You're welcome!  I'm surprised they're still available for downloading.

This is the first time I've seen any of your Smile slideshows, and I must say I've never seen (or heard) a better realization of Brian's unreleased masterpiece!  A great accomplishment!

One of my favorite Paul Revere & the Raiders songs, "Ups and Downs" is their only major hit never released in stereo.  I've been unable to locate an underdub, alternate, or live version to work with, but I did find an excellent re-recording (by P. Revere and M. Lindsay) a few years ago on some Ktel CD.  Recently I synched up pieces of the remake with the original mono recording to create a mix which hopefully simulates what a true stereo version may have sounded like had the multitracks not been lost.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4j4o481lbiedhlt/Ups%20and%20Downs%20%28Stereo%20Sync%20Mix%20by%20JBeneven%29.wav?dl=0

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

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

After deconstructing the 7 session tracks of "Do It Again" on the Unsurpassed Masters Vol 20 boot, I've found that it IS possible to create a much more detailed wide-stereo mix than was done on MIC, without the harshness and compression that has ruined the more recent official stereo remixes (Good Vibrations, Wild Honey, etc).  That will be my next project when I find the time to attempt it.

Thanks for the info.  I didn't include the 2CD Vigotone in my list because, if I remember correctly, the sound quality did not compare to the others.  But Secret Smile seems like it's worth investigating.  Is it on the same level as the Unsurpassed Masters?

Besides the Smile Sessions Box, Unsurpassed Masters 16/17 (Sea of Tunes), Lost Smile Sessions (Picaresque) and Smile Millennium Edition (Dumb Angel), are there any other sources of high quality Smile material that are not duplicated on these releases?

Thanks for all the positive comments! 
I may attempt a similar wide-stereo mix of Do It Again if there's enough material to work with.

Sample the new batch NOW:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17515.25.html

Based on the various comments I received, here's a punchier mix with numerous tweaks, including:

 - an improved bottom end with louder drums and an added bass track (extracted from the 2013 release)
 - more up-front vocals
 - toned down the shifting guitar fills

Hope you enjoy it!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lqe5h99rikam411/Wild%20Honey%20%28Wide%20stereo%20mix%202%20by%20JBeneven%29.wav


http://www.mediafire.com/listen/phwo81w7hqd0ju5/Wild_Honey_(Wide_Stereo_Mix_2_by_JBeneven).wav

Wild Honey Remix #2 Update:

A tastier Wild Honey mix (with a separate bass track extracted from the 2012 release and numerous tweaks) is in the works and should be available soon - stay tuned!

I increased tempo and pitch of 2% cause sounded good to me but I have actually not compared it to the original at all.  What % should it be increased to match the original?

The extractions are all 34 cents flat and run about 2.5 sec longer than the original.  I increased the pitch by 34 and decreased the length to .9846 to match the released version.

Thank you so much!  They are very clean, great job!  I'm gonna have so much fun with these!!   
I made a quick mix with those tracks, what do you all think?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20483729/BB/Beach%20Boys%20-%20Wild%20Honey%20%28STE%20mix%20v1.0%29.mp3

Pretty good, considering  how little time it took for you to complete it!
Comparing it to the released mono version, the tempo is a bit slow and the pitch needs to be tweeked.  The theremin definitely needs some reverb to match the original mix.  I like the vocals being louder than on mine.

I'm working on a new mix which will have an improved bottom end, stabilized guitar fills, and more up front vocals.

The Wild Honey "Toolkit" contains all the raw extractions with no pitch or tempo correction and no added effects.
(Note: the guitar required two extractions, the first yielding guitar plus full percussion, and the second suppressing the drums & bongos. The tambourine could not be isolated)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9m39qgc5yr8eyuu/Wild_Honey_Extractions.zip

Also, what kind of technique did you use for the extractions?

I got very good results with little or no artifacts using the Center Channel Extractor in Adobe Audition 3.0

Fascinating that you could extract those distinct track! I think your mix is well balanced. Only those acoustic guitar fills sound like they don't belong, you know, the ones that are a bit closer to the middle but change position with each strum.

Nice job, main criticism is the jagged-sounding acoustic guitar bits shifting from left to right.

I thought that shifting the guitar fills between both channels made it sound more interesting and dynamic, but perhaps it's a bit too gimmicky.  What do the others think?

Thanks for this, very interesting!
Would you be willing to share the isolated instruments tracks too?  I would love to play around with them myself.

If you'd like, I'll prepare a "Wild Honey Toolkit" in the next few days containing the raw extracted instruments and vocals.

Pretty good...but the drums should be louder!
Also, you don't mention the bass in your list of discrete track elements...and there's little of it in the mix - how come?

Interesting, and way better done than most of these fan mixes... but it's very light on the bottom end.

Definitely a problem I have to address.  Unfortunately, there was no bass part to extract.  I think they EQ'd the guitar and/or the piano to create a greater bottom end in the original mix.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

I like the wide, wide stereo, but c-man and Andrew are right--drums and bass are just way too muffled here. Also it sounds like Carl's lead needs to be more upfront and panned more to the center.
I think you're definitely on the right track here (sorry for that bad pun!). Seriously, a great stereo mix of WH is worth as much tweaking as you're willing to give it...

Carl's lead vocals ARE centered, and at approximately the same level as the original mix.  I'll go back to my reference sources (1990 and 2001 Two-Fers, 1993 GV Box, 50 Big Ones and MIC) and see whether you're right about the level.  I've spent a lot of time on this mix and would like to get it as good as possible.  Thanks for the suggestions!

One of my favorite Beach Boys songs, Wild Honey in my opinion has never been properly mixed into stereo.  Like Good Vibrations, it finally got its "official" stereo release in 2012 and was a terrible disappointment.  Narrow, shrill and compressed, it sounded to me more like reprocessed (aka "fake") stereo than the real thing.  Using the available session recordings from the SOT boot "Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 19", I managed to extract 8 distinct tracks: lead vocal, backing vocals, piano, organ, guitar, theremin, drums, and bongos (only the tambourine could not be isolated - here it remains locked up with the guitar).  Remixing the song from scratch with a wide-stereo 60's-era separation, I tried to remain faithful to the original mono single's arrangement while revealing many interesting details previously buried in that dense 1967 mix - (hopefully) much like what was done on the Beatles Yellow Submarine Songtrack remix album in 1999.  Comments and suggestions will be most welcome!


https://www.dropbox.com/s/x1pova4dqsqx277/Wild%20Honey%20%28Wide%20Stereo%20Mix%20by%20JBeneven%29.wav

[Side One]

One needs only to look at the track listings of Smiley Smile, 20/20 and Surf's Up to realize what the final lineup would (or should) have been on a 2-sided SMiLE LP in 1967:  Side One opens with Our Prayer/Heroes and Villains and closes with Cabinessence.  Side Two opens with Good Vibrations (at Capitol's insistance I'm certain) and closes with Surf's Up.  Everything else is anyone's guess.  I just don't see anything else that works as well.

There are some wonderful bits in there that don't seem to be part of the Smile Sessions box or any of the boots I've heard.  Can you be so kind as to list your sources?  Thanks!

There are so many cool things going on in the title track but unfortunately most are buried in the dense mono mix.  I recently isolated 7 distinct tracks from the Unsurpassed Masters sessions and hope to create a wide stereo mix that brings them out more clearly while retaining the feel of the original single.  In my opinion the new mix on 50 Big Ones (which I assume is the same mix as on MIC) is awful, sounding more like "reprocessed mono" than true stereo.

At the Glenn Tilbrook concert last night (Boulton Center, Bayshore NY), Glenn sang some new songs from his latest solo album-in-progress including one called "Dennis", dedicated to Dennis Wilson.  He said it was inspired by a documentary he had seen which had footage of an early-80's Beach Boys concert where Dennis had crept up behind Brian and gave him a bear hug.  I didn't catch all the lyrics but it seems to be about how important he was to the band, being the inspiration for Brian to create the whole surfing sound.  A very interesting song, I can't wait to hear the finished recording.

It's curious to me that all of these techniques used on the BB reissues and compilations (just like on so many other artists' reissues) plus the narrow stereo seem to suggest the Beach Boys' desire to rewrite history - to make their recordings more "modern" sounding to appeal to those who no longer (or never did) listen to music in one place on a multi-component system with large speakers.  It's their music, and if they think they will sell more copies by making it sound best on portable devices and car stereos (where high ambient noise basically necessitates a loud, highly compressed sound), it's certainly their right to do so.  I just don't see how anyone with full-range floor standing speakers could consider these remasters an improvement.  Perhaps the narrowing of the stereo is simply to make the songs sound closer to their mono single versions, but then why even bother?  We already have the definitive versions!  The purpose of a new stereo mix should be to let the listener hear things that were previously buried in the mono version, and the wider the stereo, the more things you'll be able to distinguish.

Do the Anti-60s-Stereo fans also prefer modern remastering techniques such as signal boosting and compression?  I find loud, highly-compressed and overly bright recordings (most of the BB reissues IMO) unlistenable on anything but small cheapo computer speakers.

For recordings made in the sixties, I feel it's only appropriate that they should be mixed the same way as was done at the time:  W-I-D-E STEREO!  The new stereo mixes on the album reissues and compilations are so narrow, they shouldn't have even bothered.  If SMiLE ever comes out in stereo, I'm afraid it will be narrow as well.  (I'm currently working on a super-wide "Wonderful" mix that hopefully will be faithful to that style).

"Barbara Ann" (2:35 album version) is in true (wide) Stereo on the 2007 Ace (UK) Various Artists compilation "Girls Girls Girls: A Recollection of Dream Dates 1955-1965" CDCHD 1141.  Great sound, probably better than the new 2012 Party! remaster.