50th Anniversary live double CD up for pre-order on Amazon

[JohnMill]

Maybe that is the holdup with the box set; they are autotuning every song being placed on it.

You guys CRY WOLF so much. To my ears TWGMTR was not nearly as bad sounding as you all made it out to be. The same can be said  for the C50 shows, as well. There, but not noticeable to anyone in attendance.

Thank you all the same, but I'll decide for myself, with my own ears.

If there is anybody who autotune is made for, it's Brian Wilson.

Probably one of the saddest statements ever made but ah it is what it is I suppose.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

Right, I'm gonna make some calmed comments now.

The Album is okay. The vocals certainly don't stick out as much as you'd like them to dynamically, but It'll do. The band mix can be quite flat at times, but does get the power sometimes. Dave's Guitar on Little Honda is awesome, something I never noticed before. Piano at the end of GV is mixed WAYYY too loud though.

The set is about right really, okay one or two omissions that would have been nice, but overall a good balance. Still runs at over 2 hours as well, so it's not a bad showing at all!

Booklet is uninformative. Song titles and credits Pg. 1, Add Some music (around small black keyboard) pic with 'the beach Boys' list Pg. 2, Nice 5 photo collage pg. 3, Disc 2 credits pg. 4, Then 5 and 6 are all tech crew/band members/producers. Case is standard 2CD jewel case affair.

Mike's 'Comedy' is in place, rightfully. It wouldn't be a Beach Boys live album without it.

Crowd noise transitions are iffy at times, but band sound is 'consistent' (Ish... more on that in a sec)

But then there's the vocals, and how they're all mixed. I'll try to keep sense here....

As I'm sure you've gathered by now, there is a strong amount of Autotune here. But that is the least of your worries sometimes. Lets pretend Autotune isn't too bad for now, and isn't so bad. My main quarms with the vocals reside mainly in Brian's parts. Many [See H&V, Surfer girl Bridge] have a clear 'overdubbed' quality to them, which is fine if mixed correctly. Some of these aren't. Equally irritating is the weird doubled vocals on things like H&V and GV, which isn't a Jeff double. While I guess you can blag AT, DT you can't.

Combine these two and you get Do it Again, Isn't it Time and TWGMTR. All are very characteristically 'Album' versions, most notably on the chorus'. DIA isn't as bad, but Foskett sticks out as the studio one massively. once again, if mixed okay, these can be effective. Oh no, not here. Mikes doubled Studio vocal AND his live one are present in the second IIT verse, Jardines Strongly AT'd and DT'd 'and all of those things' vocal suddenly moves into a clean 'we like to do' vocal, making no sense. This, TWGMTR and H&V are the worst mixed on here, H&V mainly due to odd edits that DON'T work...

But what everyone cares about most is the Autotune it seems. Lets list the worst travesties off the top of me head...
'Don't Back Down' - Mike's lead vocal
'Surfin' Safari' - 'come on a safari with me'
Wendy - Bruce's lines
Getcha Back - 'I leave her, and you leave him' and dave on the tag.
Marcella - Intro. Brian has it but it's tolerable. Great mix so you know.
Isn't It Time - Everything
Disney Girls - 'testing her chances...'
Little Deuce Coupe - Most of.
I get Around - Brian's vocal in the chorus sticks out as very processed, and Jeff is processed and doubled.

Add Some Music - Most of, btu mainly Brian [We'll get to that in a sec]
H&V - So sad, because the Backing vocals are incredible, but brian(s)... Autotune isn't as strong as you think, it's just been VERY heavily ADT'd
Sail on, Sailor - Verse 1
In My Room - It feels too strong
TWGMTR - No. Just no.
Forever - 'Together my love' [Mike's Vocal]
Sloop John b. - Brian's Vocal
Wouldn't It be Nice - Everyone on lead I think
Good Vibrations - all of the brian(s)'s vocal.
California Girls - Mike's lead
Rock And Roll Music - verse 1 is promising, verse 2 [or 3, I forget] less so.
Kokomo - The autotune is strong with this one
Barbara Ann - Mike, oh mike...

Taken as a whole, these aren't that much really. A lot of the above are brief moments, easily missable due to Mike's inaudibly deep bass parts, but throughout Brian is mostly unacceptably done. I understand he needs it, but as much as this isn't even useful, though some are slaughtered by doubling. Some of Mike's leads are similar, but no-one else is as harshly eaten up.

In otherwords, Vocal Doubling and Studio mixing are the greatest travesties here, then autotune for the most part.

Also, this makes you feel better about what you've got: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZrIyFaPRTE

[Cabinessenceking]

RIP The Beach Boys
I'll stick to listening to recordings from when they still could sing and there was no damned autotune. Brian can't talk/sing anymore. If these supposedly capture his best during tour then that ain't much to talk about.

[Lowbacca]

RIP The Beach Boys
I'll stick to listening to recordings from when they still could sing and there was no damned autotune. Brian can't talk/sing anymore. If these supposedly capture his best during tour then that ain't much to talk about.

They still can sing. Not as good as a couple of decades ago, sure - but they still got it. Also you might have noticed how Carl, the youngest Wilson with that angelic voice, is missing. He died ~15 years ago and naturally can't be replaced. Brian too is still able to talk and sing (quite well for a 70 year old, too).
Furthermore, the new live CD obviously does not represent the highlights from the C50 tour since there is not much 100% live material left on it. Just out of curiosity: have you even attended a C50 gig?

[AndrewHickey]

Well, listening to those samples... they're encoded as really lossy MP3s, so they sound all distorted and robotified anyway. If that's what the actual CD sounds like I'll be mortified, but I can't believe it'll be *that* bad... will it?

[The Shift]

By the time the Boys got to London, they were knock-out.  Why the heck they couldn't pick audio from the tour's later stages might forever be a mystery.

[Shady]

By the time the Boys got to London, they were knock-out.  Why the heck they couldn't pick audio from the tour's later stages might forever be a mystery.

Classic Beach Boys F up.

Just imagine a Beach Boys live at the royal Albert hall or Hollywood Bowl CD/DVD release.

Is that really too much to ask?

Instead we get two of the worst possible representations of an incredible tour.

[Nicko1234]

Classic Beach Boys F up.

Just imagine a Beach Boys live at the royal Albert hall or Hollywood Bowl CD/DVD release.

Is that really too much to ask?

Instead we get two of the worst possible representations of an incredible tour.

Even if they had chosen those shows, I still think they would have autotuned it and overdubbed it beyond recognition. With Brian's vocals they probably would have had to do something in all honesty.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

Okay, Have California Saga: California - how's this sound to you lot? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5VoaoVDIck

Oh, apparently it's blocked worldwide. They're not slow are they!

[Shady]

Classic Beach Boys F up.

Just imagine a Beach Boys live at the royal Albert hall or Hollywood Bowl CD/DVD release.

Is that really too much to ask?

Instead we get two of the worst possible representations of an incredible tour.

Even if they had chosen those shows, I still think they would have autotuned it and overdubbed it beyond recognition. With Brian's vocals they probably would have had to do something in all honesty.

Maybe a little touch here and there but to turn them in to Daft Punk is a travesty.

It's LIVE, We don't need absolute perfection

[Wirestone]

Well, listening to those samples... they're encoded as really lossy MP3s, so they sound all distorted and robotified anyway. If that's what the actual CD sounds like I'll be mortified, but I can't believe it'll be *that* bad... will it?

Yes. I have the actual CDs. The tuning is, in places, absolutely as bad as the samples.

[Wirestone]

By the time the Boys got to London, they were knock-out.  Why the heck they couldn't pick audio from the tour's later stages might forever be a mystery.

Classic Beach Boys F up.

Just imagine a Beach Boys live at the royal Albert hall or Hollywood Bowl CD/DVD release.

Is that really too much to ask?

Instead we get two of the worst possible representations of an incredible tour.

We've been over this. The music licensing for a DVD release would be prohibitive, given how much they could hope to sell. That's what you get when you play 50-plus songs in a show.

The live DVD is, all things considered, pretty good. A sampling of songs, yes, but well put together.

But this live album is ... to put it at its most benignly ... problematic.

[Nicko1234]

Maybe a little touch here and there but to turn them in to Daft Punk is a travesty.

It's LIVE, We don't need absolute perfection

I agree that we don't need perfection absolutely and that they seem to have been very heavy handed.

My feeling is that Al's vocals wouldn't really have needed any work done to them (which makes it all the more ludicrous that Cottonfields was omitted).

Mike's and Bruce's voices are thinner than they used to be but if they'd picked their best efforts then they probably would have sounded acceptable (especially with the great harmonies around them).

It's unfortunate that Brian's vocals are sometimes shouty, sometimes out of tune and often badly phrased. It would be more difficult to choose decent vocals takes from him imo.

[AndrewHickey]

We've been over this. The music licensing for a DVD release would be prohibitive, given how much they could hope to sell. That's what you get when you play 50-plus songs in a show.

The live DVD is, all things considered, pretty good. A sampling of songs, yes, but well put together.

But this live album is ... to put it at its most benignly ... problematic.

Yeah, the live DVD has obviously been touched up, but it's not *bad* by any means -- you hear the artifacts if you're listening for them, but not otherwise.
But if those MP3s are anything like the album sounds (and I just heard from another friend who has it, who says much the same as you) then there is a real, serious problem.

[Lowbacca]

It's pretty funny that the upcoming double live CD might make that hideous DVD look/sound good in comparison. The Beach Boys are killing me.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

It's pretty funny that the upcoming double live CD might make that hideous DVD look/sound good in comparison. The Beach Boys are killing me.

I never bought the DVD, might do now. Is there an audio rip of it floating around?

[Theydon Bois]

(This post assumes that the live album, which I have not heard, is as bad as the samples / reports suggest.  I believe, given the available evidence, that's a fair assumption but I dare say that some will take issue with it and so I should acknowledge here that there is some uncertainty: there is some uncertainty.)

Are the individuals in the Beach Boys' corporate hierarchy who have to sign off on this sort of robotic stuff the same individuals who signed off on such classy, legacy-enhancing product as the Smile box?  Presumably some of them must be the same people.  When okaying two such dissimilar artefacts for release, do they simply assume that the two are going to sell to completely different markets with no crossover, and thus that it is of no consequence that the two products require completely different mindsets to enjoy them?  Because I'd like to posit that (a) there's a reasonable crossover in the audiences, and (b) it's hard to imagine many people being equally delighted by both products.

[Wirestone]

(This post assumes that the live album, which I have not heard, is as bad as the samples / reports suggest.  I believe, given the available evidence, that's a fair assumption but I dare say that some will take issue with it and so I should acknowledge here that there is some uncertainty: there is some uncertainty.)

Are the individuals in the Beach Boys' corporate hierarchy who have to sign off on this sort of robotic stuff the same individuals who signed off on such classy, legacy-enhancing product as the Smile box?  Presumably some of them must be the same people.  When okaying two such dissimilar artefacts for release, do they simply assume that the two are going to sell to completely different markets with no crossover, and thus that it is of no consequence that the two products require completely different mindsets to enjoy them?  Because I'd like to posit that (a) there's a reasonable crossover in the audiences, and (b) it's hard to imagine many people being equally delighted by both products.

Exactly. That's my question. It's almost defensible if you were talking about a single-disc, "Greatest Hits Live" kind of product. One excepts a high degree of polish there, because it's aimed for the largest mass market possible.

But this is a two-disc set that has a bunch of rare-ish songs. Surely that would suggest a different kind of audience, and one that would be open to a rawer sound and vibe.

As I said, it's all deeply peculiar. Joe produces live shows for a television as his job, and I'm fairly sure nothing he does in that realm sounds as frankly bizarre as much of this set. I just wonder if they professionally recorded a small number of shows, and had to make do with what they had in assembling the set.

Another question: If they were looking for good BW vocals that they wouldn't have to massage / mix into oblivion, why didn't they just put IJWMFTT on the set? He sounded awesome on that nearly every night.

[Smilin Ed H]

Great. Another BB album where reviewers will harp on about 'autotune' though they know nothing about it except what they've read on here. Expect a bad review a la Petridis in the Guardian in the UK, just like his review of TWGMTR - based on what he read here, including comments from one totally uninformed asshole who, for a few weeks, couldn't post without mentioning the word, "autotune." Hasn't posted on this thread yet, but it can't be long. I remember seeing Genesis live in the late 70s. Used tapes and all sorts of sh*t. Nobody cared less.

[Wirestone]

Great. Another BB album where reviewers will harp on about 'autotune' though they know nothing about it except what they've read on here. Expect a bad review a la Petridis in the Guardian in the UK, just like his review of TWGMTR - based on what he read here, including comments from one totally uninformed asshole who, for a few weeks, couldn't post without mentioning the word, "autotune." Hasn't posted on this thread yet, but it can't be long. I remember seeing Genesis live in the late 70s. Used tapes and all sorts of sh*t. Nobody cared less.

Oh, boo frickin' hoo. Critics don't matter. Not with a release like this, which will be roundly ignored by 99 percent of them anyway, even if it was the second coming of "Live at Leeds."

I don't care about tuning one way or another. TWGMTR sounded fine to me, even if it was exceptionally polished. I don't even care if a live album is "live" -- a lot of great ones were nearly entirely re-recorded in the studio.

I do care about audible artifacts from added studio effects, which are all over this album. I care about a poorly mixed and put-together album, which this is. I do care about a live album that doesn't reflect the amazing experience that the C50 concerts were.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Giving this live album a listen was hard.. i really wanted to give up in the middle of the second cd because it felt so lifeless and embarassing, and it really makes me sad cause there's some songs i was really looking forward to hear.. well i did end up listening to it all but let's say the heart wasn't there.

What makes it more shamefull is that i realize, no matter how much compilations this band gets every months, the live albums tho are pretty rare, in fact this is the only one i believe in the official catalogue since... well the 1980 Knebworth concert released in 2002, right, not only that but it was for a very special tour with Brian being back with the others and for, of course, the 50th anniversary! as Al Jardine said, a full circle.

It had all to please and be a great release, a unique tour with all the members left and a big backup band (but maybe sometimes too present on the vocals), a lovely cover for the cd, great choices for the tracklist from all the setlists! and yet somehow... i guess it is to blame on Joe Thomas or whoever really works on it, cause i highly doubt Brian Wilson sits down to listen to the lives again and thinks it needs more compressing and autotune, it would be sad if that's the case.. and then, it totally kills the vibe and the songs, especially for a band that is well known for the harmonies and the vocals performances/arrangements, and this is the treatment they get.. and i'm sure the concerts were fun and sounded good, from what i could read and hear/see! it doesn't appear to give it justice and it's a sad way to end it all, if that's the final part of the Beach Boys catalogue..

Anyway, who plays the solo guitar on Marcella?

[Wirestone]

Dave.

[runnersdialzero]

Oh Christ, Brian's vocals. "Good Vibrations", "Sail On Sailor", "Heroes", etc. This man deserves so much better than this. So much better. So does Mike, but his situation on here isn't nearly as dire (albeit still dire).

The thing that baffles me most is the doubling. And not the regular annoyance of Jeff doubling Brian or anything of the sort, fucking two Brians. Who on earth thinks that's appropriate for a live album? Melinda, whom surely is the person to be suggesting these sorts of things given her vast experience and knowledge of the music industry since 1961, suggested Brian's vocals be doubled for an older live album release (Roxy? Pet Sounds?). Someone back then had the decency to tell her that, hello, it's a live album, you don't double track live vocals because there's no actual way to do such a thing in a live setting. Looks like someone thought it was a good idea this time, though.

I just don't get it. Brian sounded just fine on the '04 Smile live DVD even if there was overdubbing and/or comping from various concerts. I'm puzzled as to why this approach wasn't used here for both Brian and Mike. Again, this makes them look worlds more pathetic than they really are nowadays, and worlds more pathetic than the alternative of, God forbid, putting just a little work into this and using comping and a bit of manual pitch correction if necessary. This is such a huge step back from that. Like I said somewhere in the last page, is it really saving them embarrassment when the doctoring of the vocals is over the top obvious? From what I've judged by most people's comments, this approach just makes the band look pathetic and incapable. They're not.

And I'm sorry, but using vocals from the new album is another astonishingly bone-headed move. People likely have both discs for reference, they can hear that sh*t. I'm talking about stuff like "Do It Again", "Isn't It Time" and "That's Why God Made The Radio".

I hate to complain and always feel bad doing so, but sheesh. As always, I love this band and welcome anything they're gonna put out with open arms. I just hate to see what is seemingly next to zero care taken with these things, things that should be considered part of their legacy. A sonic documentation of the year 2012 when they were able to put the bullshit aside and be a band again. It just feels like every effort was made to heavily mask some severe lack of skill among these guys, the greatest vocal group of all time, when that lack of skill simply isn't there.

[Wirestone]

I just don't get it. Brian sounded just fine on the '04 Smile live DVD even if there was overdubbing and/or comping from various concerts. I'm puzzled as to why this approach wasn't used here for both Brian and Mike. Again, this makes them look worlds more pathetic than they really are nowadays, and worlds more pathetic than the alternative of, God forbid, putting just a little work into this and using comping and a bit of manual pitch correction if necessary.

Nail on the head.

New theory: Everyone in the group was so annoyed with one another that they refused to do any studio retakes for the project and threw it at Joe Thomas.

[Wirestone]

For comparison. Audience video of H&V from last June. It's just about perfect. Not note-perfect, but feeling-perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50p8hryi4oA