Bob Rose on BB vocals technique

[Lola Jane]

I posted this on the Blueboard some time ago.  It incorporates some of the more technical aspects.  Apologies if it has been posted before.  Enjoy.

http://www.indie-music.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3111

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Very interesting, thank you.

[Jim McShane]

I'm not trying to start an argument here, but there is a very interesting quote in that article-

"To get that great pop sound, the vocals were fairly heavily compressed with the highs boosted then run through a desser before they hit tape."

Not that the Boys weren't wonderful singers, but this process Bob Rose describes is pretty much the equivalent of homogenizing. That's a significant addition to whatever blend the Boys themselves generated (along with the fact that there were SO many overdubs).

Not too many months ago I routinely posted that I felt much of the difference in "blend" between Brian's new band and the old BBs was in the recording process.  The de-esser removes much of the sibilance and therefore does reduce the high frequency content some. And the heavy compression along with all the overdubs is a major enhancement to blend too. I'm certainly not Mark L., but I doubt the same process is used in the recent recordings. If that's the case (it's not used) I feel very secure in saying the process is a significant contributor to the "Beach Boy blend".

And again, I am NOT saying they couldn't sing wonderfully. All I'm saying is that to compare the old BB recordings with the new band's and try to compare blend is very much an apples-and-oranges comparison.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Sometimes I wonder if there's quite a bit of exaggeration when engineers talk about track counts, because while there are probably a few brief segments where there are 70 beach boys singing at once or whatever, most of the time I just hear the double with a few add-ons.

That said, there certainly was a point as technology and practice rolled along, that the Beach Boys started sounding less like "The Beach Boys" on the backing vocals, and more like, yes, a homogenous wall of vocals.  I think this started in earnest around 15 big ones time, where the backing vocals just kind of sound like one person sang all of them, kind of one amalgamation of all the Beach Boys voices.  A far cry from say, Smiley Smile, where there is such an intimmate blend, but you can still hear the Mikeness, Alness, Brianess in the blend.

Still, interesting how much variety of sound you can get from a bunch of guys around one mic, depending on how you process them.

[Aegir]

I don't know, they sound pretty Beach Boys-esque on live recordings, too. No matter how much you fudge which things, you can't digitally recreate the sound of, say, Carl and Al singing in harmony with each other.