The Smiley Smile Message Board

Here's the complete liner notes link —
http://www.thebeachboys.com/#?news=4102

Here's the complete iTunes link for the music —
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/keep-eye-on-summer-beach-boys/id942040096

“The Beach Boys Live In Sacramento 1964”: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/beach-boys-live-in-sacramento/id942017956

Produced by Mark Linett & Alan Boyd
Mixed and mastered by Mark Linett at Your Place Or Mine Recording
Original recordings produced by Brian Wilson
Sessionography and research by Craig Slowinski

Special Thanks: Betty Collignon, Margaret Gwynne & Jihae Simmons
Production Assistant: Diva Ward
Brother Records Photo Archives: Trisha Campo
Associate Producer: Monty (Wooley) Linett
For Brother Records: Elliott Lott

THE BEACH BOYS 1964
KEEP AN EYE ON SUMMER


1.   Fun Fun Fun (Session Highlights and Stereo Mix) (7:39)
2.   Fun Fun Fun (A Capella) (2:23)
3.   Fun, Fun, Fun (2013 Stereo Mix) (2:14)
4.   Why Do Fools Fall In Love (Session Highlights and Stereo Mix) (4:59)
5.   Why Do Fools Fall In Love (New Stereo Mix) (2:09)
6. Don’t Worry Baby (Session Highlights and Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals) (4:42)
7.   Don’t Worry, Baby (2009 Stereo Mix) (2:50)
8.   In The Parkin’ Lot (Session Highlight and A Capella Mix) (4:38)
9.   Warmth of the Sun (Session Highlights and Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals) (5:09)
10. Warmth of the Sun (2012 Stereo Mix) (3:03)
11. Pom Pom Play Girl (Session Highlights and Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals) (4:54)
12. Pom Pom Play Girl (New Stereo Mix) (1:33)
13. Denny’s Drums (Session Highlight and Alternate Take) (3:23)
14. Keep An Eye On Summer (Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals) (2:28)
15. Endless Sleep (Larry Denton Vocal) (2:32)
16. I Get Around (Session Highlight and Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals) (5:34)
17. I Get Around (A Capella) (2:16)
18. All Summer Long (Session Highlights and Stereo Mix) (4:46)
19. All Summer Long (A Capella) (2:19)
20. All Summer Long (2007 Stereo Mix) (2:09)
21. Hushabye (Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals) (2:42)
22. Girls On The Beach (Alternate Vocal Session Highlights and Master A Capella Mix) (5:27)
23. Wendy (Vocal Session Highlights and A Capella Mix) (4:40)
24. Don’t Back Down (Alternate Version Session Highlight and New Stereo Mix) (2:04)
25. Little Saint Nick (Drive In) (Vocal Session Highlights and New Stereo Mix) (3:21)
26. Untitled Jam/Let’s Live Before We Die (Session Highlights and Instrumental) (3:24)
27. Little Honda (Alternate Version Session Highlight and New Stereo Mix) (2:46)
28. Little Honda (Unreleased Single Mix) (1:52)
29. She Knows Me Too Well (Vocal Session Highlight and Track with Backing Vocals) (2:43)
30. She Knows Me Too Well (A Capella) (2:46)
31. Don’t Hurt My Little Sister (Session Highlight and A Capella Mix) (2:36)
32. Christmas Eve (Instrumental Mix) (3:09)
33. Jingle Bells (Instrumental Mix) (2:33)
34. When I Grow Up (A Capella) (2:11)
35. Fun Fun Fun (Live) (2:17)
36. I Get Around (Live) (2:16)
37. I’m So Young (Alternate Version Session Highlight and New Stereo Mix) (4:02)
38. All Dressed Up For School (Session Highlights and New Stereo Mix) (3:47)
39. Dance Dance Dance (Alternate Version New Stereo Mix) (2:05)
40. Dance Dance Dance (Session Highlights and Instrumental Mix) (4:44)
41. Dance Dance Dance (A Capella) (2:06)
42. I Get Around (Live BBC 1964) (2:02)
43. The Little Old Lady From Pasadena (Live BBC 1964) (3:07)         
44. Graduation Day (Live BBC 1964) (2:14)
45. Surfin’ USA (Live BBC 1964) (2:24)
46. Johnny B Goode (Live Single Mix) (1:52)

Ooh, this is good.
Thanks for posting this.

Terrific liner notes!

Not available in the Australian iTunes store :( I really wish they released these on CD.

This IS available in the UK store at first glance on phone. Need to reach desktop…

… but maybe David might know whether this is likely to be available as a high-res download from any of the burgeoning number of sites offering such wares?

46 tracks for $11.99? ok  :)

this is a beautiful thing.

Going through the sessionography, and have an observation for Craig - the possible date of 1/20/64 ascribed a session for "Keep An Eye On Summer" at Western is highly unlikely, given that the band were playing in Adelaide, South Australia that night. The alternative of 2/2/64 is also questionable as the last show of the band's Australasian tour was on the previous night... although it is just possible as, in crossing the International Date Line, a day was gained, i.e. Tuesday becomes Monday, thus if they flew out of Auckland on the evening of the first, they would also arrive in LA on the first. However, it's more likely they arrived early in the morning of the 2nd (assuming they didn't stopover in Hawaii).

Another instance of an AFM contract being incorrectly dated ?

This mild head-scratcher aside, an outstanding release.

“The Beach Boys Live In Sacramento 1964” also released.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/beach-boys-live-in-sacramento/id942017956

That's been booted heaps but is this the first official release?

Does anyone know if this will be released through avenues other than itunes? Like Amazonmp3? I'm excited about this compilation, but have never been a fan of itunes. If this is that only release, I will buy it, but if it will roll out on Amazon eventually, I'd much rather wait.

Well, it's about time! Screw the 1964 "live" album, this is how good they really were! That version of I Get Around is SUPERIOR to the studio version IMHO!

Hey, what's keeping that Sydney performance of "What'd I Say" from (re-)release?

Yet -hang in there. In took several weeks for the Big Beat to appear last year.

Hi Eric,

I know the Big Beat 1963 was released on Amazon and other sites (eg: Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Ba2wvotzfd5hthw2klhwjqqa23i) so I assume it will be released at a later date just like I assume it will be on the Australian iTunes/Google Play stores eventually because that's what happened with the Big Beat 1963.

According to the sleeve notes on the UK iTunes site, this is lifted from the Sea of Tunes releases (less several tracks). Note also the stated release date of 1997.

That said, the timing are not the same as the SoT… and the copyright is credited to Capitol…

But I suspect an iBootleg.

I only just realised the Big Beat was in the iTunes store so I just went and bought it (on Google Play) then :)

I really hope we don't have to wait a few weeks for this release to appear though because this looks a lot tastier than the Big Beat so I'm really desperate to hear it!

Christmas came early!

Great stuff!  Thanks for the link, David, to Craig's very informative sessionography.  Wish the liner notes and sessionography would have been included with the download as an iTunes digital booklet.

This is incredible. Woke up in the middle of night to this news, and I can't get back to bed because I'm listening to all of these glorious tracks.

So many new gems, session banter, and every track is mixed perfectly (the liner notes are really appreciated too). Can't express enough thanks to Mark and Alan for assembling this whole collection (*just now noticed Craig's sessionography, huge thanks to you as well!)

Without a doubt one of the best Beach Boys releases. And for only $12?? :o

Hmmm - well, if last year is anything to go by, Big Beat was announced green for go by ESQ editor around December 11.  I was unable to get my filthy stinking hands on it via iTunes Oz until the 16th of Jan.  Guessing the iTunes updater guy was on annual leave or something.... :brow

I notice iToones has a song called "Keep an Eye on Summer" from an album called "Big Beat Bombs" for sale.

Great comp!!! I'll wait until is released on Amazon!

Not available in the UK ?

[edit]

OHFERFUCKSSAKE !

Try to buy from iTunes - "not available in the UK, changes to iTunes US".

So I do.

"This user ID is invalid in the US, change to iTunes UK".

Never bought from iTunes before, and now, I never will. Bunch of pox-ridden scrofulous shitweasels.

With very small dicks.

I have a stoopid question. Was The Big Beat ever officially available in the UK?

Yeah, yeah, I know. I asked that here a year ago. But I ask because when I couldn't immediately find it on-line last year via UK outlets (as that's where I am), I gave up looking, as I wasn't particularly bothered about getting my hands on any of the stuff that was slated for the release. I meant to look again later in the year, but you know, life got in the way. So I've *never* bought it.

(This also goes to show how unbothered I was by obtaining the material; by contrast, I drove several hundred miles to obtain the SMiLE Sessions a couple of days early. If the material merits it, I *will* find a way to get it.)

This new release is a different kettle altogether. I seriously want this one. So I'm wondering... if The Big Beat eventually happened for UK buyers, that's good, because it means this one will too, even if it takes a while.

So... did all the Big Beat owners resident in the UK have to resort to dark methods to get a copy? This will influence what I do about obtaining the new release...

Sigh. Why can't they just bring this sh*t out on CD. They want my money, I have the money: you'd think we could come to some arrangement...!

Never mind. It would seem that The Big Beat 1963 was released on iTunes UK in late December, and on Amazon UK in late January. I didn't bother Googling just now, because I drove myself crazy in early December last year trying to find it. Every time I searched for it, whether with Google or through iTunes or wherever, I found a million and one references to the release, all of which were useless as they led back to the link on the US iTunes store, which of course as former colonial overlords, we're not allowed to use this side of the pond. Hence my exasperated wish that Capitol would just stick the damn thing out on a silver disc.

Ergo, I'm guessing the new release will happen for the UK as well. Evenn-tchuall-eee, as Manuel once said in Fawlty Towers.

Anyway, with this one, I'm *so* there. The track list is about a million times more interesting than anything on The Big Beat!

I guess that barrel has been scraped.

Sacre bleu! Seems like an error always finds its way into these things, no matter how hard one tries! This should probably read "2/20/64" - it's from Capitol's files, as transcribed by a certain someone once upon a time - somewhere along the line, the "0" was probably dropped. AGD's Bellagio site reports the date as 2/19, so that helps solidify it.

Paging Mr Doe - that earlier link posted at the head of the thread WAS to the iTunes USA, so it's no surprise it doesn't work here.

HOWEVER - I can confirm that the new release IS on the UK iTunes, as that's where I am, and I'm downloading it now!

Andrew, you may have already found this in the interim, but in case you haven't:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/keep-eye-on-summer-beach-boys/id945875792

Happy listening. And thank god for copyright laws! (Never thought I'd find myself saying that).

Oh, and... the next few Decembers are going to be good times to be Beach Boys fans...!

FFS

I'll have to rely on the kindness of strangers - again (please). Crazy, when I WANT to buy a copy.

Well excuse me again, but why is it £13.99 over here when it's $11.99 (about £7.50) stateside. Oh, of course, it's the cost of shipping it across the Atlantic to Europe.

Seriously, WTactualF ?

I. Do. Not. Believe. This.

"iTunes has stopped working".

OK, anyone, before I explode - how do I get round this ? Nothing in my 'purchased' folder.

Capitalism. Obviously there's more to squeeze out of Britishers than out of Americans.

I wonder whether I can purchase this in Germany, but after this I'm not inclined to try.

I know, Andrew, and I hear ya; the price disparity sucks. (Having said that, read my post above for the UK download link, if you haven't already!)

Depressingly, I guess the answer to your first question is: "because they can charge what they like". With an even more irritating side order of "and we don't care, because we know you'll pay it, especially for a niche release like this".

And even more awfully: they're right. I've just coughed up for it, and I will probably be suckered along into paying for The Big Beat now as well, high on the music (I may hold off on that one until I'm in a less excited frame of mind — ultimately, I really don't NEED a Bob & Sheri release from 1963 and a demo of The Ballad Of Ole Betsy *that* badly). The killer is that with other releases or things that you know will eventually be available as a silver CD, you know there's a chance they'll come out in a sale or be available second-hand for less. But this download-only stuff is ONLY available via iTunes initially, they can charge what they like, there's no other way to obtain it, and you can't get the best price by buying from the US store, because they limit by territory. It's a monopoly and it really, really sucks (...er, isn't this where I came in?).

But I've paid my money, so, yes, I too am guilty of upholding and perpetuating this state of affairs, because I want the music so much...

The thing is - with this release, it IS worth it, even at the UK price. I'm listening to the harmonies and backing track to The Warmth Of The Sun right now, and I reckon that track is worth 14 quid alone! And there are well over 30 tracks on this thing that have never been released in quite this way before, so yes, in this case, I am glad I've paid. But equally - do I wish this was coming out on a silver CD in an uncompressed version? You bet I do. I expect, however, that this material would never have got the go-ahead to be released unless it was as a low-cost download release (no CD manufacturing, no printing - just a comparatively small bill for Alan's time, Mark L's time and studio rental, and to c-man for his sleeve notes).

As you can tell, I immensely dislike download-only releases (my album collection numbers in the thousands, but I have a grand total of just three in download-only format. Well, four now!). But the truth is: if the the low-cost production cost of iTunes-based delivery means that the annual releases continue, and they're all as good as this one, I will be there each December with my 14 quid the minute the tracks hit the iTunes server. You pays yer money, and ya takes yer choice...!

Perhaps, one day when another 10-15 years have passed and all of the cream of the good stuff that could come from these annual copyright releases is out, there will be a boutique box set of all this stuff released on some physical medium (CD will probably be dead by then, but maybe Blu-Ray audio, or its successor if there is one). Or maybe, if the powers that be at BRI realise that we're prepared to pay for this kind of stuff sooner (like, if this 1964 digital compilation shifts decent numbers), there will be a backing track-orientated archival trawl and release sooner. We can but dream...

Pono? That might be part of a way forward…

Need this!
I'm also very excited about the live recordings. The boys were a great live act with Brian. After that it took some years before they really rocked again.


EDIT:

Why is the cover for the live shows reversed?

Im just killing time until 2017 and the remaining Jasper Daily tracks.

Ploughing my way through it now. And, despite all my carping above about the delivery format, it does sound fershenliggen GREAT. Remember the excitement of listening to the SOT releases for the first time, hearing all the little things in the backing tracks and vocals that you'd never been able to make out before? Listening to this is a bit like that - except this time, it's been properly mixed first.

Plus, one thing the SOTs weren't good at was presenting the vocals in isolation. If you were lucky, you could OOPS out the backing track and hear them better, but it was hit or miss whether that would work, and even if it did, the resulting vocals were in mono.

Here, we've got true a capella mixes of some tracks from the original session tapes, and mostly properly mixed in stereo, for what, as far as I know, is the very first time. And it's bloody great. I'm not even done listening yet, and I'm in vocal heaven. Hell, even Wendy, a track I have ALWAYS hated, sounds brilliant in its vocal-only version, because the unadorned singing is just so good.

Ahh... Don't Worry Baby, Hushabye, The Girls On The Beach, I Get Around and of course The Warmth Of The Sun in partial track plus backing vocal mixes or full a capellas: this stuff is just the SOURCE of all known sonic greatness. Even the instrumental backing tracks with the backing vocals can be a revelation. She Knows Me Too Well, for example, when presented this way, allows you to appreciate the song even more than you did already (And I already thought it was terrfic, so...). There are mixes a bit like this on the SOT Today set for this track, but none were mixed as well as this. And the a capella mix... well, it's nothing short of beautiful.

Loving some of the out-takes, too. That 'Christmas Eve' track is going straight on the iPod for use in the kitchen over the next few weeks! And I'm not sure I've ever really listened to 'Let's Live Before We Die' properly before (I mean, I have the SOT it's on, but I guess I never focused on it closely). That could have been a beautiful track on Side 2 of Today or on Summer Days, if it had been finished. The performance of the take here is a bit rough, but it hints at greatness, with a really wild chord progression, the sort of thing Brian was living and breathing from 64 to 68.

I'm not a massive fan of live tracks - too often, it seems to me that they're just 'like the studio version, only not as well performed' - but there are some very spirited performances on here and I know that many BB fans like them more than I do anyway, so I expect they will go down well. The Concert out-take versions of I Get Around and Fun Fun Fun are really good performances, giving lie to the idea that the Beach Boys were weak performers in the early days. And for me, a confirmed fan of studio recordings, to say that, they must be good.

Yep. This set is definitely worth 14 British pounds. If you like the Beach Boys, live in the USA and can get it for even less from iTunes USA, there is no excuse for not buying it. It's stellar stuff for the hardcore BB fan. And you wouldn't be here reading this now if you didn't answer to that description so... go forth and listen to it!

Chin up, Bubba old bean, Ball and Mitt will be along before then!

I'd just like to repeat what several others have mentioned in case anyone involved are looking--this is a terrific release and thanks to Alan Boyd and Mark Linett and anyone else involved for making this possible.

It's cool they did both the standard release AND the live double release with 2 rehearsals as well. Shame I have no money :(

Oh, yeah. A heartfelt 'Amen' to that from me!!!!!!

Thanxx to Dave Beard for pointing the way

I don't  do itunes; in fact I don't remember how I heard the  Big Beat( age) but maybe? I'll find this one the same way eventually

Just to see if anybody will notice! ;D

 :)

Do you know if we can get this in Germany?


Ah, wouldn't you love to post the musicians credits to the Wrecking Crew facebook site?  :-D




Btw a picture that I had never seen before from that appearance:

(http://www.thebeachboys.com/wp-content/uploads/BB-Press-Photo-12.2.14.jpg)

Ah, man. I've never really liked The Beach Boys' take on 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love?', and have watched bemused as it has appeared on compilation after complilation, and been trotted out repeatedly at live show after live show, at Brian's shows, at Mike's shows - all over.


But listening to the backing track and stereo mix on this comp, I've seen the light. Forget cowbells, man. This sucker has MORE WOODBLOCKS! And it rocks!

Sorry to interrupt - you probably all knew this already. Back to your advertised programme...

For the moment I can't tell, but I just checked, last year's "The Big Beat" is available as Amazon.de Download since this year's January, so I presume this will be on Amazon January 2015.

It's $25 in Canada on itunes...

Little hint: quite often you can find discounted iTunes codes/gift cards. I know here in the US Target often has 20% off sales, and sometimes you'll see discounted gift cards come up on sites like cardpool.com and deal aggregators such as dealmac.com, so if you want to save some money with this stuff, look into it...that's what I did for the Beatles' copyright extension release last year, while people were complaining about the price being $40 for about two CDs worth of material (yet the same exact people didn't blink an eye and spending $25 to $30 for the exact same material on bootleg CDs twenty years prior).

Verily, like the UK price, this too bloweth.

 :-D I think King Lear said the exact same thing.

Nice to see that eight of these tracks are sourced from the Beach Boys multi-track reels I had a hand in discovering back in 2008, and so cool that the fans will get to hear more of those session outtakes and awesome stereo versions. Also really stoked about C-Man's informative sessionography. Please use this to settle any arguments about who played on what.

For anyone who doesn't know the back story on the Shut Down Vol 2 tapes I sort of "found" back in 2009, here's a local article on the story... http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/3164/the-reel-deal/

Is there a breakdown of what's new..... i.e what hasn't been sourced from previous releases? Has any of this been lifted from SOT? The Beatles copyright one from last year was pretty much exclusively bootleg copies. Anything copied over from "dubious releases" here or are these all fresh transfers?

The Beatles' release was definitely NOT "bootleg copies" -- at least not the studio sessions...even with the compression that Apple uses, they sound MUCH better than any boot source I've ever heard (and even the boots are pretty impressive sounding).

Egohanger, I'm pretty certain these are all fresh transfers. New stereo mixes for pretty much every track and everything sounds a thousand times better than SOT boots.

 :spin :banana :listening

Well..................I dunno about that.

Mp3s... Where's the vinyl or CD? Or at the very least FLACs? I'm not sure they know what demographics they are selling this to.

Apple doesn't use MP3s; they're Apple's own compression scheme. Haven't gotten KAEOS yet, but at least their Beatles release last year was compressed and still sounded better than any boot I've ever heard.

I can't even download bliddy itunes!

They're not trying to sell it to anyone. It's a copyright extension scheme, pure and simple. Kudos to Mark and Alan for going above and beyond, but the corporate interests involved are simply interested in preserving intellectual property rights.

Yeah, Dylan fans only get it on vinyl -- and only 100 copies released.

You're right Dauber, but that wasn't the point. They're of course using AAC, 256kbps. My point is that any serious music fan would want some sort of lossless format.

Very true. Another tidbit of info that tells you how much Capitol wanted to invest in this project beyond the mixing/mastering stage is the fact that the "cover art" for all of these releases, while certainly harmless, kind of looks like a late 90's fan-made photoshop cover.

I broke my computer uninstalling iTunes so Im hesitsnt to mess with them again. Hope these show up on Amazon. ...

Well I've done the download from itunes , and it missed/skipped download of 3 tracks - Christ it's like having bad sex  ::)

Also interesting to note on UK ITunes that release date is ,

 'Released: 01 January 2014
℗ 2014 Capitol Records, LLC'       

Just have to repeat that besides the quality of the music/selection of tracks, the sound quality on this is amazing.  Just a straight, unadulterated presentation of what's there on the tapes.  Very similar to the SOT releases in that regard, though with even better SQ.

If they made a hundred more releases like this one I'd buy every single one.

My Sacramento Live Set seems to be missing a few tracks.

Actually just realized iTunes held back those tracks and I had to pay an additional 1.49 each to get them.

So 37!ws is Dauber??  I didn't know that!  Hi Dauber!

Ah, jeez, bad sex really sucks!

Nah...sex is like pizza: even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

Would you please refresh my memory on the Beatles release last year? Are you talking about the BBC Sessions?   And what is "KAEOS"?

Thanks. I've been outta the Beatles loop for a little while.

Loving the live tracks at the end of this... so how much an improvement is the live collection over the boot? Should I pull the trigger on that?

For some reason the liner notes are gone from bb.com.

You've obviously never eaten at Little Ceasars.

So true. Crazy Bread can f*** right off.

KAEOS = Keep An Eye On Summer. :)

The Beatles...well, the mention of the BBC stuff opens a small can of worms in terms of keeping track...

In 2013, the original Live at the BBC was re-mastered and re-issued (and for the most part, the crossfades between some unrelated tracks were taken out, thank God) on CD, vinyl, and iTunes, and a second volume was released concurrently. In fact, the two were also released as a reduced-price CD box set that of course I pounced on.

In December 2013, there was an iTunes-only release that was for copyright extension, called The Beatles Bootleg Collection 1963. (Man, that day was stressful - on the release day it first came out in Europe but in some countries it was taken down hours later, others minutes later, and even others seconds later -- fans were worried that they were only going to be up long enough to legally meet the new copyright extension law, but they came back online later in the day and are still there now.) The release consisted about 50% of studio recording sessions in absolutely stunning quality, and the other 50% was more BBC recordings in varying quality. (It actually had two instances of the same performance of "She Loves You," btw, apparently because the same performance aired on two different BBC shows, but nobody actually LISTENED to the recording and realized it was exactly the same!) I don't believe there were any liner notes for this release.

And what kills me, again, is that people were complaining about the $39.99 price -- including those who twenty years earlier paid between $50 and $60 for pretty much the same material in the "imports" section of their favorite indy record stores without complaining!

And of course, the Beach Boys/BW release last year was Big Beat 1963...which is seriously the most odd (in a good way) Beach Boys compilation I've ever seen!

Is there any album artwork for the new BB releases?

At $0.26 per song, I can live with 256k AAC files. Considering human hearing, the lossy files keep all of what my 57 years old ears can hear. ;)

Of course, I too want it lossless, but I'll take what I can get.

As for the question of artwork -- yup, there's artwork. Nothing exciting though....pretty generic. And as pointed out earlier, the picture used for the Sacramento shows was flopped, turning all the Beach Boys into southpaws and parting their hair on the wrong side! (AGD pointed this out really, really early this morning...asking if anybody could spot the "mistake"....too early for me to notice!)

Yes, their primary motivation is to preserve intellectual property rights, but that being said, since they are releasing this material, they'd be idiots to not try to make some money off this deal.

Jon - Didn't there end up being a little more to the story as to how the tapes went missing?  Were any of the other reels located?

I think, as Alan Boyd alludes to in the article, that back in '64 the Beach Boys might have discarded what were considered "work tapes" after they'd cut the master of each track and transferred it to a master reel. So the multi-tracks of the works in progress tracks weren't considered anything usable at that time, and therefore may have been discarded. But we'll never know, other than the guy (and his brother) that originally had them lived in the South Bay during the '60's, so proximity is key I guess. I heard a rumor about more tapes but can't confirm.

Thanks a lot for the info, Sean!

With stuff this obscure, releasing vinyl or CD copies would be a sure way to lose money, not make it.

Did anyone copy the notes? They're Real Real  GONE...    Did the notes for # 15 identify Larry Denton and his current whereabouts?

Perhaps  Capitol/ the BBs are planning to sell the notes, so they removed them?

Don't panic:

http://www.thebeachboys.com/#go_page_2600

(Just to be safe, I copied the stuff into a LibreOffice document. :)  )

A good idea.

Unfortunately, those aren't the "good" parts of the notes (those are still MIA)...

Time to add Big Beat 1963, Keep an Eye on Summer 1964, and Sacramento Live 1964 to the Album Review section of this forum?

Have no fear - a couple of minor errors in the sessionography need to be fixed - including the date discrepancy for the title track that AGD pointed out.

was just looking at iTunes in Australia........ see you can download show 1 and 2 of 'BB's live in Sacramento'!....?

is this new or did I miss this release?...... quality sounds great....... and versions of songs I had not heard before....

32.00 dollars AU....... that is pretty rough, considering, no artwork or disc.......

any further info on this?

RickB

That's for sure.  I was suggesting that it would make no sense to expect that no money could be made from these digital releases, and that they definitely would like people to purchase this this material as digital downloads.

Sorry if this has been mentioned in this or another thread but has the fact these releases have more to do with copyright protection been highlighted?

http://www.examiner.com/article/beach-boys-maybe-dylan-with-new-64-copyright-sets-but-how-about-the-beatles

Uhh, yeah, about a page back . :)

Arright, listening to bits and pieces of KAEOS....hand to God, I am absolutely serious, the "Denny's Drums" session highlights are absolutely revealing...I won't spoil it for those who haven't heard it yet, but wow...jaw is dropped. Not about the music itself, just how revealing this track is...all I'll say is it pretty much shoots down my theory that it was inspired by Adrian & The Sunsets' "Nothing But Drums."

Got it. So we are likely to see similar for ever and a day by many artists I guess?

OK, just downloaded the Sacramento digital album...I'm surprised at how much I'm LOVING it!!! None of the performances are unfamiliar to me, but the sound quality is just stunning....wow....

If this is on I Tunes is it on CD also

No, you can only get this on iTunes.

So where the hell did this thing come from????  I wasn't expecting any new releases!  Quite nice.

Copyright law in the UK means that if recordings aren't officially published, they lose copyright protection after 50 years. These releases give Capitol (and the group) 20 more years of rights to the recordings.

Of course you're right. I misread the tone of your message. This is absolutely the right strategy for Capitol -- a lot better than the chintzy Dylan limited edition releases.

Once again, I'm thrilled to be able to buy this stuff. Backing tracks and a cappella are always worthwhile! Thanks again to those who made it happen! Can't wait to digest these.

Twice the price in Canada. What a rip-off

Too true, as I said earlier in the thread, but at the same time, I think we probably agree that if this stuff was out on CD for, like, 30 pounds (just under 50 US dollars or just over 50 Canadian dollars), many of us would still stump up for it. Hell, to misquote Darth Vader, if we look into our hearts, many of us know it to be true that we've dropped more than that on CD bootlegs in the past - and they weren't mixed bespoke from the original tapes in a proper studio like this stuff is. And haven't many of us been saying for years that we'd pay for tracks like this from a putative Beach Boys Central, if they could only get their on-line act together? This isn't quite that - but it's close...

With this release, it's true that we don't get a disc or proper artwork, and that sucks. I also hate the lossy files. Verily, it also vacuumeth most efficaciously that the iTunes prices outside the US are so much higher than they are in the Beach Boys homeland. But on the other side of the scales... this release is under 25 Canadian Dollars, it's 14 quid in the UK, and it's *ridiculously* cheap in the States. And you pay this to hear vocal-only and partial track mixes that many of us have dreamt about hearing for years; and these presentations are professionally mixed, not on some inaudible, hissy bootleg captured at the wrong speed.

I'm no Capitol apologist. There's a lot that's annoying about this release, but it gets a pass from me overall because it sounds so damn good.

And, as I said upthread, would I pay again for more of these? You betcha. I mean - we *did* do that for years, with things like the Capitol Punishment CDs and then the SOTs-and they didn't sound as good as this stuff. And finally, although I almost hate to say it because I hate download-only albums so much... these iTunes downloads are *cheaper* than the CD boots used to be...

Thanks to all for not calling me out on this!

I find the notes accompanying the UK iTunes version very misleading though:

But... it's the exact same product, with absolutely zero shipping costs. No reason whatsoever for the price to vary, allowing for currency exchange rates.

Ooh, ooh... do I get a teeny weeny credit in the revised version for being a nitpicking smart-arse ?  ;D

Keep An Eye On Summer, Revised Version, Take Two: We would like to thank Andrew G. Doe for being a nitpicking smart-arse.   ;D

Works for me !  :lol

This pisses me off too. While I can't wait to hear the tracks, this is an indefensible pricing policy.  If this was physical product which had been imported from the US as a place of manufacturer, then fair enough, import/transportation costs apply. But we're pressing the same buttons the world over these days.

But first, the music (and a hole where my wallet use do be!) …

So, as long as copyright laws stay the same, does this mean we'll get a new collection of unreleased recordings every year now?

Brilliant. After several days of nasty Mike vs Brian posts, they get side lined and we all agree that itunes and Capitol are the real pr!cks.

Its a beautiful world sometimes! ;D

I don't know whethe it's Capitol or iTunes … and wouldn't moan if there wasn't a price disparity. If everyone the world over had been asked for $20 or even $30 it wouldn't have occurred.

As for whether Mike or Brian are pricks, I stay away from that kinda thing now. I think they just have a thinner version of the management shield than other acts, and their human-ness shows through more… ;D

It's undoubtedly Mike Love who set the prices to annoy anybody in the world except the U.S. citizens - this is America's band, they're entitled to get a discount! ;D

Just to clarify, the releases themselves are stellar, no complaints there... but the price difference, and for a digital product, is insulting.

I'll assume the answers lie with Apple rather than Capitol, based on last year's news (and who knows what the inquiry found out):

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-22/apple-microsoft-grilled-over-high-prices/4587900 (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-22/apple-microsoft-grilled-over-high-prices/4587900)

In the meantime, looking forward to these turning up on iTunes at some stage - keep the good news comin'!

Would be good to get one's hands on some high rez versions - Mark L tends towards 24 bit 88.2khz files - and I'd happily pay for flacs via HD tracks or similar over iTunes any day.

Indeed! There are still people who very much prefer something physical over a few files on a computer. Especially a band like The Beach Boys, that has gotten big in the age of physical records and has a relatively old (or at least somewhat old fashioned) fan base should understand that. Even if this album is not interesting enough to hit the stores, at least just sell the CD online. It's not like you're not going to sell enough copies to at least get your expenses covered... And since there were bootleg CD copies of The Big Beat all over the record fair in Utrecht last month, I'm pretty sure that this will get bootlegged too if no official CD will come out. So why not keep control (and profits) in your own hands?

Agreed 100%. I was just trying to make the point that although the releases are more expensive outside the US (and that's definitely wrong!), the cost is nevertheless way less than we often used to happily spend on CD boots at Record Fairs that sounded way worse.

Maybe it's a generational thing. I dropped cash, and quite a bit over the years at that, for the SOTs in their nicely produced long boxes, on silver CDs. I did so willingly and am glad I did - listening to each and every one was fascinating. In comparison, this feels like a good deal, notwithstanding the lack of a non-lossy, physical media-based version, which admittedly does drive me crazy.

Of course, if you became a fan since around 2000, when all of the classic Beach Boys boots could be found on-line as MP3s for nothing, then even 11.99 US dollars must seem like a total rip-off, let alone the prices that everyone else around the world is expected to pay to get this. I mean, from nothing to 11 US dollars 99, or 13 pounds 99, or 25 Canadian dollars — whichever way you look at it, it's a rise of *INFINITY* percent!!!!! (OK, OK, so I'm being silly there...).

Also, not to defend the price disparities — they are utterly *INdefensible* in this instance — but it continues a long and equally indefensible tradition of the US paying less for almost anything, while the rest of us get hosed. I know the argument about shipping costs for physical product and hardware goods, but come on. When I brought my most recent Apple Mac, I did so while on a business trip to California, because the damn thing was over a THIRD cheaper there than from Apple UK. The products are made in China, so there's shipping involved whether you ultimately buy from the States or Europe. And yet the products are still absurdly cheaper in the US.

Disparate iTunes download pricing has no leg to stand on, but neither does the cost of any download-based software, much of which is cheaper to buy in US dollars from US servers than it is to download the exact same code to a computer in the UK. Everyone's doing it. You just have to decide whether you object so much that you vote with your feet and refuse to buy whatever it is in protest. Sadly, in the case of this release, as soon as I saw the tracklisting, I knew I'd have to shill for it. Such is the nature of my love for this music...!

Finally, I would like a physical media version of these tracks too - I am of that era that bought and still prefers 'real' releases, which is why I own so few download-only albums. But I suspect the economics don't stack up, and this release is only happening at all because it's a download-only project. In other words, the line from Capitol is probably: accept it like this, or you won't get any more releases of this sort at all, and it will just be Sounds Of Summer-style releases until all of the remaining Beach Boys, and indeed all of us typing and reading here, are long gone...

It's not right, and it certainly isn't fair. But who said life was?

Really? I didn't see one copy... and I checked pretty much every stall with BB CD's... :-\    Did you buy them all ?   ;D 

Buy one copy  of Big Beat 1963 2 weeks ago in Utrecht (surf city label)! that was the sole copy I have seen!

Wait...the Sacramento release is just the exact Sea of Tunes bootleg release re-named?

Seen a few versions offered online… which must be MP3 versions, I suppose…

Oh man. This is a great set. The acapella stuff is breathtaking!

Just did an extended A/B of the new concert release and the 1964 album, and before I revise 10452, thought I'd post my deductions here for your perusal and comments.

So, the sources are, to my ears:

Side 1              
Fun, Fun, Fun [1964, studio]
The Little Old Lady From Pasadena [1964 - see below]
Little Deuce Coupe  [1963]
Long Tall Texan [1963]
In My Room [1963]
Monster Mash  [1963]
Let's Go Trippin' [1964 2nd show]
 
Side 2:
Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow [1963]
The Wanderer [1964 2nd show]
Hawaii [1964 2nd show]
Graduation Day [1964 2nd show]
I Get Around* [1964, studio]
Johnny B. Goode [1963]

"LOLFP" is a poser - obviously it has to be a 1964 recording, but it doesn't exactly match either show, so either the band sweetened it, or it's a rehearsal recording.

What does the asterisk mean? Hopefully "They thought we're too dumb to notice that they just slipped the released record in."

It mean "I forgot to delete it when I copied the track listing from the webpage".  ;D

even if it doesn't they should release a internet release at LEAST once a year, just because the fans want it..

Brother has had ample time to do some sort of fan-friendly archival program, and they haven't done it. They even apparently set up the website ("Beach Boys Central"), but for whatever reason (and with the BB's it's easy to think of dozens) that never happened.

These "Copyright Extension" releases are cool, but they still seem rather haphazard and not befitting the legacy of the band (either the Beach Boys or the Beatles) in terms of presentation. It's something they need to dump on the market, and the fringe benefit is the fans get some cool stuff.

I will say that it appears Boyd and company put in a lot more effort on the new '64 compilation than they would have had to. I'm sure they put in as much work as they were allowed to.

Here's a question those familiar with the "copyright protection" stuff at play maybe can answer for me: The idea put about last year was that the only thing they *have* to put out by the end of the year is anything that has already circulated. Anything that is already "out there" has to be put out officially in order to avoid having others take those old boots and putting them out as "public domain" releases.

But if that's the case, why did, for instance, the Beatles 1963 compilation still omit selections of the "circulating" 1963 session takes?

If Take 1 through 10 of a song has already circulated, and one of these "copyright protection" releases includes half of those takes, aren't the other half still then in the public domain?

Is there some law or rule at play we don't know about, like they just have to include one track from every tape reel or something?

Without checking, aren't there plenty of other 1964 Beach Boys session tapes from the SOT releases that *aren't* on this new release? Do those takes go into the public domain?

Biggest revelation so far - Al Jardine on lead falsetto on "All Dressed Up for School" in the choruses (the "ooh what a turn on" part)

I KNOW, RONDEMON!!!! Man, that blew my mind! For twenty-four years I knew there was something odd about it, but it wasn't obvious until last night!

The backing track to Fools is phenomenal. I actually like it now.

Ok these 2 1964 issues are great and the sound is perfect. But what has happened to all those Brian 's outside productions (Honeys, peterson, Usher....) and What i d say from Rarities?

No, it's a new mix.  The SOT boot release was a straight dump of the three track, new release sounds more like a two channel mix with better separation and clarity (and less screaming).

Simple - they've all been previously released, so the copyright isn't about to expire. Always remember, that's the basic reason these comps exist: copyright extension.

So only 29 years to go for the 1993 Unplugged Set? :lol

I still can't link to the sessionography - is it still down?

Down.

Down down.

Down down comma comma down dooby doo down down.  ;D

It's up, just relocated ;D

Where?? I just checked and I can only find the two essays from Mark'n'Boyd.

That's OK, no, really... don't tell us where - we'll just GUESS.  >:(

The whole thing is wonderful. Yeah, I'd rather have a CD version (or double CD, because that's what it would take), but this is something else. Just finished downloading and. as you can tell, I'm blown away. I'll get the Sacramento shows tomorrow! Where's the artwork, though? I don't normally do iTunes, but there was no artwork with it. Should there have been?

I know where I can find the old one - http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-beach-boys-1964-keep-eye-on-summer.html

Yeah...should show up when it plays.

You tell lies thinking I can't see.  You can't cry 'cause you're laughing at me!
It's down (it's really down) It's down  (down on the ground)
How can you laugh, when you know it's down?

So, while we're waiting for the liner notes...  I wonder if next year they're going to want to extend the copyright on Murry Wilson's finest hour in the "Help Me Rhonda" sessions?

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Yeah, I saw that yesterday.  So there's a new one now or this one was just taken down?

Well, one thing's been changed...the description "the inestimably brilliant" has been mysteriously inserted before my name! Believe me folks, that was NOT my doing!  :)

Uh huh. Sure. You expect us to believe that, Mr. C?  ;)

Exactly. I have never seen such disparity on ITunes between US  and Canada on other releases whether BB or anyone else.
It's rip offs like that that drive people to torrents

No. But it's true.

Now up on iTunes Australia.

$31.99   :brow

That's $27 US or 17 pound and ten.

While I want this stuff, think I'd rather pump my 31 gold pieces into an Acoustic Sounds slice of plastic.

That really IS nuts! The craziest thing of all is: the price seems to be increasing the further you get geographically from the USA, as if there really were shipping costs from the States being added on for this material. And yet - it's just a load of electrons passing through wires and radio frequencies. For free.

I always pay for music - I know far too many hungry musicians too well, and just can't bring myself not to. But this kind of attitude WILL drive people to the dark side...

The liners (including revised sessionography) are back online, and available at the original link included at the top of this post.

Question: If I pay someone in the US to get the tracks legally for me, what are the legalities involved in that?

I saw it on at least three different places (along with a 3 CD set of the 4th of July concerts).

You're Under Arrest!

Wooo ooo ooo!
 (But at three score and five Im very much alive and I still got the jive to survive with the heroes and villains)
Actually problem solved. The fortune of being married to a British citizen with a British credit Card and address!

And OMG this material is an awesome Revelation!!! The Fun Fun Fun sessions are amazing! Thanks to Mark and Alan and the Team for putting out a legal requirement with enough love and Devotion to make at least this Little Aussie sitting in Germany very happy!

And anyone who says the Beach Boys arent cool has obviously never listened to Shut Down vol. 2

From my syndicated feed. . .

http://www.wmmr.com/music/news/story.aspx?ID=2167373

As far as I understand it, it's a mess. If they download the tracks to their copy of iTunes (which of course is the only way to get these tracks), then even if you pay that Stateside person back, then legally speaking, they are the owners of the track, because the songs have gone into *their* iTunes. Even if that person then dumps the files out of iTunes, sends them to you, and deletes their copy of them, they remain the owner in law, and the files that have gone to you are - you guessed it - an illegal copy.

What's more, it will be noted digitally in the file whose iTunes downloaded them, and of course those details won't match you, so the 'illegality' of the copy will be obvious.

Of course, all of this will only ever be a problem if 'they' (ie. the powers that be) come looking on your computer. And that's pretty unlikely, unless you were one of the few high-profile cases that got busted by the RIAA for file sharing a few years back. Plus, in a non-legal sense, I think most people would agree that if the other person is just the conduit, and you have reimbursed them for buying the files off iTunes, then laymen (myself included) would say that morally, you ARE the owner.

But of course, the law doesn't see it like that. Meh! Another reason I wish everything was just on CD, as they don't come with this kind of bloody stupid legal nonsense attached. If your friend bought a CD in the States on your behalf, and you then paid them for it, they could just send it on to you, and bingo, it would be yours. Unfortunately, everything seems to be going this way. I'm sure all software manufacturers would prefer it if everything we bought in the whole world was done on a licensing basis, so that you never really buy anything outright, just purchase a licence to operate it, which cannot then be transparently transferred to anyone else...

EDIT: of course, if your other half has a credit card registered to a UK or US address, all the above problems melt away like snowflakes in July! And thank goodness for that, as they're nothing more than a load of irritating cack getting in the way of the pure enjoyment of this amazing music...

Thanks for the clarification Matt. I am happy we (my wife is also a BB fan) got the stuff the correct way. It is an awesome release. Even my wife commented that these recordings have an energy that has sadly been lost with the technical advancement of studio recordings.

The next two years December Releases will be a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!

Glad you got the album, Mooger. The stupidness of the process of obtaining this music, is fortunately, wholly negated by the awesomeness of the music itself!

Further to the above, I have to add that I had my own irritations when buying the new release yesterday. Someone bought me a £15 iTunes gift voucher literally three years ago for my birthday which I've never used, as I dislike download-only music and would far rather have a CD for almost anything. I kept it because I thought that one day, there might be a download-only release that I wanted.

When the set was announced, I thought: "Finally! A really good use of that gift card!" I got quite excited that I could finally use it and get the new release effectively 'for free'.

The first problem came when I scraped off the backing to the gift voucher authorisation code. Half the code came off with the backing, and I found myself trying to work out what some of the letters and numbers were from the little shavings of the code-concealing backing plastic that had rolled up like woodlice after I'd rubbed them off and were now all over my floor.

Eventually, though, I got lucky after a few failed attempts, and got the voucher code correct. Hey presto, iTunes increased my credit balance to 15 quid. But then when I tried to buy the album, iTunes demanded to know my Apple ID. I've used the iTunes store so infrequently, I couldn't remember what it was. So then I had to go through that whole rigmarole of requesting a password reset, getting an email sent with a link to do that, and re-registering.

Once that was done, I hit 'Buy Album' and prepared for 46 tracks of Wilson goodness to make their way into my track library. But no - the card I registered to the iTunes store in 2010 (unsurprisingly) had expired, I was informed by a strident dialogue box. Why does this matter? I wondered, as I wasn't paying by card for this purchase. But no, I had to register a new card before I could do anything else. So I first had to go and find my credit card, come back and type in all the details. While I was doing this, more time-out dialogue boxes kept popping up on the screen. "Do you still wish to buy 'Keep An Eye On Summer'??". Why yes, I do. Boinnng. "Do you still wish to buy 'Keep An Eye On Summer'??" Yes. Type type, I went, frantically putting in credit card details. "Do you still wish to buy 'Keep An Eye On Summer'??" YES, I DO!!!

Finally, I was done. But again — no. "Our terms and conditions have changed since you last bought anything from the iTunes Store. You must read and agree to the terms and conditions below"... followed by screeds of legalese, several screens' worth, that I doubt ANYONE has ever read bar the lawyers that charged a fortune to draw up the text. And, of course, as I struggled to get past all of that, tick the box at the bottom and move on, there it was again: "Do you still wish to buy 'Keep An Eye On Summer'??"

YES, I FODAING DO!!!

In true Basil Fawlty style, I found myself wanting to give iTunes a damn good thrashing with most of a tree after all of that. Compared to the rather different experience of browsing through the racks in a CD shop, finding things I wanted by accident, whiling away a pleasant half an hour or so, and then going to the counter and paying in cash and walking away with lots of lovely shiny discs to play in less than a minute, it was, to put it bluntly, a load of sh*t.

(Just to redress the balance a bit, the good side was that once I'd finally jumped through all of the stupid hoops, banished the "Do you still wish to buy 'Keep An Eye On Summer'??" dialogue box for the final time, and pressed Buy Album, I had the tracks within two minutes. That, admittedly, was the good bit. I STILL wish it was on CD though...)

Clearly, I have now become a thoroughly grumpy old man. When I was a kid, people were old if they wouldn't give your ball back when it went over their fence, or if they couldn't programme a computer or set a VCR to record without exhibiting terminal confusion. I guess the new young/old divide is, "Thinks iTunes is Great/Thinks iTunes is poop"...

Pretty miffed that these are exclusive to i-Tunes. I broke my computer uninstalling i-Tunes a couple years ago. I don't want to go through that again.

Probably my own fault.

Purchasing music via digital download isn't my cup of tea. In fact, last years "Big Beat" is the only time in my life I've every purchased a digital album (got it from Amazon).

Perhaps my resistance to Apple is a losing battle. I might as well sign up as these exclusive downloads will  likely continue for years to come (hopefully).

Pardon my useless rambling. I'm starting to twitch because there is new Beach Boys related product and it is not in my possession.

Matt I empathise… went through almost exactly the same process. Made worse because the login email address is different to the one they send the password reminder to. Over the years I've somehow ended up with two iTunes accounts and never know which "hat" I've got on. Macs are superb but the admin fools destroy the process

yeah I think the songs shouldn't just be on iTunes but also on Amazom mp3's as well as other mp3 sites, yeah just have the friend burn the songs to a data disc and send it to you or have him send it via email to you..

Finally got the damn thing downloaded... well, all except tracks 2 & 3.

Oh, no... no, belay that thought - the network connection timed out on "Parking Lot", and thus far it's taken ten minutes to download five tracks. What a complete fucking joke. Never, ever buying anything from iTunes again - it's been a customer experience from hell.

I'm just waiting until it makes the rounds, like waiting for The Brother Reissue tracks, cuz I don't have a clue on  itunes and with all of these horror stories, I'd never do it now!
But, what if it's the same proivider next year ? ( presuming there is a next year) 

"All those horror stories" -- how many are horror stories versus those of us who had zero problems?

I've never had a problem with iTunes.  If there is a problem, chances are it's you and not them.

Both KAEOS and live albums downloaded in about five minutes on my machine. No problems at all, nor have I ever had any difficulty with iTunes. I've used it consistently for the last decade at least, too.

This has been my first experience of buying from iTunes. I was told I couldn't buy it in the UK and redirected to the US site, where my UK id wasn't accepted, and I was re-redirected to the UK site... where I couldn't buy it. The download was interrupted and now it has finally turned up, two tracks just didn't show and two more were interrupted (again) and don't download, so currently I've got 42 of the 46 I've paid (through the nose, relatively speaking) for.

I have a very simple credo when it comes to retail: it's a one-shot deal. Good experience, I'll be back, bad experience and wild horses won't make me go there again. On a customer satisfaction level, I'd rate this slightly above having my appendix removed without anesthetic by Jack the Ripper in Mitre Square. Won't be going there again.

Same here. I had no issues whatsoever. Never have, not that I buy a lot from iTunes, but when I do there are never any issues.

For the rest of your songs - in the iTunes store homepage, there should be a link on the right side of the page that says 'Purchased' - click that, then click on 'The Beach Boys', and you should be able to find your remaining songs and download them. Hopefully that solves it.

199 SEK = US$26.32 is also on the blowing side. I mean, sure, for a physical album, but a download?

All these problems in the previous 10 posts are examples of things I've gone through with iTunes. Which is why I'd much rather wait and buy on Amazonmp3 if it will be sold on there eventually. I'd rather wait and save myself the frustration.

Nope, nothing like that. Mind, I've not updated iTunes since I installed it, oh, eight, nine years ago. I'm running 9.2.0.61, whatever that means.

If you need to upgrade your iTunes to get those missing tracks, then trust me: do NOT get iTunes 12. If this means you need to update, get 11 or earlier.

Maybe your issue comes from having an outdated version of iTunes?

‍

I had no clue this came out - what a gift!  I had an issue with iTunes version 11, so I took the plunge, updated to version 12, downloaded all 46 tracks in about 3-4 minutes.

I'll wait until this comes to Amazon. And if it doesn't, I'll get it through other means.  ::)

A lot of layout changes, for one thing (My household is all Mac, btw, save for a Windows/Linux dual boot box I keep under my desk for testing purposes and that I haven't even touched in over a year). Used to be that on the sidebar it would list videos, playlists, music, podcasts, etc. down the line; now it only allows you to look at one thing at a time.

And seriously, it took my wife and me over an hour of DuckDuckGoing and Googling to figure out how to "import" from one library to another. There used to be a clearly marked "Import" button. They eliminated the "Import" button and replaced it with a hidden drag'n'drop feature. And believe me, I'm a tech guy, and I DID RTFM, but TFM is for the OLDER iTunes; they didn't update the docs!

Talking about rip offs, I ordered the vinyl Christmas album with the original mono mixes from Amazon US because it wasn't on Amazon Germany. They include with that free mp3s of the album which they call "AutoRip". Unfortunately, you're only allowed to download them if you're a US resident using a US based credit card. So no mono Christmas album mp3s for me. I feel AutoRipped off. (Should there be someone on this board who thinks that's a cheat and doesn't dare to tell me that on the thread, that someone is free to PM me.)

Fortunately, I can plug the record player to the computer and make my own rip.

Legalities, pure and easy.

Hmm....okay, I know it's sacrilege to ask this, but...in the "Denny's Drums" session that's on KAEOS, is that indeed, indisputably 100% for sure Dennis on drums??? Doesn't sound like his style AT ALL. I'm convinced it's Dennis on the actual final album release (too many mistakes not to be!), but this just sounds too....jazzy, I guess.

Just chiming in to say I'm frustrated as all hell because I'm another somewhat tech-savvy music guy who basically refuses to deal with iTunes based 99% on previous bad experiences trying to deal with it on a Windows computer. For those who were able to D/L this collection, that's great.

I'd just like to say for those "officially" reading this board: Make this available for download-purchase on other formats and platforms, anything from Amazon to whatever other online store, short of some hard-copy discs too (since some actually prefer that).

This is an organization that pressed freakin' novelty 78rpm discs a few years ago of material most if not all fans who would be the target buyers already had, yet the only format fans have to buy this is iTunes?

Look at the frustration from a handful of fans in this thread, and consider opening up some other media in order for these fans to actually buy it without dealing with what some of us either cannot access or refuse to deal with because of system compatibility issues.

Thank you. iTunes sucks.

This.




Should be a petition.

OK, after listening to it this morning, I think you're bloody well right!  Maybe not a thousand times better, but in the general vicinity thereof.

Which will probably sound better anyway

Perhaps I did over-exaggerate ;D but I'm still blown away by the quality of this new set! I'm glad everyone else is digging it too.

In The Parking Lot session. Dennis - "Murry's gone so that gives us a chance to screw around all we want, you know."   ;D

Would've thought the BB audience demographic (older, grumpier males) was a more of a CD market than a download one. I managed to download it, though my PC is running slow and it took three sessions to get the lot (in the period the price went up - though I only paid the initial one) but there is no artwork

Ask Stebbins - he's heard the original multi tracks.  :)

So these annual copyright releases are guaranteed to only include stuff that's been previously booted, correct? No point renewing a copyright for tapes nobody can get to.

No, not necessarily. The 1964 collection has some stuff that's never been booted.

BTW, this is basically a win-win situation: either they'll release stuff, or in the EU it'll fall into the public domain, making it easier to distribute, theoretically.

From my recollection there is audio evidence on the session tapes that Dennis is playing multiple takes, and no evidence that he is not playing others. The arrangement is evolving as the session continues along. C-Man's session credits concur with what I heard, that it's Dennis throughout. I know he studied this session in a more thorough way than I did. Regarding "jazzy"...Dennis stated back in that time that he was a fan of Louis Bellson. Perhaps he copped some riffs. I can imitate Jimi Hendrix on the guitar for about 10 seconds.

Maybe I missed it but I went to the site from the link and could not find KAEOS.    Is it part of the release or not?

Yes it is. Everything but Brian's lead vocal on Keep An Eye On Summer. Sounds boss!

Holy sh*t... This makes me super excited for a 1965 comp.

I'm not too familiar with the copyright law, so hopefully someone can answer this for me:  Will we be getting stuff like this every year (where there is material to be released) for the next 48 years or is there some kind of cut off date where the music is automatically extended to 70 years?

Unless they change the law (and I'm assuming at some point, they will), these will be released every year into eternity.

But isn't it in the public domain no matter what after 70 years?  I thought these releases just gave the music a 20 year extension. 

Yes, unless they change the law (and I'm assuming they probably will).


They do. That's another 20 years for companies like Capital to figure out how to make money off of this stuff.

What I meant is that every year, more music will reach that 50 year mark that will need to be released. In 2062, maybe they'll dump the TWGMTR sessions into our laps.

It makes ME super excited for the 1966/1967 comps!  ;)

Before those get here, may I be the first one to beg, plead etc..Mark & Alan to give us that version of Barnyard with the backing vocals on it that was included on the 2011 SMiLE Sessions review streams. PLEASE.

Also, Any other SMiLE material that you guys wanted to include on the 2011 release but ran out of disc space for.

P.S. No more Good Vibrations unless you found the vocal multitracks or succeed in reversing the polarity of the hit single's backing track and can use it to isolate the vocals from the mono single.

Pretty Please!  :)

I love all of the session highlights and New Backing Track Mixes. I still wonder though, where are the tracking sessions for Wendy and Little Honda? I mean, I love how they are presented on the set but, I would love to hear highlights from these sessions some day! Are they missing from the vault, I would love to hear them!

If one looks in the right place, it may be possible to find it elsewhere.  I'd gladly purchase a CD of this release, but I would never pay for electrons, especially lossy ones.

One also assumes that they (Capitol) could, if they so wished, put out all this stuff NOW - there's absolutely no reason to sit on the material until the copyright's about to expire, other than… well, lack of a release format that will bring in some cash from the public at large. We obsessives are paying over the odds for the stuff in lossy format but Capitol's goal would have to include even greater profit from the public at large.

Here's a thing. King Crimson have just released a 27-disc box based on their mix-70s album Starless. Previously they've released 27-disc box sets based on their albums The Road To Red and Larks’ Tongues In Aspic. Can this type of product really be expected to sell better than a mega box of Beach Boys? Different market I know, but really?

The 66/67 comps are gonna be a ball. We need more Smiley era recordings of The Boys getting stoned.

But the Beach Boys don't own or run boutique label that sells exclusively to their fans. Major difference there. For better or worse, they have stuck with a major label that sees little market for rarity releases outside of retrospective boxes or these copyright extension albums.

Me too, if there is one.

Yeah, and consider that when they actually release something that utilizes this material, it won't be an incredibly enticing prospect to pay for this music again. But, hey, what do I know? I'm not a giant, dying industry.

My guess is that the tracking sessions for Wendy and Little Honda aren't in the vault and they only have the tapes with the vocal overdubs.

Very true. Another reason, perhaps, why Beachboyscentral coulda been a contender.

Wonder what the potential for a small Beach Boys-specific label set up by fans for fans, and licensing material from the label for small scale prestigious releases might be? Or would Capitol price itself out of reach?

My mind is being blown by the Pom Pom Play Girl instrumental version and instrumental + backing vocals only version. So good. I didn't realize that Mike was on this track on sax until reading the liners. Was this the last time Mike played a sax on a BB song?

Well, unless there's another release format announced by Capitol for this material, it won't be possible to avoid the lossiness of this collection. Sure, you can burn The Big Beat 1963, or KAEOS64 to disc, but as you probably know, burning MP3s, AACs or any other compressed, lossy material to CD doesn't restore it to full PCM resolution. Then all you have is a decent PCM copy of the lossy files.

Which is why all of those CD boots of The Big Beat 1963 mentioned upthread aren't worth a candle, unless you have no other way to get the material as released last year (for example: you have no Internet-enabled computer). You're not getting higher-resolution, 'CD-quality' versions of The Big Beat 1963 - you're just getting copies of the same old original lossy files that just happen to be stored on CD.

It's one reason I WAS prepared to buy KAEOS64 from iTunes. Because there's no other way at present, and because any other way to get it, at the moment at least, is just offering you the same quality files as you find on iTunes (ie. lossy compressed ones). So I thought I might as well. If you can't improve on lossy, then, for all that using iTunes was an annoying experience (and it was, as I described upthread), at least it was a fast track to the best (indeed the only) quality versions of this material that's currently available.

I'd still prefer, and buy, a CD of it in a heartbeat. Provided it was created from uncompressed files from Capitol's archive, that is, and not just a bootleg of the AACs from Apple's site.

Having said all that, didn't someone say somewhere on this board at some point since last Christmas that one on-line retailer WAS now selling uncompressed versions of The Big Beat 1963 files? Was that ever a confirmed Capitol release; a lossless version? If that's true, maybe lossless versions of KAEOS64 will turn up eventually too.

On the other hand, perhaps it was a misunderstanding, and it was just another on-line release of the compressed files through another on-line retailer. A true loss-less release would be a big deal (to me, anyway), but it would have necessitated Capitol's involvement to release uncompressed versions and I would have expected them to make more of a big deal out of it, and for it to have been widely noted here (did I miss something? I may have done). Whereas more on-line retailers releasing the same old compressed files needs no effort from anyone and is easy, but doesn't leave any end users any better off than they would have been buying from iTunes in the first place...

Oh, and of course, as well as other on-line retailers selling the lossy files, there's always torrents and illegal downloads, but unless the files you find in such places have somehow been booted direct from Your Place Or Mine's production masters (unlikely, to say the least...!) they will be illegal copies of... you guessed it, the same old same old lossy files that everyone (myself included) is grumbling here about, and then paying iTunes too much money for nonetheless... </grumpyoldman>

Good guess.

No...that's probably "Carl's Big Chance" (aka "Memphis Beach"), as pointed out in Issue 105 of ESQ. But he also plays it on "Louie Louie" and "Shut Down Part 2" from the same album.

You mean he didn't actually play the Kokomo sax solo? :'(

That was Bob Holness, surely… ;)

I love to repeat the story about why Mike stopped playing the sax. When asked at some point Mike's reason was that the group's road manager Ron Swallow had lost the sax, and Mike never got another one. When I mentioned this to Ron Swallow during an interview back in 2008 he laughed really hard, said that's probably not true, and that Mike hated to practice playing it. Swallow then gave the great quote..."But if he want's to give me credit for ending his career as a sax player I'll gladly take it."

Since we have a direct line to some involved with this project, I'll repeat as someone who wants to buy this project and as someone who is the primary demographic as a buyer for this type of project, will it be possible to make it available on a non-iTunes platform or outlet? I'm doubting a hard-copy CD release will ever happen, so I'll ask again directly, can this be offered online for sale on something other than iTunes?

And adding to that, if not-why not?

I think the experiences and frustrations described by fans in this thread alone should trigger at least something within official channels in order to get the product into the hands of those willing to pay for it but who cannot access it in its current state on iTunes.

I haven't had a chance to fully digest this new release yet but what I have heard is excellent, In The Parkin' Lot a capella especially.

I'm quite glad that my ears cannot distinguish between lossy and lossless thus saying me the anguish that several members here seem to be experiencing.

As I've said repeatedly in this thread, that assumes that Capitol cares a whit about any demographic, or any person who might buy this project. I doubt they care much if a single person buys a single copy. It's out there for legal reasons, full stop.

And Mike played on the Shut Down single/album version too, right?

Casper, please intro yourself so we know who we're talking to, K? Or did you just change your alias? Thanks.

The files I downloaded for the "Keep An Eye On Summer" comp are Mp4 files. And to be honest, while I have plenty of other FLAC files, I'm sure I can't tell the difference if these are Mp3, Mp4, Flac, or Wav (PCM) files. The quality is that good - comparable or better than my SOT 60's sessions on CD. No high-freq hiss or bass loss/distortion that I can distinguish. Are these suppose to be 320mps or 256mps Mp3's?  I wonder how I got Mp4's, which are video quality files.

Since I vowed a few years ago never to use iTunes again, I had to acquire this through other means. Which I just did. This is a brilliant release for us hardcore fans, some of the tracks (new stereo Little Honda - great one!, most session highlights, the acapella versions) are especially interesting and deserve a physical, lossless release.

Definitely looking forward to other compilations like this one. NOT on iTunes, though.  :P

The Big Beat is available for download on german amazon. So, I guess and hope that the same will happen with KAEOS

http://www.amazon.de/Big-Beat-1963-Various-artists/dp/B00HO2VT0W/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1418064284&sr=1-1&keywords=the+big+beat+1963

But I repeat - unless I'm missing something - even if you buy it through Amazon, it's STILL THE SAME LOSSY COMPRESSED FILES.

So all you're doing by choosing Amazon over iTunes is avoiding paying Apple, which might be satisfactory to you on some level. But all I care about is the music; I don't really get exercised about who I buy it from once the transaction is complete. And the music - to my ears - is presented slightly less well than it might ideally be by being compressed.

Not to overstate this - I mean, I own the Heroes & Villains Sessions boot, which has to be the cruddiest-sounding xunth-generation hissfest of a bootleg ever, and still I pored over it back in the day like it was the Holy Grail - but given that this new archive stuff was professionally mixed on a high-resolution system in a lovely studio, it does bother me that it's fed to us as MP3s.

I dunno... it's like buying a beautiful art print of something you really like - but then when it's delivered, someone has made a fifth-generation cheap colour photocopy, and given you that instead...

And for the record, the files I got from iTunes for KAEOS64 were 256kbps MP3s. Well, AACs, but there's not a lot of difference. If they sound good, it's because the source material was good. Which frustrates me, as this stuff could have sounded even nicer than it already does...

Nope, iTunes has their own lackluster encoding. It will not be the same files.

Since you asked so nicely I'll tell you, I'm Casper Van Diem, 'star' of Starship Troopers.

Or I'm Paulos returning with a new alias.

The files I downloaded also show as MP4 and a quick look shows them to be 260kbps, but I have no idea what that actually means.

Actually 256kbps AAC files = 320 kpbs mp3s.

What version of Barnyard with backing vocals?

256kbps AAC files actually retain more audio information than 320 kpbs mp3s.

The review streams of the Smile Sessions box version had some bvs. The actual box version didn't: apparently someone put up the wrong mix on the stream.

I'm assuming that somebody out there probably recorded a stream and has a copy saved of that incorrectly-released version. That person wouldn't be me, but I'll bet some collector(s) have it.

Now that I've had a chance to listen to KAEOS-64 a few times (admittedly only on the computer without headphones), I'm fascinated with the horseplay and banter going on between takes. So, who's singing the blues riff on "Fun, Fun, Fun" on track 1? Dennis, Mike, Brian? ....

Also, has anyone tried burning these tracks to CD yet? If so, how many discs per album, 1 or 2?

I always though it was Mike singing the blues version of Fun x 3.

Windows Media Player divided KAEOS for burning into two discs of 74min (21 tracks) and 72min (25 tracks) respectively.

Argh! If I could only get my Windows Media Player to play even one of these tracks it'd be a friggin miracle; but as it is I'll just have to wait for the computer tech visit

Might just be a simple case of a missing codec as WMP doesn't support playback of certain file types out of the box. K-Lite Codec Pack might save the day:

http://filehippo.com/download_klite_codec_pack

Thanxx!!  May try that after Vegas...

Good luck!

I'm sure no-one privvy to a review stream would do something so reprehensible.

Surely not. Surely not.

Surely it would be reprehensible not to.

Depends on the point of view - from my point of view, they put the wrong mix in the box! ::)

I agree with Micha. We already have too much SMiLE without completed vocals to intentionally leave vocals OFF something that had them! It wouldn't matter so much to me except for the fact that getting "Barnyard" from a clean tape source (WITH the vocals) was one of the things I was most looking forward to about the SMiLE Sessions release. I hope Mark and/or Alan are reading this.

P.S. IF Mark and/or Alan are reading this, NICE JOB on the new release!

OK, I didn't express myself very well, there, admittedly, but it seems like my point just isn't coming across. So the files may not be EXACTLY the same files, compressed in exactly the same way with the same codec, but what I was trying to say was: whether you buy from iTunes or Amazon, the files are compressed with a lossy codec. You don't magically get a better-quality version by choosing Amazon, while evil ol'iTunes gives you a worse-quality version. They're all as bad as each other.

Until Capitol release high-quality versions (if they ever do), then however you buy KAEOS64, it will be lossy. Burn it to CD all you like and hand those versions round, but you won't thereby obtain a higher-quality version... just a good copy of the lossy files.

That's why I don't really care who I buy it from, because the files are already down a level in quality no matter who you choose to get them from. And there's no higher-quality version at present. Unless I have missed something about a high-resolution release from someone... but at the moment at least, I don't think so.

And yes, I have heard it said that 260kbps AACs "are equivalent to" 320kbps MP3s, but these judgements are all subjective. Both compression schemes are lossy and the algorithms make judgements about what audio content they can get away with throwing out from the original uncompressed file in order to get the size down. They each do this slightly differently, but the underlying principle is the same, of trying to find frequency information that the 'average person' won't notice is missing when it's thrown out. Because no-one is exactly like 'the average person' and everyone's hearing is slightly different, this process works better for some people than others. It also depends what kind of content you're encoding. Loud pop or rock music with a limited dynamic range encodes better (ie. the deficiencies are less audible) than unaccompanied vocal or solo orchestral instruments, which are lower in level on average and have a greater dynamic range. So blanket statements like '260kbps AACs are equivalent to 320kbps MP3s' don't sit well with me, and also, I recognise that while it may be hard to distinguish a 320kbps MP3 of a Metallica track from a CD-quality PCM audio version, you can't assume that the same will be true when you compare a high-bit-rate MP3 (or AAC, or Windows Media File, or whatever) to the uncompressed PCM of a Chopin Nocturne, for example.

I know I haven't got particularly good hearing - I'm no golden-eared audiophile purist - but I can tell when I hear solo piano music that's been MP3ed, especially at bit rates below 260kbps. The compression IS audible, if you know what you're listening for. I'm pleased to say that I'm not hearing anything that massively spoils my enjoyment of KAEOS64 (the material is of very high quality to begin with, which helps, although the accapella mixes, which are one of the big selling points of this set but have a relatively wide dynamic range, are definitely not the best material to feed lossy algorithms with). In the final analysis, KAEOS64 has got to be way better than buying bootlegs, because the stuff is professionally mixed and of higher quality to begin with (and it's cheaper, as I said upthread!)... but on some level, I still feel like someone has made me a hissy cassette of some stuff I really like, and now I wish I could go out and buy the original on CD...

Matt's post has me thinking about something. Can anybody answer WHO it is exactly that decides what format these files are released in? I mean, I would guess it's Capitol, but WHO at Capitol decides this?..What department?

I don't know the answer to that one, but I'm not sure it's necessarily Capitol's, er, 'fault' as such that KAEOS64 is only available as lossy files. If I understand correctly, it's pretty simple:

iTunes sells AAC files (ie. lossy, compressed audio). Therefore, if you want to release something on iTunes... you see where I'm going with this.

Similarly, Amazon sells MP3s for download (lossy, compressed audio). Therefore, if you want to sell something for download from Amazon...

My guess is the format is determined by how the retailer sells music — ie. it's an inescapable consequence of selling through iTunes.

I don't have ANY experience in this downloading thing, so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but, does ANYBODY offer lossless downloads? and if so, why aren't they the most well known name in downloading land. This mystifies me. How can the music industry be this far behind the curve?

My guess is that under the old business model each individual record company/label were in competition with each other and that's just the way it was for a long time. When Napster came along in what was it? 1998? or so? the record companies would have been smart to realize that the only way to survive would be to band together and start selling lossless files on one BIG site that represented all of them. They could have reissued long out of print titles with little expense to them and used the income to exploit err,  I mean, promote young new acts. I don't know. This whole thing is just a disorganized fu**ing mess. I'm with Matt. Sell me a CD or DVD with Hi-Resolution files or at least let me download lossless/Hi-Resolution files. It's an insult to The Beach Boys, Chuck Britz, Steve Desper,  Mark Linett and Alan Boyd's hard work to do anything less. 

Hey Matt! Yes, iTunes 256 kbps AAC is lossy compressed, but I've got some really good news for you - you're not gonna be able to tell the diff between an iTunes download and a CD quality 1441 kbps file of the same material.  Seriously, on a double blind listening test of program material such as found on KAEOS64 it's virtually impossible to discern any difference.  And that goes for high-res versions too.

I know the statement I've just made will cause some people to go bonkers, 'cause just looking at the specs it appears that there is no way a lossy compressed data reduced file such as this KAEOS64 on iTunes could sound as good as the original non data reduced file, but the fact is, given the way the human ear works, it does.  If we were dogs then maybe it would be different.  

KAEOS64 contains some incredible music, so seriously, just get over the specs, head over to iTunes and enjoy.  If a higher res version later comes available, which it most certainly will not in the near future, then perhaps later on you'll have the opportunity to enjoy that as well, although double blind listening studies show that your enjoyment will most likely fall under the category of "psychic gratification", i.e. believing it sounds better even if you can't discern the diff in a double blind listening test.  And that's totally cool too - if you think higher res sounds better then go for it and enjoy it, knowing you're getting the very best quality available!  But for now download KAEOS64 and enjoy the incredible musical experience found therein - you won't regret it.

And having just reread your post again, maybe you did already download it from iTunes.  If so, kick back relax, and enjoy the music, which is what it's all about in the first place.  

Great post, Rob!

Hey Craig, 3000 posts? You HAVE to get out more!  ;)  :lol

Nice work on the new release!

Royce

As I've already said, I'm no purist, and I cannot claim to have any kind of 'golden ear'. And I *do* think KAEOS64 sounds great - I downloaded it the first day it was out. If you read some of my comments upthread, you'll know this already, although I'm guessing from what you've said towards the end of your comments that you didn't.

But no amount of persuasion will convince me that the effects of audio compression are not audible. As humans, we have a tendency to get hung up on theory, and I know this. You can say that some people get hung up on the fact that they know some audio has been removed from these files, and convince themselves that they can hear the effects. But you can also get hung up on theory on the other side of the argument. Equally, you can convince yourself that the technical spec of a particular codec renders it 'virtually impossible' that humans can hear the effects of lossy compression. People still can. I know I can (and I'm pretty sure I've got a fairly tin ear...), because I've conducted my own tests. It's very hard to describe the effect in words, but I have found the effects of excessive lossy compression to manifest themselves in a hazy, metallic quality to notes with lots of harmonics in recordings where there's a wide dynamic response. It always reminds me of the audio version of the 'digital hash' you see around well-defined colour boundaries in a highly compressed JPEG, although I admit that's my subjective impression, as I know the reasons for both types of artefact, the visual and the audible, are similar in both cases. If you've ever applied too much noise reduction to a recording, you will know something of what I'm describing. Your ability to localise sound sources in a stereo recording can also be affected, such that instruments that were once clearly located in one part of the stereo spectrum can seem more ambiguously positioned, or seem to waver in position. With extreme compression, the entire mix degenerates into a sort of hazy mush in which it's hard to tell where the different instruments are positioned. Notes that peal out clearly in an uncompressed version of the recording can acquire a bleary, mushy hash of noise around them while they are sounding; it can sound as if the formerly clear notes are 'wheezing'. (Again, words are really poor at describing this, but once you've heard the sound, you can't miss it). As with noise reduction, the tails of long-held notes can also be affected, choppily 'gating out and in again' as the tail fades to silence, rather than smoothly fading out. You often hear this kind of thing during quieter passages of on-hold music on the phone, which is compressed to death.

Solo piano is a great test, because piano notes and chords have a lot of harmonic content, and the dynamic range of a recording in which someone suddenly hits a piano chord loudly in a sparse arrangement is quite wide. It's harder to discern the effects in louder rock tracks, but that doesn't mean they're not there.

I have a practical outlook to this stuff. I did my listening tests when I bought my first iPod, because I wanted to know what bit-rate I should MP3 my CD collection at. I knew this meant a quality hit, but I figured that it was worth it given that a) having your music collection on an iPod makes it way more portable and useful than carting six tons of CDs around with you all the time and b) I would likely be listening to the iPod in what you might kindly call 'non-critical environments': in the car, on trains, when mowing the lawn etc, which aren't exactly the best environment for analysing how smoothly the sustaining tails of guitar or piano notes are decaying (not that I do that kind of thing a lot anyway...!). But I didn't want to be able to audibly hear the effects on tracks at full tilt. I concluded in A/B tests that I absolutely could hear compression on pretty much anything I tried at 128kbps or below, that I could hear it sometimes at 160, and that at 192, it was inaudible on most stuff, but not on quiet solo instruments. I picked 192 as a good compromise that worked for me.

And that's the other thing - you can only ever be person-specific about this stuff (ie. '192kbps works for me'). Hearing and audible perception is subjective, and because lossy coding works on psychoacoustic principles which hold more true for some people than for others, its effects will therefore be more audible to some than others. The best thing designers of lossy codecs can hope for is that the majority of people can't hear the effects.

I agree that double-blind tests are a good way to investigate, as it's the only way to eliminate confirmation bias, and I'm familiar with the fact that such studies have been conducted. But the devil with these things is in the detail. Who was tested? Kids whose main audio references are their iPhone earbuds? And was the study size statistically significant? Don't forget, human beings have been fooling themselves about audio quality for a very long time. The luminaries invited to playbacks of the earliest wax cylinder recordings of orchestral performances pronounced them 'indistinguishable' from the sound of real orchestras playing the same material. When we listen to those cylinder recordings now, we know that's not the case, to put it mildly...!

My wish is that I didn't have to get into any of this with this latest release. On one level, I don't - on a visceral level, I have enjoyed, and am enjoying it. But it bugs me intellectually that I can't hear quite what Mark and Alan heard through the studio monitors if I choose. These files are always going to be a generation down from that, and from what I *can* have over my stereo, say, with the Made In California set.

Still, as I said much earlier in this thread, given the choice between being able to hear this stuff as lossy files and not being able to hear it at all, I will keep handing iTunes my money every December if we continue to be given the option (there's my pragmatism, again). I just wish there was an (even better) way. Given that the music and mixes must exist as uncompressed production masters, I can't see why we can't have that option as a download as well. If there's a market for Beach Boys vinyl and SACDs that makes the production of such physical media worthwhile, producing another run of downloads at full resolution is surely a super low-cost option in comparison...?

Matt, you do realize that compressed lossy files such as mp3 and m4a decompress when played? Also when compression takes place, data is thrown away. Data that has frequencies above our hearing threshold. This is not like the compression that record companies use(d) to squeeze sound frequencies to make the music sound squished and louder.

Back to KAEOS… blown away by the stereo mixes. A lot of worthy bass pounding out of the car speakers - makes me realise what folk mean when they said the MiC mixes were too bright.

There must be an intention to release this stuff in a better (lossless) format - it deserves to be in everyone's collection in the best audio quality possible.

Sincere congrats and thanks to Mark and Alan. If the inflated UK pricing is to boost your pensions, then I ain't complaining (but don't retire yet!).


Edit: posting was delays by connection break. Lossy broadband… ;)

I'm aware of the (great) distinction between dynamic compression and data compression, yes!

You cannot 'decompress' an audio file that's been lossily compressed. That's why it's called lossy compression. As you say, data is thrown away during the compression process, and you can't get it back. That's why an MP3 or an AAC is so much smaller than the original file, but it's also why MP3s can sound so different to uncompressed audio in the first place.

There are loss-*less* compression algorithms, which fully reconstitute the original file when you decompress them. However, they don't reduce file sizes by as much, and MP3 and AAC are definitely not in this category. What they throw away at the encoding stage is gone for good.

Not all of the frequencies that are lost during lossy encoding are simply outside the audible range of human hearing, either. Some are very much in it, but are deemed by the compression algorithm to be inaudible to human hearing for one reason or another. Of course, you can immediately see that the effectiveness of that approach is going to depend on how good an understanding the algorithm has of how the 'average' human hearing system works... and if your hearing doesn't correspond closely to that, you may hear the effects of the compression more than someone else does.

Anyhow, as John rightly says, we're getting off-topic. It's time to talk about how great this set is again. The first revelation for me so far was the backing track for Why Do Fools Fall In Love, which I've already mentioned. But the killer track for me today is the accapella to Don't Hurt My Little Sister. I've always been fairly underwhelmed by it, ever since David Leaf pretty much glided past it on auto-pilot in his notes to the 1990 Today twofer. More fool me for slavishly following what he said, and another reason to ignore what David Leaf says... The harmonies to this thing just get more and more out of this world as the track goes on! Too bad they were buried on the original mono mix... and too bad that the lyrics are so shonky. The amazing vocal arrangement is, IMO, kind of wasted on lines like 'she digs you and thinks you're a real groovy guy'... ;)

And let me add my vote of thanks to Mark and Alan for their hard work on this awesome set, and to c-man for the session notes!

Yes, you can decompress a lossy file. Of course you will lose what was thrown away, but those files decompress to bigger files when made to wav's or PCM files. Most lossy encoders do a great job these days, as opposed to what was around in 2005 or prior. I have ABX'd many of my CD's to my home ripped mp3's and rarely can I tell the difference.

As for the set itself, the sound is terrific. I agree with your assessment of Don't Hurt My Little Sister. This is one of those sing the phone book songs. While the lyric is slight, the vocals more than make up for it. There are many songs on this set where the melody is carried so beautifully by the vocals that the music is almost secondary.

I keep saying this, but I think during my lunch break today I'm going to make MP3s at various compression rates -- 192, 256, and 320 -- and then OOPS them with the non-compressed versions and just see what is actually being lost...

Bellagio has at least 4 or 5 tracks that could have been included but weren't (http://esquarterly.com/bellagio/vaults.html). If you're referring to session chatter or a particular early take, that's not what I meant. Pretty much everything on this comp has been heard before. I don't believe 'California Girls 1965' will be any different. Maybe there's just not that much material worth releasing. Or maybe they're saving the leftovers for next year!

I'm predicting that 'Surf's Up 1966' will be composed mostly of vocal session chatter that didn't make it on the Pet Sounds box + isolated BVs.

Custom Machine and Dr. Beach Boy are on the money. Mp3's are easy to play on iPods and iPads and iPhones, Very convenient to play on a computer too (and in many car stereos like mine). To play the lossless files (i.e. FLAC), you have to download another application to play them. People (especially non-techies) don't want to have to download an extra app pr codec to play music files. It's confusing to a lot of people and they just want files that are compatible with their music player with no hassles. FLAC's and ACC's are great, but to be honest, I can't tell the difference between them and a 256 or 320 Mp3 file.

Just knowing you have a lossless file is nice, but if you do an A-B and really can't tell the difference, then........

Looks to me that the tracks listed on AGD's site with a '64 date are pretty much barrel-scraping, assuming they actually exist in the first place, so yeah, it's probably that they didn't deem them worthy.

But again -- it's win-win. Either the tracks get released, or in the EU they're up for grabs and there's nothing that can legally be done about it.

BTW, just did my OOPS experiment, specifically with the mono "Our Prayer" from The Smile Sessions. And yeah, MP3ing definitely DOES remove human-audible elements.

Those of you unfamiliar with "OOPS" -- that's an acronym for "out of phase stereo." Basically what you do is invert the phase on one channel of a two-track recording, and then collapse the two tracks down to mono. What happens is whatever both channels have in common are cancelled out. (This is how many karaoke machines work -- under the assumption that vocals are panned to the center.) This is a cool way to get some vocals-only versions of some early stereo Beach Boys tracks, btw.

I used the same basic technique...what I did was load up "Our Prayer", untouched (no compression whatsoever - a straight rip from the CD) into Audacity. Then I imported an MP3 version of the exact same track. I inverted the phase on one of them, then mixed them. If the tracks were 100% identical, the result would be total silence.

Result? I still heard "Our Prayer" -- albeit much quieter. Depending on the compression rate, I had to turn the volume up more and more to hear it. The higher the compression rate, the less I had to turn the volume up to hear "Our Prayer." So yeah, MP3 compression indeed removes audible features. Either that or I have a much wider hearing range than the average person.

.

As I hear little or nothing of the difference existing between mp3 from 192kbit on and lossless, I can't wait to get this from any source available to me. iTunes unfortunately isn't.

Have only listened to a few songs here and there, some of it is really great.  The alternate version of "I'm So Young" is really beautiful.  And the live in the studio versions of "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "I Get Around" are awesome too.

I tried to play FLAC files on my last laptop, and they pretty much killed it. Took me four days to even get it working again well enough to transfer my files to a new machine. Never, ever again, and anyway, at my time of life the audio/audible difference is miniscule.

I downloaded the free version of MediaMonkey recently, plays FLAC no prob if people are looking for a player- http://www.mediamonkey.com/

Doubt it. If they did, then so did Parolophone and The Beatles.

Just get VLC Player.  It plays everything I throw at it.

Wow, what a wonderful package! It caught me totally off guard but it has been a great joy so far. I haven't quite heard it all yet but I'm loving every minute. I hope that they keep the pace up for 1965. 1966 may ironically turn out to be less interesting because so much has been released, but maybe they'll get a hold of the Durrie Parks Heroes by then? (hoping...)

My apologies if this has already been mentioned, but the liners list the lovely instrumental Christmas Eve as author unknown. However, the chord progressions match Let's Live Before We Die almost exactly. So, surely that's Brian too?!? Quite a revelation.

For someone unfamiliar with all the session details, the liner notes are amazing too. Dennis on drums for almost everything! And the biggest revelation is Brian on marimba for All Summer Long.  AMAZING!

x

That was indeed a revelation for me too. All Dressed Up For School just kicks so much ass. I think it's the absolute best unreleased (as a proper album track) BB song of the entire pre-SMiLE period. And Carl's vocal is magic.

I agree that is Al singing that falsetto part on the chorus, but is it Brian on falsetto in all other parts of the song, and Al just takes the falsetto part on the chorus (the "ooh what a turn on" part)? I wonder if Al singing that part on record was done to prep the song for possibly playing it live in concert with the live show (sans Brian) BB lineup, on which Al would certainly sing a typically Brian-sung part like that. Then again, maybe Brian just like Al in that part.
Surprising decisions on who-sings-what-part for its day, in more ways than one.

I wonder how bummed Brian was that this song didn't see release in its day, considering how advanced and standout it was compared to other (also awesome) BB tracks of its day. I wonder how the song being unreleased came about; did the record company object, and then Brian willingly pulled it? How serious a contender was it ever for release?

I doubt it, since the song was recorded several months before Brian's late December '64 meltdown and January '65 decision to leave the road band more-or-less permanently.

Glad you guys are diggin' the liners, though!

unless of course, Brian was planning to leave the touring group in any case

But if that were the case, I'd imagine he'd have had Al singing MORE of the falsetto chorus leads that he ended up singing himself ("Dance, Dance, Dance", "Kiss Me, Baby", etc.).

Yes it could have happened either way, but I'm guessing, Brian probably didn't want to give Al too many leads all at once; it had to be in the back of his mind that he was getting overwhelmed, and might want to stop touring

I'm 50/50 on my thoughts on Brian's rationale for having Al sing these parts. Maybe it was just Brian trying something new (or even just having Al's parts there as more of a temp vocal track that never got revised), but on the other hand, I think it could possibly have been an experiment in getting Al more versed in having Al's own falsetto parts down pat for live settings. As opposed to Al always singing Brian's falsetto parts in a hypothetical live setting, here could've been an opportunity for Al to sing Al's own falsetto parts in a live setting - if only the song had seen release and then gotten played live. Maybe that's totally wrong, but I think it's a feasible possibility. Interesting to ponder.

I almost think this song could have been a single, if the lyrics hadn't been considered unacceptable, and I do wonder if that ever was a thought in Brian's mind.

Also, in listening to the song, I thought of how much it sounds like it would have been a song with a typical Mike lead vocal (with the song's subject matter and vibe), and how much the song is improved/freshened by having Carl sing it instead of Mike. Not a knock against Mike, but it was good (and unfortunately very rare) to have vocals on early songs like these spread amongst the band's other very capable vocalists. Some people wonder if the band could've succeeded without Mike in the early days, and while that remains debatable and Mike certainly did add a lot, this song is a rare window into an alternate universe of an early-style (yet advanced) typically Mike-sung BB song with a different lead vocalist.

So, since Man With All The Toys, Santa's Beard, Merry Christmas Baby, Christmas Day, We'll Run Away, Do You Remember, Carl's Big Chance and Drive In weren't on the Keep an Eye On Summer 1964 release, are they out of copyright or is there another compilation that will gather up those songs?

Any unreleased tracks from those sessions would have fallen into the public domain in the European Union after December 31, 2014, but the released mono and stereo versions continue to remain under copyright protection for another 20 years -- as do any unused takes, false starts, vocal-only mixes, track-only mixes, etc. derived from those master tapes.

From a copyright protection standpoint, the impetus was to get any unreleased songs on the compilation (e.g. "If It Can't Be You, "Christmas Eve," "Let's Live Before We Die").  But that in and of itself would have been a very short release.  Instead, my understanding is that permission was granted to Mark and Alan expand the set into a 1964 50th Anniversary release, which allowed them to include the remixes, alternate takes, etc. -- not because copyright protection was needed, but in order to make it a more satisfying archival release.  We fans owe Mark and Alan a huge debt of gratitude for lobbying to make this happen.

Lee

(NB: original post edited to correct some factual errors.  LED)

I find the live in studio versions of "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "I Get Around" rather embarrassing, mostly of course because of Mike Love's nasal singing, but also due to the sloppy playing. I really dislike the fact that they feel the need to speed up the songs too. Loving the rest of KAEOS though.

The nasal singing, sloppy playing and sped-up tempo were necessary so that these recordings would fit in with the actual live in concert recordings from Sacramento. They fit in so well, that it's a mystery why they opted to used doctored versions of the original studio tracks from the hit versions instead.

Carl also voiced his displeasure during the alternate version intro to "Fun, Fun, Fun" ("The guitar sounds shitty").

It's a mystery to me that they didn't use the original live versions of these two songs ???

I like it. It's a nice collection of songs. A good Christmas present for myself. :)

I hate you guys.

And it is a very satisfying archival release.  Thank you Mark and Alan for your lobbying efforts. 

Seconded.

I was just wondering! Anyway what a great set and release! I hope we get a 65 release as well! Thanks Alan and Mark for the hard work and effort put into it, it was worth the wait!

its totally pathetically bullshit that Capitol/EMI don't release this in a 'hard copy' format...

It's the Freakin' "BEACH BOYS" for f*cks sake!!!  

Why does Dylan, Beatles, Zepplin and every other prick under the sun gets fair treatment.....

and the 'Beach Boys' get new offerings as 'downloads' only......

pissweak........ apart from 'Smile Sessions' and the Pet Sounds box, which trying to get was like pulling teeth......

everything is always half assed.  

They can't even release their original catalogue properly!!  

What's the matter with these guys?  

This and the 63 big beat collection have been magical offerings....... but presentation? seriously? 

not good enough.

Anyways......... ive had my winge........ I'm happy  >:D

RickB

I just love Beach Boys acapella mixes, so this is a real treat. "Don't Hurt my Little Sister" kind of took me by surprise, really works well in this format with Mike's bass vocals sounding much more prominent to my untrained ear.

I didn't want to comment on this for a few days because I was feeling rage-y about other things and was trying to minimize rage-yness, but I hate hate hate hate lossy formats without a lossless source. It's not about "hurr durr humens cant even hear above 128kbps" or whatever (which is an irrelevant cop out*, anyway), it's about preservation and about the versatility of lossless formats. I think it's a joke that people will pay about as much for low quality copies of something that exists in higher quality or should exist in higher quality. There is no "convenience factor" - converting from a lossless format takes seconds or, on my incredibly ancient 2005 Sony VAIO tower, a couple minutes. You have the lossless source, you have the lossy format. Lossy formats only serve to, uh, dirty the pool, anyway.

I'm very glad The Big Beat 1963 has finally surfaced in lossless format on some obscure foreign site, but it's really a shame that, in the year 2014, people are still working their way backwards in terms of quality. Music continues to get the shaft in terms of people not taking it seriously as an art form and it sucks. They're selling it to you in lossy and not telling you you can get it in better quality, sometimes they're selling it to you with a bunch of dynamic range compression and not telling you if there's a less compressed alternative out there (or presenting it to you on a totally inaccurate format like vinyl and charging you 30 dollars for the "privilege" - if they're bothering with that at all, which they're usually not; a lot of times nowadays the vinyl master is the same as the CD master, kids). It sucks. It shouldn't have to take a year plus only to surface on some obscure site, it should be an option along with lossy formats right out of the box. Apple/Amazon can suck my ballz in hell forever for not being more forward-thinking on this for well over a Gosh Darn decade, now.

* I used "cop out" in the incorrect manner and it bothers me, but I wasn't sure how else to say it. Shut up.

The Beach Boys do usually get shafted in terms of releases, but last year's Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 was also only released as a digital download. And Bob Dylan's was only released as 100 CDs.

We're lucky enough to get as good a product as we do, thanks to the hard work of Mark, Alan, and C-Man, but the fact that record companies as gritting their teeth through these copyright laws means that we're never going to get exactly what we want.

Release it lossy, people will buy. Later release it lossless, people will buy again.

I agree, Runners. I'm annoyed but am also part of the problem since I paid for it. But  I'd rather be able to buy it than not at all.

yes I buy and I will buy....... my argument is the format and presentation of 'delicate' recordings..

I am glad and thankful for the exposure of these recordings 'officially'......... but really?  

aren't these great enough for  Capitol/EMI to release these on CD at least???

how long have those bastards been milking the Beach Boys Greatest Hits Cow stuff since what...? 66?

Doesn't anyone in position give a Fu(???

I'm sick of this record company..... no wonder 'us' alike bootleg 'the group'....... we wouldn't have to if they

were represented properly.........

damn, they even screwed up not releasing all of the 2012 reissues........ what the F"uck????

we at least should have some explanation........... and not a 'it was not viable' shitty response....

Seriously.

RickB

Yes - to everything you said, Rick

I don't know the ins and outs of it all, but I do have to agree that it is unfortunate these are download only, as it really should be easy enough to sell these on a hard drive format through print-on-demand, if nothing else. Amazon even has a wing that does that.

this material is as great as 'endless harmony' and the 'hawthorne CA' material....

and why it is not released in the physical format 'sh*t's me'!

how many bucks have Capitol made off this group?........ even if they could have made a

limited release edition...?  I know Cd's/Vinyl don't bring in the big bucks like they used to...

but really?.....

this collection along with big beat 63, and live at sacramento needs better treatment.

damn they should employ me to look after 'The Beach Boys'........ cos I would do a better job.

RickB

Thanks for this explanation! While it's unfortunate that the system (e.g. Brother and/or Capitol/Universal) has to be sort of "gamed" into doing an archival release, I'm glad Alan Boyd and the gang were able to convince them to expand the release into something much more interesting than an EP with "Christmas Eve", etc.

One can only hope that perhaps something like these releases will be a gateway to convincing Brother to let loose with the archival stuff. It would be interesting to know what sort of sales numbers "Keep and Eye on Summer" has managed to attain. I'm sure they don't expect huge sales, but hopefully they could get enough to take it to Brother and say "Hey, look at this. You can sell this many copies of a monthly archival release!"

I also hope that Brother and/or Capitol/Universal have either a different attitude/strategy or legal interpretation of the whole "copyright extension" thing, as it appears as of December 30th that the Beatles/Apple are probably *not* doing a 1964 set for the Beatles.

I don't think we're ever going to get any substantial future archival releases like "Keep and Eye..." on physical media. As it is, it was apparently a whole "sales" job they had to do to convince Brother and/or Capitol/Universal just to do the download-only releases.

Beach Boys archival releases apparently don't sell super well. They don't want to invest in pressing a bunch of copies.

If any sort of "Beach Boys Central" project gets going again, it will likely be download-only.

Don't get me wrong; I think they could probably partner with some indie labels and do physical copies of this stuff. But Capitol/Universal won't manufacture it. But they only have first rights of refusal (if that), so Brother could take archival stuff to another label. Brother doesn't appear to want to go this route. Hopefully their minds will be changed at some point.

Rhino Handmade would love to get their hands on this material and release it in a 2000 to 5000 copy physical release.  They've been doing that with Monkee releases and I'm sure the Beach Boys would move at least as much as the Monkees at this point. 

In need of an assist here, please - I've contrived to loose the liners/sessionography, and the link provided here doesn't work, so... any kind soul out there willing to zap me said documents ?

Thanks in (hopeful) anticipation.

The conundrum with the Beach Boys is that they exist simultaneously as this wonderfully quirky indie group within the framework of a big popular mainstream group. A bifurcated strategy would make sense (imagine a limited edition Rhino box of the Friends sessions!), but in the past, TPTB have only been willing to think BIG and MAINSTREAM, no matter what the release is...  Maybe if the current limited run of analogue productions LPs are successful, other kinds of niche releases may be considered in the future. The I-tunes release of the 1964 sessions is not the ideal solution, but it's the best we have at the moment. It's still a wonderful package and I've enjoyed it tremendously.

Good people, thank you so much - I now have enough copies of the liners to be able to print them off and paper the walls of my bedroom.  ;D

Sorry if its frowned upon around here to revive dead posts, but this album is now on Google Play for $10.99. I'm in Canada so it might vary depending on where you are.

I love the Today! material on here. She Knows Me Too Well A Capella is godlike.

That's great info, dude, thanks for sharing the love!

Also available on Amazon now.

A great compilation but, I wish that we would have gotten Don't Worry Baby and The Warmth of the Sun as Acapella mixes and some session highlights from This Car of Mine!

Both releases up on Spotify as well now.

YES!!!
So glad I waited!

If I had to guess, those are probably being saved for future rarities releases.

I kept an eye on summer, now I have cataracts. Thanks a lot, Beach Boys.

 :lol

… and I went blind:

(http://main.abqjournal.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ven01_ja_28jun_3fourth-750x750.jpg)

(it's Summer XO, if you're wonderin'…)
http://summerxo.com/ (http://summerxo.com/)

I have to say, I've never had an issue with itunes before unlike a lot of you above, but had the hardest time getting Live From Sacramento to fully download, and now it's all out of order on the second concert. Weird.

I'm not the biggest fan of Be True to Your School, it's one of my least faves actually, but I have to say I rather like the version they did here. Really works better with the faster pace.

Non lossy version now available on Qobuz...

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/keep-an-eye-on-summer-the-beach-boys-sessions-1964-the-beach-boys/0060254720304 (http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/keep-an-eye-on-summer-the-beach-boys-sessions-1964-the-beach-boys/0060254720304)

Are you sure the Qubuz version is from a lossless SOURCE, though, or is it possible it could be the MP3s/Apple versions just converted into a lossless format?

Doubtful - this is a legitimate site. I guess I can't absoultely verify 100%, but basically, all retailers get the same source files, but Apple/Amazon etc. then encode them to lossy later.

I just ran out of Christmas money, too. :'( Ah well, just glad this is being posted now instead of a year after initial release like The Big Beat 1963.

There is software called "lossless Audio Checker" or something like this - this will quickly and easily verify whether or not the files have been downgraded before being encoded to FLAC - ie. it checks the spectrum and assesses whther there's been a loss of any particular frequency range!

Could someone please use that and let us know?

It's free :-
http://losslessaudiochecker.com/

There's a flac* version of Live From Sacramento up on Pono music right now (US only - which they forget to tell you til you reach checkout  ::) ) *well it says it is.

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3A5b1ad32586d040ecb41e85e319191d5e&type=Album&artistId=of%3A23503756b6354a23be87384632a4609d 

By Crackey, I'm going to have to run right out and get me a Pono player!!






































Not.

Hey.

You don't need a Pono player to buy this, Chuckie.

They also have Big Beat 1963 for under $11-

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Ade4ebcfc823043439f3bab934def32e2&type=Album&artistId=of%3A00000000000000000000000000000000

Still only 44.1kHz/16 bit. Which may not be noticeably better than the mp3 version, based on what Rob (Custom Machine) says above...

Be careful with what you assume here - as I said in the Big Beat thread, Lossless Audio Checker is not necessarily foolproof when it comes to determining whether something is compressed or not.

I'm not springing for KAEOS64 from Qobuz yet (gotta save some money after Christmas first!), so I can't help out here. I wasn't able to get a definitive answer with The Big Beat, either (more on that in that thread).

But I'd love to know what anyone else discovers. If it turns out that the Qobuz files *are* from uncompressed source files, I might wait and buy the *next* copyright release direct from Qobuz. Assuming there IS another release for 1965, of course. Fingers crossed...!

losslessaudiochecker.com has given me too many false positives for comfort.

44.1kHz/16 bit lossless would be CD quality, i.e. above that of MP3.

I had no idea there was a website for this sort of thing, I check the files manually with my recording software, and it's almost always obvious if something is lossy or not. If someone wanted to send me one track or even a 30 second sample of a couple songs or something...

(I'm not buying until I can be sure, by the way, but if I can verify it's legit? fukk yeh d00d)

Right, exactly. As I understand it, there IS no clear-cut way to definitely say 'A is compressed, B isn't'. There are things you can analyse that could be signifiers that compression has taken place, but they're not guarantees. It's a judgement call which can really only be made on the basis of careful analysis of a number of factors.

And I'm not sure I would trust the say-so of a completely free, web-based app to make this sometimes complex judgement. Much less one that simply 'passes' or 'fails' the files you put through it with no indication of how it's reached that conclusion...

EDIT: OK runners, just saw your last post. How do *you* decide if something's compressed? Genuine question, I'm not being snarky. And you're welcome to analyse sections from a couple of the better-quality tracks I got yesterday from the Qobuz version of The Big Beat if you like - I'll put a couple of extracts somewhere you can get 'em. 'Stand by', as they used to say at NASA...

EDIT EDIT: Check your PMs, dood.

Awright, I've recieved two songs in Apple lossless format (which I promptly deleted after doing these tests). Based on what I'm seeing, they're almost certainly lossless and not transcodes. Here are some examples:

Using my semi-ancient recording software, there's a "Frequency Analysis" tool. I can't claim to know everything about it, but I know enough to generally know what it is and how to use it in terms of identifying lossy/lossless files. Here's what it shows at the one minute mark of "The Big Beat" on the retail lossless version:

(http://i.imgur.com/6LLa6AL.jpg)

Here's the one minute mark of the original retail 320kbps MP3 of "The Big Beat":

(http://i.imgur.com/47W7c4O.jpg)

If you look to the right on the image, you'll see a sharp dip that is not present on the lossless version - this shows the frequencies that are missing on the lossy version. As you go below 320kbps or a high quality variable bitrate MP3 (which I prefer to 320kbps) - say, 128kbps (the effects of which can be seen here (http://i.imgur.com/YRDNXdA.jpg) on the same song/same time, for those who are curious) or 192kbps, the "dip" goes further to the left as more frequencies are lopped off. The rest of it looks subtly different between these two images too, but this is due to the frequencies being different than the lossless version. The "dip" I mentioned is the biggest indicator, though.

When I align the files with one another and then invert the lossless version, there's no phasing, only a bit of sound that accounts for the frequency loss on the lossy version, thus confirming that the 320kbps version and the lossless version used the exact same source files.

Here's the frequency analysis on "Mother May I" at the thirty second minute mark, retail lossless version:

(http://i.imgur.com/I0U0njD.jpg)

And the 320kbps retail lossy version at the thirty second mark, sold in 2013:

(http://i.imgur.com/MD6wt7x.jpg)

You'll again see that, on the right side of the image, there are frequencies missing in the lossy version that are not missing on the lossless version.

From what I can gather, the lossless version of the album is indeed lossless and not just a transcode of the album taken from iTunes or something. I can't say for sure about the Live In Sacramento or the Keep An Eye On Summer albums, but I'd take The Big Beat 1963 appearing to be lossless as a good sign for both releases. Very glad to say so, as I was worried about this because occasionally, lossy files ARE sold as lossless, and the advancement of high quality audio kind of takes a kick to the groin when that sort of thing happens as it can kind of deter folks from purchasing these albums.

So yeah. *thumbs up symbol from MSN*

Runners, you know this anyway, but: you rool.

Thanks!

And now, I'm pondering: *DO* I shill for KAEOS64 from Qobuz? It kinda grates having paid for it from iTunes just last month, but then again...

...then again, I actually DIDN'T pay for it last month. I used an iTunes gift voucher someone gave me a few years back! So now the little devil on my shoulder is going 'come on, buy it lossless. You haven't ACTUALLY paid for it yet, after all...'

The weird thing is, someone on here definitely said that it would be a cold day in hell (or words to that effect) before lossless versions of the KAEOS64 files were released. I can't remember who it was now, but I remember thinking that it was someone with decent connections to the inner circle, and that made me think that we would never get an uncompressed version of the album. And yet, it looks like maybe, just a month later, we have. WTF?

Awesome analysis, Runners!  Thanks!

Yeah, best post you've made in months!

That may have been true a year or two ago, but as Custom Machine pointed out earlier in the thread, the NEW, hi-res mp3s are not noticeably lower in quality than CDs. These aren't your granddaddy's mp3s!  :)

C-man, I hear where you're coming from, but the graphs don't lie!

Just because they can't notice the difference, won't stop some folk (myself included) stumping up extra cash for a difference they can see.

Heaps of stuff goes on that we don't notice, but doesn't mean it doesn't affect us.

Like all the subliminal, subsonic secret message stuff that hypnotized us into our Beach Boys addiction in the first place?  :)

It's not always what the eye sees, but what the ears hear.

I wouldn't quite go that far. But if washing your hands a hundred times a day is a condition, what is shelling out for the Mono LP Christmas album, when you already own it on CD with bonus tracks, without bonus tracks, remastered, Ultimate Christmas, Christmas with The Beach Boys, Christmas Harmonies, because none of them were genuine mono BW mixes.??

Last week I purchased KEEP AN EYE ON SUMMER as 88.2kHz/24-bit AIFF files from prostudiomasters.com (a couple of bucks cheaper than HDTracks and PonoMusic).  I burned the files to DVD-Audio Linear PCM uncompressed, and I played them back on my Denon DVD-3910 universal player.  My 52-year old eardrums suffer from tinnitus, and I've lost pretty much everything above 14kHz, but I can definitely hear the difference.  Wider and deeper soundstage, more detail, and more realistic decay.  When "Christmas Eve" came on, I thought I was sitting in the middle of a live performance.

Definitely worth the 18 bucks.

Lee

If only someone would release this as a by-god-I-can-buy-this-CD, we'd have world peace.

So...any hopes on what the 1965 release will have? Would love to see the backing track and sessions of "Sandy." I know there's at least that early one floating around. I guess we'd get some Party! outtakes too.

I hope songs that haven't been released yet from the 1965 Chicago concert with Brian are released in some capacity, especially Please Let Me Wonder from that show!!!!

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,7325.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,7325.0.html)

Wondering if there even will be a 1965 release. The reason there wasn't a Beatles release is that apparently there's a loophole in the law in which the copyright holder can still claim ownership.

I finally got the '64 shows from the german amazon. Such a fantastic thing. Thanks Mark and Alan and everybody involved!

I'm always fascinated with the early live years. Imo they were a great live act and performed very well, the harmonies are outstanding. They could rock the roof off of a hall (iirc exactly that happened one time) with "Papa oom-mow-mow" and then turn around to sing sweet songs as "Surfer girl". And it's also interesting to note how much their sound suffered when Brian was not touring. Wish we'd have some recordings of the time Al and Dave played together in the band.



One question though: where do I get the artwork, liner notes etc.?

Artwork, liner notes, and full credits should be a part of all of these digital releases, imho.

If BRI and the band members and Capitol/Universal would get behind any sort of Dick's Picks/Elvis/FTD sort of archival release program, preferably with some short-run physical copies (and digital downloads in perpetuity), then we'd be far more likely to get liner notes.

Obviously, if it needed to go download-only, I'd be plenty happy with that. With or without liner notes.

I commend the team that did "Keep an Eye...."; it truly appears they pushed through as much as they could. It's a travesty that we only get this stuff through weird loophole arguments, kind of half-way having to trick the copyright holders into putting this stuff out.

I just took a look again but they are not in my download. I thought they might be available online somewhere....

Sorry to bump this thread but I was just listening to "Christmas Eve" (which I love) and I swear I can hear vocals around 2:24 - am I just hearing things?