There’s something about the blend on Friends that raises it for me. I think that it’s that Brian’s falsetto had take on a slightly different, crisper tone by then. And the warm recording and mix. Just beautiful.

I’ve always thought that Brian’s part on Cool Cool Water, “Coolin’ coolin’ coolin’ me” sounds like older Brian.

Does anyone know who is playing the guitar parts that Nicky would have played or if they’re leaving them out? It must be so hard for the band to continue at the moment.

On a related note, I did the meet and greet at Brian’s show a few years ago. I brought along Pet Sounds and Holland. I asked if Brian and Al only could sign Pet Sounds. But Blondie signed it anyway! I had mixed feelings being a bit of purist, but laughing at myself for being annoyed that two many Beach Boys had signed my record!

I hope for a new album produced by Adam Schlesinger (producer of the new Monkees album)

Definitely worthy of the criticism. The video is labeled "Still Tourin'" and is based largely on clips from a lineup and tour that was far greater in quality of music and quantity of seats per venue than what is actually on the road "still tourin'" right now. Despicable.

I can't help but feel you may have lost some perspective on life if you think this is "despicable"

I've just finished Peter's terrific book Catch A Wave. As many of you will know it ends with the release of BWPS. I'd be really interested to know Peter's take on the 2012 reunion and what followed. Does anyone know if he has commented on or written about it?

California Grills
Please Let Me Chunder

I've always thought he gets a pretty good approximation of 1960s falsetto on the tag to You've Touched Me from GIOMH

For a professional actress of many years standing, she looks...

1 - scared shitless and...

2 - as wooden as the Sequoia National Forest.

Brian, on the other hand, is relaxed, animated and clearly having a ball. Crazy world we live in.

I think she's just concentrating...

I actually really like her vocal on this.

It's so obvious that the whole thing about it being about C50 is just marketing. Brian answered this question directly yesterday so why is there debate?

This song could be good but the production is the cheesiest ever. That reverb drenched piano sound, with power ballad playing...

The ending is really nice. I find most of the song a bit cheesy - like someone said earlier it's a bit more Bruce Johnston than Brian Wilson (or Dennis Wilson). Nice vocal though. I definitely prefer Southern California and Summer's Gone as direct comparisons though.

I have mixed feelings. I like that Brian is trying something a bit different. And I like the intro.

But the beats are so bad, it sounds like one of those bad Bee Gees songs from the 90s. im just really surprised this is how Brian wants his music to sounds, drum loops and synth sounds that could have come directly from one of those games when you make your own dance song.

And the comparisons with Love you... I guess they both have synthesisers, but what else?

As someone else said above, people saying that this will be on the radio probably don't listen to current music. Take a listen to Hot Chip or someone like that and see the difference.

Hitler knows his stuff when it comes to great music. The Beatles are absurdly overrated for what they were.

I don't even know where to begin with this. I don't think it's possible to overrate the Beatles, their music is (in my view) unique and wonderful. But 'absurdly overrated'? I absolutely love the Beach Boys but the only full album that equals the Beatles incredible run of albums is Pet Sounds. There are other albums I love but none have the consistent quality, and that's because brian had to do it all by himself!

Anyway sorry, I do know you're entitled to your opinion Mike's Beard, I just feel quite passionately! I do probably agree having so many albums in the all time top10 is a *bit* much.

You know there's more bands out there than just those two...right?

Edit: Today, All Summer Long, Smiley, Friends, Sunflower, Love You and Holland are just as great as any Beatles album too, I'd say. SMiLE far surpasses anything they ever did.

Yeah I suppose I just chose to compare them to the BBs because... This board is about them.

Anyway yeah I know there are other great bands. Just disagree that they're "absurdly overrated".

Hitler knows his stuff when it comes to great music. The Beatles are absurdly overrated for what they were.

I don't even know where to begin with this. I don't think it's possible to overrate the Beatles, their music is (in my view) unique and wonderful. But 'absurdly overrated'? I absolutely love the Beach Boys but the only full album that equals the Beatles incredible run of albums is Pet Sounds. There are other albums I love but none have the consistent quality, and that's because brian had to do it all by himself!

Anyway sorry, I do know you're entitled to your opinion Mike's Beard, I just feel quite passionately! I do probably agree having so many albums in the all time top10 is a *bit* much.

Do you like the song and wish it was longer?
I made a quick edit with double verses before each chorus.  Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/ste_xxx/trt-long

Thanks for doing that, kind of works - although makes me a bit dizzy!

The stuff about Dave is interesting. The opening and closing guitar are excellent. The licks in the middle I think are quite cheesy. It's also a totally different tone. So makes sense that it's not him in the middle.

Ah, thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkM3uqWctg

Great video with studio footage of Brian, Al, Jim Keltner, Scott Bennett, and Don Was with lyrics.

Not sure what David Marks' contribution was to the song as session player Dean Parks is the guitarist in the video.

Cool video, great to see Brian and Al so happy working together.

Pretty funny that it's not David Marks adding the "authentic" guitar sound... Did they mean to expose that?

[There is a very wide margin between “singing into a microphone, running it through a mixing board, and then onto a recording device” and heavy use of a software plug-in (whether it’s “autotune” or some other software).]

There is a very wide margin between “singing into a microphone, running it through a mixing board, and then onto a recording device” and heavy use of a software plug-in (whether it’s “autotune” or some other software).

It is indeed always worth keeping in mind that other forms of studio tricks and processing have been at play for eons. But with some weird exceptions like running a voice through a Leslie speaker on “Be Here in the Morning”, nothing fundamentally alters the sound, tone, timbre, and actual notes of a singing performance the way autotune-type plug-ins do.

I totally buy the idea that an autotune-type effect is not at play on “The Right Time”, and a discussion of the recording and mixing (and mastering) techniques at play that are giving the recording that smooth type of effect would be a great discussion. I’m not sure how equipped most (including in some cases myself) are here to have such a conversation, as it requires a good ear and a familiarity with some recording techniques.

I wouldn't normally excerpt a post like this, but I wanted to address these three points in particular, in bold.

First point: You'd be surprised. Many variables are in play. There is no such thing as a pure signal chain as it seems you're suggesting and trying to compare to the plug-in signal chain. I could mention one of at least a dozen variables that could alter the sound of that natural voice going into a recording device.

Let me focus on one: The microphone. Are you using a large diaphragm or small diaphragm condenser? Are you using a condenser mic or a ribbon mic? Are you using a dynamic mic like a 57 or an old-school dynamic mic like a 666? Maybe a broadcast-style mic like the RE20, or an SM7? How about condensers, are you going for a vintage style tube mic like a C12 or a U47? Ribbon mics...RCA 44, 77, or a newer model like a Royer? Large diaphragm condensers, perhaps an AKG 414, maybe a Blue Bottle? Want a distorted sound, maybe a Green Bullet for that effect, or simply overdrive a preamp with any mic? Why use a 57 in a studio but not a 58? Omnidirectional, unidirectional, figure 8? Go for vintage Neumann or a modern Mojave?...yada yada yada.  

The point is that the choice of microphone is only one factor in the voice-microphone-recording device chain that can have a radical effect on how that voice sounds when recorded. Only one - and even the variables and choices I listed scratch the surface as far as what can alter the sound. How about the non-electronic or non-mechanical variables, such as mic placement, mic technique from the vocalist, placement within a room or a booth if you want an open sound versus a controlled sound...all that jazz. Then preamps, EQ's, the "voice" of one board versus another, type of cable, type of converter if it's digital or type of tape machine if it's analog...some very minor but among the pros, each can have enough of an effect on the sound to make a difference, and to influence certain choices as they're made in the process.

Two quotes from engineer Wesley Seidman's article in Mix magazine describing the recording process from Brian's No Pier Pressure sessions:

1. Seidman captured the performances to Pro Tools in all three of the studios at Ocean Way (A, B and D), but the engineer says Wilson prefers to do live band tracking and orchestral sections in Studio B, a room that has also hosted sessions for award-winning albums by Green Day, Radiohead, and Eric Clapton with B.B. King: “It’s just the sound and feel of the room itself, and the [custom 56-Input 8068/8088] Neve doesn’t hurt,” Seidman says. “He did almost all of the work on his solo records in there. But he also likes Studio A, where we cut a few tracks and is my favorite room for strings. We also cut a lot of the background vocals and guest vocals for the new album in D.”

2. Wilson’s vocals were recorded in all three rooms with a Neumann U 47. In Studio A, his voice went through the modified Focusrite console to a Teletronix LA-2A. “In D, we would go through the remote Neve pre’s into an [Universal Audio] 1176, and then toward the last third of the record, I purchased a modified API mic pre, which has amazing bandwidth, and sent the 47 through that, into an 1176. And this is all flat—Brian EQs himself by moving around the mic, which he does naturally. We also used a plethora of [UAD] reverb and delay plug-ins. This enabled us to automate the delay and reverb times for each section of the songs where desired. Brian and I both like the FX to be just right.


Note the choice between different rooms in the same studio complex to capture specific characteristics and for specific purposes. Note also the mentions of an LA-2A and 1176...why use an optical compressor versus a FET compressor, and what's the difference? It all seems minor, but again all of these factors can dramatically and noticeably change that so-called "pure sound" depending on how they are used.


Second:

But with some weird exceptions like running a voice through a Leslie speaker on “Be Here in the Morning”, nothing fundamentally alters the sound, tone, timbre, and actual notes of a singing performance the way autotune-type plug-ins do.

This is simply not true. The misconception or misunderstanding may be between the Cher, T-Pain, or Kanye deliberate over-use of the effect versus setting up the parameters as to be mostly unnoticeable. It could be shown by taking an unprocessed isolated vocal track and A-B'ing it with an Autotuned track done to smooth out rather than to deliberately create an effect. If anyone has problems with and can even hear the latter use on any number of vocal tracks across the musical spectrum, I'd suggest there is a very lucrative career in the audio mastering field waiting for such highly trained ears.  

Last, I’m not sure how equipped most (including in some cases myself) are here to have such a conversation, as it requires a good ear and a familiarity with some recording techniques.

Sounds about right.    Which is why I don't understand making all of these things an ongoing issue, again and again and again.

I actually enjoy the technobabble in Mix Magazine and the like. I find dissertations on recording techniques quite compelling.

But I'm also interested in talking about what the end product sounds like. That’s the end of the chain that starts with microphone choices and placement, EQ, analog and digital outboard gear, and the million other things that the sound gets subjected to.

But I simply fundamentally disagree that copious use of pitch correction plug-ins can be equated to mic placement and the like. It’s kind of like saying, “I repainted your car a different color, then added a new clear coat, then I tinted your windows darker, did a wheel alignment, and oh yeah, I also crushed the car into a one foot square cube. Those are all changes I made to your car, and as you stand here looking at your car/cube, all of those changes equally affected how the car came out in the end.”

Now, much like artists in the 80s started recording real drums to make them *sound* like drum machines, perhaps some producers and engineers are trying to give stuff a slick, “autotuned” type of sound without actually using it. It’s quite true, with a bag of techniques, double tracking, EQ, echo, and so on, weird and wondrous things can be achieved.

I’m always willing and enthusiastic to read hard evidence that some perception we have is actually incorrect. Surely some fans/listeners are overanalyzing, and immediately jumping to the “autotune” conclusion, sometimes without knowing or thinking about the countless other factors that go into a recording. But I don’t agree with the “Hey, recording vocals in a swimming pool, switching the microphone polarity, switching studios, turning autotune to 11, they’re all just “techniques”, and we weren’t there in the studio watching the recording and mixing, so we shouldn’t make these things an ongoing issue.”  

I remember a discussion of “From There to Back Again” some time back, and someone offered a good deal of argument for why they felt it did *not* have any autotune applied. I thought the argument was interesting and compelling, and made me think about how seemingly common techniques from the past could perhaps produce such an effect. I ultimately felt that it was likely autotune was in fact applied to that recording (especially given later aural evidence, such as some of the tracks on the C50 live album, that spoke to the potential present-day work patterns of Joe Thomas), but it was all compelling information to digest.

The aural evidence of potential recent use of autotune-type effects on recent BB-related projects, along with other evidence we have at hand (who is working on these projects, what types of effects are in more common usage as time goes on, comparison to past and contemporaneous BB and BB-related projects, etc.) strongly suggest to me, that, simply put, it is most likely Joe Thomas who has introduced BB and BB-related projects to a more assertive use of pitch correction plug-ins/effects. No More, no less. It’s not Earth-shattering. I’m not throwing any of my CDs away. It doesn’t mean the end product isn’t still good or great in many cases; it doesn’t mean Thomas and Brian are using the pitch correction on every track; it doesn’t mean they aren’t also using a myriad of other common and ingenious recording and mixing methods, it doesn’t mean Joe Thomas shouldn’t be involved (I suspect C50 wouldn’t have happened without Thomas). But as much as it devolves into a simple semantic point, I’m not willing to completely dismiss the point that autotune is most likely being used simply because it theoretically has another explanation.

At this point, overuse of pitch correction isn’t some big ethical, moral question. It’s more simply a case of finding it artistically kind of monotonous, like if Frampton put his talkbox on half the songs on every album he did, or if Al Jardine added a spoken-word interlude to every other song he wrote, etc.

Agree with this post 100%

I really wish I could like this

I like the verses, "what ever happened to me and you" etc. I like the way Al sings it, it has a bit of a Carl style phrasing to it. But that's the only but I like really. It feels a bit under developed to me. And the vocals sound over processed.

But I still have high hopes for NPP.

Brian is one hell of a vocal coach if he can get people to sing a completely straight note with no pitch variation at all

It blows me away that this unbelievably terrible auto tune makes it past the engineers, record label execs etc.

Oh Lord
From There To Back Again

This is so cool. The best thing is that this will generate probably zero publicity, Brian is just doin' it for the fans. What a guy.

I loved your work with Carnie and Wendy on songs like Everything I Need. Do you have any plans to work with California Saga, perhaps as a producer and writer? It was great to hear the voices of the next generation, especially seeing Dennis' and Carl's sons on stage.

Thank you for everything!