The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hilarious buyer review on Amazon.com:

Rearrange the following letters into a word that accurately describes this person: UWTFCIK.

I will say it's a shame the tapes are lost and that we may never hear a stereo mix but there is so much more, what a clown.

It's already been shown that a Meccano stereo mix is possible, by at least two YouTubers, with pretty good results. How far is this from flying vocals in to finished backing tracks from demo recordings? Maybe, just maybe, he has a point...

A fake stereo mix is not a stereo mix.

While we're at it, someone should demand the second movement to Surf's Up or the verse vocals to Do You Like Worms?

Goddammit, I want "The Elements". IN FULL.

AND I WANT IT NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Devil's advocate: anything with a stereo backing track is a stereo mix, though.

have just the mono vocals ever appeared anywhere? or available on anything?

 :lol

The link here to the Good Vibrations in Stereo (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?topic=7128.0) thread will tell you more about the history of Good Vibrations. Basically, since the mono mixdown in 1966 there is no chance of a true stereo track.

sorry, i know there's no chance of a true stereo mix ever. i meant, is there an acapella version of just the mono vocals available? Just because the closest we could ever have is them over the stereo backing we now have on the boxset. thanks

No. You'd need the original Columbia 8-track for that and all we (currently) have is the mono mixdown master.

Got you. Thanks. So the 8 track was the instrumental mixdown on 1 track and the rest vocals. Then the final mono mixdown from that is all that remains, and now the 8 track is missing but of course the original backing track tape is still available. Phew...i'm there.

That's it - there's a true stereo mix of the instrumental track on the "GV" 40th anniversary CD EP, but no true stereo mix of the vocals can be possible until said 8-track is found, and it's possible it got junked as long ago as spring 1967.  ???

Just give that person good vibrations in duophonic. >:D

Not agreeing with any aspect of that review (which, I have to say, amuses me more than angers me in its lack of understanding of the state of the master tapes), but the whole issue of the semantics involved in talking about a “true” stereo mix of GV seem to often lead us to an impasse. I think all of us here are aware that no vocal multitracks exist, and thus a “full” stereo mix cannot be done, meaning spreading the vocals across the stereo signal the way it would be done conventionally.

But the “fan” mixes (I haven’t heard any lately, I remember hearing attempts from several years back) that utilize the stereo backing track overlayed with the mono mix (for vocals) are in fact “stereo” in the most basic sense; they feature different information in the left and right channels. Further, they are not simply “technically” stereo the way “fake” “duophonic” mixes were done where a mono mix was used and simply had the bass and treble boosted or lowered in each channel. There is true, discrete information between the two channels.

Additionally, if an “official” stereo mix was attempted in this way, a bit more actual “mixing’ could be done, as they could at least mix from the instrumental multitrack (as opposed to fan mixes that simply have a two-channel stereo mix of the backing track to worth with).

The success or validity of these semi-stereo mixes is obviously debatable. But I think that if we’re now into territory where we’re flying demo vocals into finished songs, and flying in vocals from one song into another, etc., then doing this sort of semi-stereo mix of GV is not some sort of outlandish, fake way of manufacturing a stereo mix. Granted, flying those “Smile” vocals was not a case of simply trying to achieve as a stereo mix, but simply of trying to get actual vocals onto songs at all. But I think in indicates that there is room to sort of take a best stab at this sort of stuff.

Why they have not yet attempted such a mix of GV “officially” I of course can’t say. My instinct is that GV is obviously a major piece of work, and they perhaps don’t want to sort of do this Frankenstein sort of mixing job on something so important, at least not yet. I don’t know if they are holding out hope that the vocal multitracks will appear. My guess is that if we ever get to the stage where they start issuing new stereo remixes for things like “Smiley Smile” and “Wild Honey”, they may finally just bite the bullet and do a semi-stereo mix of GV.

That stereo mix that was put up on Youtube this year is amazing. 

Pretty much the only version of Good Vibrations that I want to hear now.