The Smiley Smile Message Board

Ask Mark Linett questions.  Please be courteous and patient.

Mark Linett things to read:

http://earcandy_mag.tripod.com/marklinett.htm

http://www.studioexpresso.com/profiles/MarkLinett.htm

http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_producerengineer_mark_linett/

Just noticed this new thread on the board, and I will try to answer questions when possible...... Mark

You might also want to check out the following article from Sound on Sound magazine which gives a great overview of the Smile project:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/smile.htm

Thank you sir, we do all appreciate the time you spend with us here!

Mark --

Do the BB's have any anniversary plans? We've heard rumors about a 40th anniversary Pet Sounds re-release, for example.

I think many of us would be interested about any talk of a hi-rez SMiLE. Any movement on that front?

Speaking of SMiLE, has the lp gone into a second pressing? I want one with Don Grossinger's  credit on it.

I'm assuming your 5.1 Surf's Up is in permanent limbo. Yes?

Thanks

PS -- What I Want For Christmas is incredible!! Great job!!!

"PS -- What I Want For Christmas is incredible!! Great job!!!"

I would go so far to say that this album is one of the best-sounding CDs I´ve ever heard.

Thanks for the nice comments.

Most of the projects you asked about are in limbo at the moment

There has been talk of a 5.1 and hi-res version of Smile, but nothing definate

Plans for the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds are being discussed, and I frankly don't know if the Smile vinyl has been repressed w/ Don's and a few other corrections. I will check on that one and get back to you.

And yes sadly The Surf's Up DVD-A seems to be in permanent limbo. Perhaps we can bring it back to life as a dual-disc.

Mark

Mark, I have a question about SMiLE. As you may know ( ::)) the tracks flow into each other, so it´s hard to say where one track ends and the next starts. Which creates for example the problem "Does the Whispering Winds-section belong to On A Holiday or to Wind Chimes?"

My question is: Who decided the positions of the cuts? Brian, Darian or you?

The" whispering winds" section I think we made a "part" of Holiday, sort of the tag as it were. Most of the points were obvious , but a few did pose problems.

Darian and I placed the cues originally and then played them for Brain who had us a change a few...... Mark

So it was you and Darian under the supervision of Brian. Kind of how I imagined it. Thanks for your answer!

What changes did Brian make?

Mark,

the song Soulful Old Man Sunshine (on the Endless Harmomny soundtrack) alternates between stereo in the chorus and fake stereo during the verses.  Could you explain why this is the case?
More generally, could you explain what tapes and tracks of this song exist, and how you came up with the finished mix?  Were some sections already mixed in 1969? If no original mix or test mix existed, how was the strucutre of the song decided? Do all the instrumental sections exist on multitracks, i.e. would a true stereo instrumental mix have been possible?

Thank you in advance.

In the SMiLE-booklet, Brian is credited with "music, vocals, keyboards". On which parts did he play the keys?

I'm thinking it's Wind Chimes, since Brian tends to play keys on that live.

Mark, a couple of months ago, it dawned on me that the track "Pet Sounds" was tracked in a somewhat unique way from the rest of the tracks from the LP.

The percussion track was tracked first, that's why the first take as presented on the box set doesn't feature any other instruments, right? 

Then, playing around with stereo balance and out of phase stereo cancellation and such, I came to the conclusion that there were several more seperate overdubs.  The basses are pretty much alone on one track (and must have been tracked by themselves; there seems to be absolutely no leakage from anything on the bass track), and then Brian went out into the booth and played piano while Richie Frost added some drums and the horn section did their thing.  Am I correct so far?

I wondered on the old bored if it was done this way partly because there weren't enough percussion players to pull off what Brian wanted live, and then since there was the preexisting percussion track, the group would have had to use headphones, of which there may not have been enough for everyone at once?

So then, there would have been an additional horn overdub, a reduction to a new tape, then the bongos, and the two lead guitar overdubs?

I may be way off base, but I think there's some interesting stuff going on there.



On another note, there has been much written about your process for remixing Pet Sounds, but how similar or different was the process for your remixes of the Smiley Smile and Wild Honey material for Hawthorne?

Vegetables and Let the Wind Blow are my two favourite remixes of yours, and I've wondered if everything was present on an eight-track, or if some synching had to be done, etc.  Also, if you did any other mixes from those albums potentially for Hawthorne that didn't make the cut. 

Just to bombard you some more Mark. Regarding sampled/convolution reverb, I took a hand clap and drum click from a session track of Beach Boys session, bathed in echo chamber and used them as impulses for the convolution reverb. Sounds very good.

Convolution reverb is an amazing but simple idea. It's revolutionised digital reverb.

H, is that Jonbon Jovi?

Yes it is.  It was one of the only preloaded choices for the board that I didn't absolutely loathe.

What program do you use for sampling reverbs, king o'?  I was still holding out for building my own live chamber...but I'm about ready to bite the bullet and forget the dream.

I believe that the song pet Sounds was built up on three tracks and then the guitar solo was added. No idea why Brian did it that way, but it may have been that he didn't have enough players at the studio to do it any other way.

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

I don't recall that we mixed any other tracks that were left off the project.

Mark

Thank you, Mark.

And King, wow, I just got around to trying the convolution plug-in that comes with audition...and holy cow.  I now have Western, Gold Star, Sunset Sound, and other famous echo chambers "at my disposal."

Why didn't somebody tell me about this before?

Now I have a question for you.

How could someone create a sample of Goldstar's chamber since it was destroyed 20 years ago ? You can sample a chamber (or any line level reverb) quite easily if it exists and you have access to it to play and record the required impulses for measurement by the convolution program, but that's the only way I know of to "sample" a chamber or device.....Also what exactly is audition..... Mark

Adobe Audition is the DAW I use to record.

And it's true, the samples of Gold Star's echo chamber isn't really a true sample of it.  What I'm doing right now is trying to use Hal's snare/tom hit from the Wouldn't it be Nice intro as the impulse.  Keep in mind I just learned of this a few minutes ago so I'm still trying to get how to use this plug-in.

The problem is, the aforementioned hit has way too much room in it to really work that well.  It's really interesting to play around with.  I don't know if there are any exposed, 100% echo chamber "impulses" that you could grab for use in the beach boys catalog.  King of A, what handclap and drum click did you use?

I used a talk-back mic "pop" from a Good Vibrations sessions. Had a bit of tape echo on it as well as chamber. Also a couple of stick count-ins from GV again. Not long enough reverb tails on them but still good.
I haven't searched around for a good, long, clean click yet, but I'm sure they're somewhere.

I use Acoustic Mirror which comes bundled with Sony Soundforge. It's a bit more user friendly than the Convolution plug-in on Audition and has envelopes, filters etc...

I find that equalising (remove bottom end) and some hard-compressing is necessary for getting decent impulses.

Talkback mic pops certainly are good sources in terms of having a nice percussive element to them...It's interesting that sometimes they had reverb on the talkback and sometimes they didn't.

Hmmm. Perhaps they just outputted the whole mixing board out to the chamber.

Interesting idea which will produce some sort of reverb pattern although I doubt it will be what the chamber actually sounded like. Normally the impulse is either a frequency sweep or a starter pistol which is considerably louder than the talkback "pop". Also in the case of a chamber a sweep through the speaker would be much more accurate than a popI will give it a try and see what it sounds like. BTW Altiverb comes with three of the Western chambers which are all good. EMT plates were also used a lot at Western and Sunset, but not at Goldstar.

Mark

Interesting thread. I've had Waves' IR-1 Convolution Reverb for awhile without using it, so I'm trying it out now as I'm typing this message and it sounds wonderful. A great function is that you can have any reverb sound reversed by the push of a button. I've never used a reverb unit with this impulse response function that King of Anglia brought up, so this is all really exciting.

Yeah I have that one as well. Really great sounding although the interface isn't as good as Altiverb. I bought the new Waves APA unit so I could run more plugins at higher samplerates and they were offering the IR1 for free. Sadly when I upgraded to Pro-tools 7 the APA stopped working and I am still waiting for Waves to come up with a software fix.

Mark

Shame about the software bug. Prior to that, have you been using the IR-1 a lot? My main reverbs have been the other ones from Waves (True Reverb and Renaissance Verb) but they truly don't stand a chance to the IR-1! I haven't used the IR-1 so much before because it consumed too much RAM but that's sorted out now. Just for the sake of it, I took our well-known LA studio Cello's Echo Chamber reverb and put that over some of my tracks and the sound is HUGE! Huge and clean.

And to think I used the Boss RV-3 as my main reverb 10 years ago...

I guess you missed the question, so I post it again. It´s kind of important to me to know that:

In the SMiLE-booklet, Brian is credited with "music, vocals, keyboards". On which parts did he play the keys?

I don't recall.......but several sections throughout.

1966 tape echo and echo chamber courtesy of a computer:

http://s50.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1R6ISB9WU3N810INHJ4S4O12WE

The bass in particular sounds really spectacular.

Interesting discussion, and some cool innovative ideas on capturing the room sound through something like a talkback mic click.

But has anyone done an A/B comparison sending a track through any average rackmount studio reverb unit set to the "large room" or similar setting and compared the quality of that sound to one of these convolution reverbs?

Or is a basic convolution reverb doing essentially the same thing as your average digital reverb would do, only giving you specific parameters to match some specific rooms that have gained a legendary reputation?

I may be a skeptic until I hear more evidence, but I almost see signs of salesmanship in some of the claims, like those guitar salesmen who might crank a lesser-quality guitar through a really nice tube amp, hit an open A chord,  and watch as the buyer's eyes get really big... ;)

I'm not saying the convolution reverb isn't a great tool, but I'm not convinced you couldn't get the same effect with a decent rackmount reverb. Convince me, please!

Conventional digital reverbs use algorithms to simulate the sound of a real acoustic space. Some do it better than others but none sound exactly the same as a real acoustic space. Convolution reverb programs are capable of sampling an acoustic space (or a digital or analog reverb) and then recreating it.

I bought Altiverb soon after it came out and I now also own the Waves IR-1 convolution reverb and frankly I almost never use anything else. Having real chambers and acoustic spaces available just sounds better to my ears (for whatever that's worth!) And they aren't all that expensive to boot...

Mark

I think the basic principle as I understand it is that convolution reverbs multiply the dry sound by the impulse sound. Digital reverb merely repeats the sound in various ways.

In case you missed my question....please let me repost it.

Mark,

the song Soulful Old Man Sunshine (on the Endless Harmomny soundtrack) alternates between stereo in the chorus and fake stereo during the verses.  Could you explain why this is the case?
More generally, could you explain what tapes and tracks of this song exist, and how you came up with the finished mix?  Were some sections already mixed in 1969? If no original mix or test mix existed, how was the strucutre of the song decided? Do all the instrumental sections exist on multitracks, i.e. would a true stereo instrumental mix have been possible?

Thank you in advance.

The tape was a two-track that came from Rick Henn and was something he put together from old ruff mixes. Only the original tracking date with some overdubs exists on multi-track. The tape with the vocals is missing.

Mark

Thanks for the answer. Did I understand that right: Those old rough mixes were duophonic for the verses, and that's all that survived with vocals? Who mixed those rough mixes? Rick?

For aeijtzsche  and K.o.A. -

Have a look at this site for an example of someone who's really into IRs. Lots to download:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fokkie/IR.htm

I haven't tried them myself yet, but they look pretty interesting...

BJ

I'd be more confident in something like the Waves IR-1. My issue is perhaps with the sampling - if the sample was made using a starter pistol to excite a room such as the Putnam chambers at United/Western, and those results were recorded and sampled directly from that room then shaped by the end user, that would be perfect. I'd expect great results, and obviously great results have been created using those samples. But I'm not as sold on sampling an echo or reverb from, say, a vintage recording and applying that to a track, suggesting that that is a simulation of the original room. If you take it from any commercial CD, even one stage away from the raw master tapes, wouldn't you have certain parts of the mastering/transfer process coloring the sound of that room? If I take a reverb from a Beach Boys outtake, I'm not getting the pure sound of that room...rather I'd think I'd be getting the sound of my own track as heard through whatever processing the Beach Boys track has received in the process of putting it onto CD. It's not the same as applying the sampled sound of the actual live reverb room.

Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but I still need to be convinced that a properly-applied rackmount reverb wouldn't be a more pure sound than a sample from a recording, in the way the track interacts with that reverb.

That's not a bad thing, in my book.

So you'd rather have mastering, compression, EQ, etc...as added to a CD recording in the modern era applied to a reverb you want on your original track trying to get the sound of a room like Western/Cello, rather than the un-processed sample of the reverb room in question? It's just my opinion, of course, but I'd rather use my own reverb as set, created, and applied by my own ears, or else an un-doctored sample of the actual Putnam room, instead of going for a notion of what GoldStar's reverb would have sounded like based on a sample taken from a recording. It's a lot of fun to create samples using the classic rooms heard on recordings, but my question involves the musical/sonic value of doing such a thing instead of using a plain ol' effects unit.

Seriously, I'm open to all options, and not sold on anything yet. This is a fascinating topic, and I'm just raising my skeptical points hoping to be convinced otherwise. 

It's all the same to me.  If it's not the real thing, then it's not. 

Sampling a chamber with a starter pistol will give you the sound of the chamber but not what it sounds like when used as an effect on a recording. To do that you need the speaker and the microphones which is why you use the frequency sweep to sample the chamer.

I am also not convinced that a talkback "pop" will give an accurate sample although in the case of Goldstar's chamber it is certainly worth a try.

Mark

OK, Mark, this is going to be a potentially involved question so feel free to answer in parts or not answer at all...

Anyhow, my primary interest in life over the past few years has been, basically, learning about recording and recording technology and techniques used by Brian from roughly 63-67.  Not necessarily just Brian per se, but using Brian as the "template."  Really simply "the hollywood recording studio in the mid sixties".  You've answered some questions I've had before and I've appreciated it.

You explained some of the inner workings of your board from Western Two.  I'm trying to clarify the various signal flow options.  Here is my understanding from what you've written as well as others, and from info from an original 610 module manual from 1967.

The 610 boards had something in the area of 12 inputs at that time.  Three program busses (l-c-r) would be sent out to the three-track tape machine.  Each module also had an echo send pot, and as such there were three "echo busses".

So it would be possible to send a dry signal from, say Carl's direct 12-string guitar, to one track, and the return from the chamber to another track.

Now, I realize they'd be monitoring in mono, but would they be monitoring off the program busses or are there monitor sends?

That was the end of "topic 1."

Topic two:

In several interviews, Bruce Botnick has mentioned that he would only use tube condensers to record at Sunset Sound, primarily U47s and C-37As. 

Larry Levine has said in interviews that Gold Star didn't really even own more than two or three condensers until pretty late in the 60s, and that for Brian, the only condensers in the room might have been a U67 over the drums and a U47 on the percussion.

So, in listening to the discrete tracks from the three-track, does something like "Here Today" show a marked increase in leakage compared to "I Just Wasn't Made for these Times"?

To my ears, those two tracks sound very different, but it's hard to tell what makes up the sound without hearing the building blocks of it.

And then how does Western fit in to that spectrum?


One last thing:  If you have the Phil Spector back to mono boxset, any idea what the Small Diaphragm condenser over Hal's set is on the pages with all the musician's pictures?  Craig, if you're reading in, do you care to hazzard a guess if you have that?

Thanks, Mark.  I appreciate what you're doing to preserve the knowledge of what guys like Chuck Britz did.  You and Alan Boyd are guardian angels.

You explained some of the inner workings of your board from Western Two.  I'm trying to clarify the various signal flow options.  Here is my understanding from what you've written as well as others, and from info from an original 610 module manual from 1967.

The 610 boards had something in the area of 12 inputs at that time.  Three program busses (l-c-r) would be sent out to the three-track tape machine.  Each module also had an echo send pot, and as such there were three "echo busses".  THE ECHO SEND AUTOMATICALLY SWITCED WITH THE BUSS SELECT SO THAT IF YOU WERE SENDING A CHL TO THE LEFT BUSS (TRACK) THE ECHO SEND WENT TO THE LEFT ECHO BUSS. THE THREE ECHO RETURNS WOULD NORMALLY GO BACK TO THE SAME BUSS (LEFT TO LEFT ETC.) BUT YOU COULD PATCH IT TO A DIFFT BUSS ON THE RETURN ALTHOUGH THIS WAS DONE ONLY ON OCCASION.

So it would be possible to send a dry signal from, say Carl's direct 12-string guitar, to one track, and the return from the chamber to another track. YES BUT SELDOM DONE.

Now, I realize they'd be monitoring in mono, but would they be monitoring off the program busses or are there monitor sends? NO MONITOR SENDS AT ALL. YOU EITHER MONITORED THE THREE BUSSES IN THREE SPEAKERS OR THE SUMMED MONO OF THE THREE BUSSES  WHICH THE CONSOLE DID AUTOMATICALLY AT WESTERN, MONITORED IN ONE SPEAKER.

That was the end of "topic 1."

Topic two:

In several interviews, Bruce Botnick has mentioned that he would only use tube condensers to record at Sunset Sound, primarily U47s and C-37As.  SEEMS VERY UNLIKELY. HE CERTAINLY USED CONDENSERS AND PROBABLY MORE THAN AT WESTERN OR GOLDSTAR, BUT DYNAMICS WERE CERTAINLY IN USE AS WELL.

Larry Levine has said in interviews that Gold Star didn't really even own more than two or three condensers until pretty late in the 60s, and that for Brian, the only condensers in the room might have been a U67 over the drums and a U47 on the percussion. THAT SEEMS LIKELY

So, in listening to the discrete tracks from the three-track, does something like "Here Today" show a marked increase in leakage compared to "I Just Wasn't Made for these Times"? THE TRACKS SOUND DIFFT. BUT NOT AS IF A BUNCH OF CONDENSERS WERE BEING USED AT SUNSET. GOLDSTAR AND WESTERN SOUND SIMILAR AS WELL. BIGGEST DIFF. IS IN THE REVERB AND THE ADDITIONAL NOISE ON THE TAPES MADE AT GOLDSTAR.

To my ears, those two tracks sound very different, but it's hard to tell what makes up the sound without hearing the building blocks of it.

And then how does Western fit in to that spectrum? SEE ABOVE


One last thing:  If you have the Phil Spector back to mono boxset, any idea what the Small Diaphragm condenser over Hal's set is on the pages with all the musician's pictures?  Craig, if you're reading in, do you care to hazzard a guess if you have that? I'LL HAVE TO LOOK

Thanks, Mark.  I appreciate what you're doing to preserve the knowledge of what guys like Chuck Britz did.  You and Alan Boyd are guardian angels.

Thanks, Mark.  Particularly for explaining the echo send, I wasn't clear on what the manual was suggesting when it said "3 echo busses."

Western had (er..."has") 3 chambers, correct?  Would the engineer be able to patch into all three of them at the same time, if they were all available?

It sounds to me, on the stack-o-tracks stereo versions of the California Girls track and the Let Him Run Wild track, that Brian chose to print reverb returns from certain things on different tracks than the dry signal.  Carl's 12-string on the intro to Cal Girls, in particular, although it's difficult to tell with so many guitar players on that date.

At the peak there were only four chambers at Western and three at United so EMT plates were certainly in use by the early 60's as well (I'd guess around 1963)

Ah, I was actually going to ask you about that.

Was there a working standard, as far as you can tell, for the Beach Boys and EMT versus Chamber?  Has Brian ever said the he prefered the chamber for something but EMT for something else? 

One thing I was surprised to find out was that Stephen Desper built a chamber at Brian's house, because until I got his book, I'd sort of assumed they just bought or rented some EMT plates for the house.  But obviously it was worth it to somebody to build a real chamber.

Can't answer that one. My guess is it was mostly Chuck Britz's decision what to use or it may have been simply been a matter of what was available. How the reverb was used would have certainly been Brian's decision. At Western Studio two had (has )  its own dedicated chamber above the hallway, but the other chambers would have been available to any room that needed them.

As for Brian's house I assume building a chamber was easier and cheaper than bringing in an EMT plate.

Mark

Hey Mark,
I gotta say that you're a magician! I was watching the SMiLE DVD last night and was mystified how you were able to mic so many different instruments & vocals and still make everything/everyone prominant in the mix. Amazing.

Now the question: How much post prod work was done to the actual recording?
Here's why I ask- I noticed a few times Brian's lips didn't quite match his recorded vocal. I was curious if this was due to video/audio synching to work done on the concert in post production. It was most notable in a few Windchimes snippets (a few other spots, too).

thanks loadz!
Kevin

Thanks for the positive review. We didn't do any overdubs on the DVD, the musical performance was edited together first from the best takes and then the video was matched to that performance. The director did use visuals from difft takes to create the video (not just the takes used for the audio) so that is likely what you  noticed although everyone worked very hard to keep everything in sync. Also, visuals can be funny in that they can be totally in sync but look out because of what the person is doing or how they are moving.

The entire show was of course mixed to picture in both stereo and 5.1 , and many adjustments were made both visually and sonically until everyone was totally satisfied with the perfromance. I think the mix took about four weeks total to complete.

Mark

Hi, Mark.

Ever since the SMiLE vinyl came out, I've been amazed by the various bonus instrumental tracks that have been included in some of the 45's, ESQ freebies etc.

I was wondering if the whole of 'Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE' album might come out in instrumental form someday as a 'bonus disc' (perhaps) or internet download??

Just wondering what your thoughts are on that.

Ken.

Awesome Mark! Thanks loads!
I didn't realize they did more than one run through! Thankz. Thankz!!

"I didn't realize they did more than one run through!"

They did two, as far as I know.


About the instrumental: How about instrumentals AND vocals-only?

More than half the album has been released in instrumental form, spanning quite a few releases. It *would* be very nice indeed to have them all in one place *and* throw in the rest of the album instros, while you're at it!  ;)

Vocals only mixes, of course, are the bomb. I'd especially llove to hear a Mrs. O'Leary vox only version!  8)

Or "Our Prayer".  ;D

I think a vocal-only mix of "Heroes And Villains" would be mindblowing.

Do you?  ;)

 :-\ Mmhh. No.

I do!  (and I did get the pun!)

I get it too......now.  :-[

I meant no harm.

Mark, here´s a qoute from the "Sound On Sound"-article:

"I had two setups on the grand piano that I could call on: a close-miked arrangement and a Mid + Side setup for the bigger-sounding numbers, like 'Surf's Up', where we wanted something more 'roomy'."


I always thought that, on SMiLE, keyboards were used instead of real pianos (which actually created a lot of heated discussions on this board). Could you please solve this mystery?

My understanding is that the piano was real, only the harpsichord and tack piano sounds came from an electronic keyboard.

 :o That would be some shockin news to me. In a really good way. To know that there is a REAL grand piano on "Surf´s Up" would made my day. I mean, with all this faked-piano-discussion I always assumed that EVERYTHING was faked (no, I´m not able to hear that  :-[). The fact that we didn´t see a real piano in the "Recording SMiLE"-featurette convinced me even more. Or did I miss something?

Well the piano was there in the studio and was used throughout the recording. We also overdubbed an upright piano on sevreal sections at my studio.

 ;D Thank you very much!

[attachment deleted by admin]

Do you have any pictures of this piano and Taylor Mills?  I won't believe it was there until you present a little more 'evidence'.   ;)

You can't see her but Taylor is actually inside the piano doing the playing.  Darian's just faking it.........

First, I would like to thank you for answering our questions, Mark. I speak for all when I say that we're very grateful!

This question might have been asked before, but I'll ask it anyway. Please disregard the post if it has already been answered.

Is there any plan of releasing mono mixes on cd of the early Beach Boys albums?

As most of you know, these albums have not been released in mono on cd:
-Surfin' USA
-Surfer Girl
-Little Deuce Coupe
-Shut Down vol. 2
-All Summer Long

What I've heard of these in mono (basically the All Summer Long album and the various mono mixes on the Good Vibrations box set) I absolutely love, and like better than the stereo mixes of the same songs. It's common knowledge that the stereo mixes were done without Brian Wilson's involvement, and that they in some cases were rushed. For that reason, I for one would be all over such releases. I like to think that there's a market for these kinds of releases, and I guess that that's what ultimately decides it?

This is an EMI decision, and there are no plans at present to release the mono versions of the albums or for that matter to create stereo versions of the albums that were never mixed in stereo  (Wild Honey, Smiley Smile, Today, Summer Days). We may see the release of some 1st time stereo mixes in the future, and I would hope that we find a way to release the mono albums as well.

Mark

I really hope that happens with Wild Honey and Smiley Smile. That would be incredibly awesome.

I hope so too. But I would actually want the mono releases more.

The choice to put out inferior stereo mixes of early 60s albums on cd instead of the better mono mixes is something that bugs me. The Beatles and Jan & Dean and many others are victims of the same thing.

"inferior" is not the word I would use, and in fact Brian has asked that we use stereo mixes wherever possible on the most recent compilations. We also constantly get requests to create stereo mixes of mono only songs which we have done rather successfully I think over the years.

As far as the decision to use the stereo mixes on the twofers, we knew that either way some listeners were going to be upset with the choice of using the mono or the stereo versions of the albums. While the group's more ardent fans would probably prefer the mono, the vast majority of listeners (a far greater number of people) prefer stereo and so it was decided to go with what the larger group preferred. Not ideal, but the best solution since putting the single albums out in mono and stereo was not an option.

Ideally we would issue each album on a single CD with both the mono and stereo mixes plus bonus tracks, but I doubt the sales would justify the expense, and the highly regarded twofers would likely also get deleted as a result.  Perhaps if EMI ever launches a download only service, we can make the mono albums available that way.

I should mention that when the beatles catalog was first released on CD by Capitol the mono mixes were used and the public outcry was so extreme that they were redone with the more familiar (and popular) stereo mixes.

As they say, "you can't please all the people all of the time" , but I think we 've done a fairly good job with a really great and important catalog....

Mark

"I should mention that when the beatles catalog was first released on CD by Capitol the mono mixes were used and the public outcry was so extreme that they were redone with the more familiar (and popular) stereo mixes."

Ahh, the joy of hearing the drums in you right ear and everything else in you left ear. ::)

More like the track on one side and the vocals on the other......

I believe here are certainly a lot songs that sound better in mono then stereo, although I've never especially tried to 'collect' these, but there are mono mixes made under supervision of Brian, from the years 1961-1965, such as for single releases.
The 4cd box 'The Capitol Years' has a nice mono version of 'Girls On The Beach' which sounds more rocking an powerful then the stereo version, and that was a revelation to me.

(I guess when the vocals have very jazzy close harmony block chords (like difficult 7 , 9 , or 13 chords etc) it's better to put (blend) them together instead of to pan them Left-Right.  
These chords exist not for example of 3 or 4 independent melody lines, but belong together like the colors of one rainbow)

"More like the track on one side and the vocals on the other......"


I was generally talking about bad stereo-mixes, not just about the Beatles. I listen with headphones, where it is even more extrem than with speakers.

On "Don´t Worry Baby" for example the backing track is in the mid, background-vocals on the right and the lead-vocal on the left. Extremely seperated. It´s almost like hearing vocal-only and track-only at once, and while it´s definately interesting to hear it that way, the song loses a lot of it´s impact because of that.

I don't understand why mono is so undesirable to the average Joe. Brian's mono mixes are very powerful! It's a shame we can't hear more of them without doing our own needle-drops, which of course will be inferior to what you would come up with, Mark.

Last month I was riding in my mother's car and oldies radio was on. After listening for about a half-hour Don't Worry Baby came on in all its' mono glory, and let me tell you, it blew everything else away, sound-wise!

Part of the problem some have with mono, I am convinced, is that they think of mono in terms of the fourth gen fidelity we are stuck with now for Pet Sounds, or the mono mix used for Something New by the Kinks on the Castle CD.  It is so muddy that it is hard to make out individual instruments.  If you had a decent mastering of a clean first gen mono mix, it might be different.  But how often do "mono" mixes get that treatment today?

Best mono mix reissue on CD I know of was the Headquarters mono on the Sessions box.  That made the whole album make sense whereas the stereo sounded almost lame at times, esp on Mike's pedal steel playing.

I'll be doing needle-drops of mono Little Deuce Coupe and Shut Down Vol. 2 soon. I've also done All Summer Long.
PM me if interested.

Would it be possible to let Rhino Handmade (or some other niche-market label, e.g. Audio Fidelity or Hip-O-Select) do a limited release of the mono mixes on a double CD? Because the five remaining mono albums could easily fit on two CDs (if it is okay to split the Little Deuce Coupe album). I would be all over such a release!!! All Summer Long (the album) is just perfect in mono.


The unfortunate thing is that the great stereo mixes of  A Hard Day's Night and Beatles For Sale were requested by George Martin for CD release, but reportedly a miscommunication caused them to use the mono mixes, which for these two particular albums, are not quite as good. They should have released Rubber Soul and Revolver in mono, instead. :)

But really, in the case of the Beatles, Beach Boys or the Stones, the catalogues are important enough to warrant the release of mono and stereo for every album where they exist.

There are some great mono/stereo twofers on CD that feature both mixes of an album on one CD:
Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow
Buffalo Springfield (self-titled)
Love (self-titled)
Love - Da Capo
Cream - Disraeli Gears
Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society (3 CD set)
not to forget Pet Sounds.

Still, i think the idea of a smaller, "vanity"-type pressing has its merits for this material.

Hm.  Say folks can download this from a BRI-authorized BB site...and they can download the mono mixes.  Would they then be inclined to purchase an actual disc of same??  If not, then the download is clearly the more cost-effective way to go...

It certainly would be. EMI really needs a "handmade" type label and a download only label for their catalog, but until then it will be really difficult to get these kind of projects released imo. I have spoken to emi about this in the past and will continue to lobby for more collector's type packages, so we'll see....

Mark,

Do you ever read/post on the TapeOp board? I read your interview a few issues ago and it was amazing! :)

thanks
-Joe

Mark, if there's something that the hard-core fan base can do to help push something like this over the top with EMI or whomever, please let us know.  There are a lot of people who would love to help lobby for this kind of thing.

Write to John Owen in the marketing dept at EMI with your requests. Couldn't hurt........

and The Zombies, O&O is one of my favorites.


GREAT example. Like the colors of a rainbow. That was PERFECT.

Mark,

can you explain the history of California Girls stereo remixes?

The first one appeared on the first edition of the Endless Harmony soundtrack. Was that one done by Andrew Sandoval?
The second one appeared on the redone Endless Harmony soundtrack (with new front cover) and was done by you.
Now I read about another stereo remix, appearing on Sounds Of Summer. Is it a different remix, and if so, what did you change?
What mix appeared on Classics - Selected by Brian Wilson?

PS: A download version of the missing mono album mixes would also be great...provided it will be available in lossless compression, i.e. true CD quality.

Thank you.

Mark, will you please let us know anything about the Western/Cellos studio auction happening tomorrow, if you hear anything?

Mr. Linett, do you have any clue as to the whereabouts of Brian's old white Baldwin organ (Mr. Desper suggested you might know)? Does Brian still own it? Does someone else own it? Did it just disappear or drop off the face of the earth?

I am more than pleased to report that Western Studios (Cello) has been saved. It was bought for a considerable sum and will hopefully be back in operation within 6 months.

Mark

YES!!!

Hooray!!!  That's great news - thanks for passing it along, Mark!

WHOA. That's awesome news!

Woo hoo!! What great news. I was worried about that place  :)

Can you reveal any details, Mark?  I'm ready for that sort of thing now that I've contained my weeping for joy.

That's about all I know.

Well I am glad. Any good news in BB/BW land IS good news  ;D

Great news!!!  ;D

Incredible . . . I knew someone would eventually step up and make this happen. The place is too important to the history of the industry. A "working museum" would be ideal.

M.

Here's how the great ST 3 looked back in November........ Mark



[attachment deleted by admin]

And here I am in the doorway to the control room.....

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Hallowed Ground . . .

M.

Thanks for posting those pictures.

And the intent is to get the place back to being a working studio?  Excellent.

Who bought it, Mark, can you say?  Do you know? 

You now know as much as I do.........

Someone fitting this description was seen in the vicinity not long before the sale was announced...
(http://www.nancynall.com/archives/spector.jpg)

 EASTWEST SOUNDS purchases CELLO STUDIOS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EASTWEST purchased the famous studios, formally known as United Western Recorders on Thursday at auction.

"Part of me just wanted to save it from the wrecking ball, as we were bidding against a real estate investment trust who would have torn it down; however EASTWEST (www.soundsonline.com) and it's premier brand QUANTUM LEAP are virtual instrument developers who have a real need for great sounding recording rooms to make even better sound and software products." said Doug Rogers, EASTWEST president and producer. Studios 1, 2, 3 and the mix room will be immediately restored to their original condition and made available to outside clients. Other studios will be retained for EASTWEST use.

The studio has been known as Cello Studios since 1999 when it was last purchased from Ocean Way. It was built over 40 years ago by the legendary Bill Putnam (UREI) and Frank Sinatra who started Reprise records there and recorded many hits in Studio 1, which is large enough to hold a 70 piece orchestra.

In addition, the studio has a mic and equipment collection that is the envy of the industry.

The studios are one of only 15 US studios featured in the book "Temples of Sound".

This will be a total 'sounds' facility, with studios, soundware and software development all under one roof.

More information about the renamed EASTWEST studios history can be found here -

http://www.studioexpresso.com/Spotl...ght%20Cello.htm

More information about EASTWEST SOUNDS can be found here -

http://www.soundsonline.com/aboutus.shtml

Cool, thanks for the information!

Comment to Mark --

Wow, seeing what studio 3 looks like now brought lots of mixed feelings.  It was hard to look at it.  Such memories.  Know you felt all kinds of vibs as you stood in the room.  Last time I was there it was an active place with sessions going on in every studio.  Seeing you standing in the sound lock brought the situation right into the present.  It's like the sound lock is more of a time lock, where the clock stopped and change was everywhere else but there. Over the years that portal has seen oh so many greats pass through it to hear "the take" in the control room playback. In my mind's eye, I can see a younger Brian standing almost the same way you are, talking to the players.  Great photo!  Thanks, ~swd 

Mark, I have a non-technical question for you.  How is Brian?   Everyone says that getting SMiLE out has helped him a lot, but how was he when recording the christmas album and since?  Has his confidence grown?  Does he take more of a lead in the studio.  Most of all, does the big guy seem happy these days?  I hope so.

Many Thanks

Brian is as they say in great shape . You're right that finishing Smile had a tremendous positive affect on him and shows just how important the project was to him.
Mark

 Hello Mark. Did you record the tracks for Smile without any limiting or compression and then add it at mix down? Did you use any compression on the 2 track mixdown? When you had the whole record Mastered where you there to make sure that the Mastering process didn't change your and Brians idea of what it should sound like? If a song is mixed properly is  the Mastering process almost imperceivable? I know Mastering is an art unto itself. I'm trying to Master my own songs using just a little amount of compression to take out some of the peaks without losing the dynamics.  What I wouldn't give to be employed at your studio. It looks great!

If I recall correctly we used a Fairman TMC compressor on the stereo mix but set very very lightly. The only compression I recall using on the basic tracks was a little on the bass guitar and of course the vocals were compressed slightly. As for the mastering we sent four songs to several difft engineers for trial and what we got back from Bob Ludwig sounded the best to everyone.
Mark

Mark, since the subject of compression came up, it reminds me another question I wanted to ask you about "The studio in the 60s".  Would it be correct to say that Brian and/or Chuck or Larry or whoever it might be would really not be working with much compression at all?  I see pictures from the sixties that clearly show some kind of UREI compressor in a rack or sometimes just sitting up on the desk, to your understanding would they only have one compressor in each studio?  I imagine it wasn't used on individual channels while tracking the instrumental backing, but I suppose it would be possible to patch it in line with a certain channel if need be, but did need ever be?

I hear compression on a lot of Beach Boy vocals, but often times it's on the new a capella remixes you've done, so I'm not sure what was added vintage and what you added...  But I'd love to hear anything you know about how Brian went about compressing the vocals, if you know anything.

Long Live EastWest(ern) studios!

Mark -

Curious if you could tell us, on the "Gettin' In Over My Head" album, which tracks:

Probyn played keyboards on
Scott played bass on
Scott played guitar on

Thanks

Sorry but I don't remember.......

OK.  Thanks anyway Mark.

I have read a number of reviewers commenting on the use of fades in Brian's 2004 release (specifically crossfading in Workshop/Vega-Tables and at the end of Good Vibrations), usually in a negative way. Some members of the fan community seem to feel strongly that the fades are inconsistent with the way Brian was laying the album out in 66/67 -- the 'modular' approach. Does this seem valid? I'm interested in how his ideas on transitions may have changed in the intervening years.

I didn't see any critic reviews of the album that complained about the transistions, so I assume you are referring to "fan" reviews. Crossfades as opposed to hard edits in some spots seemed much better and more musical to everyone when we were mixing the record. There was much less of a choice available in 1966 but you should remember that while for example the final backing track for say Good Vibrations contained "hard" edits, the vocals were recorded  on top of that edited tape and so were in effect crossfaded over the difft.sections. Had crossfades been readily available to Brian in 66 (and we are talking for the most part about very very short ones used on BWPS), I'm sure he would have employed them.

I remember saying, at the time, that I was glad that BWPS didn't limit itself to only butt-end edits. Some sections, like the ones mentioned, simply would not sound that great with the the hard cut.

And yes, I'm sure Brian would have employed cross-fades if he had a chance to, as he did on the very SMiLE-like Diamond Head from Friends.

Surely crossfading is very easy to with tape?

Not really. You have to play back the end of the first section with the 2nd cued up and then start it at the exact right time and if you nedd a fade in and/or out do that and get it all exactly right. It can be done, but it is very inexact which is why it was rarely done, maybe between two songs but not betweneach vs and chorus etc.

I remember somebody making a big deal about Brian using the fade out on the "vibrations a happenin' with her" on the original in the middle of the track, and how hard it was to do something like that back then. 

That's not even a crossfade. He was just fading down several rotary faders at the same time. Not easy to do....

I thought about how much "technical" work, like what you described here, was done by Brian. I always thought he "just" put the different instruments together and had them play in a special way (besides of arranging, writing and singing this stuff), but I never thought about how difficult it must have been to mix all these things.

Hi Mark! Do you know if Brian is able to write/read notes? And if he is, how good? I´ve heard dozens of different opinions so far and it kind of buggs me that I still don´t know it.

Judging by the way he will pick out  specific notes in an arrangement as we are recording and have the players make changes and the chord charts he prepares for the sessions, I'd say Brian is more than capable in that department.

Mark

 8) cool

Mark, I was wondering if you'd be willing to expand a little bit on your comments you made somewhere about the degradation of the sound that happened when Brian would mix down tape back through the console at Western.  I recall you said something about padding the signal, or something.  I was listening to your stereo remixes of the Today and Summer Days tracks on Hawthorne today and, as I always do when listening to them, marvelled at the incredible clean, crisp, and "recorded yesterday" sound they all have.

Was there simply not an understanding of what was happening when they mixed down?  I mean, don't get me wrong, the muddy, big, mono sound of the original Today LP is wonderful...but as I've mentioned the sound of Smiley Smile and Wild Honey turn some people off and I've heard the people involved with recording those records criticised for "recording muddy", but I've always defended the source material.

Just wondered if you had any additional thoughts, about the mixdown problems, or about how brilliant Chuck and Jimmy and Steve were in getting sounds on tape that still sound fresh today.

Firstoff while the consoles had line input positions these were just padded down mic inputs and the boards weren't really designed with remixing in mind. Also and maybe as impt. mixing down to 15 ips mono (or stereo) also degraded the signal. When we do new mixes we generally get a generation or two closer to the original recorded tracks.
Lastly the original mix tapes have been played so much over the last 40 years that I believe that degradation has occured.

Back to the 1st part, I have recently been archiving all the Good Vibrations tracking sessions and for fun was doing some of the ruffs back through one of my UA tube consoles. It sounded great, but then I switched to my API which was getting the same four track feed, and in about 2 minutes I had the two sounding exactly the same. No eq on either just the balance, so maybe the diff. is more in the generations than anything else.

Mark

Very interesting, Mark.  Thanks.

Mark --

I was about to inquire as to your latest BB-related work, and you answered before the question could be posed!! Thanks!

BTW-- I have come to the conclusion that you have the best job in the world.  :D  Someday I hope you can get around to a 3 Blind Mice remix!

Haha.  More like a mix, period.

Hey Mark -

When you mixed all the bonus track material for the Capitol twofer series, and later the Box Sets, what format did you mix to (1/4" analog, DAT, or what have you)?

Thanks

It varied over the years. Some were mixed to 1630, some to DAT, and some to analog 1/4". All of the PS boxset including the stereo mix was done to analog as was the 5.1 surround mix.....Mark

Mark, has all of the Beach Boys' tape library been transferred to digital sources?

Not yet. We are starting to make hi-res digital safety copies of the most important multi-track masters.......

I suppose that doesn't include work tapes or such?

Mark, I asked this on another thread and was directed back to you - I remember when you redid the 2fers a few tracks were remixed because you were unable to find the original mixes done for the 1990 2fers - Old Man River was one, and I Do another (according to Mr. Doe).  What were the others?  I vaguely remember Baker Man.

Sorry, but I honestly don't remember. Only a few were remixed and I don't think Baker Man was one of them, but I could be wrong.

Mark

Mark, would you mind talking a little bit about the 5.1 mix of "Long Promised Road" you did for Endless Harmony?  Any special challenges or surprises, or whatnot.  I think it's my favourite from that set of mixes, it was fun to hear something from that era in a new way.

In particular, I'm curious about the acoustic guitar during the verses that doesn't appear on the original stereo mix.  Was that simply left out of the original mix?  It adds a totally different feel to the track, that personally, I love.

Mark: The Chit chat on the original mono "Here Today" was left off the stereo mix...why is that? I was so used to it that it became "part" of the charm of the record.

If I am wrong, Mark can correct me, but I read that it was left off at Brian's request.

Thanks. On that mix I wasn't trying to duplicate the original so the acoustic guitar which was left out of the stereo mix was used. For the still unreleased 5.1 mix we duplicated much more closely the original mix.

You're correct and this is discussed in the liner notes. The talking (like the cough heard in the solo of the stereo mix of Wendy) was a mistake, so Brian wanted it removed when we made the stereo mix. If you have the boxset, however, the talking is on the end of one of the discs as a "ghost" track..... Mark

I can hear the acoustic guitar in the verses on the original mix...faintly, but it's there...

C-Man

Mark--

Are there any plans to mix the Christmas songs for 5.1? I'd love to see a hi-rez or dvd release of this stuff!!!

If the finished version of Surf's Up, ready to go minus manufacturing, isn't getting released, why should we think that any money will be spent to make new 5.1 mixes of anything else any time soon....?

The two things aren't connected being difft labels and all, but there aren't any plans for the christmas album to be mixed in surround anytime soon.

And if it was, it would probably have to be released during a very specific time of year...

C-Man

If it says "Beach Boys" on the cover, those in the label's marketing department would immediately say "Summer!" and once again earn their pay for that week. ;D

Hey, maybe that's why Smile was delayed?  January vs. the summer? 

 :D ;D

*EDIT*..thanks Andreas!



Mark, by chance, do you know the correct spelling of those Spanish lyrics in IJWMFTT that follow the Here Today talking?

Cuando será? Un día será.

(When will it be? One day it will be.)

Yes but mixing is done many moons ahead of the release schedule.

Thanks, Mark. I really think a dvd would make a perfect follow-up release for Christmas 2006. Maybe the powers-that-be will think of it!!!

Sorry if this has been asked before Mark...but what is the next BB project that is likely to be released?

I don't have much background in sound engineering, so this may be too obvious. Sorry, if so.

I have been wondering if there was use of EQ during the production of any of the Beach Boys albums in the 60s. I know it's a common technique today in order to help give instruments and voices a little more of their own space or to cut out discordant sounds, but did Brian ever use any in the studio back then? It seems like I can definitely hear that use of EQ in Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE -- do you use EQ on individual tracks when reissuing the back catalog?

As far as I know, the only EQ Brian would have had available until the very late 60s would have been the console channel EQ, which for the most part was a three band shelving-type, often with a switchable mid setting.  I don't remember the exact frequencies covered, but I believe there was about +-6 db for each pot, Low, Mid, and High.

I don't know when outboard EQs became more useful, probably at the dawn of 16-track.

Either way, from what I've read in interviews with people like Larry Levine at Gold Star and Bruce Botnick at Sunset, they'd work with mic placement extensively before they'd resort to EQ.

And, of coure, EQing in the '60s was not the same as today, because you only had 3 or 4 tracks initially, later 8, so if things were EQ'd separately, it had to be done while the song was being recorded.  Some more could be added during the final mix, but then it would affect the entire mix instead of that one instrument or voice.  Today, of course, everything is isolated on its own track, so each individual thing can be EQ'd after the fact during mixdown.

C-Man

Don't forget compression. Especially the mono mixes received a lot of compression in the 1960s, which gives them their unique "punch" and "immediacy", but also reduces the dynamic range and "depth" of a mix.

Which is why many songs from that time period sound like shite on cd compared to vinyl. I remember an interview with Brian where he was bitching about that. I think it was with Paul Williams.

Don't really see the connection. The master mixes are eqd and sometimes compressed for both vinyl and CD. The diff. between CD and vinyl is both objective and subjective imo. CD is more accurate up to a point and vinyl is a more colored sound but in a pleasant way.  And yes in theory vinyl may have a higher frequency response than a CD, but the overall diff. is in the medium, vinyl with its RIAA playback curve and CD w/ the somewhat limited 4.1 k/ 16 bit bandwidth.

Its interesting to note the preferance many have for BWPS on vinyl vs CD since the same mastering was used for both albeit the vinyl was cut from an analog tape copy of the hi res (88.2 24 bit) eqd master. It would be great if we ever get to issue the record on a DVD-A at 88.2 and see what the listener's think

It'd be interesting to know what other mastering was done for the vinyl version of BWPS. Maybe limiting? I can see how this may affect some people's perception. It's a very "dynamic" sounding album, a bit too much for me.

Dynamics are a big part of the record. Nothing extra was done for the vinyl. The eqd 88.2 digital master was transferred to 15 ips 1/4" tape using the CCIR curve and the discs were cut flat from that tape.

No. The compression is part of the mix and therefore also present on the CD.

Yes and no. If you are talking about the CD reissue of an album originally presented on vinyl the amount of compression added during mastering might be entirely difft. but in most cases it would be a similar amount and a similar sound. In terms of BWPS cthe amount of compression and eq is exactly the same on the vinyl as on the CD.

That is what was I referring too. Some of the Motown stuff sounds noticeably different.

I'm confused.  I thought the CCIR curve was used more in Europe than here.  I know of a studio that recently began using CCIR rather than NAB.  Why the switch?  Also, do you recall what kind of 1/4" stock was used?  Emtec?  Quantegy?

Equipment heads like me want to know. :) Thanks, Mark!

Dan

Mark, have you ever heard any talk or speculation of somebody putting out an outboard box with a nice set of sampled reverbs?  Or is the disparity between the plug-in market and the outboard effect market to great?  I'm going to be getting away from DAW use, and of course I'd rather be pumping my vocals through one of Hollywood's classic chambers, but a "sampled reverb box" would be mighty handy.  And I bet a lot of people would prefer that kind of thing over a Lexicon or something.

Mark, the basic track for "Don't Talk" is mono, correct?  So with the addition of the string overdub, and the two lead vocals, is Don't Talk completely contained on one four-track tape?

If so, why do you suppose Brian chose to cut the basic in mono?  Did he realize that since the instrumentation was relatively sparse and controllable in mono, he could save a tape generation by keeping everything on one tape?

I have a seperate computer with a digi 002r running Pro Tools LE that I use for Altiverb and Waves IR reverbs as a standalone box. Works great.

The  4 track is a dubdown of the original master which was likely cut on three tracks. The strings and vocals were overdubbed onto this tape.

BTW it is the only PS tracking session that has not survived........ Mark

Do we know which take is master? There is a bootlegged copy of Take 1 out there...

(I don't have an easy reference to check the Master Take at the moment, so forgive me if it's in a booklet...)

The dubdown may be "take 1a". I doubt a copy of the original session exists, but if you find out which boot the one you refer to is on, let me know..thanks

Mark, what´s up with these volume-changes in "Help Me Rhonda" (Today-version)? Is there a special story or idea behind it, or was it just one of Brian´s experiments?

That's interesting to know, thanks Mark.  Thank goodness that's the only one missing.  Not that what we have isn't good, in fact, of all the tracks on Pet Sounds, I think Don't Talk was perhaps the best candidate for missing the tracking session and the 3-track.  Since the backing is so sparse.  No horns, just a rhythm section really.

But you did a nice job using what you had into stereo ear candy, Mark.

Mark, the tracking session tape for "Take 1" is on the "Leggo My Ego" bootleg set.  This is actually one of the earliest session tapes to make the rounds, having circulated as far back as 1982 on the tape collectors' circuit, along with the vocal sessions for "Do You Wanna Dance" and "Please Let Me Wonder".  At the end of the "Don't Talk" tape, Chuck calls for Take 2, and that's where it stops.  It's a little hissy, but still in pretty decent quality on "Leggo My Ego".

C-Man

Mark (or Alan, if you're here and can answer this) -

Would you happen to know at what point Western (and the other indie studios for that matter) began
using assistant engineers (aka tape ops)?  The first evidence I'm aware of that indicates the presence of one would be the now famous B&W photo of Chuck at the console with Winston Wong sitting next to the tape deck ("Sloop John B." vocal session, December '65).  Prior to that (the dawn of the 4-track era at Western), it always sounds like Chuck himself is rolling the tapes on the sessions that we have audio for.  So I' guessing that with 4-tracks, it became too much for one guy to handle both the board and the tapes?  Were the 4-track machines significantly bigger than the 3-tracks and therefore had to be located farther away from the consoles?  I know form the Lewisohn book that Abbey Road in London had tape ops from pretty much the start, and maybe Capitol in Hollywood did as well, but I'm guessing they were a rareity in the independent studios until they became necessary. 

Also, in the Byron Preiss bio, he mentions that Jimmy Lockert and Phil Kaye both did some engineering work at Western on "Pet Sounds"...have you see any evidence of this?  Maybe they assisted Chuck, or did some vocal or mixdown sessions...is Phi Kaye still active in recording?  I remember seeing a photo of him and some other industry guys at a charity golf tournament a few years back (in Mix magazine, I believe).

Thanks,
Craig

Clearly the hi res master would contain more information than the CD. As far as CDs go, SMiLE sounds very good...then you listen to the vinyl and there's so much more detail there...

Having said that, the US and European pressings on vinyl are different...unusually the US is miles better - and has different serial numbers etched into the runout. The US gatefold sleeve is also sturdier/thicker and seems better printed.

I know Don Grossinger reckoned that the 1/4 inch analogue dub sounded better than the digital master...which in theory it shouldn't but there you go...nothing ever quite did beat a good 1/4 inch machine - even the better domestic 1/4 inch recorders sound simply amazing.

DVD-A is the only consumer digital format I've heard that actually sounds pleasing to my ears. I have a small selection of DVD-A discs and just picked up Pet Sounds today...will be interesting to compare it to the Simply Vinyl release which I also own...but which sounds 'muddy' to me.

The two Smile vinyl issues are an interesting comparison. Identical lacquers were used cut by Don at the same time from the same tape. The only diff. is in the processing at the two plants (in the US we used RTI) and the pressing. Obviously these things make a big diff.

BTW we are hoping to have both a new vinyl and mono release of PS out before long as we recently found a much better master than the one we've been forced to use for the past 15 years or so. No definate schedule for the re-release yet, but the improvement is dramatic..

hope you like the PS DVD-A. You might want to pick up the  "Live at The Roxy" DVD-A as well. You can get it online from Rhino and I think there's a link to it on Brian's website.

Mark

Newly-found Pet Sounds mono masters?  :o

Details, please?

And does that lead to a new, improved stereo-mix? I mean, the current stereo mix is fantastic. But, you know, better is always better.

A newly discovered mono master (persumably an earlier generation) would have nothing to do with the stereo remix. For the stereo and surround mixes, Mark went back to the session and multitrack tapes that would have preceded any mono master. Those tapes (and the mixes they resulted in) won't sound any better than what's available on the DVD-A version of "Pet Sounds". This is great news, however, for fans of Brian's original mono mix completed in 1966!

Thanks ...  :'(

Mark, is this the missing L.A. tape?  Or an even earlier generation tape?  Can you comment on where it was found - in the Beach Boys archive, or at Capitol, or at what used to be Reprise?

I thought my post was clear. This is a flat digital copy made in 1987 of the original mono master analog tape which later vanished from the EMI tape vault. I don't know what Reprise used for certain but it appears they used EQd analog tape copies. There is no "LA" tape pe se. The original lp was cut using the original mono master (eqd and limited of course). What we are now going to use is a flat digital copy of that tape which sounds much better than the analog copy made in 66. This digital tape will be played back analog and remastered.

Hope that explains it.

Thanks Mark.  I look forward to hearing this hopefully on a DVD-A or SACD release!

Hi Mark:

Funny...I have the 1990 CD of PS and it has a copyright date of 1987 on the CD...so is the 1990 CD a better mono master than the 1996 box set, 1999 mono/stereo CD and the 2001 mono/stereo CD? I always find the 1999 CD has a bit too much  tape hiss on the mono tracks but the 1990 CD sounds cleaner so I prefer the 90 CD version...

Now I also have a scratchy 1966 pressing of PS that I was thinking of converting via turntable to .wav then .mp3 is it worth it??? so many Pet Sounds so little time (:...also just wondering, did the original single mixes differ from the lps I guess GOK, WIBN, SLOOP would be the tracks in question...

The mixes are all the same on the mono CDs and lps. The 1990 issued CD was created in 1987. It used the original mono master but was denoised and now sounds preatty awful.

I should add that the 1999 mono/ stereo CD was incorrectly remastered by EMi w/out the group's permission or approval and was soon withdrawn and redone for the 2001 version which is the one currently available.

Mark,

does that digital copy of the master tape from 1987 contain the true mono mix of Wouldn't It Be Nice or the duophonic version?

I am asking because Steve Hoffman has said that when he had the master tape in 1993 in his hands, Wouldn't It Be Nice was duophonic, and that is why he had to use a copy tape (the "N.Y.tape") for that song. (The story is that when the master tape was at Warner Brothers in the 1970s, someone cut the mono master mix of that song out and placed a duophonic copy in instead.)

Is the following correct: So far, the only digital Pet Sounds releases that used the mono master tape (except the one song) were the 1990 Capitol CD and the DCC Gold CD?

What was the very first Japanese Pet Sounds CD from 1987 (not! the Pastmasters CD) mastered from? The same 1987 digital copy?

It's the mono version of WIBN on the 1990 CD...I know Mark said it sounds pretty awful but gosh I like it better than the mono 1999 CD...

I don't believe Hoffman had the original master in 93 for the DCC release . My recollection is he had to use the NY copy and since we had already discovered the master had dissapeared from Capitol, I would likely recall (as would EMI) if he was the last one to use the original master. In addition I believe we did the GV box before the DCC of PS and I know the analog master had gone missing by then.

The digital copy has the duophonic WIBN which is what was on the mono master reel. The orig mono master of the song was pulled to a singles reel at some point long long ago and lost. But we did make a copy of the next best master which was from the NY analog copy.

I doubt any use has been made of this digital copy since 1987 as it was barely identifiable and without a proper song list on the box. I knew what it was because I supervised the xfr in 1987.

The Japanese Pastmaster CD is from the same denoised master as the US version in 1990. EMI in Japan just jumped the gun and released the CD without the band's approval.

Mark,

Still Crusin’: Any chance of a resurrection of this album? 20th Anniversary Edition with bells and whistles? Filled out with valid odds and ends, like “Rock and Roll to the Rescue”, “Lady Liberty”, “Spirit of Rock and Roll”, etc? Perhaps coupled with Summer in Paradise?

There’s a massive demand for these albums! Listen to the screams of the fans!

(crickets chirping)

No, seriously. The addition of this 2-fer would give us the complete body of work readily available. Tell the suits that they need to release it!

Was there any consideration of this album when the Brother 2-fers were prepared?

I agree with Bubba.  I've never heard these those two albums,
or Stars & Stripes.  But I heard it blew.

Taint likely........

Well, I have nothing to live for now.....

Never will I get to hear "Island Girl" in 24-bit sound.

 :(

Meanwhile, Capitol wastes money on worthless American Beatle album reissues.

PAH!

Worthless to casual fans.

I wouldn't call myself a "casual fan", yet I don't feel the need to splurge on redundant and often lesser versions of Beatle albums.

To each his own, eh?

Mark,

thanks for the reply.


Steve said that he had the original master tape for the DCC (1993). He also said that WIBN had to be mastered from the NY tape (because it being duophonic on the master), and the same thing needed to be done for part of the Banana & Louie coda. Do you think that is wrong?


Wasn't there a Japanese release before the Pastmasters (1989) Pet Sounds disc? I have never seen it, but often read about it.

Wasn't there a Japanese release before the Pastmasters (1989) Pet Sounds disc? I have never seen it, but often read about it.

Yes, there indeed was...earlier in 1989, on Capitol Japan's "Greenline 2800" series (the copyright date is 1987, but it definitely did not get released until early '89).  Got one that year myself, BTW, and it wasn't easy (in the pre-internet days).  Had to jump through some hoops, since not only was it an import but it also was yanked almost immediately after release.  The later Japanese Past Master version was much more readily available, and speaking of that series, "I Get Around" on "All Summer Long" is duphonic...perhaps for the same reason.   I seem to recall the first  Japanese 1989 "Pet Sounds" not having quite the fidelity of the 1990 U.S. issue, but I will have to do a comparison to see.

C-Man

If it has the bonus tracks on it then its the same as the US 1st CD. We finished it in 88 or 89 but it was help up for approval in the US. The Japanese division jumped the gun and released it early.

Mark --

No questions, just a 'thank you' for taking the time to pass along all this info.  ;)

Summer in Paradise...I borrowed it from the library and I wish I had .mp3d it cuz its hard to find now...IMHO its not's bad as you might think...the only thing I really dont like is that John Stamos gets the last vocal on the last song on the last (for now) beach boys original album...

I like the updated version of "Surfin"...The cover of Sly and the Family stones was good too...I was expecting a horrible album and found I liked it (not classic but I didn't hate it for sure!!!) it surprised me...

Mark: the track "Surfin" sounds muddy on my 1990 2fer Surfin Surfari/SUSA CD...is the master not in good condition? I guess its 45 years now since it was recorded....

Or it was smothered in no-noise.  ;D

The actual master for the track "Surfin'" is from the Hite-Morgan sessions. That master was used for the "Lost And Found 1961-1962" CD and for the GV box set, at the correct speed. It sounds much better than the sped-up-copy used for the album.

First off the PS DVD-A...well it's awesome! Definately better than the Simply Vinyl release, the vocals and high frequencies are generally much clearer. Bass still a little wooly but maybe that's a result of recording techniques? One can hear the tape hiss...and even a quite humming that sounds like it must have been on the original masters...as well as some intended musical moments that aren't on the Simply Vinyl release.

So far I've listened to the 5.1 mix and the advanced resolution mono. Honestly not sure which I prefer at this point.

BTW Mark I already have the DVD-A of Live @ The Roxy, seems to capture the ambience of a live performance very well.

A new vinyl release (mono *please*) from a better master would be another must-have for me...assuming I never get hold of the original release!

Hey Mark.  I know you've noted that the Powers That Be aren't interested in Stereo Remixes of Today/Summer Days.  But if this suddenly changed would remixes be difficult or easy?  Are all the materials there for a remix like Pet Sounds?  Are there any missing vocal tracks that would prevent a perfect remix?  I think these two albums are dying for a Pet Sounds treatment, and just as deserving.  Also, is there any chance of another compilation like Hawthorne, CA where you could include more remixes from these two albums?

Some tracks would be impossible to remix in stereo because certain elements were played live as the mono mix was being made. These include "Help Me Rhonda", ""Do You Wanna Dance" and "Girl Don't Tell Me" for example.

I suspect we will continue to present individual new stereo mixes as time goes on, but don't know when or if we will ever get to do the complete (or as much as possible) albums.

Mark

I'd love a stereo Wild Honey before anything else.

There would be problems with some of those tracks as well.

Mark

Are the vocals pretty much all there and in tact for the Today and SD&SN tracks, Mark?  I think people would be less likely to care about missing piano solos or 12-string electric guitar breaks than missing vocals.

Otherwise, vocals-only mixes (and/or complete backing tracks) would be great to hear...

It varies. Some vocals and piano are missing on Rhonda. The solo is missing on Do You Wanna Dance. Guitars on Girl Don't Tell Me etc.

Mark, do you know something about the version of "Summer means new love" with vocals, heard in "An american band"? Is it there in the vaults and how "complete" is it?

Not in the band's archives. It would appear that someone "forgot" to return it.

Mark,

Change of subject, I was wondering which kind of engineering job you enjoy the most - working on brand new material with Brian, with all the opportunities for top fidelity and excitement of working on new material that brings - or working on remixes of the classic material, tweaking the frankly superior compositions and performances. (NO disrespect meant to the current band here, just that the 60's/70's stuff was SO good)

The two kinds of works must be very different kinds of work and I was curious what satisfaction you got from working with them

Well yes they are two difft. kinds of things. I love to be a part of creating something new for an artist, recording it from scratch. I especially like live recording because it is about the performance of a group of people playing together.

That said getting to work with and rework classic recordings is a great thrill because those are the records that made me want to be an engineer in the first place.

I guess you could say I never made a record I didn't like.

Mark

How was it working with Los Straitjackets?

Are you sure this is geniune? It sounds to me like someone just playing the chords on piano and someone who sounds a lot like Jeff Fosket singing. There's more solo piano tunes on A.B such as "Girls on the beach" and ,if I recall correctly, "Do you like worms?".
I don't think vocals were ever recorded for the '65 version.

I am not sure, but I think it's likely that this are the BBs. But I could be wrong

Hi Mark

In a press-release, Brian´s daughter Carnie revealed some news about her dad:


Does "recording" means he´s working with you and the whole band or just laying down some demos? Are the background vocals done by the band? What does the production sound like? Are these newly written songs? And ... uhm ... are they good (compared to "Christmasey" or "WIRWFC" for example)?

You are probably not allowed to talk about it, or you just don´t want to, but I´m really looking forward to a reply.

Hi Mark,

I'm trying to find out at what speed recordings were generally made in the 60's.  Say, circa 66-67, and I mean at the tracking stage.  Was it 30 ips or 15 ips?

15 ips all the way for the most part. Certainly all the Beach Boys recordings were done that way.

Mark

Mark, In the Sound on Sound article from 2004, it states "Brian's leads through May and into June, recording for the most part on a Neumann U67 or an old Shure 545 dynamic, running through Universal Audio 610 and 610a valve mic preamps (just as on the '60s recordings)." I was curious, what determined the choice of mic? Was it dependent on the dynamics of the song? I have a Neumann TL 103 I run through a Manley Vox Box for most of the vocals I record. When I record a punk band, I usually give them an SM 58 or 57 to sing through because they are so loud and spitty. The most problems I have are with singers that go from a whisper to extremely loud SPL during a song. Should I use a limiter or just use mild compression and ride the gain? Any thoughts on the new Korg Oasys keyboard vs the Kurzweil 2600? I really appreciate  having access to you and Mr. Desper on this forum. It is an honor.

Thanks. The decision was mostly arbitrary since we were overdubbing the leads. If the chosen mic didn't sound good , we'd switch but in all honesty either one would have worked fine for the entire project.

Mark

Mark, in your experience, have you found there to be much difference between the older R45 dynamic cartridge as used in the 545 and the current version found in the 545-ld or whatever it's called shure is selling new these days?

I wasn't aware there was a current 545 only the SM-57 which sounds most like the older 545 to me.

Yeah, this baby:

http://www.shure.com/microphones/models/545.asp

(http://www.shure.com/photos/545sd.jpg)

I bought one a couple years ago and I think it sounds better than the sm57.  The capsules actually are slightly different.  I don't like the switch, though.

My understanding is the 545 was preatty much a  57 w/ less quality control. In other words 2- sm-57's should sound more alike than 2- 545's (which I believe are no longer in production) and 57's should sound like the best 545's. You may have a 545 w/ a "sound" you like better, but 57's are  more consistant.

I have a large number of 57's and 56'S (57 on a swivel w/ a shockmount) Also 4- 545's and 7 or 8 of the "pro" version w/ the shockmount and swivel like the SM-56. All lovely and most useful. You could easily make a great record using nothing but 545's and 57's , and many have.

as for the switch on yr. 545, turn the little plate below the switch  around and it will be locked in the on position...... Mark

Nice article, I thought I put the link into this thread : http://www.zioshow.com/viewnews.php?id=7652

My thanks to the folk at API for putting up the article.....

Mark

This has been maybe my number one vault question (not relating to SMiLE) for twenty years.  The last time I went through "An American Band"(on DVD) I couldn't pick up where it was, for some reason, so I'd held up posting about it.

yeah, where is it?  I dont remember hearing it on the American Band DVD?

it's on chapter 5, where they're talking about how they can't surf

How many minutes is that into the film? I only have an old video of it..

maybe 15 or so, it's shown over stock footage of surfing and homevideos of the boys..

I never paid much attention to it before, I thought it's the bridge of "Surfer Girl".

I just listened to it, its harmonyvocals that goes "uuuu" over the melodyline, sounds great! Or hmmm, I guess its just an illusion, since I always thinks its totally marvelous to hear some vintage beachboysharmonies I had never heard before. =)

Whether i've heard 'em before or not, Beach Boys harmonies are always keen!

The frightening thing is that i mean that...

Mark,

Here's a question about the Pet Sounds DVD-A.

What, technically speaking, is the difference between the two sides? I know one is for pukka DVD-A players and one is compatible with DVD-video players. The DVD-A side definately sounds more smooth to my ears and I can pick out more details...while perhaps the DVD-Video side has brighter highlights. Or am I imagining things?

I prefer the DVD-A side. Sounds more natural...

Sorry, I'm not Mark, but I'm certain he would point out that the difference is due to the advanced resolution of the DVD-A side ("high-definition audio" if you'd like) which features a much higher sampling rate than a standard CD. The DVD video side presents the mix in a compressed Dolby Digital format and a slightly less compressed DTS format, both are acceptable but neither are technically better than a standard CD; some would say the quality is inherently worse than a well-mastered standard CD.

Mark,
after reading the little conversation you had with someone on the blueboard about the Pet Sounds-stereo mix, I remembered something I always wanted to know.
On "I just wasn't made for these time" (mono) there a scratching sound or something like this after the opening lyric "I keep looking for a place to fit in, where I can speak my mind".  That sound only lasts for about a second but it's missing on the stereo-version. Can you explain what it is and why it was left out? Thank you...

 Mark, when you record double track lead vocals is there anything special you do different to one of the tracks, like put it at  75%  volume versus the first one, or do drastic EQ so there isn't a frequency build up? I recorded someone who wanted 4 lead vocals of themselves up front. It was fine with one vocal but got harsher when each vocal was brought up in the mix. I had to cut a lot of midrange but finally got them to settle for just a double track.

Generally speaking the doubled vocal will have the same eq but be set about at about 2/3 rds the level of the 1st vocal. Changing the singer's position rlative to the mic can also make the sound more interesting... Mark

I've been listening to the mono a lot lately and I don't hear a noise where you mention.... Mark

Mark, what has been your philosophy when you've encountered a triple-tracked lead vocal to present in a stereo remix vs what you'd do with a double track?  I love what you've done in those instances.  In my own recording  experience, having all three leads more or less straight up the middle is "too much", but splitting them L-C-R seems almost less powerful than a double tracked lead.  Anyway, it's a fun challenge.

Hehe, preparing the 40th Anniversary edition?

Sorry, it's right at the "I" from "where I can speak my mind", not after this. It's kind of a scratching sound
And I don't know if you could call it noise, it's probably not a mistake or something. It's not on the "track-only" and not on the stereo-version, only on the mono-version. Just take that part and listen to it very carefully, after hearing it once, you will never overhear it again....

It sounds like a fluttery organ, almost. I discussed it with Josh a while ago, and he thought it was some artifact of noise from the mono mixdown, not an intentional 'note' or anything.

Well, that could be.
I really like this sound. Sounds kinda like a duck (to me) or something, and that's only fitting on "Pet Sounds"....

 ...sounds like two balloons being rubbed together.

 BTW, I had a Japanese cd of PS before the official Capitol release and it did not have the bonus tracks on it. It was also eq'd completely differently. A lot brighter. I wish I still had it, but I gave it away when I got the official release.

Hey Mark, I just want to mention that I was impressed with the engineering work you did on Grant-Lee Phillips' cover of "Love My Way" off his new album. It's easily the best sounding track on there. However, I was sorry to see your name misspelled again in the liner notes!

Thanks. I didn't even know it had been released. And if it wasn't a bit late in the game maybe I'd change my name in order to get it spelled right.

Mark

Mark,

I have the DVD-Audio of Brian Wilson Live At The Roxy.  My DVD player can play it and gives me great 5.1 sound.  There is a DVD-Audio available right now of Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys.
 
The CD/DVD release on 8/29 according to the press release  Pet Sounds And Good Vibrations 40th Anniversary: Press Release From Capitol says the DVD contains some documentaries, some promo materials and this:
 * DVD also contains Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Hi-Res 96 kHz/24-bit PCM Stereo audio mixes of Pet Sounds + Hi-Res 96 kHz/24-bit PCM Mono audio mix of bonus track “Hang On To Your Ego”

Is there a good reason to purchase the DVD-Audio of Pet Sounds?  I definitely plan to purchase the CD/DVD release.  Am I purchasing virtually the same audio on both DVDs?  Yesterday, I purchased and watched Brian Wilson Pet Sounds Live in London.  It was great sound-wise.  You could get a little dizzy with all the camera shots switching by so quickly.
 
What do you advise?

Aloha & mahalo, Joe   :afro   8)

You'd probably want both for difft. reasons. The new CD/ DVD combo will have a new remaster of the original mono album which is the best it has ever sounded on CD imo.
Plus the DVD contains a great bunch of videos some previously unavailable on disc.

The new DVD only has the 5.1 mix in dolby digital so if you have a DVD-A player you should also get the PS DVD-A disc for the highest fidelity sound in surround. In addition that disc contains bonus tracks not on the new DVD.

Hope that helps...... Mark

IMO, The DVD-A is worth having for the "Summer Means New Love" mixes alone.  What an unexpected treat that was.

Absolutely! Just out of interest, why wasn't "Trombone Dixie" included?

ok, so when is the pet sounds cd/dvd release going to happen? and (i dont mean to complain), but is it gonna be available in a wide selection of areas (unlike the GV single release)

According to Capital, it will be released on August 29, 2006.  Amazon.com is taking orders on it already.  It is a limited edition release.

I'm sure that part of the problem with the GV single is that it was a single.  CD singles just aren't everywhere these days, even for current pop tunes, let alone a reissue for collection purposes.

The Good Vibrations Anniversary CD "single" is available on Amazon.com now.

Aloha, Joe

Stuff like the GV single is usually easiest to just order on Amazon. However, I did see (and purchase) a copy of the new GV CD single at a Best Buy. It was marked at $9.99 but rang up at $7.99. This was a Best Buy with an otherwise particularly horrendous selection. I think they had like a million copies of "Sounds of Summer", one copy of the GV single, and that was it.

.. and I think I .. erm .. snagged that one  ;D

man.. i don't want to buy Pet Sounds again..  but i feel the need.

i love that album.

i also, luckily, had no problem finding the GV single at the local best buy.  i probably wouldn't have bothered ordering it online.. because when you add shipping to that: just who is ripping off whom.

Yes, but the tax would be just as much if not more. I don't see where it's a rip-off.

Hi, first time post.

Am I missing something in reading that the PS 40th anniversay CD/DVD only contains the stereo mix and HOTYE in high resolution?  Where is the new mono mix in high-res?

.

Hi Mr Linett,

Apologies if you've addressed this question many times before. I've had a brief search of the topics but can't find anything.

How did you sequence 'Heroes Sections' on The Good Vibrations Boxset? I know that apart from the ending, it is identical to the mix you did in 88. Did you arrange the parts based on what sounded good together or were there clues in the 66/67 sessions from Brian, as to how he intended these sections to be sequenced? Domenic Priore in his book Look Listen Vibrate Smile suggests that for the large part of 'Sections', the latter is true.

I have heard one boot that has a mix where several sections are sequenced similarly to yours. Another poster suggestes that other boots have futher clues, although some on this board have suggested that the sequence of Heroes Sections was based on a Carl Wilson/Stephen Desper comp tape from 1972, that had nothing to do with Brian. It strikes there is some confusion about this specific track, so any light you could shed on this query would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,

Ben

I just sequenced what sounded good..... I know we changed the end for the box so we didn't use a part of the Smiley version.... Mark

Many thanks for replying so quickly Mark. I appreciate you clearing this up for me!

Ben

Mark,

Something I've been curious about....why is the earlier Brian-only version of "Hang On To Your Ego" used on all the Pet Sounds CDs and the more complete, fully backed Beach Boys version only found on the GV Boxset?

Thanks!

All has been forgiven..... buy the new anniversary edition. You will be pleased.
Mark

     Any chance the new Anniversary Edition of Pet Sounds will have "Caroline, No" at the correct speed, and not the speed at which Murry thought it should be?  (That is, a new mix from the new original master slowed down to it's correct speed?)  It probably doesn't bother most people, but I really don't like the speeded up version of the song any more, because I can tell Brian doesn't sound like he really should.  Thanks.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

isnt it already released?

The version you want is available on the PS boxset. We wouldn't alter the mix on the the regular version of the album after 40 years.

Mark

Mark,

1. When you mastered with HDCD, did you use the peak extension feature of HDCD?
2. What is you overall impression of HDCD compared to usual redbook?
3. Would you say that on a CD player without HDCD capability, a HDCD-encoded CD might sound worse than the same mastering without HDCD-encoding?
4. What are your thoughts on Dual Disc compared to a CD+DVD package?

      Yes, the correct speed version is on the boxset.  I was just hoping that since you've now found the true mono master that you would also put "Caroline, No" on the new disc at the correct speed.  That way we would have the best sounding mono master along with the best sounding mono correct speed version of "Caroline, NO" all on one disc.  I didn't expect that you would get rid of the speeded up version, it just would have been nice to have the correct speed version as an extra cut, thereby having both versions on the same disc so we could easily choose between one or the other all in the best possible sound.

                Love and merci,   Dan Lega

The "correct"  master is the one that has been on the album since 1966 .

     Okay, if you want to get into semantics, I guess I should have said the "original speed" version.  That's the version I prefer.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

I agree.  I find particulary the bridge vocal is absolutely breathtaking in the original speed.  In the original released version, it's just plain breathtaking.   :)

Mark - I recently noted you did some co-engineering and mixing on Del Shannon's Rock On!, one of my favorite albums of all time...

A question...I see you worked with Mike Campbell and not with Jeff Lynne - it is obvious that Jeff Lynne uses the same sampled snare sound for all of his recordings, which seems to make whoever is drumming totally irrelevant - it all sounds the same, whether it is Jeff himself playing (like on his recent "Zoom") or Ringo Starr...

it seems Campbell did the same thing - the Campbell productions seem to have the same basic sound...can you comment on that snare sound? Is it a trigger Lynne brings to all of his sessions? Or does he mic the snare and dramatically alter the sound later?

Del's voice is so fresh and solid, it was truly a tragedy. How was he at those sessions? Anything you can give me would be great. I am a great admirer of your work with BW and elsewhere.

Mark, I've got a dumb question for you. Everytime you remaster a song (thinking about the 45 of GV on the 40th anniversary disc) do you pull the "single reel" master out to use or is a digital safety copy used. Just wondering.

Bob Flory

Aaaaargh! The Jeff Lynne drum sound, its hideous. I wouldn't think it's a sample, just some twisted mind at work to try and resurrect the 'Ringo' sound. It sounds like someone banging a shed - most recently heard on Tom Pettys 'Highway companion' album!

The drum sound on Brin's colloboration with Lynne, "Let It Shine", sounds pretty good (meaning "normal").

Sadly I only mixed several of the tracks after Del died and never got to meet him. His death was truly a geat loss...... Mark

I've heard the "Jeff Lynne uses a sample" theory loads. I think it's garbage. He's been getting that drum sound since before samplers were used.
Plus I read a big article in a pro audio mag with Richard Dodd (Lynne's engineer) explaining how Jeff recorded.
I love Jeff's drum sound. I'd give my right one to get it on my records  ;D

Mark,
I'm totally digging Track 4 of the Good Vibrations single CD! Wow!! Beautiful, all true stereo instrumental version of the single!
How long did it take you to: 1 identify all the correct secxtions/takes? 2 put it together as a final mix?
Paul
P.S. Stereo nuts - you must get this, now.

It took quite a while and it is something I've been wanting to do for years. Glad you liked it.......Mark

Hi Mark - Hope all is well.  Just listened to an advance copy of the Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary CD.  On the HDCD mono, the intro to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is clear as a bell (clearer than any other mono version I've heard on CD; some have hiss, and some such as Hoffman's DCC Gold CD have a tape warble on the first note).  But right at the drum slam, the timbre of the guitar seems to change significantly -- thinner, and slightly less reverb.  By chance, did you have to edit on the intro from the multitracks to fix a bad source tape?

Very impressive package.  Great finally having the "Good Vibrations" promo film on DVD!

Take care,
Lee

I pre-ordered my Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary CD/DVD from Amazon a couple weeks ago. I hope I get it this week!

Mark, I have a question.

I recently picked up a couple of import EMI GH packages from the mid-90s (Japan, UK, etc.). On some of these discs, there are Brother records tracks (from the Warner & CBS years). Now I understand that some of these tracks were clearly lifted from the GV Boxset. But, if the tracks had not yet been released on Capitol, did these foreign releases have to come to you  (meaning Brother et al) for these tracks?

I am thinking of The Dutch Singles collection for one that included Tears In The Morning, Student Demonstration Time and It's About Time. Also, a UK double CD from '95 had the 45 mix of Here Comes The Night as well as Sumahama and Lady Lynda. Since EMI had not released these tracks as of 1997, I was wondering how they got these for overseas release.

Thanks,

Bob Flory

    I just ordered the new "Pet Sounds" 40th Anniversary CD -- but now I'm reading that the CD has a credit for the Joe Gastwirt(SP?) 2000 Mono mix instead of a brand new mono mix from the recently discovered master; there's a drop-out in Sloop John B in the mono master that doesn't appear on any other CD's; and there are problems with some of the video transfers.  (For more info, see the other topic about it on this board.)  Any comment on these comments, Mark?


       Love and merci,   Dan Lega

Per Mark on the Shut Down Vol. 2 message board (part of the Cabinesse site):

"The mono is remastered from a better original source tape. Someone at EMI messed up on the credits for the CD (and left off some thank yous as well)

Sorry for the confusion......

Mark"

That's a big omission on Capitol's part! But am glad Mark cleared that up so we
know the mono version is new!

Guess now we'll have to buy the corrected liner notes version like we did with the Endless Harmony cd ! *LOL* Is there a consipracy going on here? *VBG*

Regards,
Cal
:)

He...he...guess we'll have to buy the 50th Annv Edition with remastered Linear Notes!!

 :smokin

Well...I guess I'm sold.  A closer to the source remaster is too good to pass up on.  There's only a few albums that I'd do this for, anyway.  Okay, maybe quite a few.  It doesn't hurt to have an extra pressing of the DVD-Audio version either.

So is the sound improvement as good as Coltane's "Love Supreme" source upgrade?  I don't care one bit for the 2001 mono...too thin and harsh.  My fav' is the Box Set single disc -- 13 trax, that's it.  Either way, I'm sure I'll diggit.

:afro

Hey Mark, are your ears burning? 

Read what they have been saying about the new PS over on the Steve Hoffman boards:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=89675

I just posted this on the PS remaster thread but it's relavant to the last posting...

I've never ever read a posting on the Hoffman board where someone likes a cd other
than a Hoffman remaster! I think they're all a bit prejudiced and one sided over there--
and I can't be swayed 'cause they think Hoffman remasters are the work of  G-d. For
me that board is not fair and balanced.

Regards,
Cal
:)

Hi Mark - here's a rewritten observation from the Pet Sounds remaster opinion thread below, which I edited to cross-post here so you might be able to shed some light if you care to:

On both the new mono and stereo LPs, the high end appears to have been rolled off just a tiny bit compared to the HDCD-decoded CD.  That's not your doing, I assume you gave Capitol a clean analog LP-cutting master dubbed straight from the hard drive, as you did with BWPS.   My vote would be it's the doing of the lacquer cutter.  Not enough to offend but enough to notice if you're doing the critical A-B like I was.  Otherwise the basic sound of both LPs was satisfactory, and the roll-off will certainly blow past most listeners.  But that's what I'm hearing, tell me if I'm off base.

But the big query is this: The new stereo LP is supposed to match the 2000 version, right?  Well --  and here's the kicker - THE SPEED IS OFF - maybe a fraction of a percent SLOWED DOWN.  I know it's not my Thorens turntable (it has a stroboscope and it's running exactly at 33.33 rpm), and as I did the A-B headphone comparison, the "time gap" widened as it played.   And this only occurs with the stereo LP.  When I did this A-B with the mono program, the speed on the mono LP matched up with the CD, no pitch-shift or time error was noticeable.   I know you had nothing to do with the LP cutting itself so this remark is in no way a criticism.  But do you think: could the lacquer cutter have been just the slightest bit off speed?

Did anyone else notice any of this?   Or am I off in the stratosphere?  If you or others confirm these observations, do you have any idea how it might have happened?   Thanks again.  Incidentally, also, thanks again for all the terrific restoration/remixing/recording you've done, both on this project and over the years with the BB and BW.

The gaps between the songs on the new stereo version are slightly  difft. so I'm wondering if that's why you're noticing a time drift over the course of the lp. Are you hearing an obvious pitch diff. between the lp and the 2000 CD ? 

Let me know........

As to the slightly less hi end on the lp, that's vinyl for you plus it is colored vinyl  which is a bit lower "fi" than  audiophile 180 gram vinyl.

Mark

The entire thread has been removed for some reason.

Hi Mark - here's my edited reply, just checked it again.  This time the LP and CD match up fine speed-wise, both stereo and mono.  Yesterday I heard an audible pitch change, perhaps an eighth tone or so.   But this time, it was OK.  Very strange, since on both occasions I had both the LP and CD playing together as closely as possible, and did an A-B with Grado headphones, checking the strobe on the turntable much more closely  to be sure it wasn't the culprit.   Well, good, that's fixed, I eat some crow, you get to sleep more soundly.  Maybe the whole thing was an audio illusion on my part?  (that's a loaded phrase but I'm not using it in that clinical sense).   Otherwise the pressings are quite good but those are the things an audio nerd like me notices. The roll-off isn't a big deal but it was a wee surprise given that the vinyl of SMiLE compares so very favorably with the HDCD, that was a hell of a mastering job (plus it was an audiophile pressing).  Thanks for the response on the rest of my post.

I've occsaionally found that SMiLE LP seems to run slow...and other occasions it does not.

Any time I run a strobe disc on my Systemdek it checks out at 33 1/3 rpm...so it is either my ears or I have in intermittent fault. The strange thing is that I've never noticed this with any other LPs.


But I am still waiting for Amazon to send me my new Pet Sounds LPs....then I can compare with the DVD-A.

What Mark said about coloured vinyl is 100% accurate. While it looks funky it doesn't perform quite as well as the audiophile black stuff. Tends to be noisier (or perhaps just promotes transmission of motor noise more than black vinyl) and the high end isn't quite as good.

Thanks for the update. I doubt the disc is at fault since that big a speed shift would be noticeable even without comparing it to the CD and it would have been unlikely to get past the mastering engineer and myself.

As to the comparison to the SMile disc I would put the quality down to SMILE being on 180 gram black vinyl and the great pressing job RTI did. We originally had the discs done at another pressing plant and the results were so inferior thta after three tries we switched to RTI. I gather the European pressing doesn't sound quite as good another indiaction of how much the vinyl and the pressing matter. Superb job on the mastering as well.

I think the colored vinyl came out very well especially considering the limitations of color vs 180 gram black. Still lobbying for an audiophile pressing, so we'll see.

To back up Mark, I own the US and European pressings of SMiLE and the whole American package is superior...from the quality of the gatefold cover to the pressing of the LP itself.

Sometimes when reading comments on various boards about things that can and cannot be heard on various recordings I do wonder what equipment people are listening with...you simply cannot compare a computer drive and sound card to even a half-decent hi-fi setup.

For a new, truly high quality LP (packaging and record itself)...try Dave Gilmour's "On An Island"...

Mark --

I was lucky enough to listen to your SMiLE mix on the equipment it was mastered with by Don Grossinger. THAT was an experience I'll never forget. Needless to say no amount of audiophile equipment could replicate those conditions, but hearing like that was just beautiful.

Mark,
When you worked on putting together the excellent Good Vibrations stereo instrumental mix on the new cd single, did you take a crack at synching-up the original mono single, just to see what would happen? If so, how did it sound? Could such a mix ever find commercial release?
Paul R.

No we didn't try that since it was decided that a mix with a stereo track and mono vocals was not something we wanted on the CD. Without the original 8 track master no mix can be made with the vocals spread in stereo ..... Mark

Mark, one thing confuses me a lot about BWPS: were the tool-sounds on "Workshop" newly recorded, or were they taken from the old sessions in the 60s? I always thought they were the only old recording on BWPS. But yesterday I re-watched the bonus-stuff on the DVD about the studio-recording and noticed that Brian says something like "Now Workshop...you all got your toys?". So, are they old or new?

P.S. If they are old, why didn't you re-record it like the rest of the album?

I'm sure Mark knows best, but I have certainly read that the workshop sounds are re-recorded anew...but to sound as much like the 60's recordings as possible.

Dear Mr. Linett:

If you already answered this question somewhere else in this thread or on this board, I apologize ... but I recently finished reading the latest Brian Wilson biography "Catch A Wave" and the detailed sections concerning "Smile" intrigued me yet again.

So I have to ask - do you know the status of or any plan by Capitol Records (or any other label) to release a boxed set of the Smile sessions?  With Brian's release of the re-recorded Smile and, perhaps more tellingly, the existence of the Sea of Tunes bootleg versions of the Smile sessions - it seems obvious that a version of the album existed that was pretty close to being completed.  Or at least enough of the tracks and backing tracks were finished to compile into a boxed set - a la the "Pet Sounds" box.

I know the seemingly never-ending litigation between existing BB members probably makes the eventual release of such a set just a fantasy, but I think it's something we'd all like to see come true.  Can you shed any light on that possiblity?

I was secretly hoping that 07 was the year for a 40th anniversary Smile boxset release so I find this news particularly disappointing! I can't believe recordings as beautiful as Child is Father To The Man have still not seen an official release, especially since the exposure Smile got in 04. This is just too sad.

Hi Mark,

I have been listening to "What Love Can Do" quite a bit lately, and I think it's a great sounding track.  I was wondering if you could answer a few questions that I have about the recording.  When I first heard the track, I played it on my computer at work, as that was my first opportunity to listen.  When I listened to it the first few times, it sounded like someone besides Brian was doubling Brian's lead vocal, and there were some spots where I thought I could hear the doubled voice louder than Brian's in the mix.  No one else seemed to hear this, and I began to doubt my ears.  Well, as it turns out, the mini plug from my speakers was not plugged in all the way and I was hearing only the left channel out of both speakers.  After plugging the thing in all the way, and hearing both channels, I couldn't hear the "doubled" voice as loudly as before, but I still seem to hear another voice.  Is someone besides Brian doubling the lead?  Also, the credits list Paul Von Mertins as the arranger.  Did he do the string arrangements, as well?  Very nice stuff.  The vocal arrangement is also really great.  It sounds very much like a cross between Richard Carpenter, Burt Bacharach, and Brian Wilson vocal arrangement styles.  Did Brian arrange any or all of the vocals?  Just curious.  Brian's voice hasn't sounded so sweet in a long time.  Did he and Burt write/record any other tunes?  Again, nice job, Mark.  I'm looking forward to hearing those new stereo mixes on the Warmth Of The Sun comp. 

It was my impression that Paul only arranged the strings and that Brian arranged the song. Brian certainly arranged the vocals.  I haven't heard the final mix, but  Brian doubled the lead . I don't know if he and Burt wrote any other songs.

Mark

Thanks so much, Mr. Linett, for your reply.  The more I play this song, the more I like it.

Hey Mark --

I have an advance of the album and the new mixes sound fantastic. Question: Was there a specific reason why "The Little Girl That I Once Knew" wasn't remixed for stereo? To me, it's the only real dissapointment on the set. The song is BEGGING for a remix.

Keep up the good work,

Howie

Thanks for the positive review. We don't have the multi-tracks for  "the Little Girl I Once Knew" so no remix was possible.

Wow. I never knew that those were among the missing. What a shame. I'm curious if there was a definitive "new" mix made of "Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again," as it was among the tracks (early on) being considered for the project.

By the way, I'm looking forward to the new 'Berries CD/DVD.

Howie

Greetings Mark....On behalf of all of us Beach Boys fans, THANX!!! I have to say that the H&V sections from the Box set is true music to my ears. Job Well Done. We also thank you for being kind enough to answer some of our questions here on the thread.

Speaking of, I have a question for you. On some of the stereo remixes of the BB songs the bass is pushed heavily to the left channel. Why is that? Two come to mind, Let The Wind Blow and Let's Go Away For Awhile. I listen to through my headphones all day at work, and I had to replace the stereo mixes with the mono's of these two because the bass was driving me nuts coming too heavily out of one channel. (Being a bass player, it's just one of those things that get to me...!)
 
No big deal, but any insights into this would be appreciated.

I'm a bass player, and I don't feel like there's anything about bass that requires it being centered in the stereo panorama.  Maybe we've been conditioned to want low frequencies in the middle.

I'm sure Mark will weigh in with his methodologies, but you have to remember that everything up to Friends was recorded with mono, not stereo in mind, and thus was not planned specifically for being able to put all the bass frequencies in the middle.

In the case of Pet Sounds, it would be impractical anyway, because the tracks there were contained to three track, and what shares a track with the basses on a PS track may not jive with the rest of the mix if it is also in the center.

In the case of Let the Wind Blow, I think it's more effective to have the Piano, which is doubling the bass, actually opposite the bass, so they balance in the ears.  If you put both the bass and piano in the center, you don't have much to fill out the rest of the panorama, and if you put the bass in the center and the piano out right or left, then I think it would actually be more unbalanced than any other combo...

Just my personal thoughts...

Hey, I appreciate that aeijtzsche. I never thought of it that way. When I listen to my stereo at home it doesn't bother me, it's only when I listen through my headphones. I listen through the phones many hours a day at work. I even got a full earphone instead of those little ones in order to get a full bass sound in the music.

I am not schooled in the logistics of the tracking, so forgive me for not understanding the ins and outs of those techniques. I suppose that it is an art unto itself when trying to convert mono to the clearest possible stereo, especially with the Boys. I love the way one can hear their voices on LTWB and how the songs seem to breathe a little easier in stereo. I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine that the heavier bass sounds tend to be pushed to the left in those two songs I mentioned. It makes my ear tickle!, while at the same time, I guess if the bass was more centered I would get the feeling I'm in the middle (abstractly speaking) of the musical "panorama"!

Again, thanks aeijtzsche....Lord knows we all love those melodic/hypnotic BB bass lines!!!

Oh yeah, Mark. Can you do your best to get us an official release of the backing track to "In The Back Of My Mind"???

Hey, Mark. I've got a stupid but practical question for you. Is your last name pronounced li-NET or LI-nit?

\

It is prounounced  LIN (like the girls' name-lynne) NET (what you use to catch fish) But spelled LINETT........

Thanks. I've got another question, this time much more relevant.
|
I'd like to spend $1500 on some plug-ins for my digital home studio. I've been looking into it and I absolutely want to get one of Universal Audio's UAD card packages (probably the UAD-1e Expert Pak for $1000). I'd also like to get a good reverb plug-in. I've been considering Altiverb ($520), which I know you are a proponent of. My only dilemma now is that, looking at the statistics on the Universal Audio website for their UAD plug-ins, it looks like I'll be using all of my available DSP very quickly, especially since I'm recording at 24/96. Therefore, I'm thinking it might be better to get two UAD cards and forget about Altiverb. My question, then, is, have you used Universal Audio's Dreamverb plug-in, and if so, how do you think it compares to Altiverb? I know it's not convolution reverb, but the reviews (mainly what I've seen on the UA website) seem to be pretty glowing.

Also, assuming you even use them, how many UAD cards do you have; and in your experience, on a typical session, how quickly do you use up all of the available DSP? I guess it varies a lot from plug-in to plug-in, but I'm a little concerned about some of the stats I'm seeing. For example, the 1176LN supposedly only gets 8 instance counts per card at just 44.1kHz, the Neve 1081 only gets 3, the Roland Space Echo only gets 2, etc. I'm guessing at 96kHz these would decrease greatly.

The UAD cards do use up  DSP pretty fast on some of the plugs less on others. They only run in RTAS and won't work in Audio Suite if that matters to you. I have one card in a large HD-5 system running on a Macpro quad computer. The UAD is certainly a great product and a great dela for the price. Altiverb is certainly theway to go for reverb imo.

Mark

Hello Mark I am curious as to what unreleased Beach Boys you would most like to see come out. I also would like to know what you are happy to see stay in the can.

Same question with a few additions. I'd like to see an official version of the early "Big Sur" released. That is one of my all time top 5 Boys records and I cannot believe it hasn't been released. With all these compilation albums (Sounds of Summer, Warmth of the Sun) I would think some of that stuff (if not Smile stuff) would pop up.

We want a Smile box set!!

Mark, is there any chance you can tell us whether you're aware of any plans to record That Lucky Old Sun in the studio? It's apparently been mentioned here and there in interviews, and I thought (if it isn't top secret) perhaps you could give us the scoop.

My vote would be for a double-CD version of Sunflower, containing all the tracks that were recorded for that album in 1969-70. It would be fabulous, a real rival to the Beatles' white album, but of course hopelessly uncommercial to all but the fans and therefore unlikely. I don't know though... with the right hype...!!

I feel very uncomfortable that my name has appeared as the last to post on this thread for nearly 6 months! Perhaps I could restart it by asking Mark what the current plans are for recording That Lucky Old Sun?

Mark doesn't post here much anymore.

My question is about the song Surf's Up, not sure if Mark or anybody can help.

I understand that bits were recorded '66-'67.

To what extent was the brass arrangements and instrumentation complete, and who composed the backing for the track?

Or was a large part written by Carl Wilson for the album? Would it be more fair to include Carl in the writing credits, or did he simply try to reproduce the earlier sessions?

I'm fairly certain the only thing added to the 1966/67 "Surf's Up" backing track for its 1971 incarnation is the moog bass. I seem to remember reading somewhere that a little organ was overdubbed as well, but not sure of that. The piano, bass, guitar, percussion and horns are all from the original SMiLE sessions and would have been written, arranged and produced by Brian.

Note, of course, that only the first movement's backing track exists (some claim to have heard a second movment backing tracking of '66/67 vintage, but that's more of a rumor at this point). For the second movement and closing round, Brian's piano demo was used (again, the only thing added was the moog bass). If Carl added anything songwriting-wise, it could be the arrangment of the closing round which, of course, borrows heavily from Brian's vocal arrangement for "Child Is Father Of The Man". The lyrics to this portion ("A children's song...") could have come from Jack Reiley or Brian himself...or maybe were vintage lyrics from Parks.

Hi Mark, hope you're well...and I don't know if you're checking in here much, but I have a question for you all the same.

I'm still investigating and trying to understand the ins and outs of the consoles Brian used in the mid sixties and of course your console, I happened across this Engineering/Electronics resource page with a block diagram drawn up by Bill Putnam mapping out all the signal paths possible.  So what I'm trying to get now is exactly how the reverb signals were handled.

According to the diagram, the "echo sends" are keyed off the program bus switches, I know that, you explained that to me some time ago.

But here's where I need clearing up:

Presumably a maximum of three discrete reverbs could be used, right?  If need was.  And then, if you're sending a little bit of drums to the same chamber that you're sending a lot of piano to, it all just got mixed up and came out together down the same program bus?

Was it common, as far as you can tell, to not use more than one chamber on a session but still be getting more than one return?

I'm thinking in particular about something like "Good to my Baby" where it seems like there's a lot of reverb on the guitar coming back on a different track panned away from the guitar.

Anyway, just hoping to be an expert on the 610 console one day...

Got an e-mail notice saying that you'd posted....... You're correct the 610 console , and most consoles in this era , had only one reverb send on an input. In the case of the 610 consoles there were a total of three sends that were automatically selected along with the matching main output buss  (left , center, right) that a particular chl was assigned to. So a mic assigned to left (track 1) would also be assigned to reverb send 1 which would be returned to the same left buss which wet out to the 1st chl of the 3 or 4 track tapedeck. The amount of reverb on a chl was driven first by the overall chl gain control and then the individual reverb send control. So a mic could have any amount of desired reverb (or tape slapback) added to it just like today. The combination of instruments (mics) to the three tracks (starting around 65 before that it was all mono) varied from track to track somewhat although the horns almost always got their own track  which was usually track 2. Reverb and / or slap might be on 1, 2 or 3 main outputs and each required a separate device (chamber, plate or tape slap) and whatever the selection it was returned and added to the same output as the direct signal.

The console in Studio 3 at Western used unbalanced summing networks and was only capable of 3 and later 4 track output, so all the mics had to be combined to just those outputs. I don't know when that console was modified to allow 4 track outputs , but Brian never recorded to more than three tracks at a time with the live mono mix usually fed to track 4.

Hope that helps..... Let me know where I can see that article you mentioned where Putnam describes the signal path of the console....... Mark

Thanks Mark.  The block diagram of the console drawn by Putnam, I couldn't find it online anymore but I have it as a .pdf file I'd be happy to send you if you like.  It's very interesting, though I wish my knowledge of electric stuff was better.

Here's another question for you:  When did consoles start having polarity/phase flip switches on the inputs?  Have you ever come across any indication that the engineers of the pre-phase-switch era, like Britz for instance, ever came across a phase problem bad enough that couldn't be entirely solved by mic placement?  I guess it helps when you don't have 17 mics on the drums...

Oh, two more questions actually:  In the Smile Tour Book, there's a picture of Brian, opposite the beginning of the Darian interview, where he's sitting in front of what looks to be a mini, 4-input console with 610 input channels, any idea what that is?  Just an out-of-date old console?  Or to gang up inputs when they had more than 12 sources?

And last, what were they using for direct boxes in circa 65-66?  The direct guitars always sound so good.

As always, thanks for your time, Mark.

Phase switches don't really turn up until the late 70's but studios had patch cords that would reverse the phase of a signal. I still use those same cables sometimes.

The picture you mention looks like mastering or mixdown room probably at Western tho it could be United. Because of the small number of tracks (this room looks like its setup for 4 track to mono mixing ) the final mix was often done this way rather than using the larger more expensive rooms.

missed your last question. Direct boxes in that period were all custom made by the studios using various stock transformers. I have an old DI from the Record Plant in NY as well as several from Regent Sound in NYC......

I know united/ Western had their own custom DI's , but I've never seen one.

Mark

Thanks.  You've been very helpful in helping me understand how it all went down, technically, in the studio during my favorite era.

Now the only thing missing is a wide-angle shot of the wrecking crew on a Beach Boys session...and careful photo documentation of the microphones used....haha.

Mark: another question sort of relating to something I mentioned previously:

When a recording date necessitated more than the 12 inputs that the board in Western 3 (or wherever) had, have you heard what the practice was to get all the inputs in?

I was reviewing some of the lineups on Pet Sounds last night, and on something like God Only Knows, I figure:

1.  Kick
2.  Overhead
3.  percussion/blocks
4.  Sleigh Bells
5.  String Bass
6.  Fender
7.  Dano bass
8.  Piano
9.  Harpsi
10.  Carl's 12-string direct
11.  accordions
12.  French Horn
13.  horn section
14.  Strings
15.  "
16.  cello?


Something like 16 inputs.  And I know there were bigger sessions than this.  I suppose the percussion could all be to one input, but sometimes there would be disparate things like timpani and bells that would presumably need their own mics.  On Wouldn't It Be Nice I figure the intro guitars could have been ganged up onto one input, but surely most other things would need more individual control and that would preclude ganging up too much.

Just still wondering how it all went down.

Also Mark, when Hal (or whoever) was miked liked this:

(http://cache1.asset-cache.net/xc/73906801.jpg?v=1&c=NewsMaker&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19318A31BE3974C4F053B7BA3C3B6821D8F)

(http://cache1.asset-cache.net/xt/73906802.jpg?v=1&g=editorial1&s=1)


Where it's more or less just a Small Diaphragm Condenser on the whole kit, in your opinion would a cardioid capsule or omni capsule be used?  Particularly when he's playing the octoplus toms...

Also, do you recognize the mics used?

And for fun, maybe from the Dance Dance Dance session?:
(http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xt/73989286.jpg?v=1&g=editorial1&s=1)

Naw, in that last one, Al's hair is too long to be '64 (dig the sideburns!). 
Probably something more like "Loop de Loop" (which Hal played on).

Yeah, Hal looks too old, too.  It was just the first thing that came to mind where both he and Al would've been recording together.  Doesn't look like Gold Star or a United/Western deal, too "gray" or something...and it sort of looked like what I'd seen of RCA.  As if I could really tell from that narrow of a shot.

Any tips on recording timpani, Mark?  I'm not getting a sound I like.

Back the mic way away from the tympani, but then the sound of the room becomes very important. Frankly you might be better off with a good sample.

If it must be a close mic (but not too close like on a snare) try a dynamic and some reverb.

Tymps sound best with a lot of good ambiance like on "Here Today" or in a concert hall with no mic anywhere near them.

I'll give that I try and back off a bit.  The room they're in is actually pretty decent sounding, an acoustically treated band room at a college, nice and big.

Mark, here's a question that's kind of speculative, but maybe from your intense scrutiny of the discrete multitracks you can make a judgement:

I've been on a real session-tape listening kick for the past week, mostly Beach Boys of course, but also Jan and Dean and some other stuff...and I noticed that a lot of times when a piano plays by itself between takes, it sounds very much off mic.  This is only on certain songs, but it seems to be on a lot.  It's not a close miked sound.  The piano doubling the bassline in You Still Believe in Me is a good example, or the piano on Sloop John B.

Would they be letting other mics pic up the piano and not adding much piano mic?  It's not a reverb sound, it's just kind of a drier room sound.  If you want a specific example, I'll try to find a timing for you from the PS Box.

Also, speaking of YSBIN, I noticed that the track seems to be spread across 4 tracks, is that true?  It sounds like the 4th track is an overdubbed harpsichord, since it's not there on the session tape and is on the stereo backing track.  Also, when I phase out the channel it's the only thing that's really audible.

Thanks for indulging my pointless questions, Mark.

I've noticed that on "Sloop John B." as well, and I think on that song at least, it's a case of Brian blending the piano with the rhythm guitar to create a "third" instrument, if you will, a "piano/guitar" (as he has famously put it).  Neither the guitar nor the piano sound close mic'd, but they blend together in a unique way.

Mark, on "I'm Waiting for the Day" is Brian's lead vocal tripled in places?

I don't think so....... Mark

Weird, I think I have a tendency to hear more than what's really going on.  There's this one line in IWFTD in particular where the word begins with some kind of plosive and I could almost swear I hear three iterations...

Here's another somewhat strange question for you, Mark.  Don't feel compelled to answer.

I'm attempting to record "an album" here, I've started to be able to use a local college's selection of instruments which has allowed me to pursue the tonal palette I had in mind, and I've lined up people to play instruments I can't play very well for me, woodwinds, mainly.

Anyway, my equipment is kind of limited, so I'm trying to figure out how to best utilize it for the best final product.  I have this Alesis HD24, but my "consolette" is a 12-input board, with a few stereo effects returns. 

Being of a "somewhat" Beach Boys influenced bent, I tend to have similar instrumentation to 64-66 Beach Boys, and have generally, so far, ended up with about 12-tracks of instruments, give or take.  And then I'll be doing pretty extensive vocals.

So my plan is do submixes, so I can end up doing the final mix with my mixer, meaning I need to end up with up to 12 "stems".

I figure I might as well sort of exorcise my Beach Boys tendencies, so I'm thinking of sort of working as if I'm recording the basic track to a 4-track.  When I'm done with the track instruments, I'll combine that stuff to 3 or 4 open tracks within the available 24.  I'll be adding reverb at that point to the different "busses".

Assuming I want to preserve the original tracks in case I ever come into a larger console, that would leave me with 8-9 tracks for vocals.  If I did a doubled lead, and maybe left the bass vocals seperate, that would leave 4-5 tracks left.  I'd probably have to do the 4 or 5 part backing vocals first and bounce them to single tracks also.

So in the end, I'd be left with 4 stems of the track, 2 leads, 2 bass vocals, and 4 bg tracks.


Does that seem like a reasonable plan to end up with a decent final product, or can you think of a better way to do it?  I want to stay completely OTB, so I'm not going to do any importing into a DAW.

Also, is doing the final mix to DVR an OK idea?  It seems to be pretty high quality, and then I transfer the audio off the DVR onto a CD as a .wav file.

Here's a more concise one, Mark.

When Brian and his engineer friends used tape slap circa Pet Sounds era, were there specially modified mono tape machines used, or was one just commandeered and used for the purpose as needed?

I know how tape delay works, but I'm trying to work out, given the "limitations" of the control rooms of that time, how they would be controlling things like the regeneration.  Was there some mod built in to the tape machine being used as the delay to feed the signal back to the record head for the regen?  Or would they use a separate mixer?  Surely they couldn't afford to use a console input to receive the delay return?

Mark

Was scanning a kid's section for my daughter yesterday and came across Disney's Beach Party. Has bout 10 Beach Boy covers and dang if it was not produced by Mark Linett and Fred Mollin and has folks called Jeff Foskett and Darien Sahanaja doing background vocals.  (Even Pat Buchanan too, a nice twist for us folks in Tennessee) 

No real questions unless you would like to share anything regarding putting this one together; did not see it listed as a tribute album and would hate to see this one fall through the cracks (unless you would like it fall through the cracks).  Once you get past the Mickey, Minnie and Goofy intros some pretty good things going on.   Even a couple of  visual nods on the cover/insert.   

It will probably not be in my rotation for long, but I cant speak for my 5 year old.  It may be her soundtrack for this summer.
Thanks.

It was done as a Disney kids album and I hired Jeff and Darian to do some of the Bg vocals which only made sense.

Sadly it was largely ignored by Disney.

BTW see if you can find the Karoke version as it has sing-a-log tracks......

Mark

I received that as a birthday gift one year. At first I thought Here Comes Summertime was some random Beach Boys song I'd never heard before . :lol I really like the arrangement of When You Wish Upon a Star.

While I'm looking forward to the upcoming Beach Boys "U.S. Singles" CD singles box, and I'm delighted that some previously unreleased edits,mixes and versions are being included, I'm disappointed that you've opted to create an instrumental stereo mix of "Do You Wanna Dance". Yes,I'm aware that the guitar solo(as heard in the original mono mix) was a live during mono mixdown overdub, and is not available for use in a stereo remix. Like many fans, I had assumed that the vocal overdub which doubled Dennis Wilson's lead vocal was also a live during mono mixdown overdub, but an analysis of the sessions at http://www.beachboysarchives.com states that this vocal overdub is on a second stage multitrack. Apparently, that 2nd stage multitrack was overlooked by(or unavailable to) the people who copied & mixed the music for the unofficial "Sea of Tunes" CD's(I've spent over $2200 buying all the "Sea of Tunes" & "Dumb Angel" label releases).

It would seem apparent, that you could create a stereo mix of "Do You Wanna Dance" that would be musically near-identical to the original mono,excepting that you'd have to use the early, rejected guitar solo from Gold Star. After all,you've created several other stereo remixes which had to have slight musical differences to the original mono("God Only Knows","You Still Believe in Me","Wouldn't It Be Nice") due to the absence of certain live-during-mixdown overdubs. Why didn't you create a stereo remix of "Do You Wanna Dance" WITH the vocals? Now,we'll have nothing better for our homemade CD-R "Today/Summer Days" stereo two-fer than the "Sea of Tunes" mix with the single-tracked vocal,and the basic tracks mixed down too low.

By the way, as it stands now, my homemade stereo "Twofer" consists of Do You Wanna Dance(SoT)/Good to My Baby(Sot)/Don't Hurt My Little Sister(SoT)/When I Grow Up(to Be a Man)(SoT)/Help Me Ronda(SoT)                                  Dance Dance Dance(SoT)/Please Let Me Wonder(from "The Warmth of The Sun")/I'm So Young(SoT)/Kiss Me Baby(first stereo remix,From the first pressing of "Endless Harmony Soundtrack")/She Knows Me Too Well(SoT)/                         In The Back of My Mind(SoT)
The Girl From New York city(Sot)/Amusement Parks U.S.A.(Alternate Lyric & vocal,from SoT)/Then I Kissed Her(from "The Warmth of The Sun")/Salt Lake City(from "Hawthorne,Ca")/Girl Don't Tell Me(alternate vocal,from SoT)/
Help Me Rhonda(SoT)/California Girls(first stereo remix,from the first pressing of "Endless Harmony Soundtrack")/Let Him Run Wild(from "The Warmth of The Sun")/You're So Good to Me(from "The Warmth of The Sun")/
Summer Means New Love(from "Pet Sounds" DVD-Audio)/And Your Dreams Come True(from "Hawthorne,Ca.")
Note:the reason that I didn't use either of your stereo remixes of "Dance Dance Dance",is because both of your mixes bury the crucial kick drum beats at 1:16 to 1:17

I'm hoping to upgrade my homemade two-fer with your soon to be released stereo remixes of "She Knows Me Too Well" & "When I Grow Up(To Be a Man)"
Perhaps you'll get another chance to work with "Do You Wanna Dance" on a future project. I hope so.

That's an interesting way to start posting here...

I for one am glad that DYWD is track only.  Though I'd love to hear the entire mono-only catalog remixed in true stereo one day (even minus straight-to-mono overdubs), it's nice for some variation for one, and two, the SOT bootleg doesn't have a track only mix, just a basic track, then the vocal overdub, then the instrumental overdub, so I'm looking forward to hearing the track with the instrumental OD by itself, particularly Knechtel's great bass-line on the OD.

I'm just really glad we're getting extras at all, if EMI had their way they'd probably just do A and B sides and that would be that.

I'm not meaning to sound negative in my previous, first-ever post. Don't get me wrong:I've enjoyed 99.9% of Mark Linett's work with the music of Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys. While I'm new around here,I post frequently at Steve Hoffman's forums,occasionally at Brian Wilson's forums and I'm an ex-CD compiler,and was an information contributor for the now-defunct "ICE Magazine/Newsletter" for 14 years.

Hey Mark, if you check in, I've got a couple of questions for you to help my research:

During the Desper era, Sunflower and Surf's Up:

Were reverbs printed to tape most of the time?

Were there ever occasions where the drum set was spread out across more than two tracks?  I've seen a lot of the Sunflower track sheets, but not many Surf's Up ones...they all seem to have "Drums L" and "Drums R."

To your ear, in those cases, does it sound like Steve was doing a "one low overhead over the hi-hat side and one over the floor tom plus a kick mic" kind of thing?

And is there any processing on the drum tracks, like snare reverb, compression, etc?

Just interested in your observations.

Also:  How often does it sound to you like the bass guitar is D.I.-ed on Sunflower/Surf's Up?

Thanks.

Regarding processing on the snare drum...how about that killer delayed echo chamber effect on the "Disney Girls" snare?  Brian's house had an echo chamber or two set up.  Like Josh, I'm curious to know if that was printed on tape or just bused back into the board for the stereo mix?

That's exactly what I sort of had in mind, the snare on DG.

The implications of what the case is with that are interesting:  If the two-track drum mix does have the slap on it, that means the decisions as to the song's production style were made very early.  Which is neat.

Also of interest, Steve was quite adamant that they only ever used the one chamber - so I kind of wonder how he did reverb; if he ever put reverb on things during live tracking, since it was one chamber, I imagine the individual returns would have some "reverb leakage" on it, so say they were recording a basic session of drums, ukulele, harmonica, bass, and clavinet: if everything was fed to the chamber, the soloed Uke track would have the reverb of everything on it?

Forgive me for prattling on here, but I'm bored and have thoughts, a dangerous combination indeed...

I'm not quite sure why the method of recording drums is of such interest to me, but I think it's so fascinating, kind of a symbol of the radical changes happening in recording circa Sunflower.

We go from a group that just three years earlier was still recording the instrumental tracks onto three tracks--and as 16-track took over for Sunflower, the drums started to become conceptually different.

Until then, Drums were just one component of a submix on three-track, or maybe got their own mono track on an 8-track master.

On Pet Sounds, drums were recorded with two mics, one over and one in front.  It was probably the same until 1969?

But then all of a sudden there are 16 tracks, and drums are being recorded in stereo.

I was just reading an interview with Tony Visconti who was recalling the agonizing decision over recording drums during a certain project in the 16 track era, when he had to decide whether to put the kick or the snare on it's own track, and which to include on a stereo submix to tape.  He could afford only three tracks of drums.

He ended up giving the kick it's own track, by the way.

Perhaps the reason I find the Sunflower/Surf's Up drums so interesting is because of their ambiguity.

Any later and the miking schemes become obvious.  When cymbals are hard panned, toms are close and hard panned, etc.

But most of the stereo drums on Sunflower and Surf's Up are fairly subtle.  Even pretty mono-sounding.

Of course, there are tracks like Suzie C. where the toms seem pretty distinct, so perhaps they were close miked there.

But I just don't know, and the more I do know, the more I feel like I was there, which I like.

Everything else is pretty straightforward.  Like, electric guitar, you pretty much put a mic on a speaker, you know?  But with drums there are so many variables.

I wish Steve had taken precise notes for every track!

To useless knowledge!

One more question, Mark, then I'll leave you to answer or not or whatever and leave you alone for at least a few weeks:

In listening to some tracks from the time period we're (I'm?) discussing, it sounds like the bass drum is not always necessarily distributed evenly between the stereo spread.  Is that correct?

For example, in Disney Girls, the everything seems to be central, except for the floor tom hits.  In other words, If I had to guess it sounds like, if Steve put the drums on two tracks as per the usual MO, "Drums L" would be the overhead over the snare/hi-hat plus the kick, and then "Drums R" would be pretty much only the floor tom.

This seems to be true for many tracks.  Good Time is another one where it almost seems to be one track of "drum set" and another that's mainly floor tom.

Then, on that bootleg of "It's About Time" that's surfaced, that's only the drums and congas, it sounds like the kick is  more present on the floor tom side.l

What I've done when using a more minimal method recording drums to only two tracks, say with two overheads and a kick mic, is pan the left overhead left, the right overhead right, and leave the kick dead center.

But on Sunflower and Surf's Up, it seems to be more of a C-R deal than a L-C-R deal.

this is an interesting topic ...

there are many ways that they could have done this, for instance, consider the following scenario:

let's say thay wanted a specific kind of reverb/delay on a specific instrument (like the drums on "Disney Girls" for instance) but did not want this to affect the other instruments.  they could have recorded the echo (with tape, chamber, or a combination of the 2) with the drums (or even on a separate track), and left the others out of the loop by feeding just the drum track to the chamber. then they would be able to add the reverb to everything else as needed during mixdown.  they would only have "reverb leakage" if they sent many difference tracks to the chamber at once, or if there was leakage on the mics to begin with.  the limitations would be they would only be able to choose one instrument (since there was only one chamber) during the basic tracking.  if they were overdubbing, they could do this to the instruments individually as much as they wanted to. 

another possible scenario could be using several tape decks for the delays simultaneously (not sure how many they were using at a time), and then sending individual instruments to individual tape decks.  a standard open reel tape deck can be used as a delay unit without a board or modifications easily by sending the signal to the deck, switching the deck to the "monitor" position, and then taking an output from the deck back into the main board.  you can control the delay time by switching the tape speed (7.5 or 15 ips etc).  you can even rig it up to loop back into itself, creating an actual reverb (as opposed to delay), though it doesn't sound like this was done in this case.  so, the drums on "disney girls" etc could have been printed with the delay (either on the same 2 tracks as the drums or on a separate track for control during mixdown), then sent along with the other instruments to the chamber during mixdown, allowing the delay to only affect the drums.  they might have even recorded the drums dry on several different tracks, then sent individual parts to the delay or the chamber, recorded them back (delay only) on separate tracks, then made a drum sub mix to 2 track, with all of the effects printed.  the possibilities are almost endless ... i think maybe Desper is the only one that would know for sure.

maybe they only had one chamber, but did they use any other electronic reverb devices (such as a spring unit, etc)?

... this would indeed let us know how much of the sound of the track was pre-planned and how many decisions were made during mixdown.  based on the quality of the recordings, my hunch is that a lot of it was planned out ahead of time.

PS i am very interested in these answers as well ... the 67-71 Beach Boys era is the benchmark of recorded sound in my opinion.

Donny

Alan (Boyd) looked into whether there were ever instances of drum submix bounces ever done on the albums in question for me and couldn't find any evidence that that was ever done.  That doesn't meen it couldn't have happened...but it wasn't documented, or has any early tape generation shown up.  And like I said, every tracklist I've seen from Sunflower (which is just about every track) just has the two tracks of drums, or even mono.  All that is just to say, I don't think they ever did anything all that elaborate.

Steve told me that they never used EMT or Spring reverb.  They did, of course, have tape delay available to them via the Phillips machine used for, among other things, the Do it Again intro drums, and to double the live vocals.  And probably they had some tape machines around to do standard tape delay which I'm sure the DG snare is, tape-delayed.

But you're very right, the pre-planning involved in laying out some of these tracks must have been inspiring.  Bruce, by all accounts, was particularly meticulous in getting it all in order before they rolled tape.

Stephen, if you ever check in on this thread, your book just wasn't technical enough for me!  Also, I'm available to co-write your ultra-technical textbook that you don't know about.

When are you going to write your tell-all, Mark?  I know you've got stories to tell.

do you know what make and model of Phillips machine they used?  was it a consumer deck with RCA ins/outs or a pro deck?

i've been recording in a beach boys (circa mid-late 60s) inspired setup and have been slowly accumulating equipment, including a Scully 280 4 track.  I recently picked up a vintage shure 545 mic and it sounds incredible.

so if no drum sub-mixes were done (a good idea as it would have used an extra generation of tape), this means that the 1 and 2-track mixes were mixed "live" or prior to recording.  do any of the multi-tracks have separate echo tracks?  if so, then there a possibility that the echos were done after recording but prior to mixdown.   i don't fully understand the capabilities of the boards that they were using, but there are ways on vintage boards to rig it up for several different sends/returns, depending on how many busses it had.

Hmm...I'm fairly sure the Phillips units were custom made.  They were pretty neat, though, I think there was something like 6-8 tape speeds and 5 adjustable repro heads.

I have a modern 545 which I'm quite a fan of.  Sounds slightly better than a 57.

As far as I can tell, they didn't start giving reverbs or echos their own tracks until they went to 24-track.  There's plenty of that kind of stuff notated for Love You, POB, etc.

when did they go to 24 track? mid 70s?  also, what decks were they using in the late 60s? was the 8 track an Ampex and did it run @ 15 ips?  I would think that Sunflower would be the 1st album done at 30 ips and some of those tracks were bounced from 15 ips 8 track tapes?

do you or anyone else know what type of tapes the beach boys recorded on over the years (as in brand and forumlation)?  I would suspect Scotch 206 or Ampex 406 from late 60s through mid 70s, then scotch 250 or ampex 456.  I have no idea what they would have used prior to 1969 though.  I would also be interested in finding out if the final mixes are on a different type of tape than the multi-track masters.

thanks

According to Steve, the multis were done at 30ips and the two track masters were both 30 and 15 under his tenure.

Steve seemed to like 3M tape machines, but I don't know exactly all what was used over the course of the late 60s.

Desper liked AGFA tape, but I saw plenty of Scotch...some Ampex, I don't remember everything.  Boyd would be the one to ask, and of course this thread's eponym would know about that too.

They seemed to go 24 in the 73-74 era, and were certainly all established in 24-track by 15 Big Ones, but I remember seeing some 24-track sheets pre-that album.

awesome ... thanks for the info.  i tried in vain to find info on the various types of tapes used by the group and there is none out there ... kind of a lost art i guess

I agree with Desper about the AGFA; Quantegy/Ampex, 3M/Scotch, and everybody else are out of the tape business, but the AGFA formulations are still around (under the name RMGI), one of only 2 companies still producing tape and the only one that still uses the classic formula.

do you know if FRIENDS was recorded at 30 ips?  so, 20/20 and the 8-track songs from SUNFLOWER were recorded at 30 ips on the multi-tracks?  I know the Beatles used 15 ips, even in '69 (sometimes even 7.5 ips).

SMILEY SMILE and WILD HONEY were 8 track 15 ips, right?

Mark -

The She Knows Me remix from the new box set gave me chills.  Well done!

So with new stereo remixes of When I Grow Up and She Knows Me To Well, how close are we to a Stereo "Today"?

Using official material, not that close.  Summer Days is closer,

"Do You Wanna Dance?" and "Good to My Baby" are is stereo track only,

"When I Grow Up","Dance, Dance, Dance","Please Let Me Wonder","Kiss Me, Baby","She Knows Me Too Well" have the full remix treatment, leaving "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", "Help Me, Ronda", "I'm So Young", "In the Back of My Mind", and, uh, Bull Session.

   

Using unofficial stereo mixes, one can make a complete (although somewhat convoluted) Today/Summer Days stereo twofer.

In fact, just after I downloaded She Knows Me and When I Grow Up from Amazon.com (best $1.98 I ever spent in my life!), I was inspired to construct my own stereo version of T/SDSN.

Where there weren't official mixes I used various fanmixes.  I dropped Bull Session and I'm Bugged and substituted a stereo fanmixed Little Girl I Once Knew and the Graduation Day bonus track  (remember, I said this was MY version).

The only trouble I had was with Girl Don't Tell Me.  Every stereo attempt I've heard has serious issues.  So I just stuck with the original mono mix on that one.

Even though the sound quality varies throughout, it's a fun listen.

"Girl Don't Tell Me" had several live during mixdown overdubs on the original mono mix. A matching stereo mix isn't possible.

I've got a question about the new mix of When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) on the singles box.  There were two vocal overdubs for the song, so why aren't the vocals spread out to stereo in this new mix?  Was this purely a mixing choice on your part, or were there elements missing that made such a mix impossible?

Same question for the remix of All Summer Long on the recent WOTS comp.

So you don't mind all the missing original guitar parts after the solo? Major omission. IMO, either Mr. Linett should not have remixed it, "flown in" the parts from the original mono (like he did for Mike's vocal in the bridge of "Wouldn't It Be Nice"), or let us know that there were going to be significant elements missing from the new remix of this song (be it here, beforehand, or in the notes on the box set)...

I wonder if this was a factor in not including this song on "The Warmth Of The Sun" compilation?

Warning...we have just entered the Historical Accuracy Zone.  Fasten your seatbelts, it could be a bumpy ride...

Another question that I'd like to ask Mark Linett(if he ever returns to this board) is why, whenever he mixes down any previously unreleased 1960's Beach Boys live recordings, he always mixes them down in mono or near-mono,even though they're 3-track & 4-track recordings, some of which have already been bootlegged in stereo.

I don't mind at all.  They're still there in the mono.  I think the producers of these things have been clear from the beginning: the new remixes are just a different way of presenting the canon versions.  To me, it's not about replicating anything, it's about hearing it in a new way.  For instance, on She Knows Me, hearing the vocals separated out really spoke to me.  The clarity of Mike's voice, in particular was very moving.


I'm clearly not Mark, but since he's lurking quietly as of late, I'll put forth my two cents.

All Summer Long and When I Grow Up are similar in terms of what's on the tape to mix from.  They both have the basic, an instrumental OD, and then the vocal overdubs.  It's not that much to work with, really.  So the remixer has a choice.  One can split the voices out wide and leave a narrower mix of the track, or swap that arrangement.  I don't think alternating track vox track vox would work, balance-wise.

So in those cases, Mark chose to leave the vocals narrower and present the track wider.  While I would have loved to hear the WIGU vocals wide (I'll leave that for the stereo vocal only version?  Pretty please!?) this way you get to hear some other cool things split, like Al's precise double-tracked fender bass.  You hear how the hi-hat was an OD and not part of Dennis original part on the traps.  You know, it's just a choice that Mark has to make with each new situation.


Not sure what boots you're referring to, but according to my notes, the live stuff up through the 4-track era tended to pretty much be one track for all the vocals, one for the instruments, and one for crowd noise.  Later, like at the Michigan State shows, they gave the drums a track.

That's not the kind of set-up that I would spread wide.  Separating the vocals and the instruments would sounds strange, like a bad Beatles stereo mix.  I think you almost have to put the vocals and instruments close in the center.  But unless you have two tracks of audience, you don't want to put that wide either because then it sounds unbalanced.

The track lineup just lends itself to a narrow mix if you're going for a somewhat normal sounding mix.  If you want to isolate things just to hear them, then yeah, you could spread them out, and maybe the boots do that.  But imo a pro mix working with that kind of track layout has to be narrow.

Just my .02.

I'm refering to the "Sea of Tunes" unofficial releases of the Chicago 1965 & Michigan 1966 concert material. Those mixes sound GREAT!

Mark

Why was the LP mix of "California Girls" used on the new box set? It kind of ruins the whole idea of a SINGLES collection, doesn't it? Is everything else on the box the correct single mix?

Some great links here -- Thank you for all this great reading!!  :-)

- Chris

Hey Mark, I wonder if you can give info on this. I saw you worked on some tracks of the "Good rockin' tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records"-album, including Elton John's version of "Whole lotta shakin' goin' on" produced by Andy Paley. IIRC this was a mono recording, probably trying to get the old feeling. Paley did the same on Jerry Lee Lewis' "Young blood"-album from '95. Do you know if he and Brian wanted the unfinished Beach Boys-album also in mono?

Hello Mark,

We are having a discussion about how fragmentary Smile songs such as Worms might be mixed for presentation on a hypothetical "Smile Box-set". My question is: Do you think it would be possible, with your expertise, to mix the existing 66/67 sessions into a seamless facsimile of BWPS? I'm not sure if you've heard any of the boots that do this (there is a Purple Chick one doing the rounds), but they tend to have awkward spots where the original sessions just don't quite fit the new sequence properly - the transition from Song For Children to Child for example, or the transition from Windchimes into Fire. Given that you have created very seamless mixes of fragmentary Smile songs for the GV Box, and as you worked on BWPS, I thought you might be the best person to answer this question!

Many thanks in advance for any opinions you might have on this.

Not sure if Mark's still alive...but I thought I should also praise when warranted, if I'm going to post criticism ("She Knows Me Too Well" remix).

I think the new remix of "When I Grow Up To Be A Man" came out great, and could easily be substituted for the original mono on future compilations (since that is how the BB camp likes things now anyway, but also because it deserves a wider audience than the 'Singles Collection' box.

I'm surprised it wasn't done for 'Sounds Of Summer'. Maybe there were still missing elements back then? It doesn't sound like anything is missing now, to me anyway.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

If something is "missing", it must be inaudible to anyone but the "hardest of the hardcore".

Anyway, thanks Mark!

Good luck on getting an answer to that one.

Not sure if you still visit these shores - and I'm fairly sure you've already answered this (to my satisfaction anyhow), but that argument over whether the original GOK ending using Bruce's bvs being edited into the video version of Brian's 07 version has once again resurfaced.  I'm assuming you're the fountain of all knowledge on the matter, so, once and for all, please could you tell everyone if the video version of Brian's 07 GOK uses the ending from the original featuring Bruce or is it indeed all the 07 song?

Thanks.

Apparently, this is the link:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bNMnTmSbQn4

Mark answered this several times already on this thread. 

44       Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: New Brian version of God only knows       on: February 11, 2007, 03:33:37 PM
Quote from: SloopJohnB on February 11, 2007, 02:05:21 PM
It's DEFINITELY Bruce in the last two seconds of the song. Maybe not in the "final product" that'll be released, but on the soundclip featured in this video, it IS Bruce.

I knew this "discussion" woldn't die just because I posted the facts.

Believe whatever you like, but that is not Bruce nor is the original recording used for any part of the track. To do so would cause all sorts of legal issues and there is no reason to use it anyway. This is meant to be a new recording by Brian of GOK.  If memory serves it's Probyn who sings the answer line at the end of the song.

Mark Linett

Reply Reply with quote Notify of replies
45     Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: New Brian version of God only knows    on: February 11, 2007, 12:20:10 PM
To lay these rumours to rest, this is a 100% new recording of GOK performed by Brian and his band. 

Mark Linett

He didn't answer anything. We already know Bruce isn't on the actual new track that's on the CD. The question is whether or not the Beach Boys 1966 Pet Sounds recording of God Only Knows was featured in the last few seconds of that video clip. Mark answered another question entirely.

And one wonders why AGD quit the board.  Mark answered the question as it was the video that brought up the whole thing anyway.  Dead subject.

It's not a dead subject. None of the higher-ups are actually commenting on the video, they're commenting on the track.

Mark, I always wondered. Was this tape just a sample or all that your could (at that time) find of the Smile tracks in the vaults?

(http://www.vigotone.com/images/vigo110-111smiletapememo.gif)

And what do the two asterisks mean (next to H&V and Barnyard?)  ?

The two things that stick out to me is 1) At :56 the time of "She's Goin' Bald" is about the same as "He Gives Speeches", and, 2) Is there any significance to having "Been Way To Long" on a SMiLE sessions comp? There is a 1:46 version floating around.

She's Goin' IS He Gives Speeches. And the Been Way Too Long IS the version on that is on the 1989 Japanese SMILE boot. WOW. That was 20 years ago. Holy crap!

I  have seen in interviews that TLOS was deliberately produced to have a dry less reverberent sound as this seems to be the order of the day on modern records...I am currently studying the very issue of reverb in record production and wonder if Mark (or anybody) can point me towards where I may find more info on this particular trend.  Would be very grateful :).

Cheers :)

You ask for comments on this subject from anyone.  Please see my comment on my own thread.  ~Stephen W. Desper

Mark:

I just came across an interview/article you did for EQ magazine back in '96, which, for some reason, I heretofore had not seen.  It's about remixing Pet Sounds - and if you had referred me to it a few years ago you could have saved yourself from answering many of my pesky questions on here.

But reading this article also left me wanting more, so I have a couple of new pesky questions for you based on what I read in this 13 year old article:

In it, you say:

"The Studio 3 board had 12 inputs (Linett’s board has 14). “For a big band date that would have not been enough, so they had all sorts of outboard stuff to compensate - even the talkback was outboard,” says Linett."

I thought that was interesting, the talkback being an outboard unit.  Could you describe that?  Would that be a little box with a mic and a button?  Where was that plugged in?  I always assumed Putnam had included some sort of post-input patch point that fed the studio monitors.  Also, what other kinds of outboard stuff are you talking about?  Small consolettes?  I'm very interested in this, I always have assumed that things had to be combined for some of the larger Beach Boys sessions.

You also said:
The bass would often be milked with one of the [RCA] 77’s

Did you mean Fender (amp) or String bass there?

Also, regarding reverb and slap, do you know the preferred effects order there?  Was it signal -> chamber -> slap -> compressor -> tape machine?  Or did it hit the tape slap before the chamber?

Thanks for your input on this kind of stuff over the years, Mark - it does mean a lot to me, for some reason, to know about studio arcana.

Also Mark, thought you'd like to see this if you haven't already:

http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2008/november/analog.html (http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2008/november/analog.html)

I assume that console might have been used for some of the late 60s Beach Boys mixing sessions at Heider's?

I believe this was a remote console for live recording. By the time Heider built his studios I believe that the consoles were solidstate...... Mark

Thanks Mark.

Has Universal Audio ever contacted you about looking at your Western Console?  I read elsewhere on their site that they were interested in tracking down as many original Putnam consoles as they could and documenting them.


I know they're different effects, which is why I wondered if there was a preferred order.  I would assume you would most likely put the tape delay first, and send that to Chamber/EMT/Spring reverb, whatever reverb they used for the particular track.  It was interesting, in that video, they use the Cooper Time Cube, that UREI device that is used only for predelay and uses a hose to delay the signal.  That came out in 1970, I think.


I just had in mind "God Only Knows" actually, where it seems like the instrumentation might be pushing 12-14...

drums, percussion, three basses, Carl's guitar direct from the booth, harpsichord, piano, the flute/winds section, it sounds like Alan had his own mic for the French Horn, accordions, and the string section - that would be 13 assuming the strings got only one mic.  I guess that's not too bad, actually.

Mark:

Finally got a chance to buy Summer Love Songs today and I have to say: I was floored by the "Why Do Fools" mix.  Very nice work.  It's one of those mixes that is so revealing that you can't believe it's the same recording.  The presence and punch of Mike's bass "dmm-op" vocals in stereo...that stuff is why I love the Beach Boys so much.  Thanks for putting that together, and of course the other new mixes too.

You're quite welcome. It was such an amazing revelation to hear these sessions especially WDFFIL which is one of Brian's earliest using the "Wrecking Crew" . Now if we could only find those other 5 reels........ Mark

Please tell me you are hot on the trail of those reels and are about to unvail  all of the BB albums as Two-fers of original BW mono mixes and your new stereo mixes!

Mark, what was the track situation with WDFFIL?  Clearly there are a least two tracks of vocals and two of the track.  Did you have to sync tracks from 3-track two tapes or was this on 4-track?

3 track w. the basic track plus one overdub on it with the first vocal dubbed down to a 2nd 3 track. So we synced the two three tracks to end up with all 4 tracks to mix from.

Four track didn't arrive till late 65 and not till 66 at Goldstar.......

Thanks.  That's what I figured would be the case but I wanted to make sure.  That would explain the extreme clarity of the remix with some tracks at least two generations better than the mono master.  I think the remix shows as good as anything the evolutionary link between Early Beach Boys, Spector-influenced Brian productions, and the transition into Pet Sounds.  To me, WDFFIL remixed sounds a lot like something off Summer Days, the sound of the horns especially.  I think it sheds light on where Summer Days "came from" if that makes sense.

Anyway... 

Oh, and that "run out groove" special treat after "Girls on the Beach" is the most tantalizing...my god!

yes we know can present an acapaella version of  the song with a single Brian lead....... same for Pom Pom Playgirl and In the Parkin Lot btw...

Just wondering... you mention two different reels making up Why Do Fools Fall In Love... how many different reels were recovered from that gentleman who had them stashed away?

Mark,

I read an article/interview about you and your studio (YPoM) on TapeOp where according to Larry Crane (and I may be wrong) is where you do all your work. Is this the studio that you have done ALL your Beach Boy work at? Or do the record companies have you mix stuff in other studios? (Specifically the Beach Boys mixes) Also, is the equipment list in your website always updated or is it outdated? Lastly, what toys have you played with recently that you really enjoy and always (or will always) use for your mixes/projects?

Thanks!

Whether there's any more "Shut Down Vol.2" reels out there somewhere, do you believe that there are any further Beach Boys 1960's multitracks held privately by collectors?

I don't honestly know. I hope there are  and if so, I would love to hear from those collectors so we could make the music available to everyone and do do without causing any "problems" for those with the tapes..... Mark

Hi Mark - no one else seems to know about this and the thread on the item itself has dropped away so I'll ask you...

Do you know anything about this internet-only release "That Lucky Old Sun - the AOL Sessions"?  Were you involved in that?  It's available for download but neither the Capitol Records site or Brian's site mentions it at all.  Obviously I don't expect you to know the marketing aspects of it, but: Can you provide any insight on what the idea was with doing that, an d who decided to put it out?

The whole thing seems such a curiosity, and the silence about its origins so deafening, that I'm intrigued enough to ask.

By the way, very nice job on the live mix of the NPR broadcast of TLOS from 12/08 - that is still one of my favorite streams.

This download is from the AOL session that Brian filmed last fall which was on the AOL website as a stream at that time (I assume its gone now) I did the mix and recall it was a really nice performance that we filmed  at the AOL studios in LA.

Hope that helps..... and thanks for the nice comment about the NPR show of TLOS. I think that show was particularly outstanding.

Mark

Thanks Mark for the quick reply.  That does answer my question.  For whatever reason I did not know about the filming and posting of the AOL session at the time, so now the existence of the download  makes sense.   

Aloha Mark - I asked this on the ""Sound of Free" vs. "Lady (Fallin in Love)"  thread.

Did you mix the new version of  "Lady (Fallin in Love)" ?

Was "Sound of Free" on the same reel(s)? Did that get a new mix as well?  And if so, for what?

Were there other songs on these multi-track tapes?

"Fallin In Love" was newly mixed for the "Summer Love Songs" CD. I don't believe any other songs were on the same reel..... Mark

Hey Mark, gotta question.

It has been said (by someone whom we both know but I won't bring it up here) that the original master for Pet Sounds (the one used for the original CD and that you were able to recover a safety digital copy of in 2006 for the 40th boxset) was, even back in 1987 - 1990 pretty ratty and not really useable as there were drop out and oxide peel, etc. Is that really true. Because the version you put together in 1990 (aside from the NO-NOISE that you and us really don't like) sounds pretty good to me. I know that the copy of the LP master from New York was used for WIBN, but did you have to use it for other tracks as well. Just wondering.

And as I said in another thread here, it still surprised me that even after you mastered PS in 1987 and the correct version of WIBN was used on a Canadian comp, Capitol over here kept using the rough mix that was on MADE IN USA. Hell, they used it on the promo disk to announce the two-fers.

Bob

Mahalos Mark!

Hey Mark, if you're around....


Who decides what tracks get remixed for the latest comps? Do the brass send down a list? Or is it based on what tapes you have?

Thanks!

Hi Mark, a quick question if you're able to answer:

Does the piano/vocal demo of Surf's Up exist as a multitrack, and if so is Brian's double tracked vocal on seperate tracks to the piano? 

Yes and yes........ tho I don't recall if the first vocal track was recorded at the same time as the piano (likely)

The song selections are usually made first and then if we don't have a stereo mix and one is possible we will usually do it. The new mixes of WDFFIL and Don't Worry Baby were done for Summer Love Songs because we had just found the 3 reels from the Shut Down Vol 2 album this year. Had they been found early last year the mixes would have been done for the singles box........ Hope that helps.....

Thanks very much for the reply Mark.  Much appreciated.

That does, thank you!

Is there any chance that The Beach Boys could ever start to make use of their substantial collection of concert recordings, perhaps to create a box set of concert recordings? For most 1963-1970 concert recordings, the group would tape an afternoon & evening show with identical or largely overlapping set lists, so that with the unpredictable nature of the group's performances and 1960's recording equipment, that the group would(hopefully) get one acceptable performance  & recording of each song. Some notable concert recordings of that era include Sacramento '63(unbootlegged and without Brian), Sacramento 1964(this time undoctored and with the real live versions of "Fun Fun Fun" & "I Get Around"), Chicago 1965, Michigan State 1966, Hawaii 1967, late 1967 "Wild Honey"-era mono soundboard tapes, Big Sur 1970 and, perhaps Swedish Radio 1964. My idea would be to create an ideal composite concert from each pair of recordings(afternoon/evening). For all we know, there could be other professionally recorded shows that are not yet known to us fans.

While I'm at it asking Mark questions, I'd like to know, can any songs from the debut album sessions other than "County Fair", "Summertime Blues", "Cuckoo Clock" & "Heads You Win, Tails I Lose" be mixed for stereo? As you know, we have stereo mixes of those four songs from unofficial "Sea of Tunes" releases.
                                              As for the pre-Capitol "Morgan" recordings(including "Surfin' "), it was claimed(at the time of the DCC "Lost & Found" CD) that the compilers of that CD CHOSE to present the songs in mono sound, and that the "Morgan" recordings COULD be presented in stereo, albeit crude stereo with the vocals on one side and the instruments on the other side.

Hey Mark,
Just one question from engineer to engineer. ;D What kind of technique and equipment do you use making hi-res digital safety copies of the analogue tapes? You can go into detail if you like.

Best,
Scotty

Much of the library has now been backed up to Pro-tools at 88.2 k/ 24 bit through mostly Apogee converters.  Mark

Mark,
           Usually every summer Capitol releases a Beach Boys CD compilation, and you usually sneak in a few remixes or rarities for the collectors. Does Capitol have any Beach Boys product planned for this summer, or does the rumored imminent demise of EMI mean that there won't be any Beach Boys CD's this year?

Hi, Mark, I just picked up the new Apples in Stereo album, "Travellers in Time and Space," and was somewhat surprised to see you, Darian Sahanaja, and Probyn Gregory thanked in the credits, despite not being named as having participated in the album in any way. Any idea what that's about?

Hi Mark, i am wondering if you can answer a question about tape delays.  are you aware if the group more often used tape delay going back into itself (like a feedback loop or echo) or if it was a shorter "slap back" type effect the guys were after more often?

Hi Mark,

You are credited as recording and mixing engineer on "In My Car" from the Still Cruisin' album (one of my BB guilty pleasures). I'm curious to know what that session was like if you have any memories of it. Was Landy actually producing the sessions or was Brian calling the shots while Landy just happened to be in the room? I find this song to be a great BW tune in musical terms. Lyrically, one could classify it as another throwaway car song but it has its moments for sure.

Also, according to the liners, Brian and you mixed it together. Did he actually have his hands on faders or did he just tell you what he wanted to hear and let you fiddle with it?

Thanks.

Hi Mark

When you remaster Beach Boys material do you use digital mastering tools. If so what software do you use?

Hi Mark
Are you working now on some BBs 50th anniversary project?
Don't need to tell what project, simply if you're working on it yes or no.
Thanks

Obviously, if Mark Linett Is working on any further Beach Boys product, he's prohibited from talking about it, but let's put it this way: if we see no Beach Boys archival projects in 2011(50th Anniversary of "Surfin' ", the group's first single) or 2012(50th Anniversary of the group's first Capitol album), then it's safe to say that there won't be any further Beach Boys archival product. At that point, when Mark's gig with The Beach Boys will have(apparently) ended, then he'll have nothing to lose by telling us who made the "no more archival product" decision. Rhino compiler Andrew Sandoval was under a similar "gag order", while Rhino "suits" agonised for a few years over whether to resume Monkees archival activity(though ultimately, Monkees archival activity DID resume, albeit through pricey mail-order box sets)
                               Beach Boys unreleased vault tapes DO have a certain amount of commercial/monetary value, albeit less as each year goes by. While middle-aged 1960's & 1970's Beach Boys fans are still living and breathing on this planet and buying music on Compact Discs, then Brother & Capitol might as well make some money off those tapes. Or maybe Brian Wilson & Mike Love's live performing careers bring them so much money that they don't really need the additional artist royalties & publishing royalties that they would receive from these archival CD's.

Go on Mark, throw us a bone!

Well, at least, now(in February 2010), we now know why Mark has been mostly absent here for a while, and why he hasn't revealed if he's working on any future Beach Boys archival projects. As we now know, he IS working on archival projects. Our days of collecting Beach Boys CD product isn't coming to an end, after all. I breathe a sigh of relief.

UPDATE: No sigh of relief after all, since "Smile" just went back into the limbo where it has been for 43 years.

Mark Linnett-

Just sending a quick SSMB "Thank You" your way for doing all the work on the SMiLE sessions and whatever could be done to help get this music out there...I am not a Beach Boys expert, just a real fan...this SMiLE release is a moment of a lifeime... Cheers!

 ;D :banana :ahh :tm :brian :happydance :happydance   (Happy Dance!)

Our dear friend, Leslie Nielsen, puts it better than I ever could.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmHeP9Sve48

 ;D

Mr. Linett-
Since Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains from the box set are now out, are you able to comment on these particular edits?

Of particular interest are:
- the melting strings at the tail of H&V
- the extended fade on GV
- the absence of the "tape explosion" and the theremin on H&V
- the backing during the H&V chorus: "Smiley" organ vs. multilayered bass/tambourine/keyboards

I understand if you're legally obligated not to say anything yet; I'm just asking in the event you're able to.

By the way, these mixes sound fantastic. Anxiously awaiting the finished set!

-Onkster

Good questions

I wonder when he's allowed back on the internet?  ;D

Well, he showed on the Hoffman Board last weekend, but only made a couple posts. You know if shows in here he is going to be inundated with questions. Can't blame him for laying low.

(http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/389863_310466695642499_100000375137454_1002638_905029451_n.jpg)

Mark,

We have all seen this cassette inlay card for years. My questions about it are:

1.) Where were you allowed to look for the SMiLE tracks (given the few that are listed).

2.) I know Andy Paley helped you, but, was there really momentum at the time to actually put a SMiLE CD out, or just to kind of inventory the tapes.

Thanks in advance!

PS-Thanks again for all of your hard work pulling all of the boxsets together and mastering them with alot of care. They have all been wonderful to listen to over the years!

Bob Flory

Hello Mark,

Many thanks for all the hard work you and Alan Boyd did in putting together the MIC boxed set. It's a real treat to hear previously unreleased material such as Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again, Where Is She, Meant For You alternate version etc. and also some of the 'new' mixes - Do It Again a particular favourite of mine. Then there's the live stuff ... Ultimately though the sequencing is one of the highlights for me. There's a beautiful flow to the whole thing which makes it the archetypal Beach Boys sampler.

Of specific interest to me was the I Believe In Miracles vocal snippet. A version had been circulating with this part edited on to sections from Can't Wait Too Long. As I understand it this edit was made by you in the 80s - is that correct? If so, could you please shed some light on Miracles' relationship with CWTL? It certainly fits musically on the booted edit. Did you put the pieces together because Miracles is an early snippet of what would grow into CWTL, perhaps you based it on a vintage Brian edit, or just for no other reason than the sections go well together?

Any info much appreciated!

Hello Mark,

I have a really quick question to ask you, I noticed that on MIC that Fun,Fun,Fun and Warmth of the Sun are better Stereo Mixes than what we had from the 1963 and 1964 Chuck Britz Mixes, Stereo Backing Track for Fun,Fun,Fun and Stereo Background Vocals for Warmth of The Sun. When did you and Alan come into possession of the original Multi-Tracks for these songs and how, because they have been missing for years.

Mark, after exhausting my ears listening to the Smile Sessions for a few years now, I went back and really listened to Brian Wilson Presents Smile. I really gotta congratulate you on the engineering job you did on that album. It sounds better, while still retaining that vintage feel.

Hey Mark:

Great job in the movie. Don’t know if you knew Chuck Britz, but having worked with him I can tell you that you captured his working personality quite well. Also saw in credits that you were involved with the superb soundtrack of the movie. Especially liked the unusual use of the surround speakers for the “internal thinking” sequences of Brian. Also admired the several creative seques of moving from one time line to the next using reverb and other bridging sounds. Well done man! You were the perfect pick to play the part of the great Chuck Britz and bring acknowledgment to all the engineers who worked with Brian over the years. ~Stephen W. Desper 

Thanks Stephen. That means a lot coming from you. I met Chuck a few times when we were doing the GV box. Great guy. I asked him why he. Had quit engineering records at such an early age. His response was " Mark I couldn't stand all that overdubbing"

Btw I was initially hired to provide all the original sessions and tracks for use in the film and to oversee the creation of the studio scenes. I must give praise  to the set and prop people who were able to make Western Studio 3 look almost exactly as it did in 1966.

My playing Chuck was a decision made by the director to have an engineer play the part rather than having me teach someone how to act like an engineer. Made sense since they hired musicians to play the Wrecking Crew.

Having worked with Brian for over 25 years I guess I had rehearsed the part enough. It was a unique and fun experience, that I would gladly repeat if I got the chance.

Mark

Mark, there would be none better than you to play Chuck Britz in this film, in this fan's and I'm sure most if not all other fans' opinions too. Wonderful work. And awesome to see your Bill Putnam console in all its glory. It felt like a time machine looking at those scenes.

Thanks. It was a very interesting experience, and people I haven't heard from in years have been getting in touch to  praise the film and my small role in it.

And I don't think I have ever worked with a nicer group of people .

Needless to say Chuck is one of my heroes and someone who thru his work made me want to be a recording engineer in the first place.

I wish he were here along with some of the other greats, like Larry Levine and Stan Ross who figured into the making of so many great records, sculpting the sound that had me a kid of 12 fascinated by what came out of those 45 rpm singles i heard on the radio and bought at the local tv repair shop. I don't know that my work could ever equal what was created on daily basis at Western Goldstar, Sunset and so many other studios in Los Angeles in the 60's , but it has been fun just the same.

Mark

Your work in preserving and presenting all of those amazing sessions and getting that incredible music to us fans for several decades would, I'm sure, put a smile on the faces of Chuck, Larry, and Stan. You've been keeping the torch lit and passing their legacy on to new generations, ensuring many more smiles from this music for years to come. And all those tapes you've preserved and released have influenced many fans like me to go back and study the work of Chuck, Larry, Stan, and all others who were a part of recording them. Your work is and will always be very much appreciated!

To see a visual depiction in 2015 of a 1966 Pet Sounds session play out on the big screen, and done with such respect and attention to the smallest details...beyond overwhelming.  :)

Mark...I see that you're 'about the place' and as a long time fan [1963] of the Boys and Brian I just wanted to THANK you and Alan for all of the sensationally time consuming work you and Alan put in over the past many, many years to provide us all with MORE of what we love...namely Beach Boys music.  I had some correspondence with Alan a few years back and thanked him at THAT time...pre Smile and Made in California.

Anyway.  I really appreciate what you've done and I hope that it was ALL worth it to you.  It certainly paid dividends for the rest of us.

Thanks a LOT.  :hat

Lee Marshall 

The Putnam console...  ;D

In terms of film props, that UA console in my eyes is on the level of Rosebud.  :)

Mark,

Let me add my kudos on the job you did in the film.  I could watch 2 hours of just that portion of the movie...

Are you able to comment on what changes had to be made to the appearance of Western 3 in order to turn back the clock, and do you know if EastWest is going to leave that vintage look in place?

Lee

Mark, thanks for your work in the movie AND on the music. Love the stereo mixes.

It was transformed just for the film, and was back to "normal" a day after we finished shooting. The large Trident console in the control room was covered with a white formic top whhich amazingly made it look the same as it did in 66 when the Putnam tube console sat on a large white table top. We removed all the current outboard gear , and brought in the period console and tape decks . The set people rebuilt the back wall of the control room and also the lower part of the walls in the studio

I think this film finally made some of the stereo mixes finally grow on me.  Seeing them with their respective scenes really was revelatory.  The film just came out so perfectly, I've seen it seven times and I'm enamored with it.

Might there be any news on the soundtrack/score front? 

Awesome job in Love & Mercy Mark! I really appreciate the attention to authenticity by Pohlad and company, and having you in it just made it that much more special. And a big thanks to you for your great work with the music of the Beach Boys!

Hi Mark,

I saw a recent comment you made (I think?) on Amazon about a 'likely' release of Pet Sounds in 2016. Do you have any insight about if that will be the previously announced Blu-ray Audio disc? Or might we possibly see a deluxe re-issue of The Pet Sounds Sessions?

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1MUNJYC3UGU2P/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000G03Q2S&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=5174&store=music#wasThisHelpful

Sorry, just fishing for answers. :)

Thanks,
Jason

Pet Sounds in stereo is a revelation.  Great depth, dimension, and clarity.  The wonderful and well placed instrumentation is matched perfectly with the unsurpassed vocals that mesh so consistently with the always authentic lyrics that sync precisely with the raw and unfiltered emotions that flow seamlessly with the courageous transparency of Brian Wilson in this great work of art.   God only knows.

Mark??

Could the stereo treatment be given to Smile like with Pet Sounds? Thanks for your mixes.

Mark Linett did an EXCELLENT job creating the stereo for Pet Sounds.  Unfortunately, there are some who think that the stereo Pet Sounds is overly compressed...and that the voices are too loud and upfront in the mix.  I think that is PURE nonsense.  I even think Mr. Linett might have stopped posting here... because someone posted a link to the Amazon.com reviews here, where complaints about the stereo Pet Sounds were expressed.  My thing is THIS:  There will ALWAYS be unenlightened naysayers and critics.  Who are either mono "purists" or just don't know what they're talking about.  This one thing I DO know...that the stereo Pet Sounds sounds GREAT to me.  And is SO much better than the mono Pet Sounds. 

.

Why would Mr. Linett stop posting *here* if the complaints were expressed in *Amazon*? I'm sure he's okay with fan reviews either way.
Many prefer mono to go with orig.idea, what Brian envisioned. I compared mono & stereo Pet Sounds - to me, the album sounds great in stereo. Except "You still believe in me", somehow the stereo didn't transform well to this one.

If you go back a page or so...you'll see the Amazon.com link posted.  I don't know, maybe he stopped posting here...because someone here...chose to link the Amazon.com reviews?  I really don't know.

I can see why someone like Steve Desper probably wont do remixes and get involved in this side of it also, because of people saying
this or that, being a critic and 'its not as good as' blah blah.  I think a lot of people forget the whole effort of presenting 'Pet Sounds'
in stereo.  It was to show the more of the intricacies and beauty of Brian's masterpiece in another 'dimension'.  I don't believe they
set out to outdo or 'make it better' than what the original mix has become so famously for.  They were working in the analog relm,
no pro tools, and sequencing things with what they had.  This whole concept of opening up the doors on the album is what the
whole 'pet sounds' session box was all about in the first place, getting a glimpse of how Brian was such a genius of putting this stuff
together, hence the breakdown of all the parts, and yes, restructuring what a stereo mix 'may' have sounded like had Brian approached
his masterpiece that way.  I love the stereo, as you get to filter the instrumentation and hear things that get covered or misheard
in the mono.  I don't think it is better, but I still enjoy it, considering it was not designed to be in stereo in the first place.
The mono will be the definite version that will go down in the books, as this was 'Pet Sounds' as it was released in 66.

My stereo "Pet Sounds" states, either on the front or back cover or the liner notes, if I'm remembering correctly, that Brian Wilson approved the Stereo Version.

I can't remember if it states that he "supervised" the Stereo Version.  But it states, something to the effect...that he approved the Stereo Version.

I think, ultimately, the Stereo Version will be the Definitive..."Go To" Pet Sounds.

Brian was deaf in one ear.  This COULD have been a factor...affecting his Pet Sounds "Intentions"...

I'm sure he's very pleased with the stereo.

Or he wouldn't have let it be released.

Yes, to anyone that loves the mono, that's Great.

But, I MUCH prefer the Stereo.

Again, Excellent Job, Mr. Linett.

I see what you say - my point was the reviews were there, not here, i.e. they were not expressed here, just re-posted. But here or there, I'm sure it will not discourage Mr. Linett to post because some people didn't like stereo mix.

Yes, I too think Brian likes stereo. Iir he said it in some 2000s' interview.

Stephen Desper's stereo mixes of Heroes, Vegetables and Cabin Essence on the Study Videos should be used too. A stereo version allow Smile to breathe a little sonically.

A very good suggestion.  Sir Stephen Desper's work is stellar...and greatly appreciated. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhYPzl_0dR4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzHkhZsM3Rg

Not a bad unofficial fan mix. These additional vocal parts flesh out 'Look' and 'Love to Say Dada'. I would also fly the flutes from Second Day into Love to Say Dada.

Mark, I don't know if you are still here, but if you are I have a non BB's question you
may be able to answer.
  I noticed recently that you engineered the soundtrack recordings for John Waters' 1990
film "Cry Baby". I love the movie, and bought the soundtrack back then, and the music, and
the recording quality, to this day, blows me away.
  But my question is, who were the studio musicians on those recordings?  I know that James Intveld
and Rachel Sweet did the main vocals, but nowhere have I ever seen credits for the musicians, anywhere.
I've been leaning toward the Wrecking Crew since 1990 due to sensational tight sound this group
achieved, but it could be an entirely different group (Dave Alvin, etc?).
  If you recall, or have access to the session sheets, any info would be GREATLY appreciated.
Or possibly a link to that info, which I've never been able to find.  THANKS!

I'm not Mark Linett (unfortunately) but I did find a few names here that may be of interest. Scroll down for Cry-Baby:

http://www.blastersnewsletter.com/newsletter/amer47.htm

  Thanks!  The entire interview with Alvin regarding "Cry Baby" is exactly what I was
looking for.  He names those musicians used on the four rockabilly tracks, plus himself
and James Intveld on guitars.  I would never have found this out without the link
you provided, so thanks again......

Glad I could help. :=)

CONGRATULATIONS to you Mark on the recognition of your engineering expertise for two (not one but two) of your albums by the prestigious Stereophile Magazine annual “Records to Die For 2017.”  The two albums, “The Beach Boys Today! & Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)” plus “Brian Wilson, Live at the Roxy Theatre.”  ((Capitol CDP 7 93694 2 and Brimel 1001)) are given this acknowledgment.   

For those fans not familiar with this recognition, it is offered once a year. Qualified record reviewers, who only get one or two slots to make known their selections, choose the albums they consider to be the pillars of their collections, so it is a very hard to get listed.

Here’s a typical quote, “… this remarkable and timeless recording will make you feel as if you were there that historic weekend.”

See: Stereophile Magazine, Volume 40, Number 2 – February 2017

Thanks to you Mark, for these and other wonderful albums you have given us. A well deserved accreditation.

Good Listening, ~Stephen W. Desper

Wow. Yes, congratulations, Mark Linett!

Congrats Mark! Stephen, please tell us you're here to stay

My thanks Stephen and everyone. I had not heard about this.

Does someone have a link to the list ? I can only find 2016 not the one for this year, and the link in Stephen's message doesn't seem to work.

Best

Mark

I couldn't find a direct link either, maybe it's subscription only until the next issue?

So, congrats and well-deserved congrats! Two phenomenal albums that sound amazing thanks to Mr. Linett. It is nice to see a newer live album like "Roxy" make the list, it is a terrific document of one of if not the best bands in the business performing on stage.

I've been listening to this Summer Days album all day and man the mixing of it is nothing short of incredible. Congratulations indeed and thank you for all your hard work!

Also, Mr. Desper it's wonderful to see you back here posting. Thanks for sharing this wonderful news!

Cool news! Stereophile sounds like very interesting magazine. Kudos to Mr. Linett! :bw

COMMENT:

Hello Mark,  The issue is on the newstand now. Not on-line yet.  See page 77.  ~swd

Congratulations to Mr. Linett!  Well-deserved too, as Roxy was a well-compiled album!  Welcome back Mr. Desper!  It is always a pleasure to read your insights with the Boys! :bw

.

Oh, that's cool! The Roxy album still sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it came out.

But the reason I looked up this thread is that I wanted to congratulate on something else, Mark. I never in my life listened to 5.1 because I never had the right set up. I do however own the Pet Sounds audio DVD for years now. Now my brother got rid of his old stuff and gave me his audio equipement and I finally listened to Pet Sounds in 5.1 yesterday. It was a great experience and even gave me a fresh look at the production of this album. So thanks for your work on that, Mark!

Sorry to quote this old post, Mr. Linett. It's just a way of drawing your attention to aeijtzsche's topic addressed to you:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,26941.0.html

My apologies (again) if you've seen it already. 

Hi Mark,

We've been looking for a photo from the control room at Sunset Sound Studio #2, for many years now and one showed up of all places in the LA Times a few weeks ago. Paul Camarata (Tutti's son), owner of Sunset Sound sent me The Times link and affirmed that this is the recording console he remembered from his childhood growing up at the studio. It's the first English console ever delivered to the US, a Sound Techniques A Range, and it was in Studio #2 from April 1967 to the summer of 1974.  The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and many others recorded on this very console. In this photo, it was Frank Zappa's turn working hree on the Hot Rats session. My question is: Would you Mark/anyone know if parts of Surf's Up or Sunflower were recorded in #2? I spoke recently with Bruce Botnick about the subject but he had already long moved on to Elektra at the time of those sessions and did not know. This is the console that those meters came from that we talked about some years ago. Thanks Much.

Danny White
www.soundtechniques.com
www.soundtechniquesmovie.com