Looks like Brian has recently picked up a paint brush for a charity project, and the result will be auctioned off at some point.

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/arts/music-stars-including-brian-wilson-and-florence-welch-recreate-the-beatles-painting-project-a3304076.html

Can't wait to see the results and it will be interesting to see what he conjures up. Does anyone know if Brian has much of a prior history when it comes to painting?   

I ordered the latest batch of LP's about a week ago and they haven't shipped yet, but they can't come soon enough. I have all the AP pressings up to Pet Sounds, and although I don't have much experience with other Beach Boys pressings, to me they are the best sounding LP's I own. They've really reinvigorated my love of the band. I couldn't recommend them highly enough. Stereo 'Today!' and 'Summer Days' are particularly impressive. I enjoyed the new mixes on C.D well enough but for some reason they really came alive on these latest pressings.

Talking about the beach boys sessions specifically, I'm wondering if the reason Carl often tracked while plugged straight into the console was purely to help contain leakage? I don't see Bones Howe mentioning anything about that so perhaps it's more of a Chuck Britz thing. It's just I find it interesting that some songs were tracked that way and others were still done through the amps. I wonder if they preferred the D.I'd guitar sound for some songs or if it was purely logistical. I guess we'll never know and I guess it doesn't really matter. I just find anything to do with Carl and his guitar sound fascinating.

I think there are a few possible reasons for this:

1 - Brian liked Carl’s ear and wanted him in the control room as the mix came together.

2 - Lots of Carl’s guitar leads and solo parts from the 3/4-track days were done as overdubs during the final mix. Makes more sense to have him in the room in these cases.

3 - They just liked the bright, clean, present sound - particularly 12-string.

1 - Is actually a really good point Donny. I hadn't thought of that but it makes a lot of sense to me. Having Carl in there listening to the whole thing and getting his perspective on the overall sound would have been a big plus.

I'll do a little test when I get a spare minute. The one problem is that my 545's are all so old and slightly beat up that even they all sound a little different from one another,  . Would still be interesting though.

Yeah, I also have the feeling it was more of a logistical decision to D.I the guitars. I can't picture an engineer from that time period worrying too much about experimenting with the sonic character of the guitar tone for certain tracks. But I do just wonder a little as some sessions seem like Carl was tracking from the booth when it was basically just Dennis and Al out on the floor. Surely he could have sat out there with them when there were only 2 or 3 other guys in the room. Perhaps they were experimenting with trying to get as clean a sound possible on everything. Then on the session for Christmas Day it seems like both Brian and Carl are tracking from the booth (or am I misremembering?) and it's only Dennis out in the live room? Perhaps Carl was running his guitar out through to an amp at the time. Although it sounds more D.I'd to me... Anyway...

I was listening to the Party outtakes and during one version of Smokey Joe's Cafe you can hear Chuck getting peeved with Brian for moving around and messing with the relationship of all the mic bleed. He says something like "that's the whole sound, everything bleeding into the vocal mics, so don't mess around with it!"

Thanks Guitarfool! That's some great reading! I know there was a video interview with Chuck Britz but I've never been able to come across a copy. Does anyone know if he discussed many aspects of the recording process in it? I'd love to see it some time regardless. Listening to session outtakes you really hear how good a match he was for the Beach Boys. He didn't seem to take any sh*t but at the same time he seemed to have a pretty fun, relaxed manner which  jived well with them all.

Talking about the beach boys sessions specifically, I'm wondering if the reason Carl often tracked while plugged straight into the console was purely to help contain leakage? I don't see Bones Howe mentioning anything about that so perhaps it's more of a Chuck Britz thing. It's just I find it interesting that some songs were tracked that way and others were still done through the amps. I wonder if they preferred the D.I'd guitar sound for some songs or if it was purely logistical. I guess we'll never know and I guess it doesn't really matter. I just find anything to do with Carl and his guitar sound fascinating.

I have a few 545's and a 546 by the way but have never actually compared them side by side on the same source but just tend to use them interchangeably. Might have to do a comparison sometime to hear the difference.

Reading that makes my head explode c-man, but after listening through it sounds pretty bang on to me. I have one question because I haven't heard the whole session tape, just the highlights from the 'Keep an eye on summer' Comp, but is there any way that Dennis switched with Hal during the basic tracking from drums to tambourine? Early on it is clearly Dennis drumming but on the final master to me it sounds a lot like Hal on both sides. Of course, I'm just basing that on my ears and I could be very wrong. At the very least the drumming approach seems to change a bit throughout the tracking. Early on it seems a bit more traditional with Dennis playing the ride cymbal but on the final recording It sounds like it's just the bass and snare drums with the occasional crash cymbal. Anyway, I've always been in awe of this recording. The hard work they went through definitely payed off.

The more I delve into this subject with my ongoing research, the more I discover that there is no one answer: some 1964 tracks were recorded with Brian on piano, Al on bass, Carl on rhythm guitar, and Dennis on drums, with Carl then overdubbing the lead guitar - pretty simple. On others, Al is playing both rhythm guitar and bass (by virtue of an overdub), or doubling the bass (again on an overdub), Brian sometimes played piano and bass (overdub again), the drums were doubled (overdub), etc. Vocally, by this point, they were often doing the first vocal track on the third track of a 3-track tape which already housed the basic track and an instrumental overdub on the other two tracks, then there was a dubdown to a 2nd-generation 3-track, during which the vocals were simultaneously doubled on the same track of the new tape, while the two instrumental tracks were kept discrete. This contrasts to other times, where the two instrumental tracks were combined to mono on the dubdown, and the two vocal tracks were discrete.

Short answer is - it varies!

Yeah, the thing that strikes me about Brian's productions were just how adventurous he was in going after bigger and bigger sounds right from the get go. It seems like most artists back then would track their band live, maybe overdub the vocal and a guitar solo and that was it. Brian's records quickly seem to make a big departure from just capturing an on the floor performance and instead head towards building a production from multiple overdubs surprisingly early on. It's only recently I noticed just how often the drums were double tracked. Not too many other groups seemed to be be doubling things like bass either. It's funny that guys like Paul McCartney always envied the big bass sound of American records but never really thought until much later about double tracking and layering the bass instruments.

I guess it makes sense that with all the extra lengths Brian was going to he would quickly start employing more and more musicians to help naturally build that sound right in the room.

Hi everyone. I was wondering if some of you could help me fill in the gaps of my knowledge regarding how the beach boys were recorded at western in the earlier part of their career. I’m also interested in the microphones Chuck Britz was using.

COMMENT to Mr Bones"
I think more ribbons were in use than discussed here.
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Thanks Stephen! It's always great to read your posts and I love your videos. Yeah, I've certainly seen pictures of the guys recording vocals through RCA 77's etc and assumed they would have been utilised throughout the sessions.

One other thing that interests me when it came to recording vocals was how the guys were monitoring during the overdubbing process. I know over in studios like EMI they had the artists monitoring playback through large speakers such as the famous 'White Elephants' while they overdubbed up until '66 or so, but I'm sure I've seen pictures of the Beach Boys from quite early on using headphones. Were headphones utilised much by the guys during these years do you think? Would Dennis have been wearing them when guys like Carl or Brian were playing from the booth? I know for the session for Christmas day he must have been wearing them right? As both Carl and Brian seem to be playing from the booth.

And thanks DonnyL for the information from Bones Howe. The records coming out of western around that time were some of the best productions ever made in my opinion so it's always great to hear from guys who were there. I also remember hearing from someone that Chuck would often record the vocals through an Ampex mixer rather than the console, but don't quote me on that either.

Sorry, I meant to say that the drums were usually set up close to the near "RIGHT" hand corner as you look out from the booth... As far as I can tell anyway...

Hi everyone. I was wondering if some of you could help me fill in the gaps of my knowledge regarding how the beach boys were recorded at western in the earlier part of their career. Mainly when they were tracking as a more or less self contained group around ’64. I love this period in terms of their production. I know some of you know quite a lot of the details here so hopefully I can learn a thing or two.

As far as I’ve been able to piece together from photos, the drums in studio 3 were usually set up close to the the near left hand corner of the tracking room as you look out from the booth. Al, I’m guessing, would usually be set up just opposite the drums facing Dennis, playing with a bassman amp set up next to him. Brian, I imagine, would often be playing piano near the back or middle of the room? Does anybody know if he was playing a grand or an upright usually? Lastly Carl would presumably be set up with an amp right next to Al or in the booth plugged right into the board. I don’t know how accurate any of this is so hopefully some people can chime in.

As I understand the band would then track live together all directly onto one track of the 3 track tape machine. Once a take was completed to satisfaction Al would often double his bass track along with Carl doing another take of guitar and sometimes Brian adding more piano or organ all onto a second track? Then it would seem that the first tape would be bounced down to the first track of a second tape and vocals would be doubled onto the 2 remaining open tracks? I’m sure sometimes more bouncing was done as needed.

I’m also interested in the microphones Chuck Britz was using. I’m guessing mainly Shure 545’s and E.V RE15’s and 666’s on guitars, bass and piano? Drums really interest me. I figure drums were mainly Sony 37’s or 38’s as an overhead and possibly a 666 on the bass drum? What fascinates me is that I’ve seen Hal Blaine around this time mic’ed with pairs of Sony’s or what look like Sennheiser MKH 405’s as overhead mic’s. In the days of early 1960’s mono drums I haven’t heard too many anecdotes of 2 mic’s employed overhead so it seems somewhat unique, however I’m not sure if this was done on these Beach Boys sessions or not.

Lastly I don’t think much compression was used at all but I believe I read Mark Linnet saying that early 176 Compressors would be set up on the three tape outputs adding very light compression as things went to tape? Things sound pretty flat so I doubt much extra EQ was employed on these sessions. Does anyone know if they had much access to things like Pultecs, Fairchilds etc in Western 3?

I’d love to hear as much technical detail about any of this as possible. I love the sound Chuck and the guys got on these records. I don’t know how scientific he was with placement etc but I remember hearing one outtake with the guys calling out that the bass drum mic isn’t pointed at the drum, and Chuck chiming in that he’s hearing everything just fine so “Don’t move it!” I’m sure bleed was a huge thing on these records… But please, those of you who know more, I’d love to hear about it. Sorry for the long rambling post.

Thanks Donny, I missed out on that one but it's good to know it's still out there. I wonder what year Murry put it together. The sound of Carl's Rickenbacker in That's not me is incredible too.

Listening to the SOT albums it's funny to realise how much of Carl's guitar seemed to be D.I'd. I guess it helped with isolation but it always kind of surprises me that Al would often seem to be playing bass through an amp out on the floor and Carl would be plugged straight into the console. Today it would usually be done the other way around but you can't argue with the results.  With what sounds like a bit of the western echo chamber thrown in it sounds beautiful.

Hi everyone

I just read an interview with guitarist Mike Campbell where he talked about learning the guitar as a kid. In it he mentioned a certain book that caught my eye.

"I had a couple of guitar books too. There was one I had, I wish I still had it – it was How to Play the Guitar with Carl Wilson [of the Beach Boys], and it had pictures of his hands. I met him several years later and said, “Hey, I had your book” and he was sort of blown away, and said, “Oh, my Dad put that together!” So I got a couple of ideas on how to finger certain chords from that"

I was just wondering if anyone had any more information about it, or better yet knew where one might find a copy. I've always loved Carls guitar playing and the unique way he voiced his chords.