Anybody know if there' been dramatic improvements - enough to want to re-visit Pet Sounds? I know there's time (and money) constraints, but Pet Sounds was MUCH easier to make back then since they had most of the multi-tracks at hand.

According to the PS box set liner notes, the multitracks were transferred "using a custom 24-bit converter." Mark has said that much of the catalog is at 24/88.2 through Apogee converters. Fidelity-wise, I don't think a new transfer would make a huge difference.

That said, mixes you might be able to improve upon today would be Mike's bridge vocal on "Wouldn't It Be Nice," and Brian's outro vocal on "God Only Knows." Not just because we have better extraction tools now, but also because of the higher quality mono master that was only found about five years ago.

[BWRG]

I will say I hope we don't see a return to the double-tracked, reverb drenched Brian vocals of Imagination and GIOMH (although I know the latter is not Joe's work). It just does not work for his modern voice. Mostly dry with a bit of distant reverb, single-tracked, and right up front. "Midnight's Another Day", needisaymoar?

Agreed. I love how delicately-treated his vocal is on BWRG -- just an ounce of reverb, lightly treated. And his voice has that nice thick quality that I think sounds excellent without needing to be doubled.

Good extraction. Although, I don't agree with your assertion in the other thread that this is better than the released version. I can still hear some artifacts, which to me are no less distracting than the piano. I probably would've liked it fine if that's what Linett and Boyd went with, but I don't think they made the wrong choice, either.

And because I'm a dunce who can't find anything with search: exactly how much work has been done in sifting through the CBS vaults? I'm aware that they handed back a bunch of stuff in the early-1990's, but have there been crack investigators who have, say, looked for mislabeled reels from the same period, or something similar?

You guys have got it all wrong. I am 100% certain that this is how the melody fits into the verse:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088//doyoulikewormscorrectvocals.mp3

Sounds good to me.

"Rough"? I like 'em.

I mean, accuracy is important too, but "Oh, geez, a whole bunch of times..." is just the right amount of sass for the liner notes in the next compilation. 

Is it in any way possible to "fly in" at least the first part of the vintage "Rock Rock Roll" vocals from Worms as heard on the backing vocals montage and lay it on to the disc 1 Holidays chorus in the same way as BWPS and make it work?

You could, although to adjust the vocals without changing the backing track, you would need to use a very good pitch-shifting effect (i.e., one that doesn't change the formants), or they would probably sound unnatural.

I'm a filmmaker/video editor, so I'd just use Final Cut Pro and Audacity, but you can get more accuracy with ProTools.

True, although if you're going legit, it's also pretty expensive. Audacity works fine; I haven't used any other paid tools on PC except Reaper ($60), but I think it's pretty good.

GarageBand is the best value if you're on a Mac, though. The most recent version can even do non-destructive tempo changes, which is a godsend for fly-ins and sync-ups. Logic's even better, but again, you have to spend a couple hundred bucks.

Honestly, Audacity is the way to go if you want to actually work with the constraints Brian had. About all you can do is Audacity is cut, copy, paste, fade in/out, add reverb, and stuff like that.

Except for, you know, being able to adjust time and pitch seamlessly, with an unlimited number of tracks... 

No disrespect to the good people here, but to these ears it just sounds like a dude still auditioning ideas in his head.

The incompleteness and off-the-cuff delivery -- which, unlike the "Caroline" stuff, isn't necessarily directed at the musicians -- suggests it's a fragment he was kicking around as one of many possibilities and, like a lot of Smile, figured he would get around to finishing later.

[The Beatles: Rock Band]

Mono vocals on a stereo backing track can work well. The 2008 remix of "When I Grow Up", which does exactly that, sounds pretty good. What I wouldn't be interested in is a simple sync-up of the mono master with the stereo track, because then it sounds unbalanced.

When Abbey Road engineers had to isolate instruments out of the Beatles' two-track masters for The Beatles: Rock Band, they turned to CEDAR Audio, and they did a fabulous job. Although we're probably a while off from getting decent stereo vocals out of such a process, getting rid of the mono track? I think it's worth a shot.

I'm not sure which forum is most appropriate for this, but here goes:

Suppose I have a convolution reverb plugin, and I want to try my darndest to get an impulse response of, say, Western or Gold Star. Is there a particular BB (or even non-BB) session track that might be helpful? Or is this a totally pointless exercise?

Thanks in advance.

You know what I'd like? A separate Honored Guests forum where everyone has to use their real names. I think the entire forum would be less dogmatic -- me included -- without the veil of anonymity.

Apparently (can't remember where I heard this) the fakesichord, which is a real bone of contention with most SMiLE fans, was only supposed to be temporary. They were going to put real harpsichord on there, but Brian said "No, it's fine"

Not according to this Sound on Sound article:

"An early plan to replace the sampled Kurzweil harpsichord with the real thing later was abandoned, as everyone professed themselves happy with the sounds from the K2600 on hearing rough mixes."

Personally, I've never had a problem with the sound. I still prefer the sound of the original, but I feel like many BWPS bashers dislike it on principle that it's a software instrument.

Also, given the rest of the work to make the album sound authentic, if Mark and Darian OK it, it probably can't be that bad.

[BWPS]

I don't want this to sound like a knock at the Wondermints, it's not just them. Everytime I hear any  Beach Boys inspired song I notice no one can achieve a decent Mike.

Funny thing is, when I first heard BWPS -- having had no exposure to any Beach Boys Smile recordings -- I thought the backing band vocals sounded fantastic. I even wrote down at the time that the vocals were a highlight of the disc. But now that I've had the original versions ingrained in my head, I find myself more critical of BWPS now, and it has nothing to do with the talent of the backing band. The Beach Boys just set incredibly high standards.

So, yeah, I think it can be heard without headphones.

Fair enough then, my mistake. I stand by the rest of my point though: it's a little overblown to be upset over approximately two seconds of click and hiss.

[BWPS]

As someone whose first exposure to Smile was through BWPS, I think they compliment each other perfectly.

What I like so much about the two releases is that they don't really pretend to be the other. TSS embraces its fragmentary nature, taking more time to highlight the individual pieces; BWPS does this less, instead embracing the fact that it is coherent throughout. So, when I want to hear specific fragments or songs, I go through the Beach Boys' versions pulled from CD1. And when I want to hear a full, cohesive album, BWPS does the trick.

After a few forkfuls you find a tiny fly hidden among (let's say) the vega-tables. You look around the rest of the plate, and find a wee slug among the cabbage. A hair in the sauce. Worse, a fingernail fragment among the parmesan shavings.

All teeny tiny flaws and you wouldn't have noticed them if you'd been staring into your girl's eyes and shovelling the food down your throat without looking at it. But are you really going to enjoy that wonderful, lovingly prepared meal quite the same now, now that you know?

But that's still an unfair comparison. Anyone would be able to find problems that egregious without prompting, and they would be absolutely appalled. As it's been proven on this forum and plenty of reviews, virtually no one is noticing these problems unless they're explicitly pointed out on a) hi-fi audio equipment, or b) good headphones, and when they are, the reaction to them is much more muted and sensible.

A fair restaurant comparison would be more like eating a world-class steamed vegetable plate and realizing a couple of the carrots came out cold. Noticeable, yes, something I would point out afterwards to my server. But not a deal-breaker by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not arguing something isn't there, or that it's unfair to point it out. But there's a difference between pointing it out as an aside in a general critique, and writing ten paragraphs about it.

what happened to the stereo good vibes we were gonna get?

That was planned? I assumed a stereo version was never in the cards. Probably for the best, too -- given the amount of black magic you'd have to commit for it to even be listenable, I'm glad Linett and co. chose to dedicate their time to compiling the rest of the set.

I've been trying to sync the audio from 6/16/66 with the clips to no avail for a few hours now--can't quite find anything that matches up though I am hampered by the lack of good software.

I don't know what you mean by "good" software but I'd be more than happy to take your guesses and line 'em up in Logic/Pro Tools/Final Cut.

I want to pose this: say we were instead discussing a period film that is set in Victorian times. The costumes and set design are impeccable, beautifully done, historically accurate, true example of masterwork in every sense...and then you see that one of the main characters is visibly wearing Nike sneakers. I know, i know, this happens in Hollywood films quite often. But now imagine that it keeps happening in every other scene. Would that not absolutely baffle the hell out of you, not to mention frustrate you?

I hear the difference. I just don't think it's as big a deal as you make it out to be.

And I don't think your comparison is fair. The aural equivalent of Nike shoes in a Victorian movie would be more like hearing half a second of "Good Vibrations" in the middle of "Wind Chimes". These errors are like seeing a small, flickering black spot in one frame of a movie -- visible? Of course, but hardly a major disruption.

No red at all, rather -- unlike analog distortion, digital distortion is no bueno.

Is it just me or is the timing completely of on the vocals for the new surfs up? I cut quite alot in cubase and this is just poor sync, it is lagging and makes me feel uneasy each time i hear it.

I wouldn't say it's poorly synced. It's an intentional lag, and it wouldn't be wrong to sing the song that way, but having other versions ingrained in your head doesn't help. Give it some time before you go cutting it up -- I thought it was weird when I first heard it, too.

[Smile]

Whenever I listen to Smile -- TSS or BWPS -- it's like hearing the perfect soundtrack to some kind of abstract but personal film that I'm making up in my head as I go along. Which sounds pretty weird, I guess, but the backing tracks and vocal arrangements never cease to amaze me.

I don't know if I prefer it to Pet Sounds, just because they're such different beasts, but there are few albums that bring me such a sense of joy.

The iTunes box set is only worth it if you're itching to grab a few particular tracks not on the 2CD. It's a shame the booklet isn't available, because $50 off the physical set is a damn good bargain.

Sorry mate - that's a bit patronizing to Joe Public, as a listening experience the engineering/processing is a fundamental element of helping make the actual listening an all encompassing experience, hence comparing a bootleg to an officially released item in this instance

I don't disagree with you, but the issues being referred to here are largely ones of mastering, not mixing -- and spotty mastering is much trickier to hear than spotty mixing. So it's not totally unfair to say it won't tamper Joe Public's experience. Heck, I knew where to look and when I was listening, I didn't pay enough attention to notice.

Agreed that we should be VERY thankful for this release. A lot of work went into it.
Also agreed that criticisms are allowed. It's a product for sale, we're spending money on it, and the BBs are going to make money from it. We as consumers have a right to say what we like and dislike about it.

Yeah. The point isn't, "Don't criticize the box set." It's more like, "Keep it in perspective, and know when it's time for you to go outside for a little while."

I just posted this on the Barnyard thread, but it really belongs here:

Any serious listening should be done with a pair of good quality studio headphones.

But I don't enjoy listening to music through headphones.  I listen to music through my big, old Marantz speakers.  And I'm not deaf.  I listened closely and I could barely notice some (but not even close to all...I gave up) of the things that you pointed out as flaws.  And that was with the volume at a higher level than I ever listen to music.  I'm not going to tell you how you should listen to music.  You do your thing, but don't try to tell me how to enjoy listening to music.  I'm sorry that you can not enjoy this disc because of all the hiss, snap, crackle, and pop.  Seriously.  I think it's sublime.  This incredible music has never sounded better...to me.  And that's all that matters...to me.   

True that.

Who's hearing more: the person on professional studio headphones only irritated by pops, or the person emotionally resonating with it over laptop speakers?