Hey all. I know you are probably sick of SMiLE mixes at this point, and for that I apologize. But I haven't seen one like this yet, so I thought I'd share it here anyway. (Scroll to the bottom for download links)
Basically, I'm a fan of the Purple Chick mix and the BWPS sequencing. Purple Chick was the first time I had heard anything SMiLE, outside of H&V and Good Vibrations, and I fell in love with it. When that happens, it's hard to adapt to a different mix. With the release of
The SMiLE Sessions, I was hoping someone would create a mix closely following the Purple Chick reconstruction using the superior quality
TSS material. So far, no one has, so I took it upon myself to do so (mostly because I wanted to listen to it that way.)
That's what this is. Mostly. It very closely follows the Purple Chick/BWPS sequencing, with some minor differences here and there. Among those differences, I included the Barnshine sections of OMP/YAMS and I used
The Smile Sessions mix of Vega-Tables. That sh*t is too good not to include. If you aren't Purple Chick fans, I get that, and I'm sure there is some other mix for you.
Now, I'm not exactly what you would call an "audio magician" outside of some creative copy and pasting, so I relied mainly on previous fan-mixes for my sources, and for that, I thank all of you wonderful fan-mixers that have come before me.
Oh, and this is all in stereo. I think I might make a mono mix sometime in the future, so get psyched for that.
Here is a list of the sources and notes on what I did for each track:
1. Our Prayer/Gee (Purple Chick/Mok, TSS D1&D2)Used Purple Chick's Prayer, which is Mok's, I believe, and then I grabbed Gee from
TSS.
2. Heroes And Villains (Barnshine TSS Companion, TSS D2, BWPS)Used Barnshine's mix for the most part, with some altering of my own here and there. I used the first Branshine mix, not the "fixed" one, which is basically the
TSS stereo mix (boy, citing sources is becoming trickier.) I tried to fix an audio flub found on the Smile Sessions stereo mix at approx. 3:02, but I'm no audio wizard like some of you, so it isn't perfect, but it sounds better than it did.
BWPS at the end, a la Purple Chick.
3. Do You Like Worms? (Roll Plymouth Rock) (Barnshine TSS Companion, TSS D1&D3)Most is Barnshine's mix edited to match the PC/BWPS sequence. I did a new sync of the chorus because I haven't found a sync using the
TSS sources that I'm completely satisfied with yet. It's more difficult to sync up than one would think, but I feel pretty good about mine.
4. Barnyard (Barnshine/seltaeb1012002)seltaeb1012002's mix is the best I've heard so far, so that's what I used here. I think it's his earliest mix of the track using Bruitier's[?] isolation (hard to say with all of the SMiLE A.D. mixes.)
5. My Only Sunshine (Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine) (Barnshine TSS Companion)Used Barnshine's mix here. Also, in the first instance of really straying from the Purple Chick sequence, I had to include the Barnshine section of the song, as it's too good to keep off of the album. I first heard it on
TSS and it was a revelation. I think it works really well in the album and I wonder what the reasoning was for keeping it off of
BWPS.
6. Cabin Essence (Purple Chick)It's the Purple Chick mix, which is the best sounding stereo mix of the song I've heard. They used the
20/20 mix, restored the fade, and used
BWPS for the final chord.
7. Wonderful (seltaeb1012002 SMiLE A.D. 2.0)This is the best sounding stereo mix I've heard so far, even though the backing vocals seem to be a little too loud toward the end of the first verse which I, very slightly, attempted to remedy (I'm not sure if it actually worked, though.) Also, I turned the highs down a bit for the whole track because seltaeb1012002 seems to enjoy mixes that make your ears bleed. After that, I extended the end a little bit to more closely follow Purple Chick and
BWPS. Again, I'm not an audio genius, but I did my best here. Overall, I think it sounds pretty good.
8. Look (Song For Childen) (Barnshine TSS Companion, JMZ, BWPS)The Barnshine mix, edited again to match the PC/BWPS sequence. I did my best to fly-in the JMZ vocals for the first part of the song, but it doesn't sound as good as I would have hoped (because I suck.) I've grown to love those flown-in JMZ vocals at the beginning, so I had to include them somehow. The other fly-ins of JMZ's, I'm not so keen on, because it just seems like too much to me (he did a great job, though.) Some of you may be saddened to hear that I didn't include the Twelth Street Rag sections. I did this because... I don't like them very much, so shoot me.
In a bit of experimentation, I used the
BWPS transition between Look and Child Is Father Of The Man. I used Melodyne to help a little bit, but my limited knowledge prevented this from sounding as good as I would have hoped. Oh well, it sounds better, to me, than the slow-down at the end of Look that Purple Chick and others have used. You be the judge, I'll live.
9. Child Is Father Of The Man (BWPS, Barnshine TSS Companion)BWPS at the beginning, for the transition, and then Barnshine's mix, edited to match PC/BWPS.
10. Surf's Up (TSS Vinyl)I was torn here. There are a couple of things that I *really* don't like about this vinyl mix. One: I don't like Carl's vocal. They should have used Brian's for both of the "Canvas..." lines, imo. And two: The sync is way off in some places for the first verse. Also, I happen to like it when "A children's song..." begins the tag, like PC and BWPS (although this TSS version is growing on me.) I was about to just use the PC mix, but the vinyl rip sounded too good, sonically, for me not to include it (plus, I love the added harmonies during the second "columnated ruins.." line.) If I wasn't such an audio-moron, I would have created my own mix with a better sync of Brian's demo vocal, using his "Canvas" line twice, including the "bygones" and additional harmonies, and "a children's song" would have begun the tag (though, again, the TSS tag I'm getting used to). I was hoping someone would attempt a mix like that post-TSS, but I haven't found my fantasy mix yet. Sad face. **On the plus side, this is the best vinyl rip of the stereo mix that I have heard so far. The rip that seems to be heavily circulating right now has some major distortion issues. This rip has no distortion and sounds fantastic. And if I sing loud enough when I'm listening to it, I don't hear the sync issues and Carl's line isn't as distracting.
11. I'm In Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop (BWPS, seltaeb1012002, Purple Chick, TSS D3)BWPS for the beginning, then an early seltaeb1012002 mix for IIGS, which goes into the Purple Chick mix right after "open country/agriculture". Seltaeb1012002's mix sounded the best, but had that high harmony at the end which I couldn't get rid of, so the transition into the Purple Chick instrumental sounds rougher than it should, but I can live with it. I used the Purple Chick mix for the instrumental portion because it sounds the best to me and it's something that I've gotten used to. I wish
TSS had included the take PC used for this section, but life is unfair, so I had to make do with what I had.
TSS was used for the rest.
12. Vega-Tables (TSS D3, TSS Vinyl)In another instance of straying from the PC/BWPS path, I used the glorious vinyl rip for Vega-Tables. How could I not?
13. Holidays (On A Holiday) (Barnshine TSS Companion, Unsurpassed Masters 18)TSS for most of it, with my own sync of the "Whispering Winds" stuff at the end. The "first rehearsal" takes of the whispering vocals are in better quality than what was used on
Smiley Smile and
TSS, and more closely match
BWPS anyway, so I used those. Sounds nicer to me. Again, it might sound better if someone who knew what they were doing handled it, but I did my best and I like it.
14. Wind Chimes (TSS Vinyl)Just TSS Vinyl here. Sounds great.
15. The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O'Leary's Cow) (Barnshine TSS Companion)Barnshine's mix. I'm not a big fan of the panning for the flown-in vocals, but I've yet to find a better mix for this. Everything else sounds great.
16. Love To Say Da Da (In Blue Hawaii) (Barnshine TSS Companion, BWPS/PC)Barnshine's mix with BWPS/PC for the end.
17. Good Vibrations (Barnshine TSS Companion, MQR, Purple Chick)Another one where I couldn't find a mix that I was one hundred percent satisfied with. PC's was great, but I didn't like that their vocals were panned. JMZ's stereo mix is one of the best I've heard and I might have used it, but then he went and facked up the second verse and beyond with weirdness. MQR's was good, but they also used a bunch of weirdness that I didn't like. Barnshine's is good, vocals are panned in the center, everything sounds nice, so I went with Barnshine's for the majority of it. The only thing I didn't like in Barnshine's was that the hum-de-das didn't include the "gotta keep those" vocals over them. So I used MQR for that bit, which had what I wanted, then back to Barnshine, and Purple Chick for the end. Phew!
So that's that. It isn't perfect, but no SMiLE mix is. I hope some people find this useful, as I spent some time on it. There were a couple of "Whatever, f**k it" moments while I was making it, so if there are giant mistakes, let me know and I *might* make a revised version in the future.
And FINALLY, here are the download links (they all include the fixed IIGS/IWBA/W track):
FLAC (Part 1)FLAC (Part 2)MP3 (V0)**FIXED "I'm In Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" track (If you downloaded this here on or before February 14th, 2012, then you have the old version of the track and can find the fixed version with the
slightly better IIGS transition here:
FLACMP3
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