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TL;DR I made a Beach Boys album reminiscent of the Beatles Love album.

(http://i.imgur.com/3gaubYJ.png)

Listen here: https://vimeo.com/145226253 (https://vimeo.com/145226253)

Of course without having access to mastertapes and individual vocal/instrumental tracks it is utterly impossible to make a Beach Boys album even 10% of what The Beatles Love album is. But I tried.

I was so flippin ecstatic with the Atticus Ross tracks from ‘Love and Mercy’, and I wanted more and more. It started with me tinkering at random with some tracks. Which then grew into this grandiose idea that I could make a whole fan-mixed album in the style of both The Beatles Love album and the soundtrack to ‘Love and Mercy’. Well here is my work. It took hours upon countless hours of trial and error. Many failures were had, but overall it was so much fun to delve through my collection and try and find pieces that worked well together.

Throughout this album are moments of my own creation. Mostly Atticus Ross inspired synths that I used sparingly and (hopefully) tastefully. Other things I added were sound effects (wind, crackling fire, water, voices (all from either session chatter or Brian’s home tape-recorder boot) etc) - I wanted to create a place and atmosphere with this album. Also, some very unorthodox mixes are in this album, some things many would consider sacrilege (such as mixing a very short mashup between The Beatles ‘Let It Be’ and Brian’s ‘Imagination’ song - yikes..what the hell was I thinking?).

I partially made this out of curiosity, partially in the hopes that someone higher up in the Beach Boys world would recognize the potential for an official album like this. The Beach Boys are a treasure trove of sonic wonder…within each song are limitless harmonies, chords, sounds, that have the potential to intermingle with other songs in a way that could help people appreciate this music even more.

If you have a pair of headphones (earbuds, anything), I’d recommend using them to listen to this mix (There are a lot of stereo effects and panning going on). Not a requirement though.

I hope you all enjoy it; I’m sure anyone who listens will find at least one interesting mix in this bunch.

1. I’m Waiting For Our Prayer
2. Heroes and Villains
3. You Still Believe In Me (Vitamin String Quartet and Brian vocal)
4. I Just Wasn’t Wonderful
5. Brian’s Magic Transistor Radio
6. Til I Die
7. Please Say Goodbye (The Beatles vs The Beach Boys)
8. Don’t Worry, Hushabye
9. Wouldn’t It Be Worms
10. Starchild
11. Watadori
12. Good Vibrations (Outro)

Thought I’d write up some notes for this, in case someone was interested in how I made it:

1. ‘I’m Waiting For Our Prayer’. I wanted to start the album off with a person walking down a city street to a church, and inside the church The Beach Boys are singing ‘Our Prayer’. The city is cold and rainy, sirens are going off, cars with loud music are screaming by; but the music of the Beach Boys provides shelter from the storm.

2. ‘Heroes and Villains’. I’ve lately imagined that ’66 Brian had some amazing world of Heroes and Villains inside his head. A place full of indians, cowboys, steam engine trains, lonesome western town, empty dry plains. He tried so hard to put it on tape, but the idea was so vast it was an impossible task. I’ve tried to re-create (or create) that world. It starts off with sound effects of steam engine whistles, a horse galloping across a plain, and thunder to usher in the verse. I tried to make this imaginary world while making something that sounds like an actual song. There are spoken bits from ‘psychedelic sounds’, ‘There’s No Other Like My Baby’, the count-in from Mona Kani, even some spanish spoken by a school-going Brian and a friend from his home tape recorder.

3. ‘You Still Believe In Me’. I used the Vitamin String Quartet YSBIM cover and overlayed Brian’s vocal from the Pet Sounds boxset on it. It wasn’t as easy as placing the vocal track directly over the Vitamin Quartet cover. A lot of time-flexing, a lot of editing, a lot of stretching took place with Brian’s vocal. There are digital artifacts, moments of imperfections, but they aren’t too bad on this track. I implore anyone who hasn’t heard the Vitamin String Quartet Pet Sounds album (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TPTHQO/ref=s9_simh_gw_p340_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=0D5X10B13DQWRVSGPXYY&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop) to check it out. One of the most beautiful cover albums.

4. ‘I Just Wasn’t Wonderful’. Speaking of digital artifacts….holy crap. I had to up the pitch of the piano track of Wonderful (from The Smile Sessions) and time-flex the hell out of Brian’s vocal (a vocal only of ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times). This is full of little pops and specks of imperfections. Some of the melodies don’t match with the chords. But I was so impressed that most of this mashup worked that I left it in the final album.

5. ‘Brian’s Magic Transistor Radio’. This is a medley that uses quite a few tracks.
     1. ‘Do You Wanna Dance In Cottonfields’
          Combines ‘I Was Made To Love Her’ instrumental, ‘Do You Wanna Dance’ instrumental, ‘Cottonfields’ vocal, ‘Do You Like Worms’ chant, ‘409’ car rev.
     2. ‘This Darlin Car Of Mine’
          Combines ‘Darlin’’ instrumental with ‘This Car Of Mine’ vocal.
     3. ‘Our Sweet Sloop’
          Combines ‘Our Sweet Love’ instrumental with ’Sloop John B’ vocals and ‘I Know There’s An Answer’ vocals.
     4. ‘Bobby Left Me Waiting’
          Combines the instrumental for ‘Bobby Left Me’ (Brian track from the Big Beat ’63 album) with the vocals of ‘I’m Waiting For The Day’. Not a perfect mashup, but I do love that chorus.
     5. ‘Unknown Piano Intermezzo’
          Combines the ‘Unknown Piano Intermezzo’ from the SOT boot with snippets of the ‘Don’t Talk’ vocal demo, drums from ‘I’m Waiting For The Day’, and my own synth playing.

6. ’Til I Die’. A redux of my previous alternate edit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS34TZR3SNY). I added in ocean sounds, psychedelic sounds 'Underwater' piece, vocal only sections (including Mike’s isolated vocal from ‘Love and Mercy’). Also the section after the verses uses two separate moments from the Desper mixed track that are placed together, making for a different listening experience than the norm.

7. ‘Please Say Goodbye’. As this was greatly inspired by the Beatles Love album, I felt I had to mash together a track with them. I used the lead vocal for ‘Hello Goodbye’ and the backing track to ‘Please Let Me Wonder’. Also, at the tail end of the track I quickly combined the piano from ‘Let It Be’ with Brian’s lead first verse of ‘Imagination’. Yeah, it’s a sacrilege and I’m sorry…I had heard the two combined in my head for quite some time and wanted to include it, if only because it’s interesting.

8. ‘Don’t Worry Hushabye’. The intro to this track is a hugely Atticus Ross inspired intro, synths, lots of studio chatter overdubbed, the Murry Help Me Rhonda argument, even the basketball track from psychedelic sounds is buried in there. The actual track is by no means perfect (the lead on Hushabye sounds so tinny because I had to mix the EQ to play only the high registers because the bass parts didn’t fit at all over Don’t Worry Baby.

9. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Worms’. I made my own string section for the a cappella harmonies during the intro. Then I combined the vocals from the first verse of ‘WIBN’ with the instrumental to ‘Do You Like Worms’. I also combined some vocals from ‘Surf’s Up’ over the DYLW outro. This is definitely my least favorite track from this album and I'm sad it didn’t turn out better.

10. ‘Starchild’. Everything you hear in this is Beach Boys. Even the piano playing the CIFOTM BWPS verse melody. I used a bit from the vocal demo from ‘Don’t Talk’ in the intro, the BWPS melody was made from using a sample of the ‘Hushabye’ piano intro (splicing and changing the pitch to match the BWPS melody). I named it ‘Starchild’ because it has a very spacey atmosphere, reminds me of floating through the middle of the universe.

11. ‘Watadori’. The beat somewhat inspired by 'In The Key of Dee'. The one song here driven mostly by my own instruments. I played piano and synths all throughout the track. I added sound effects (radio, ocean sounds, boat, seagulls, etc). I made a whole new chord arrangement for the intro to ‘You Still Believe In Me’ - gave it a really sad feel. I had to time flex that YSBIM intro a lot to get it to fit the beat. I yet again used Brian’s ‘Don’t Talk’ vocal snippet and sampled it, changed the pitch for added harmonies to this song. It ends with the ‘Surfin’ “If you laugh once I’ll pop you!” exchange between Dennis, David, and Brian.

12. ‘Good Vibrations (Outro)’. I made my own string section using MIDI for one part. Overdubbed over the Good Vibrations bridge is the chorus of ‘I’m Waiting For The Day’, ‘The Old Master Painter’, Brian’s ‘Don’t Talk’ vocal/harmony demo, ‘Hushabye’. The ‘Hum-be-dum’ section has drums from ‘I’m Waiting For The Day’ overdubbed on top. Probably most happy with ‘Old Master Painting’ fitting in (though some pitch shifting was used to make it work).

Brilliant! An obvious labour of love, and great fun.

Listen on headphones as there is definitely a lot going on. Am on my 3rd play now and hearing new things each time.

Excellent and a worthy selection from the BBs. This deserves a wide audience.  Grab this folks!!!

Any chance of a lossless version later?

I love it, no pun intended!  I might try some thing like this as well, I see you didn't show any love for Help Me Rhonda, I have that covered! I love Atticus Ross score and The Love album!

I can't express my delight with your work Rab2591!
Jesus oohh sweet jesus!!

Fantastic!  Thanks for sharing. :)

Thanks for listening and commenting, guys!

@Topcat, I will definitely try to upload a lossless version of this album very soon. I was listening to part of this mix this morning from the Vimeo site, and thankfully the original files don't sound nearly as bad.

@branaa09. Thanks! I did try to use 'Help Me Rhonda' a little (fit the HMR intro guitar into the beginning of 'Let Him Run Wild') but I gave up on the track....limited by time and imagination haha. Definitely looking forward to what you come up with!

This.  :o They said it couldn't be done but you did it, Rab. Akin to experiencing Brian's best in 27 minutes of pure glory. But even eclipsing that are your layers of emotion and heartfelt gratitude that are locked in on his music. We throw the word genius around quite extensively these days but it certainly applies to the job you've done with this creation. I will be thanking you every time I listen to this which will quite often. :love   

Wonderful job, thanks for sharing.

Yep, I enjoyed that! Thank you.

This is beyond brilliant - there is such an understanding of Brian's melodies and harmony in this mix. There were so many moments on my first listen where I would just have to smile and think..."hey, that worked perfectly!". My two favorite moments are the intertwining of Hello Goodbye and Please Let Me Wonder and the seamless transitions between Hushabye and Don't Worry Baby. This is something fresh to the community - I applaud you for it.

Rab is the father of the Jam! ;D

Here's my try at Help Me Rhonda! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBM76bsrzAA&feature=youtu.be

Thank you all so much!

@Egohanger, that Hello Goodbye/PLMW track was quite a revelation. I did have to edit Paul's vocal a lot for it to fit, but the pitch/melody was perfect for the chords. Thanks for the kind words!

Very well done, and it's obvious you've put much time and thought into these mixes.  I want more and more and more of this type of project!

I will say that one thing that (slightly) detracted me from the experience was recognizing the stock radio tuning clip (the part where you briefly hear a male voice say "house-wuh") in the ‘Brian’s Magic Transistor Radio’ track.  But that's only because I dabble in audio production.

Can't wait for the lossless download!

That was magical!

Fun stuff for sure!

Just did a quick preliminary listen.  This is wonderful stuff!  You did it with love and mercy ;-)

Would be interesting to get Brian's thoughts on this. Wonderin' if he's heard it yet and if it brings a Smile to his face.  :)

I kinda hope he never hears it, just because of the Murry segments...I can't imagine that would be too pleasant for him to hear haha. But it would be wonderful to hear his take on the Transistor Radio track, and the Beatles mashup.
_____

Thanks again everyone for commenting. All the appreciation really makes it worth all the time I put into it. I truly hope that an official album of this sort will be created and released by people far, far more talented than I at some point in the future.

Whoah! There was a lot of really awesome stuff there. You have a real talent for these mash-ups. Thanks so much for the blood sweat and tears that went into making this.

MORE...  more.....

That´s absolutely incredible !  I know that this must have been a lot of work. I tried similar things as well years ago, but my equipment isn´t THAT good. It sounds very very good and is full of surprises.  It´only too short !

T H A N K    Y O U    S O    MU C H  !  !  !  !

Really good listening experience and numerous revelations in the music! I hope to hear more of your work in the future ;)

Dear Rab,

WTF is this?  I thought we agreed, NO FUKKING WITH THE FORMULA?

Sincerely,

Mike Love

 :lol

Damn! I even named the album after you hoping you'd give me some leeway on this ;D

Better not to waste any time here. Consulting a top notch attorney would be in your best interest, Rab.  ;D

Absolutely brilliant!!!

I know that must have been a monumental amount of work to pull that off, but what you have created here is so many things. Beautiful, moving, joyful, sad, and very creative. I would without a doubt purchase this in a heart beat if it were commercially available.

It's also interesting how it brings to light many of the common musical threads in the Beach Boys music that we all are somewhat mysteriously drawn to. It made me smile at several points due to the cleverness and sheer beauty. Thank you!

This is beautiful!

Thanks guys!

I truly hope an official mix along the lines of The Beatles Love is made by people with access to the original tapes themselves. I would pay good money to hear it.

I'll spend some time making a few extra tracks, tweaking a few things, then I'll make it available in FLAC and MP3. Hopefully it won't take too long to get out. Thanks again!

Fantastic, thank you.
Please feel free to do some sort of extended mix..... We can wait...,.. Just!

Super cool for the most part.

I'm not sure that all of the layering fully works from a harmonic point of view, such as I Just Wasn't Made For These Times w/ Wonderful...?

Maybe it's just me.

I agree, and even mention it in my notes in the initial post. It is by no means a perfect mix; without access to individual tape tracks and better audio software, I was highly limited in what I could accomplish with this album. As for IJWMFTT/Wonderful: given the jaw-dropping complexity of the chords in Wonderful, I was shocked that the melody of IJWMFTT mostly did fit...even thought many other moments didn't work in that song. I guess it's inclusion in the album wasn't made because of grandeur, but more out of interest.

Anywho, thanks for commenting, and I'm glad you found most of it to be a cool listen!

Hey rab,

I did actually read your initial post the other day, but only just got around to listening to the video all the way through today, so apologies for restating what you had already said, I should have refreshed my memory before listening!  Your very polite reply is appreciated.

Hey Rab! I decided to tweak my Rhonda mix and use some crazy stuff to bring it to life, it's way better than the first mix I did.

Feel free to use it or add to it!

https://youtu.be/_79Zww9KBl0

I can post it as a download but, I don't want to break the rules



Some background information: After I had heard Rab's mixes, I wanted to pull something off like Brian's Transistor Radio and the Drive My Car/The Word/What Your'e Doing Mix from The Beatle's Love! I knew in my head that Help Me, Rhonda, Little Honda, Then Kissed Her and some of Heroes and Villains all share similar chords. So I assembled it like a musical puzzle trying to fit this vocal in this section, using this Harpsichord here etc.
I used the Then I Kissed Her backing track with little bit of the 12 String Guitar on the intro. Underneath that is The Harpsichord Children Were Raised Part from Heroes and Villians and a chunk of Carl's 12-String Guitar Intro from Help Me Rhonda. The 12- String Guitar part was taken from a Help Me Rhonda session practice. Also you can hear Dennis's Go! shout from Little Honda. Before the Vocals of Help Me Rhonda kick in, we are treated with the Boys and Girls vocals from Heroes and Villains and The Bari Sax part from Help Me Rhonda. Underneath the Help Me Rhonda Vocals, are the Sax part from before, but also the Guitar Lick that goes with it, don't know what it's called. Intertwined within all this is Al Jardine's vocal from the Then I Kissed Her Solo section. Now onto Little Honda. During this we have little spurts of the previous parts, that work well with both, Honda and Rhonda:  Bari Saxophone, Al's Vocal etc. After the vocals leave us there is a little surprise for fans. I'm telling what it is though! After you've had your minds blown, the Then Kissed Her vocals come up and end with my own little edit!

Excellent work, Rab. Brian would flip over this

Brilliant idea and execution. Beautiful!

I always loved The Beatles Love album, and was very interested in this mix. I downloaded yesterday in work and listened to it on headphones on the way home. To say I'm impressed is an understatement! This is a wonderful production, and we'll up to the quality of a professional release. Loved it in every way, thank you!

:-) Mark

This is fantastic! To my ears it sounds almost as professionally done as the Beatle's Love. The ending of Watadori was remarkably done, Brian's voice over that piano was incredibly beautiful. Thank you for making this!

Thanks so much!

Watadori was the one I kinda most loved and was most iffy about putting on the album - just because it isn't really The Beach Boys for the most part (besides Brian's singing and the YSBIM piano). But I'm glad others like it!

Trivial fact: the name of the song is the original name of Dennis Wilson's sailboat (before he acquired it). I kinda wanted that song to be a tribute of sorts to him.

Welcome to the board, CinnaBeatle!

Rab, that was truly wonderful.  Thanks so much for all the efforts.  It was a joyful listen.

I see how little I'm on this site that I missed it until now...

Thank you so much Debbie!
______

I found out that my mix will be played on Mike Grant's Mixlr.com show today between 4-4:30 EST! I'll be there to chat and answer questions/elaborate on my mixing process. Hope some of you tune in!

http://mixlr.com/mikes-mix/ (http://mixlr.com/mikes-mix/)

Really enjoyed this. 

Very cool

Tastefully done!   :hat  I love hearing different kinds of fan remixes that aren't just another Smile remix (see Will C, J Dilla's Pet Sounds, etc.).

This is just fucking great! Amazing that those that appreciate this music can now get creatively involved with it. Maybe technology does has some redeeming features. Bravo!

Could you please upload it somewhere else like youtube? I cannot access vimeo in my country  :'( :'( :'(

Yeeeup. I do think I like this. Quite a bit in fact.

Unfortunately Rab has left the board and he left behind an awesome Love mix. Well, I thought it was too short so I added some more to it and even removed some stuff that I didn't like. Here is my take on his Beach Boys Love Mix. I'm also working on an Alternate Today! album mix. I'll try to upload this to Youtube and Vimeo.

Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/163175382







Tracklist:
1. I’m Waiting For Our Prayer (Intro)
2. Heroes and Villains
3. Fun, Fun, Fun
4. You Still Believe In Me (Vitamin String Quartet and Brian vocal)
4. I Just Wasn’t Wonderful
5. Brian’s Magic Transistor Radio
6. Til I Die
7. I Get Around
8. Then I Kissed Rhonda on a Honda
9. Wouldn’t It Be Worms
10. Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine/Love To Say Da Da
11. Starchild
12. Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again
13. Good Vibrations (Outro)

11/10 ;)

Is it possible to get these mix with songs separated??

Great job. It's cool when someone tries something different, fair play! :lol

Okay I'm pulling this to the front because if someone else like me hasn't heard it they're in for an experience, this was superbly done and a delight to listen to. I can't recommend it enough

Hah, that's a projet i had in mind! but it stayed there, in my mind, as there's no way to really accomplish any of the ideas i had (such as Let Him Run Wild going onto Stevie, right after the "can't you know i waited for you girl" the chords and rythm picks up on the same as the start of Stevie, and why not adjust Good Vibrations verses instrumental behind the vocals and the keys of Stevie as it sounds quite similar enough i think?, now that's a triple big mix!)

However i would try to differentiate it more in the presentation of the concept, "Love" is based on a word Beatles overused and the sounds reminded of England with on the cover an symbolic recognizable photo of the group, if the exercice is mirrored on to the Beach Boys, i think we should as much use their history, i appreciate the cover is blue unlike the yellow orange of the Beatles one, but i feel the photos of the Beach Boys on it could be picken on somemore iconic ones, and maybe another title, as in Sun? (as it would reference both their early era and California culture, but also SMiLE symbolisms, elements?)

Also why so much use of Pet Sounds vocals, why not pick up more from Good Vibrations and Made In California boxset with its instrumental and acapella mixes?

As much as this project has weird ideas that don't work (like the Wonderful one or the Wouldn't It Be Worms) there's other where we can hear the amazing potential such as the Darlin' one, i'm not a fan at all to include Beatles in it (if Love doesn't have it, why the Beach Boys gets it? it makes them look secondary, under the shadows of that brits invasion, it's a shame) i LOVE how the Wendy bridge was put into it, blends perfectly!

Also missed opportunity on the mix of 'Til I Die to include more water oriented stuff, why not put the end of Don't Go Near, add some of the harmonies of Cool Cool Water maybe the chorus of Californ-i-a? etc

I think there should be a Love You medley also, with how coherent and moog oriented that is, there's a great potentiel there! same for early Beach Boys surf cuts.

So I see Rab's LOVE Mix is coming back into the fold, well here's my remix of it. I removed some stuff and added my own mixes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcsPPBR11zY&t=57s

Here's Rab's original from Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/145226253

(Also Sweet Love/Sloop John B is pretty amazing !!!!)

Why don't you tell me what you really think? :lol

Hey, though this was a labor of love it wasn't something that I had been planning for years and wrote out ideas for ad nauseam. It was a project that took months of my time, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. It wasn't exclusively supposed to mirror the Beatles Love, I only compare it to that because of how the songs were mashed up in that album.

As for MiC I guess I couldn't find any way to mash the songs up - I spent literally countless hours tinkering with different mixes, I would put in an instrumental in one program, play it, and then go through all of my vocals only mixes to see what fit. Sometimes I would have to change the pitch of a track, or worse the timing and it was a painful process. Other than my, and hopefully other's, enjoyment, there was no incentive for me to find every possible mix that could work together. MiC had a lot of great stuff that could've worked in this mix, but I couldn't find matches in the time I allotted to make this.

As for the concept. It is a sonic adventure. It's not meant to be concretely based on their history or what they stereotypically represent. It is meant to be an imaginative adventure from the eyes of the music. The album art was supposed to be fun, I found some great shots of the Beach Boys jumping while they were in Paris and thought their silhouettes looked fun. As for the name, I thought it was a nice compliment to the Beatles version and it fit with how Brian feels about life: love was the centerpiece for much of his music and it just made sense to call this album full of his music by that name.

The Beatles inclusion was just a fun way to, again, connect this album to the album that inspired it. Brian always said he felt a friendly rivalry with the Beatles and both McCartney and Brian have the deepest and greatest respect for each other's work. I thought it was a fun and nice compliment to show how Brian and the Beatles were on a similar frequency when it came to melody, chords, and songwriting.

Til I Die doesn't include any other songs in it (besides the water sound effects from the psychedelic sounds boot) because I feel it is one of the most sacred songs Brian ever wrote. It is haunting, sonically distant in parts, and the lyrics are achingly real. I didn't want that song to lose it's meaning by mashing it up with other songs that were recorded more out of fun and not seriousness (though Don't Go Near The Water is a pretty serious song).

I would love to do a Love You medley, but the lack of boots (vocal only, backing tracks) makes this nearly impossible. That's also why there is an abundance of Pet Sounds tracks on this set: the amount of backing tracks and vocals only that were released for it (even including boots) far surpasses that of any other releases.

I really do appreciate the constructive criticisms, but I do hope that this post helps people understand how much work went into this album: literally countless hours of just listening and relistening to tracks, adjustments to pitch and timing of sections - sometimes I would start working mid-day and look up at the window and it would be night-time. I really really wish I had had access to more vocals only tracks, and backing tracks, for this album - but I worked with what I had and honestly this turned out 100% better than I thought it could when I first realized that an album could be possible.

I'm really glad you like certain tracks though, it means a lot that this album has mostly gotten positive reception.

I did! just gave my two cents of critisism and thoughts from the top of my head haha ;) some stuff i legit appreciate and some where you can see as if we had access to the material how big the potential would be, and you tried! and that's more effort than i ever gave, so bravo to you! i can only imagine how tiem consuming it must have been! it's really cool overall and i can tell the hard work you put into i, thanks for the answer :)

You're. Fruckn legend mate. This is amazing

I'm only sorry that it took me so long to find out about it (for which I have no-one to blame but myself).

Amazing. I love it.

Spurred on by the recent posts, I re-listened to this last night. Can't believe I never posted anything before, but this is so well done. Technically, creatively, scope; every aspect is appealing. Even within the few mashup melodies that don't work on every note- when those melodies DO work for the majority of the time, they are so appealing that the blemishes become a sign of humanity, and not so dissimilar from perhaps a stray cough left in the final mix of a song.

rab, following from the other thread- I'm not familiar with Logic, and Ableton user primarily myself. Did you just use stock pitch/time shifting in Logic? Any special tweaks? I suppose the biggest factor is always keeping adjustments as minimal as possible, but your work sounds pretty clean and natural.

Thanks all! I truly appreciate it.

@orange22, the time-shifting was done partially with a feature in Logic called time-flex. You select the track you want to shift the audio in, then a zoomed in image of the audio waves show up and you use your curser to flex the audio wave where you want it (it stretches a small section of audio). Another way to time-shift large tracks in Logic is to select the area you want to maximize or minimize the time in, and there's a button to stretch the time to a specific chosen place. I think I used this latter feature the most in the 'You Still Believe In Me' mashup - the vitamin string quartet had a separate time than Brian's original, and I had to change the time of every section of the vocals-only track.

Logic is just a real solid program that allows the layperson to do incredible things that sound near or at professional levels (not that my album here sounded professional, but so many people have cranked out some professional sounding recordings with this program).

That being said, the pitch shifting tool seems, to me, really lackluster. There are many digital artifacts that can be heard in my mix... But this is most likely due to me using primarily MP3s as a source. I'd bet that had I used FLAC for my source material the digital artifacts wouldn't be as big an issue.

Can you tell me more about Ableton? I just looked into it for a few minutes and it looks like a great program. Though after being so invested in Logic I can't see myself switching programs, but I'd still like to know if Ableton is worth looking into further. Thanks for the kind comments about my mix!

Hey there rab. Regarding the pitch/time shifting, that's interesting since, though I was last listening to your project just before bed so wasn't in the most technical of minds, I didn't notice the artifacts too much. No doubt the use of lossy audio sources would have contributed to it. And of course we're our own worst critics, but I thought it was more than well-enough done within the scope of a "non-professional" project, if you get what I mean without being an insult in any way!

I've heard a lot of great stuff about Logic, but I'm on PC so can't use it. Ableton Live is a great program, really intuitive in a lot of ways, probably similar to Logic (and Apple in general) in that way. Live gets a lot of use in, if you can believe it, live situations by bands, DJs, etc. Largely because time and pitch shifting can be done very easily and quickly, but it also has a lot of options and tweakability; I haven't explored the options, but there might even be plugins that can do the job better. if that's a concern for you I'm a bit behind the times myself, and I've heard about other DAWs taking overtaking Live in terms of newer features. It's so painful switching to a new program, and though Live still gets the job done, I fear the time may be coming for a switch! From what I know though Logic is great like I said, and you'd probably only want to look towards Live for a performance situation.

Are you working on any other BB (or other) related projects? Anyone else reading too, would love to hear about BB music projects in process. I have something of a Pet Sounds mashup type thing that's been ongoing for several years; unfortunately will take a lot of rework since I actually started it using a different DAW (Sonar) and a bunch of outdated synth plugins.

No, haha I totally get what you mean by non-profressional project...and I take your statement as a compliment. I really wish I had more experience with stuff like this, but this was a great way to get my toes wet. As for music programs, in recent years I've been thinking about getting a PC. I am strictly entrenched in Apple's ecosystem, but there are things I love about PC and besides a few quirks I like where Windows is taking their operating system. So Ableton could be a nice thing to put on a laptop for travel use sometime in the future.

As for other BB projects, I have a lot of mixes already done for a Love: Redux album. I have some ideas for how to assemble it all. Sadly it's just going to take a lot of time getting it all together. I want to add at least 10 minutes to the album and hopefully I can have it done within the next half year (really hopefully sooner).

Thanks for your reply, and I really hope you get a chance to finish up your Pet Sounds mashup - can you tell me more about it? (I promise not to steal any ideas!) - I totally understand if you'd rather not though.

I absolutely loved it! Thanks so much for posting the link.

That sounds great. I've gotten caught up in starting but not finishing songs, and you really need a plan, which it sounds like you have.

The mashup thing isn't a big deal, it's just an 8-bit rendition with a few twists. The main issue being that the rest of the work is more on the technical and tidying up side; the fun musical side is all done, so it's not terribly compelling at the moment!

Hi rab2591, I made my mix a few years ago. although it may not fit your concept...

Here is
Wind Chimes/Don't Talk https://youtu.be/EKbYIN3OHVI

Hope to enjoy and I would appreciate any comments about this track.
Thank you.