago about who was mixing those records, and where they were being mixed, where Brian would take a backing track from Western or Gold Star to Columbia to add vocals...Columbia having the only 8 track available to him at that time (65-66). The question was how could Chuck mix the 8 track tapes at Western if Western only had 4 tracks, and Brian added vocals at Columbia, yet Chuck gets the credit for mixing?

I'm a little hazy on the details on that one...but for one, I think it's a mixdown session or listening back to a vocal added to a previous session.

Does that look like April 1967? That film looks like November to January to me...besides Van Dyke, the German magazine is another giveaway. The way Brian looks and the firehats are another. When after a certain span of time Nov-Dec did Brian have those firehats in the studio?

My impression from the text is that the WH machine is a true 8-track and not what the Dynatrack seems to be, a 4-track on steroids. It's all a bit confusing.

It's all very confusing, indeed! Why would Heider's have 8 modules when as you said, the Dynatrack was 8 tracks grouped as 2-times-4 tracks? Bizarre.

One more piece of evidence, compare this photo dated January 1967 to the film: Same studio control room Western 3, same people Brian, VDP, Chuck, and there is that same tape machine as the film, 8 tracks. You can see more of the rack units behind Brian's hat.
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/brian200.jpg)

VDP was still around in April, but preparing to bail. As for fall 1966, unless Western was keeping it under wraps that they had a functional 8-track in late 1966 (and I can't see why they would), it can't be anything before spring 1967. However, here's a list of known Western sessions when the band weren't on tour post Europe 1966 (has to be December at the earliest as the band came straight off the plane from Europe (last gig 11/14) and played a show in Providence RI on 11/16 that was the beginning of their annual Thanksgiving tour, which wrapped in Baltimore on 11/24):

December 1966
19 - Heroes And Villains

January 1967
5 - Heroes And Villains - part 2/'Bicycle Rider' vocals
9 - Wonderful
12 - Dennis Wilson session: I Don't Know
23 - Surf's Up [2 sessions]
25 - Jasper Dailey session: Teeter-Totter Love

February
2 - Heroes And Villains
9 - Jasper Dailey session: [titles unknown]
12 - Jasper Dailey session: [titles unknown]
15 - Heroes And Villains (band may have been on tour)
27 - Heroes And Villains - part 2
28 - Heroes And Villains - part 2

March
1 - Heroes And Villains - part 2
2 - Heroes And Villains - part 2
15 - Tones

The other thing to consider, of course, is... was all the footage from the same session ?

Dynatrack: it is of course possible that the precambrianmusic pic is mislabelled.

Highlighted bit: same way as they did Pet Sounds - either did a mono reduction mix on to the 8-track at Columbia from a 4-track, or do a mono reduction mix at Western then copy it on to one track of Columbia's 8-track.

Although not very clear, this snapshot shows at least 4 of the 8 VU meters in various stages of motion.

(http://i351.photobucket.com/albums/q476/marcus1970/vumeters.jpg)

Van Dyke was certainly present (as a musician) for a 3/31/67 "Tones" session at Sunset Sound.

Also: I stand corrected - the two 3M C-401 8-track recorders that Western had installed in May 1967 were the same as the 3M 4-channel Dynatrack rig.

United Affiliates newsletter April 1967 (http://www.studioelectronics.biz/newsletters/67apr.pdf)

Now while this simplifies one aspect, it makes another more problematic, as the date for the faux "Fire" footage now has to date from May 1967 at the earliest. Unless, as seems entirely likely, what's in the footage isn't an 8-track. Here's my notion, feel free to shoot it down: during the recording of "GV", it's documented that Brian used a pair of unsynched 4-tracks to tape some sections, thus eliminating the need to either do it twice or copy the master take. So... is it possible that the footage shows him doing this ? My reason for thinking so is that the exact same firehats are worn in the GV promo film (shot 10/23/66). If this is the case, the session could be any of these:

May
27 - single session: Good Vibrations

June     
2 - single session: Inspiration (= Good Vibrations) [2 sessions]
12 - single session: Inspiration (= Good Vibrations) (possibly not - band played in New Haven CT previous night)
16 - single session: Good Vibrations [2 sessions]
18 - single session: Good Vibrations

September
1 - single session: Good Vibrations/'He Gives Speeches' ?

Or... it's footage of another session where he used twin 4-tracks, some time post 10/23/66. If so (#2), the earliest date would be December 19.

Confused ? Me too: as young David Jones might say, "my brain hurts a lot".

... and others who requested anonymity.
[/quote]Rocky Pamplin?  ;D  :p

The two 4-track unit theory seems plausible to me... Though, the Bravo magazine Carl holds was dated to September 24, 1966 by Dancing Bear, so IF this footage was all shot at one session, that would certainly rule out the May and June Good Vibes dates, right?

Also let me throw this out there (just in case the water wasn't murky enough): Though it wasn't directly stated, I took Guitarfool's post to mean Heider rented his 8-track TO Western (please correct me if I'm wrong). So, wouldn't it be possible that the unit filmed was the rented machine? That would allow the session to have taken place before May when Western purchased two 8-track machines of their own.

Wally Heider had one of the first 3 ever rolled off the production line at 3M, and the first one of its kind in LA. Wally would "demo" his new machine at various places, including United/Western and Sunset, and at Sunset Sound Herb Alpert for one later rented and used Wally's 8-track machine to cut a few of his records. Wally Heider easily paid off the cost of the machine by renting it out at a high rate, and it sounds like not only did word-of-mouth get those bookings, but also Wally's demonstrations helped spread the word and other studios were wanting to "book" the new machine. Was Western one of them?

Here's where it gets interesting...

Wally demo'ed the machine at United/Western during sessions for Frank Sinatra's "That's Life" album, held at United in October and November...wait for it....1966. ;D  Those demos most likely led to United/Western "booking" the machine for other sessions because people were asking for 8 track more and more by late 1966 and they didn't have one, as far as we've been led to believe for decades.

So United/Western did *not*, as far as we can tell, have a dedicated 8-track machine at that time. Yet we see one in active use in the firehat film, and we see a few still shots of it on other session dates as well. Which machine is that?

Earlier in a thread we talked about magazines like Teen Set post-dating issues by 2 or 3 months. In that case, a German pop magazine dated Sept. 1966 might hit the newsstands in November 1966, *exactly* the time the Beach boys were in Germany on tour.

The fact that Wally demo'ed his 8 track at United Western sometime in October and November 1966 fits in very well with my earlier estimated timeline...if that machine in the film is in fact Wally Heider's, which I'm not convinced it is because it's not the same configuration as other similar 3M machines we posted photos of (without the Scully units above it). But there is still work to be done. :)

It's 1" tape, clearly visible.  and it's a Scully 280, not a 3m M23 w/ dyna-trak.  Scully made 280 8-tracks as far back as '65.

to clear up the confusion with "dyna-trak" -- that is just a 3M M23 1" 8-track.  the Dyna-trak system used twice as many tracks to cancel out noise (sort of an early noise reduction system), so you could use 4-tracks with the noise reduction or 8 tracks without.  not a popular system, and only 20-30 units were ever made with Dynatrak.

seriously, trust me, that is a Scully 280 1" 8-track, you can see the 1" tape and the transport is much larger than a 4-track transport ... it's like showing a picture of a fender stratocaster and saying it's a telecaster!

So when it's a Scully machine, with 8 tracks, at Western, why has it been reported for years that Western only worked on 4 track into the Good Vibrations time period and beyond? I'm sure there is an interview with Brian or Chuck where they mentioned synching up two 4 tracks for Good Vibes or other sessions of that period in place of a "real" 8 track. And why did Van Dyke Parks cut Song Cycle at Western on 4 track if they could run 8 tracks, yet he went to other studios and did 8 track recording?

Finding out that tape machine was an 8 track was something of a mind-blower if you're into this kind of thing, because again the accepted knowledge was that Brian cut vocals at Columbia because they offered 8 tracks where Western (and Gold Star) only offered 4.

It's hard to make sense of it all, for me at least, especially throwing in the fact that there is no date on this film, and I think that may be the ultimate goal - to date that film clip once and for all. The 8 track revelation is/was a fantastic detour!

And for more info, anyone can check out the Wally Heider website. That is where I found and pasted the photo of the 3M 8 track machine, and the info about that being Wally's came from Dale Manquen on that site.

the Dynatrak was a 1" 8-track machine configured for 4 of those tracks to be used for extended dynamic range, turning it into a low-noise 4-track (still, 8-channels would be present).  the Dynatrak cards could be removed and the machine could be used as a regular 8-track.

This is kind of funny because I think in the UA newsletter it says they ordered and installed 23 of those machines in 1967 in their various locations and operations, though I could be remembering that wrong. Sounds like Bill Putnam was their best customer!

Those photos of Sinatra Jr. and the other B&W shot earlier in this thread...is it possible to ID those as Dynatrack or not just by what's visible?

yeh man, it's kind of like that tape vault photo thread ... there are certain things that are quite clear that don't match up with the commonly-held beliefs.  like the Scotch tape boxes that no one seemed to believe me about!

yeh, that's totally right.  all of the decks went to major studios ... scotch had introduced lower noise tape around the same time, and dolby introduced noise reduction units, making the 3M system something of a failure.  it was also not very practical to use so much tape just to get 10 db more dynamic range when you could get it with lower noise tape and/or a dolby system.

nope, in fact, that actually looks like a 3M M23 4-track.  you see, you can't tell if the lower portion has 4 additional channels or not.  the 4-track looks the same as the 8-track from above.  and to confuse matters even further, it could be either a regular 4-track or a 2-track with Dynatrak.  no way to tell as far as i am aware; i don't think a dynatrak machine looked any different than a regular M23.

here you go, a 3m m23 4-track:

http://auxsend.net/tapemachines/2011/06/06/3m-m23/

The tape boxes told the story, but in all fairness to Chuck and Brian, were they pulling our leg for years about only recording to 4 track? This is a fascinating case where we have photo and video/film evidence of Chuck Britz and Brian working with an 8 track machine, and apparently *no one* ever noticed it in the photos and videos?

Isn't there even an interview with Mark Linett somewhere where he mentioned "Vegetables" on Smiley as the time they switched everything over to 8 track from 4? I guess this is it from the board archives:

"As for Vegetables and Let the Wind Blow on Hawthorne, the latter had all the tracks on one 8 track, but Vegetables did require editing of the sections together to create a complete multi-track to mix from. By this time everything was being done on 8 track and in this case just one generation, no dubdowns as with some songs like "Time To Get Alone" which did require the syncing of a couple of 8 tracks."

So he's talkin' 8 track Smiley Smile, we're talkin' whenever in late 66 or early 67 that film was shot at Western.

An incredible ride so far...

High price tag, but what a neat item to have! I'll bet that machine, as is and 45 years old, works better overall than the Chinese-made Marshall guitar amp I just bought used which does nothing but hum loudly and will soon collect dust... ;D

I can see after what you said how it's impossible to tell which machines are which in the photos, since they both looked alike.

yeh, i don't think Western had an 8-track until spring '67, and it was a 3M.  They may have had some Scullys later though.  so the Scully 8 track in those photos was brought in from elsewhere (probably Heider's).

I love threads like these.  ;D I'm not knowledgeable enough to contribute, but this is fascinating as all get out.  ;D

People have been mis-interpreting some session chat to mean that - in fact what Brian actually says during a "GV" session (first aired on the 1976 US radio special "The Best Summers Of Our Lives") is "we're recording this on two 4-tracks so we only have to do it once", i.e. we're recording the verse section twice, but at the same time. No synching of machines.

Damn, I loves me this kind of thing.  :woot

The 8-track used for some non-Columbia Smile sessions in 1967 was at Armin Steiner's Sound Recorders (3/3/67 and thereafter). Going by the available documentation, except for the first four "Vegetables" sessions (at Sound Recorders & Western), all the non-Smile Smiley Smile sessions were held at Brian's home studio, on a rented 8-track according to Jim Lockert.

gigs & sessions 1967 (http://www.esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs67.html)

I doubt that I could really be of much service here, but here goes. Note that Carl is reading a magazine and looking rather bored. If this were a session for Tones(a song supposedly written by him) I would think that he would be more involved. So I think that could be ruled out.
Slightly off topic here, but what is tones(part 3)? Is it something we haven't heard before?

Interesting - the Scully 280 certainly had 8-track capability, and apparently MoTown had one in January 1965 (according to Bob Olhsson it was the very first one, specially commissioned). Thing is, aside from one solitary image, all the 280 8-tracks I've seen have the amps in an 8X1 configuration, not the 4x2 as seen in the footage. Maybe it was too high for the control room of Western 3.

Now... the oft-repeated tale that until Armin Steiner built his console in Sound Recorders spring 1967, Columbia had the only 8-track in LA seems to be unravelling. Question is, if, as now seems possible (I'd still like to date that footage exactly*), there was a Scully 280 8-track in Western in late 1966, why the big secret... unless... remember that reference to Brian bringing his personal 8-track down to Western ? We dismissed it because it also said he brought his own grand down as well, and anyone who's been in Western Three will tell you that to do that, you'd have to take a wall, maybe two, out !  Maybe Brian had rented a 280 8-track: I recall Bruce (I think) stating that he tried recording some Pet Sounds vocals at Laurel Way on a Scully, but it didn't work out. This flying for you, Orville ?  :)

* - world peace and a candy bar would be nice too.

bingo.

don't concern yourself with the arrangement of the 8 channels; I have seen this configuration before, the 12-track Scully decks (yes, 1" tape) have 6 on each side set up like this, and i have seen some very strange scully setups as well.  in any case, the tape transport itself is 1" tape in those photos, and it's a larger (wider) unit than the 4-track/2-track transports (extra metal on each side).

another theory ... United made the announcement that they are going with the 3M 8-track in their april '67 newsletter; i believe this is the source of "Western got 8-track in april '67" as commonly accepted official knowledge.  but i read the newsletter and it says, "After an engineering survey of machines of various manufacture, they have selected 3M company's model C-401" (which i suppose is another name for the M23 w/ Dynatrak ... that's a whole other issue because i've never even heard of a 'C-401' model ... all online references are to the western deck.  i would say it was an M23 w/ Dynarak that was somehow given this model # as a one-off or a mis-print in the newsletter). 

what im getting at is this survey of a variety of machines that is referenced.  perhaps they tested out some other 8-tracks during the months leading up to this while deciding which to purchase ... it would not be unheard of for a Scully sales rep to woo the studio by letting them use a deck for a period of time.  according to my research, western had ampex 300 series decks (mono, 2-track, 3-track, and 4-track) until the 3M 8-track (or 4-track dynatrak if you will), so they never officially had a scully in any case (4 or 8 track). 

of course, my vote goes for Brian renting one from Heider and bringing it in for a period of time.

you better believe it.  i don't fuss with much new stuff ...  i have an ampex 440 myself!

yes, there is no way they were syncing 2 4-tracks in those days.  2 scully 280s would not have matched up perfectly and those machines did not have vari-speed or sync capability.  i think George Martine made a big deal about manually syncing two 4-tracks for "a day in the life", but this was very difficult and certainly out of the ordinary (and those were not scullys).

I recall reading somewhere, decades ago, that the engineers use one track for some kind of sync pulse, and even then I thought "don't think so", especially as the Abbey Road recorders at the time were, as I recall,  BTR (British Tape Recorders - honestly) 4-tracks, or at best Studer 4-tracks.

Ah, here we go:

"On 10 February 1967 during the recording of "A Day in the Life", Ken Townsend synchronised two machines so that extra tracks were available for recording the orchestra. The technique that Townsend used was to record a 50 Hz tone on the one remaining track on one machine and used that tone to control the speed of a second machine. Townsend thereby effectively used pilottone, a technique that was common in 16mm news gathering whereby a 50/60 Hz tone was sent from the movie camera to a tape recorder during filming in order to achieve lip-synch sound recording. With the simple tone used for "A Day in the Life", the start position was marked with a wax pencil on the two machines and the tape operator had to align the tapes by eye and attempt to press play and record simultaneously for each take.

Although the technique was reasonably successful, Townsend recalled that when they tried to use the tape on a different machine, the synchronisation was sometimes lost."

So after all that, they visually and manually synced the two 4-tracks. Not so impressive, then.

Western had an 8-track machine as early as October 1966. Frank Sinatra's "That's Life," an 8-track master, was recorded at Western on Oct. 16. Reportedly, the engineers hated the machine and rarely used it, as it often would break down, produced a lot of heat and imparted a near-unacceptable level of noise to the recordings made with it. Also, it cost the client twice as much for a session.

I've often wondered whether they might have had it on premises as early as April. Where were the Pet Sounds songs recorded on 8-track at Columbia mixed down and by whom? I wouldn't think they'd have been done at Columbia, as reportedly Brian got in trouble for touching the board there and I doubt he'd have trusted the mixdowns to an engineer he hadn't known and worked with for some time. And Columbia being such a strict shop, I don't think he could have brought Chuck over from Western to do the mixdowns. So where were they done and by whom? If at Western, they had to have had an 8-track at that time.

I've seen the studio listed as United/Western, and I believe Frank favoured United A because the room was bigger. Phill Sawyer seems to indicate the session was at United. Even so, the fact remains that there was an 8-track (allegedly) across the parking lot and Brian wasn't using it.

As for the story about Brian not being allowed to touch the Columbia board, not sure I completely believe that, for the following reasons:

1 - the only source is Steve Desper, who didn't work for Brian, even informally, until Smile, so wasn't around during Summer Days... and Pet Sounds.

2 - I think that if the biggest producer in town was beginning to use your studio on the sayso of one of your ex-staffers, you wouldn't do something that stupid. Brian first used Columbia in late May 1965, and the last recorded use by him was the first week of April 1967. Does him continually having his hand slapped away for some two years yet continuing to be so humiliated every time he used it sound in any way believable to you ? I'd bet Bruce had a quiet word in someone's ear the first time it happened. If it happened.

I know someone who can lip read. I will get them to watch this "firehat" movie and see what they're saying.

"Can you feel the acid yet ?"

"Hey, someone get me a candy bar ?"

"Anyone here know where the off switch is on this damn Scully ?"

 :) Probably is what they are saying......

But Brian looks in control of the session, as per. It would be quite interesting to know whathe is saying.

And it could be we already have the audio for the session, and are able to identify it from Brian's control room instructions.

Excellent! You read my mind...Seriously, after July 4th I was going to contact a few lip reading services to see what they'd charge to transcribe the dialogue in the film. If you know someone, I and everyone else would owe you big time if they can pick out what they're saying in the clip. That would be a *huge* benefit in dating this film.

It's a wild way to draw a paycheck but they actually have services for people who have silent home movies and wish to find out what their family members or whoever is saying on the old films. And they do legal work as well, transcriptions and whatnot for court cases. Had it not been for this discussion I'd still think such services were mostly for the hearing-impaired.

Yes, that is another Beatles story which got inflated through the years beyond what actually happened. The above account is what Geoff Emerick said as well: The tone recorded onto one track of the second machine (Studer) was only to control and match the speed of the two motors. It had nothing to do with synching the machines.

I have also seen an account which said George Martin "went ballistic" or something of the sort when they were unable to sync the orchestral overdub to the other tracks. It's still audible just after the wordless vocals post-bridge, and just before the final verse. The orchestra is out of time with the rest of the track. This really upset George Martin! But it goes to show that a "mistake" like that gets lost and forgotten in the brilliance of a great song and great performance.

Very interesting, I'd like to break this down even further.

1. Start with the assumed fact at the end of the process: Chuck Britz and Brian mixed Pet Sounds at Western.

2. According to Mark Linett, at the time of Pet Sounds, Columbia had the only 8-track machine in town.

3. Let's assume Brian would take his four-track reel containing the instrumental tracks from Western or Gold Star over to Columbia, they'd transfer the instrumental mixdown to one track on Columbia's eight track, and Brian would add his vocals and vocal overdubs on the open tracks.

So we have a 8-track tape now in Brian's possession from Columbia, with instrumentals and vocals. Even taking into account any bouncing of tracks and sub-mixes and all of it, the question becomes:

Exactly what tapes were Brian and Chuck Britz working with when they mixed Pet Sounds at Western? If, according to Mark, Columbia had the only 8 track in town, how would Brian do as much as a playback at Western if there was no machine there to do it?

This is before Wally Heider had his for-hire 8-track machine being demoed in use at those Sinatra sessions in fall 1966, and as Beach Head suggested in his post, something is missing from this story. How did they play an 8 track reel of tape if they were not mixing at the only studio which had an 8 track machine?

There is a simple answer for this, I know, but I'm just not getting it... :)

Hey, take the problem back almost an entire year -- to June 1965! The final masters for 9 of the cuts on Summer Days (... And Summer Nights!!) were on 8-track tapes from Columbia! It's always been accepted lore that Brian & Chuck Britz mixed that album at Western. How? There probably wasn't another 8-track machine in all of L.A. at the time!

I can only think of two possible solutions to the dilemma:

(1) Before leaving Columbia, Brian mixed the 8-tracks down to some kind of 4-track submasters, then had Chuck do the final mixes from those at Western. However, I've never heard anybody who's dealt with BB master tapes indicate that such submasters existed.

(2) The accepted story of Chuck Britz doing all the final mixes for Brian during that era is simply wrong. And for at least two of the group's most important albums, Summer Days and Pet Sounds, Brian had some unheralded staff engineer at Columbia doing many of the final mixdowns. Could we really have gotten the facts so wrong all these years?

Maybe it's not a case of getting the facts wrong, but rather not getting the full story when maybe a less complex version of what really happened made more interesting reading in liner notes and band histories. I've heard of the bouncing of tracks done at Western during Good Vibrations to free up tracks on the 4-track tapes, but it seems like adding so much more work, cost, and time to have to reduce 8 track mixes at Columbia for every session Brian was there...and did they reduce to a 4 track tape after recording on 8 just for Brian to take to Western? I doubt that mainly because it doesn't seem logical, but who knows.

My mind is still blown from seeing that the tape machine is an 8 track in this firehat video - after years of thinking there was no 8 track then at Western.  :o

One more observation: If you watch American Band there is maybe 10-15 seconds of footage which this clip we're discussing does not have.

Among them:

Two shots of Mike pretending to smoke and dancing, wearing the same firehat as everyone else, and it looks like Western's backdrop.

One shot of Carl sitting in front of the Scully rack units that looks like it came from a lower-quality 8mm film.

A final shot of the studio door being closed on Brian, as he's standing behind the board in the control room still wearing the firehat.

I wasn't able to find any new details in those clips, but it's odd that this version of that film which I thought was the most complete and clear I had ever seen is actually missing a few pretty cool shots. For whatever reason.

Sometimes the simplest, most obvious explanation is the answer - they mixed at Columbia, not Western. Is there any hard evidence they mixed Pet Sounds at Western ?

Considering all the other stuff we've all accepted as gospel down the years - the 1962 midwest tour, Alan leaving to go to dental college, "SJB" included at Capitol's insistence - that turned out not to be so... yes, easily ! ;D

Hence my comment about it not being a mix session as two other band members are there. Or... those shots are edited into the main footage...  ::)

To sum up...

It's at Western 3 - fact.

Therefore it's not a "Fire" session - fact.

There's a Scully 280B 8-track that just shouldn't be there - inconvenient fact.

After reading and re-reading articles like Mark Linett's mixing notes for the Pet Sounds box, as well as the Mix magazine article when he mixed it in 5.1 and others, I'm not much closer to an answer  :-D  ...other than to say it seems Chuck Britz mixed the instrumental tracks he recorded at Western down to a single mono track, in effect bouncing three tracks into one, so Brian could then add the vocals to that one mono backing track which he would put on an 8-track at Columbia. That's been reported so many times, though, it's not really new info. With Good Vibrations they apparently did multiple versions of this, many times over, where they recorded, then bounced the tracks onto one mono track, copied *that* track onto another 4-track tape, and kept repeating the process to layer new tracks. Just like Les Paul in the 40's and 50's, bizarre, quirky, unorthodox, but damn the results were amazing!

The only references I can find of Chuck "mixing" Pet Sounds were for a stereo release in another country, four songs mixed in primitive stereo. Brian mentions him time and time again, actually so does Mark Linett, but given the scenario of the 4 and 8 track reels I think crediting Chuck Britz with mixing Pet Sounds is only partially true...if all he mixed were the instrumental backing tracks.

So an anonymous, uncredited engineer at Columbia actually did the final mixes of Pet Sounds, is that what we're suggesting? Unless someone can clarify the role Chuck Britz actually played? That would be quite a blockbuster as well...

Very inconvenient!   ;D

The shot of Brian at the studio door at the end in AB is a shot I never noticed, in many repeated viewings of American Band (specifically that clip). I'm still surprised the footage of Mike isn't in the longer clip we've been watching...it clearly looks like the same day or session.

Andrew, you or someone mentioned the firehats in the Good Vibrations film clip: Offhand I don't know the date, but were there any sessions at Western held the same week as that clip was filmed? The firehats appear to be exactly the same. Of course those same firehats pop up several times, so maybe Brian just had a supply of them which he'd whip out on a whim for people to wear.

I thought Marilyn or Diane (probably Diane) bought those fire hats for the musicians to wear during the Fire session(s). Was that the first time they appeared, and then in the studio pictures you noted above and subsequently in the the video clips (shown in American Band)?

The Fire session was at Gold Star November 28, 1966 and in the session photos both Brian and Jim Gordon are shown wearing them. Jules Siegel describes this session in full detail in his article, even including the kind of shirt Brian was wearing which he later took off as shown in the photos. Jules says Brian sent Steve Korthof to the car to get the rest of the firehats for the musicians to wear at some point during that session.

So the implication there is that the firehats may have already been available for something else?

These same fire hats are seen in the Good Vibrations promo film. That was filmed October 23 1966 (according to Badman's timeline) before the Beach Boys went on their European tour and the day they got back from the shows in Michigan where the song was premiered live. So those hats were around October 23.

The interesting item I saw in Badman's book was a mention of another Good Vibrations "promo" showing the band rehearsing at Western, which was shown on French TV in Feb 1967 again according to Badman's timeline. Could this be the edit of the clip we're watching?

So the group had the firehats in October 1966, wore them for what *could* be two promo films for Good Vibrations (the firehouse film is confirmed), then Brian had them again for the Fire session November 28 (confirmed in photos and Jules' article).

The part that doesn't fit is that 8-track machine in the film.

The footage that is being discussed here is a complete 100' roll of 16mm.  That 15 seconds you're mentioning is from a separate 100' roll that was found during the making of American Band.

Thank you for the information! Were those rolls of film dated or cataloged in any way, or can you say what else may be on the other 100' roll that was found? A few additional clips that turned up in documentaries after AB were the shots of Dennis on a firetruck, and the band blowing into Coke bottles outside the firehouse from the GV promo shoot...could these be on that separate roll?

"GV" promo was filmed 10/23/66, in between coming back from the two Michigan shows (21 & 22) and flying to Europe on the 24th !. Sessions for October 1966 are (Western highlighted):

  3 - Smile session: Home On The Range (= Cabin Essence) [Gold Star]
  4 - Smile session: Prayer [Columbia]
  5 - Smile session: Wind Chimes
  6 - Smile session: Wonderful [vocals - Columbia] [BW]
  7 - Smile session: Child Is Father To The Man
10 - Smile session: Wind Chimes [vocals - Columbia]
11 - Smile session: Home On The Range (= Cabin Essence)
11 - Smile session: Home On The Range (= Cabin Essence) [vocals - Columbia]
12 - Smile session: Child Is Father To The Man [vocals - Columbia]
13 - Smile session: I Ran vocals (= Look)  [vocals - Columbia]
17 - Smile session: I'm In Great Shape (= Heroes And Villains) [vocals - Columbia]
18 - Smile session: Do You Like Worms ?
18 - Smile session: 'Brian's Smile party' [Columbia]
20 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains/'Barnyard'

Exact same fire hats are in the "GV" promo video, dated 10/23/66.

Sorry-but the BBs didn't fly back to California after Michigan.  They went on to NY and from there to Paris.. Badman's dating of the promo film is incorrect (not October 23)

Just when things started lining up... :)

When was that film shot at the firehouse?

Here are a few stills of the GV promo film shoot outtakes...note the firehats. If we can date this, it's a start. As mentioned before, the date would surely be prior to October 24 1966 because the band was on tour after that, and they mentioned the GV film in interviews while in Europe. Then the firehats appear again November 28, 1966 at the "Fire" session at Gold Star.

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/cokes2.jpg)

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/cokes1.jpg)

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/dennistruck.jpg)

There's a words for that... ah yes - BUGGER !

OK... BB on tour (US/Europe/US) from 10/21 - 11/24. "GV" charted in the UK 11/5, at #15, hit #1 on 11/19 for two weeks (significance is, TOTP didn't play songs on the way down), so it had to have been shot before 10/21, as everyone's in it. Some time before 10/21. Consider... you've got a single readied for released 2nd week of October and the touring unit will be unable to push it for a month or so shortly after that. Makes sense to shoot a promo film before then.

Off subject of the concerned section, I was wondering about the "other version" of the American Band film; is there a cut out there that's trimmed down in time because it takes out the Smile section? I haven't seen it before...Does it just go from Good Vibrations to Brian being depressed? Pretty lame to make a version without a little psychedelicacy.  The anti-drug message makes for a great 80s-after-school-special theme.

The answer to where PET SOUNDS was mixed may lie in careful listening to the original vinyl releases.  Any listening tests do not apply to most of the common CD reissues, and even to some of the vinyl releases, especially LP reissues pressed since 1988, which used the same digital masters as the CDs.

Please reference this thread:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-171692.html

The fades on some of the tracks on SUMMER DAYS and PET SOUNDS have the “2 db step” Mr. Hoffman noted in the thread above.  However, he could be mistaken with regard to this being a characteristic of the console at Western – it might have actually been a characteristic of the board at Columbia.  Perhaps the tracks recorded at Western were mixed at Western and tracks where the final multi-track master ended up on 8-track at Columbia, were mixed at Columbia.  This makes sense with regard to some additional recording being done on the multi-tracks AFTER the final mixdown; i.e., the mix was not accomplished in one session or even within a specific time frame set aside for mixing, but was done at various stages in the recording process.  Or perhaps all or most of PET SOUNDS was mixed at Columbia.  “Good Vibrations” was mixed at Columbia, according to Brian himself in the quote in the SMILEY SMILE/WILD HONEY 2-fer.

I listened to some vinyl i have, a few different versions, and found some tracks that have the "2 db step":

1 - Amusement Parks USA
2 - Salt Lake City
3 - California Girls
4 - Let Him Run Wild
5 - You're So Good to Me
6 - God Only Knows
7 - Here Today
8 - Good Vibrations

I researched it a bit, and it looks like some of the tracks above are not Columbia 8-track sessions?  but this does not rule out that they could have been mixed there.  In any case, you don't hear this "2 db step" on tracks from TODAY and before ... so i think that says something.

In any case, keep in mind that in the ‘60s, “mixing” wasn’t thought of how it is today.  It was more the final step in an ongoing recording process.  Any way that you look at it, Chuck Britz did a lot of the actual mixing on Pet Sounds because he (along with Brian of course) was in charge of the live balance into the 3 or 4-track deck.

When the video was premiered in Australia (at the now defunct Roxy Cinema Parramatta) it was indeed sans the whole Smile bit. It jumped from GV to Do It Again much to the chagrin of many-a-BB fan.

First documented Columbia session was May 24th 1965 (for a bunch of vocals on Summer Days..., although that's a little bit questionable, but on June 1st Brian cut "Summer Means New Love" there, which date is rock solid). Basically in 1965, there's no question that the only 8-track in town was at Columbia, so anything cut on 8-track had to be mixed there. I think the logical thing would be to sub-mix at Western to mono then copy that to the Columbia machine.

The version I saw in March 1985 at Malcolm Leo's office was slightly different to the commercial release (some of the background music was different, slight editing differences), and it was further cut in the 90s to make it basically a collection of songs.

One wouldn't even have so sub-mix at Western, though certainly that could have happened.  If they cared at all about degrading the sound, it would make more sense to take the 4-track tape from a Western session and do the mix right to the 8-track.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned...

We see Van Dyke in the film. Yet Van Dyke adamantly denies ever having been at a Fire session--he notices in '03 that the Fire track sounds totally unfamiliar to him until he recalls that he wasn't there.

Unless, of course, he has misremembered.

It's not a "Fire" session: that was the assumption of the film makers. They correctly state in the caption that the "Fire" session was at Gold Star. The minor snag is, that's Western.  ;D

More to the point, Jules Siegel's excellent description of both session and music makes no mention of any band member except Brian being there.

I know I've mentioned it before in this post, but I wanted to point out that degradation of sound quality doesn't seem to have been an issue with Brian in 1966! He did sub-mix after sub-mix, bounce after bounce, on Good Vibrations where he was constantly freeing up tracks. Every time he did that, the sound quality naturally would drop, but wasn't he into the whole "saturate the tape with sound" ethic at this time? Listening to Good Vibrations, and knowing what went into it and just how many bounces and whatnot were done in the process, it actually becomes more amazing every time you hear it...the fact that the little details are as audible as they are.

I think Les Paul and Brian were related in the way they approached recording. It was primitive, it was on the fly, it was totally unlike what their peers were doing, yet the results could be stunning. And it seemed like they eventually found a way to get what they wanted to hear on tape, and they sent everyone else scrambling to figure out what they were doing to get those sounds.

Re: Mixing...Vosse in the Fusion piece specifically mentioned Chuck Britz, and how Brian liked to work with him because Chuck let him work the board at Western. Is the implication being made that other engineers (Larry Levine, Columbia, etc) did *not* allow Brian to work the controls? It's odd that Vosse singled out Chuck for that one reason.

I think Vosse is a questionable source, given that he stated "Cabin Essence" was completely re-recorded simply because he thought it was stereo. We know that Gold Star let Brian work the board (Siegel piece again) and, speaking personally, I have grave doubts that Columbia enforced their hands-off-unless-you're-staff policy, for the reasons already advanced. Also, as per SWD, Vosse wasn't (AFAIK) around for anything pre-Smile.

I think the track to suffer the most from the sound quality degradation was definitely Heroes And Villains.

There were so many layers of so many amazing things there, I think it was simply impossible to do a decent mix where you could hear everything clearly at once, given the technology at the time.

Nowadays, though... you'd think it would be possible...

Only if you had all the original multitracks to hand. Last I heard, this was not the case. In having 98% of the session tapes available, Pet Sounds was a glaring exception.

Given what he had to work with, I thought Mark's stereo remix of H & V was a big improvement over the original single. Just taking some of the organ out of there helped a lot!

Yes, AGD, but too much reverb...bugs me. Why did that ever get put in?

The original mix was way too dry for my taste, so the reverb was warranted. I also appreciated the breaths being minimized. I guess it comes down to whether you like the "home-made" feel of the SMILEY SMILE tracks or the more polished pro-studio sound of the SMiLE sessions. For a number of SS tracks ("With Me Tonight", "Wonderful"), the "home-made" recording/mixing techniques have a certain charm to them. However, I do not feel this approach benefits "Heroes & Villains".

i've wondered about the bouncing issues as well; i always though it was strange that they used one track of the instrumental 4-track multi-tracks for a reference mix, but now i'm realizing:

it could have been that Brian/Chuck wanted to do the mix at Western, so they used that 4th track ... but was it just a "reference" to be matched by the engineers at Columbia, or was it the actual mix that was transferred to the 8-track machine (thus creating another bounce).  i would guess a reference, but who knows.

in my opinion, the stereo and mono PET SOUNDS have an equal amount of reverb (the reverb does sound a bit different though).  the thing is, stereo creates the illusion of a larger amount of reverb.  i would guess that if you fold the stereo down to mono, the reverb levels would be comparable.

Uh, but we were discussing the stereo remix of "Heroes & Villains"...or, at least, I was.  :)   As far as PET SOUNDS goes, I agree that the amount of reverb is about the same between the original mono mix and the stereo remix. However, there is no question that Mark added reverb to "Heroes & Villains" in the stereo remix where there was little to no reverb in the original mono mix. I believe Mark was trying to get the track to sound closer to what a SMiLE version would have sounded like instead of replicating the more stripped-down SMILEY SMILE approach.

They had to use one track of the 4-track for a reference/sub mix, otherwise mixing the Western tape to the Columbia 8-track would have to be done from scratch. This is what I think they did:

Recorded the instruments on to three of the tracks at Western.

Do a rough/sub mono mix on to track 4.

Take the tape to Columbia and mix the instrumental from the Western multi to (say) track one of the Columbia 8-track: saves a generation

Record the vocals on the other seven tracks.

Mix it all to mono, at Columbia of course.

The key to this is that, to make a true stereo multitrack, Mark was able to sync the reference mix on the Western 4-track with the mono track mixdown on the Columbia 8-track. If they'd mixed a full Western 4-track to mono at Columbia, there'd be no reference mix to sync. Or, not being an engineer, am I missing something here ?

Later... well, duh, and isn't that exactly what Mark said in the liners to the stereo Pet Sounds releases ? Here's the relevant bits:

As has long been obvious, Brian Wilson was always a major innovator when it came to recording technique. Starting with the Summer Days Album 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.

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.

However, a mono track was exactly what Brian wanted since, like his main production influence Phil Spector (not to mention the Peedles who were more concerned with the mono mixes until after Sgt. Pepper), Brian felt that making records in mono allowed the producer to present the record exactly as he wanted it heard without any interference from the listener's stereo which could be set-up in many different ways that might affect the sound. Also, in those days, rock records were made to be heard on car radios (which were then all mono), so the producers deliberately mixed for their main market.

Whether the instrumental track had been dubbed down to a single track on 4-track or 8-track, the backing tracks were all in mono, the technical reason why there could not be a true stereo mix of Pet Sounds made in 1966. You could say that because the instruments were "locked" in mono, you couldn't mix in stereo.

So, Pet Sounds was created in 1966 as a mono album, and although Capitol did issue it in "Duophonic" stereo (an electronic process that simulated stereo), it has never been released in true stereo until now. Before work on this box began, the idea of a stereo mix was discussed at length with Brian, and he decided that subject to his approval, a stereo version of Pet Sounds would be included in this collection.

Technically, the creation of a stereo mix presented a typical problem found with most recordings from this time period. Because the track had been mixed into mono on a second tape machine before the vocals were recorded, the only way to have a stereo instrumental track to use for this new stereo mix was to sync the vocal overdubs to the original master track.

To do this, the original instrumental multi-track tape was transferred onto a digital multi-track, and then, after carefully matching the tape speeds of the track and vocal tapes, the vocals were manually synchronized to the track using the (1966) dubbed track on the vocal tape as a guide.

The result was a single multi-track digital master tape of each song with all of the discrete tracks that Brian recorded in 1966 in "sync."

Well, that's a matter of taste. Out of all the stereo remixes done over the years, there are many that I like, some I don't care about, a few that aren't very good, but there's only one that I HATE with a passion, and that's the stereo remix of H&V.

The buzzing Baldwin HT-2R is one of the key elements of the single version in my opinion, and without it H&V just isn't the same.

Could you explain to me what the buzzing organ does to the song that without it makes the mix hated with a passion? I asked because I never really noticed it missing and never took much notice that it was on the mono mix.

Well that mix DOES go kind of 'special' in the second verse..... And it isn't exactly a wide spread and is REALLY loud. My preferred H&V mix is the Cantina one anyway  ;D

Oops. I thought you were talking about pet sounds ... This thread is getting confusing !

Re: Andrew's last response: 

yes, i am aware of those methods ... What we were discussing is the possibility that some of reference mixes themselves might have been transferred to one track on the 8 track at columbia, as opposed to mixed from scratch there.

If you never really noticed it missing, it might be time for an hearing test  :lol To me, the Baldwin added some kind of strange, "menacing" vibe, thus creating some kind of "uncomfortable feeling" that I can't find on the stereo remix. The organ also plays a simple line compared to what it's been replaced with in the stereo remix, some might argue that it makes the single version sound underproduced, but in my opinion it makes the stereo remix sound... Overdone.


Really, REALLY loud indeed.

Thanks for the explanation, and yes my hearing is just fine, thank you. With the way Brian mixed down, I can see why this would be missing. Similarly, this is like the missing guitar in the stereo version of She Knows Me Too Well. To me this is more obvious than the organ buzz and I miss hearing it in the stereo version, but not to the point that I will not listen to it. It just struck me that someone would hate with a passion organ buzz in a song.

I was just joking  ;)


I agree about She Knows Me, but to me it's still listenable. Maybe I hate the H&V remix because the single version is my favorite song...

I know you were joking, no problem. I should have used a :). I listened to both mixes multiple times on the way to work this morning and the lack of organ buzz had no affect on me.  If it is your favorite tune then I can understand why you feel the way you do. The biggest difference for me with the stereo version is openness of sound. The mono version is so dense that the stereo version has a bit of emptiness to it. The one good thing about the stereo version is the background vocals sound so much cleaner and clearer. I know it's heresy, but my favorite version of H&V is the live In Concert version. That version flat out rocks. There is something about the lead vocal that makes the studio version seem like it is plodding along in sections. It's definitely not the backing track, because that moves along quite nicely. It could very well be the denseness causing this too.

I think She Knows Me Too Well sounds great in stereo, but after listening to it for 46 years with the guitar insert, I miss hearing it on the stereo version. I keep waiting for it kick in and it never comes.

You know, I now think that onkster was talking about PET SOUNDS! Oh well, too late now.

I was amazed at how brilliant the "Heroes & Villains (Sections)" backing tracks sounded when I heard them in '93 and wondered why Brian buried them under simplistic organ chords in the final mix. Therefore, when Mark's stereo remix arrived, I was thrilled to now hear the more intricate backing track chorus (replicated on BWPS).

Taking into consideration all the comments posted since this post, where Mark Linett spells out the nuts-and-bolts of how he did it with Pet Sounds, I'd have to think when Brian and Chuck did those mixdowns of the instrumentals at Western, they were thinking of the end result. Whatever they did was the way it was going to be, mixed to mono on that one track. I wouldn't consider it a reference mix as that implies changes will be made later in the process.

I compare it to doing a crossword puzzle with an ink pen - whatever you choose to write is locked in. :-D It was Brian's ability to see the bigger picture and have an idea of the final results in his mind at these stages of the process that made him so unique.

One other issue: Why have the engineers at Columbia/CBS remained anonymous through the decades? Everyone that goes the next step in reading and researching the Beach Boys and LA pop music in general knows the names Chuck Britz, Larry Levine, etc...yet who were the guys at Columbia who mixed Pet Sounds? Compared to Chuck, Larry, and others, they're hardly discussed.

One thing to bring up...obviously by the photos they had that 8-track at Western by early 1967, whether it was Brian's or Heider's or whoever else it belonged to. Remember Chuck Britz is on record saying he mixed down the "Cantina" version of Heroes, and he was working at Western. I wonder why Brian didn't follow the usual procedure as he did on Pet Sounds, unless he *wanted* to mix at Western with Chuck and with the availability of an 8-track at Western he could mix the Heroes single there.

IF the 8 track was Brian's, what happened to it?  Did he take it home to use in the home studio? ( any pics from there to prove/disprove?)

This is the first photo I thought of after reading the question. It's Brian at home in 1966, with a 4-track machine containing the same model Scully 280 rack units as in the Western photo, and a sweet tube McIntosh amp on top. But again, it is clearly a 4-track machine: The 8-track in the film remains the mystery...
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/briantapemachine.jpg)

Adding to that photo: Here is a shot from the "home studio". The tape machine is a 3M similar to the one I posted earlier of Wally Heider's machine. Here are both photos to compare:

Home studio:
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/sd1.jpg)

Heider's 3M machine:
(http://wallyheider.com/wordpress/wp-content/mainImages/dale/3M8tr_200x400.jpg)

Not saying the model pictured behind Desper was Wally's machine, but just the same type of machine. It's definitely not the 8-track shown at Western, nor the 4-track in Brian's earlier home photo.

The one person who could address this part of it would be Stephen Desper. :)

Pretty certain that the first time a studio was set up briefly at Brian's house, it was Heider's equipment.  But this would have been before Desper was on the scene.  I'm almost certain that Dennis told me this had caused a rift between them & Wally for a time, because they took what they learned from bringing his equipment in, then ran with the idea & built their own studio without Heider's involvement.  He thought he'd remain around to be a part of designing it, too.

Any idea which country and which specific record?

When American Band came out I can remember some fuss being made that some of the included Pet Sounds tracks appeared in true stereo for the first time... Would it be correct to assume that therefore 'primative stereo' probably equates to something like 'duophonic' as opposed to 'true' stereo...?

Am I alone in thinking this info re: Chuck mixing Pet Sounds tracks in stereo is, given the nature of how the album was recorded and our current state of knowledge regarding same, now questionable ?

Turning a mono master into DuoPhonic isn't mixing by any stretch of the imagination. More audio vandalism.  :)

As for Brian not being allowed to touch the board at Columbia, hopefully I'll be seeing Bruce pre-gig tomorrow, so I'll try to remember and ask him.

Wouldn't stuff like early Be4tles stereo mixes (e.g. vocals/bass one side, guitar/piano other side) qualify as 'primitive' stereo?

PS it is nice Mike and Bruce are in the UK but a shame they are only doing the one show  :-\ still looking forward to Bruce will have to say.

Obviously not having the mixes or a finished 4-song EP as proof makes it questionable. It's also a possibility given that not every Pet Sounds track was taken to Columbia's 8-track for vocals, so if Chuck did take some songs that never went to Columbia he'd be able to fashion a mix.

If Chuck had the instrumental track bounced and mixed down to one track, then vocals on the other three (and this was how Brian was working up to and including Good Vibrations where many bounces were done onto multiple 4-track machines), he'd be able to craft a mix where the instruments were dead center and the vocals hard left and right. And that was the implication as to what these mixes could have been.

Again, sort of having the actual mixes that Chuck is rumored to have done, we have no proof and therefore it is questionable. But not entirely improbable. :)

I had also heard that they rented Heider's equipment to get the home studio up and running, but the backstory of Wally Heider feeling slighted in the design process is a new and pretty interesting twist! Just by the number of sessions done with Heider after Brian stopped using Western-Gold Star-Columbia, there was obviously a pretty good business relationship there and Wally got a lot of business from Brian in the process, so the idea of Wally feeling shut out of designing the studio adds another angle to the story.

We know Wally Heider did the sound and recording at the Monterey Pop festival - he's in the movie after all  :-D - but isn't it also true that the festival itself used the Beach Boys' touring equipment? Again it seems Wally and the Beach Boys were pretty close in a business sense at that time.

I can think of two songs that didn't need taking to Columbia for the vocals sessions.  ;D

Seriously, the vocals for "Sloop John B", "You Still Believe In Me", Caroline, No", "That's Not Me", "I Know There's An Answer" and "Don't Talk..." were apparently recorded at Western.

OK, it's a 'fess up moment.  ;D

Asked Bruce if the info about Columbia not letting Brian touch the board was indeed true, and his eyebrows went up about six feet. "Are you kidding ? It was strictly union there ! No-one was allowed to touch the board there - not even Terry or me !"

Additional gobbet - if Terry hadn't made a fuss, Columbia would have thrown their 8-track out back in the early sixties.

So, my apologies to SWD. He right, me wrong.

The show last night, although strictly meat & potatoes, was great, as was hanging with the band before and after. Completed 'the set' by meeting Mike, who was great company, as were all the band.

Aha, that means that your "interviewed/spoken to"-list has yet again extended !

Very interesting! I got the impression Brian was a very "hands on" producer, and under those strict conditions it's hard to imagine him wanting to be there to mix too often. And hard to imagine as well turning over full manual control like that over his mixes to an engineer at Columbia rather than the trusted Chuck Britz at Western, as far as Pet Sounds final mixes, an engineer who allowed Brian to work the board if he wished.

Just for the topic at hand, in case anyone has not seen this series of photos, Brian at Columbia:
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/petsounds2.jpg)
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/petsounds1.jpg)

Still hoping to confirm that the eng in those photos is the mysterious Ralph Balantin.  Oh to know what all those patch bay points go to and come from.

Why is the engineer in the picture flipping the photog off?  and if brian couldn't touch the board, why would he be showing him what to do, which seems to be what is happening.

These are fabulous! I have never seen them.  Wish they were on the back of album, as candids, in a similar manner as the Pet Sounds back cover was configured.  Thanks, these are very cool!  ;) Maybe for the new release.  It really shows the improvisation both for vocals and for instrumentation. 

Reminds me of using oatmeal boxes to make drums in the Kindergarten for our "rhythm band" - great for sound effects! 
 ;) 

Love it!  Thanks again!

 

are you sure that's Brian's house? 

I'm pretty sure it's his house - it's a photo feature that came with a Dutch magazine article which was reprinted in LLVS. The other shots of Brian are of his office, him at his jukebox, sitting at a round table at his pad, and this of him at the 4-track. All of the photos have the same clothing and hairstyle.

There is a similar shot of him near a tape machine which I think I have but can't find it or remember where it was found right now.

It is probably just a posed photo.

Which, if true, explains the finger.

I found it - and it looks like the same photoshoot that got printed in that Dutch magazine. Note Tony Asher in this one...
(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/briantapemachine2.jpg)

are you sure that's Brian's house? 
[/quote]

There's a much better quality, uncropped version of this shot in Badman.

Yes, but can Badman be trusted?

Tony Asher's a good looking guy. I honestly can't remember too many photos of him and Brian, maybe my fried mind is forgetting some pic that's obvious from a documentary or book or something.

Seriously, Tony doesn't look much different nowadays...maybe a bit heavier, and with a beard...

How can you tell he's good looking from a pic like this?

Running this alongside the "Smile box set" thread where similar photos are posted, this is the original source of the photoshoot showing Brian at his home tape machine. The article (when translated... :-D) specifically mentions Brian's ability to record at home. This is the photoshoot where Tony Asher is shown with Brian in other shots that did not make it in this article.

The magazine is a Dutch magazine called "Teenbeat" and the issue is dated September 1966, featuring Ringo Starr on the cover. An English translation of this page was reprinted in LLVS, but the date and issue information was not given in that book.

If anyone can do the math with the dates of when Tony Asher supposedly stopped hanging out with Brian, perhaps a firm date of the photos used in this issue could clear something up for us. Or perhaps suggest Tony could have been there beyond the time we may assume he stopped coming around to Brian's house.

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/teenbeatsept1966Brian.jpg)

Let's try another angle - does anyone here recall a single mention of Asher in relation to Brian and his circle post-Pet Sounds ?

Asher recalls that when they first started working together, Brian played him Rubber Soul and said he wanted to top that. Assuming Brian maybe got an advance US copy a week or two before release, that would be November 1965. Asher says he too the three-week leave of absence, Brian recalls they worked together for two months "on and off", so tops that would take us up to February 1966. There's a photo of Brian, Asher, Bruce & Terry Melcher at Columbia, so the latest that could be is mid-April. After that, Tony Asher vanishes.

I'd say he vanishes from the scene in the way we thought of it before, but remember too Asher held a steady, lucrative job in advertising when Brian asked him to work on Pet Sounds. Asher asked for and received a leave of absence from that job in order to work with Brian (and that even in 1965-66 corporate standards for a man in his early 20's in a highly competitive Los Angeles firm was quite a request to grant...). And when Pet Sounds was done, Asher returned to his regular job in advertising which wouldn't allow the kind of hanging out which guys like Vosse and other rock stars who didn't do a 9-to-5 gig were used to living every week.

Let's assume mid-April for the discussion, I agree: How do the above photos play into that? Would the photo session that appeared in that magazine dated September 1966 have been shot at the very end of the Asher-Brian collaboration around April 1966 when Asher would have been at the house more often? It could very well be so.

those photos seem like Pet Sounds era.  there's an interview w/ Carl (Endless Harmony?) where he mentions Brian had converted a maid's quarters into a "playback room" and he found it to be very thrilling to hear "Sloop John B" being played back over the speakers.

i've always found the McIntosh amp and tiny 4-channel mixer to be an interesting setup.

Backtracking slightly, I was reading the liners to Sundazed's excellent Bruce & Terry Best Of... this morning, and was somewhat taken aback to realise that Columbia had TWO 8-tracks back then.

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I was researching some info on 3M M23 recorders, and this thread popped up !

In any case, did we ever come to any conclusions here?  Western had an 8-track Scully 280 in '66, so did we agree Brian probably rented it from Heider?  And was Pet Sounds mixed at Columbia in one session?  Maybe there is no way to know the answers

Incidentally, I recently acquired a Scully 280 4-track myself (doing my best to imitate Brian circa '66):

(http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/high-end/289045d1335386962-show-your-reel-reel-2012-set-up-429320_3355354932481_1527195344_32987647_708288673_n.jpg)

(http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/high-end/289046d1335386962-show-your-reel-reel-2012-set-up-424355_3355361292640_1527195344_32987654_1033192406_n.jpg)

(http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/high-end/289047d1335386962-show-your-reel-reel-2012-set-up-432112_3355355972507_1527195344_32987650_576619108_n.jpg)

According to Bruce (a Columbia staff producer), Columbia's 8-tracks were cobbled together by the company's engineers from spare Ampex parts.

Yeh, I think that's more or less true; they were 354 electronics with (I think) 300 transports.

Sorry, I meant Western, not Columbia! (the Scully 280).  I corrected the post.

I think we raised a lot of great questions in this thread ... but few real explanations !

Oh, and I looked at the photo of Brian w/ the Scully at home in '66, and it looks like it's was a playback deck (no sync), but I can't tell for sure.  Which would fit with Carl's "playback room" quote.  Which essentially means most likely nothing was recorded there.  It also appears that he's playing just 2 tracks in the photo, not 4.

Fantastic machine Donny I'd be very interested to hear about recording with this.

What sort of tape are you using?

What is the sound quality like?

Did you need to work on it, what condition was it in?

And anything else you can tell us.

I would also love to hear recordings when you have completed some.

Congratulations on your new baby!

how much did that cost??

thank you ...

I don't have any recordings from this machine finished up yet.  I have about 5 songs in the can for a new project.

My site for my music is http://trounrecords.bigcartel.com.  You can google 'magic hero vs. rock people' to find some sound clips as I've deleted all the normal Facebook/Myspace/Bandcamp things as an 'anti-promotion' thing.  but there are some sound clips online here and there.  These recordings were made with similar equipment ... no computers.

But this Scully 4-track sounds much better than the 8-track Teac 80-8 I had been using!  All was mixed to an Ampex 440 (mono) as well.

I used primarily old tape, the formula I mix to is Scotch 203 from the '60s.  For the Scully, I use NOS Scotch 206 or 207.  I'm still experimenting with different tape types.  The new stuff is good but doesn't quite have the same vibe as the old stuff.  206 has had more dropouts than I'm used to with repeated passes on the same tape, so we'll see how the 207 holds up.

I was very lucky with this machine.  I bought it from a studio closeout sale in San Francisco.  The guy didn't really think it was working, but I bought it anyway.  After testing it out, everything works fairly well.  Of course, these old decks have their quirks and little 'ghosts' that pop up here and there.

I would describe the sound as warm, thick & punchy.  This model has mike preamps built in as well, which sound very good.  I like this a little better than the Ampex 440, but they are similar in sound and make a good match.  The Ampex transport seems slightly gentler on the tape.

My technique for recording thus far has been to fill the initial 4-tracks, mix those to the Ampex while adding a 5th part live, then dub that back to one track on the Scully.  Then overdub on the remaining 3-tracks, bouncing as needed.  Final mix to the Ampex.

I believe this is the same model deck they played back the SMiLE masters to for the box set (I saw it in one of the promo videos at Linett's place).

$800 plus about $75 to hire some help to move it.