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Author Topic: Episode - The Wouldn't it be Nice Introduction. Streaming Now.  (Read 9428 times)
Joshilyn Hoisington
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« on: March 07, 2020, 03:52:12 PM »

https://youtu.be/YrOjCMPTdzY


This is the first episode of You're Grass and I'm a Power Mower.  20 plus years in the making.  I'd love to hear your thoughts about this.  We certainly have had some spirited chats about this topic in the past!

The episode tries to answer the question of what instrument played the WIBN intro, and perhaps more interestingly, why it sounds that way.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2020, 12:13:50 PM by aeijtzsche » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2020, 04:17:19 PM »

I am a total mark for this kind of stuff, I just watched the whole thing, what a fabulous amount of meticulous research. You nailed it – only other component that might be fun to see is a transcription of the two parts, because now I want to try it for myself! Haha.

Great work, hope to see more of these. Cheers
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Joshilyn Hoisington
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« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2020, 04:18:45 PM »

I am a total mark for this kind of stuff, I just watched the whole thing, what a fabulous amount of meticulous research. You nailed it – only other component that might be fun to see is a transcription of the two parts, because now I want to try it for myself! Haha.

Great work, hope to see more of these. Cheers

Thank you!  You will see more of them, God willing.  I might do more of a tutorial video at some point with a transcription.  Just wanted to get the production part out there!
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« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2020, 05:46:57 PM »

https://youtu.be/YrOjCMPTdzY


This is the first episode of You're Grass and I'm a Power Mower.  20 plus years in the making.  I'd love to hear your thoughts about this.  We certainly have had some spirited chats about this topic in the past!

The episode tries to answer the question of what instrument played the WIBN intro, and perhaps more interestingly, why it sounds that way.
Thank you for all your efforts!!!! Cool video!
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« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2020, 05:29:42 AM »

The Power Mower nails it again. Welcome back, JH. Smiley

I do believe the lights just went back on in Beach Boys Land. Roll Eyes
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« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2020, 08:51:12 AM »

Great job as always, aeijtzsche!  Now - would you say it's also the Bellzouki on "YSBIM", "IKTAA", and "IJWMFTT"?
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« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2020, 12:39:02 PM »

Great job as always, aeijtzsche!  Now - would you say it's also the Bellzouki on "YSBIM", "IKTAA", and "IJWMFTT"?

Inasmuch as Barney is on those, and insofar as my hypothesis holds that he got a Bellzouki when it came out and never upgraded, I'd say yes.  Although IKTAAI started hearing one guitar on there as a 6-string but was also getting ear burnout and haven't revisted.

I hope to get a Bellzouki soonish.  There are some hypotheses I have about it, but I want to demonstrate them concretely. 

Any evidence that Barney owned a Bellzouki would be the ultimate gift in my life.  That'd be pretty cool--We can already rejoice in being able to have pictures of a couple of the actual guitars used on Pet Sounds; Glen's Mosrite and Carol's Guild.  Would be amazing to have more photos.
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« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2020, 02:00:14 PM »

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« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2020, 03:50:24 PM »

...by extension, if the theory's correct then it'd probably a Bellzouki Barney's using on Look too, right?

Yeah, my hypothesis is that Barney only ever owned one electric 12 and that one guitar was a Bellzo.   
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« Reply #9 on: March 09, 2020, 04:09:11 AM »

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« Reply #10 on: March 09, 2020, 04:54:27 AM »

Yeah the early Danos and Rickenbackers have that string configuration.  I’ve certainly spent no short amount of time listening for that, up to and including slowing it waaaay down.  Ultimately, I think it sounds like the bellzouki config but there’s really no way to hear it definitively.
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« Reply #11 on: March 09, 2020, 05:26:34 AM »

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« Reply #12 on: March 09, 2020, 06:26:17 AM »

Yeah, that’s a good observation—the bellzouki’s stock bridge was terrible and perfect intonation, basically impossible on even the best of bridges, is not gonna happen there that far up the neck.  The fender bridge is great, with its 12 individual saddles.  But still takes some effort.

With my Mosrite style 12, I have to compromise tune.  I’ve tried everything but can’t get the octave g strings in perfect tune all the way up the neck.

These things might point against Barney’s being a Fender, and even Jerry’s...
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« Reply #13 on: March 09, 2020, 07:41:09 AM »

Very cool video!
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« Reply #14 on: March 09, 2020, 08:54:56 AM »

Very enjoyable! Nice work.

As you know I've been obsessed with that intro too for a long time, and have also tried various recipes to get that sound.

Understand this is not a criticism, but an observation. What you did there is great, breaking it all down for everyone to experience and trying different plug-ins and sounds. I'd say it's very *close*, but there is something missing in terms of the sonic sheen overall on those two guitars. It's not the reverb or chamber sounds, but there is an odd type of EQ happening there which I think the final "take" on the video misses by just a bit. I hear a little too much presence on the strings, a little too much of the "direct into board" type of sound which creates that more snappy EQ and response.

On the original there is some kind of distance - for lack of a better descriptive term - that creates the otherworldly sound, just like California Girls has an intro which sounded like a sunrise early in the morning, WIBN sounds like a music box tinkling away in the mind and imagination of a young person dreaming of a happy future. It sounds like a dreamscape where someone is smiling in their imagination, and this "distance" of those guitars in that mix nails it perfectly, aided by how they're made to sound like a whimsical music box.

I think perhaps the nature of the recording, bouncing, overdubbing, and multi-layers of tape copies and generations being degraded over each bounce or dub-down may have lopped off the treble too, all this after the initial mix going on the first session where they had to get all those tracks blended onto 3 or 4 tracks at Gold Star. There is something in the EQ, whether deliberate from the mix going in or an aftereffect of the entire process including mastering for AM radio that changed the EQ of that intro considerably, and maybe that's what I'm hearing on the final mix but not as much on the demonstration video. Did you try messing with the EQ on the UA plug-in to knock off some of that treble attack on the guitar?

On the intro itself - I hear and always heard a C (17th fret, G string) starting that final arpeggio before the verse kicks in, yet it sounds like you played another A to start it on the video. Just wondering about that choice of notes as I always led with a C, or else I'm just hearing it wrong as played in the video!

One cool thing that a lot of people miss too is the *swing* with which Barney played that figure, and the way the notes of the arpeggios bled into each other because of the shapes he was using. I think this video came close to that, much more than other tutorials I have seen. It's an "X Factor" in the performance of the part which many have missed, much like people trying to cover Brian's lead vocal missed the fact that he was belting it out in full voice, and not singing it sweetly and softly as some try to do. One thing Barney had as a jazz master was that innate sense of swing, and it's good to hear it captured.

Re: Vari-speeding the tape. There is one of the vocal overdub takes - apologies for not knowing offhand which specific one it is - where the whole thing is slowed down by what I recall was at least a half step, or thereabout...and on that slowed tape Brian adds one part of his lead vocal. One of the older tricks in the book, and yes at this specific time I think the process of vari-speeding was an inexact science where the tapes were not returned to perfect A 440 after vari-speeding. And in some cases, it was deliberate so that a record or mix would "cut through" the clutter of AM radio with that little difference in sound that a slowed-down or sped-up mastered track would provide. Once The Beatles got into vari-speeding in '66 to the point they did, it was a new game. It didn't matter what the original key was after the final effect of the vari-speed was heard.
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« Reply #15 on: March 09, 2020, 09:42:06 AM »

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« Reply #16 on: March 09, 2020, 09:55:39 AM »

Thanks for the involved criticism, Craig; I appreciate thoughtful feedback!  And of course I mean criticism in the actual sense of the word, not what the sense has become of only negative.

RE varispeed—it is really hard to know how the bootlegging process “added” to what we hear.  We just can’t know what the bootleggers we’re doing (or not doing) but in any case, all we know is that the speed was foda-ed with at some point.

I already feel like I need to make a follow up video!  I forgot to say a lot of things.

One thing corresponds to Craig’s observation about distance.  Larry Levine described the Gold Star board as having a special circuit that modulated the dry input from a channel in some sort of inverted response to the reverb send getting turned up.  I don’t think it was as simple as just attenuation—I think there was more to it, and that might be at play, too.

I also have more to say about the swing—I guess I will make an addendum!!
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« Reply #17 on: March 09, 2020, 02:14:21 PM »

For now though, what do you people think about this:

https://vocaroo.com/dDu4qv2nSPK

The performance isn't great, but what about the overall sound?  If you think I'm on to something I'll take it further and explain what I've done...
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« Reply #18 on: March 09, 2020, 02:23:17 PM »

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« Reply #19 on: March 09, 2020, 02:41:32 PM »

For now though, what do you people think about this:

https://vocaroo.com/dDu4qv2nSPK

The performance isn't great, but what about the overall sound?  If you think I'm on to something I'll take it further and explain what I've done...

Please do! It's wonderful to see this topic so active and everyone so enthusiastic.
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« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2020, 02:43:17 PM »

For now though, what do you people think about this:

https://vocaroo.com/dDu4qv2nSPK

The performance isn't great, but what about the overall sound?  If you think I'm on to something I'll take it further and explain what I've done...

Wow!! For a split second at the start I thought the real thing was playing!
same!!! Hahaahha
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« Reply #21 on: March 09, 2020, 05:07:30 PM »

Yeah, that’s a good observation—the bellzouki’s stock bridge was terrible and perfect intonation, basically impossible on even the best of bridges, is not gonna happen there that far up the neck.  The fender bridge is great, with its 12 individual saddles.  But still takes some effort.

With my Mosrite style 12, I have to compromise tune.  I’ve tried everything but can’t get the octave g strings in perfect tune all the way up the neck.

These things might point against Barney’s being a Fender, and even Jerry’s...

I've known people purposefully put 12 strings out of tune between octaves to give it a bit of chorus... well they said it was on purpose at least Wink easily done...
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« Reply #22 on: March 09, 2020, 05:39:10 PM »

Thanks for the involved criticism, Craig; I appreciate thoughtful feedback!  And of course I mean criticism in the actual sense of the word, not what the sense has become of only negative.

RE varispeed—it is really hard to know how the bootlegging process “added” to what we hear.  We just can’t know what the bootleggers we’re doing (or not doing) but in any case, all we know is that the speed was foda-ed with at some point.

I already feel like I need to make a follow up video!  I forgot to say a lot of things.

One thing corresponds to Craig’s observation about distance.  Larry Levine described the Gold Star board as having a special circuit that modulated the dry input from a channel in some sort of inverted response to the reverb send getting turned up.  I don’t think it was as simple as just attenuation—I think there was more to it, and that might be at play, too.

I also have more to say about the swing—I guess I will make an addendum!!

The parts in bold: I don't remember reading about this circuit on the Gold Star board! I know it was customized, but would like to know more info on this aspect of it.

Maybe I'm reading it a different way, but it sounds like a similar circuit to what was a pretty basic circuit and signal flow on the old Fender reverb tanks. There was the "mixer" control, which was basically dry at "0" and wet at "10", so the original signal was always passing through but the pot lowered the dry signal and increased the volume of the signal after passing through the springs, like a simple blend control...I'm trying to figure out how such a circuit as described by Larry would be any different or better than the basic way you'd return the "wet" signal from the chamber and blend it to suit. If it did create some frequency changes or introduce some sonic artifacts (as the old Fender tanks did but in a more basic way), I'm wondering what that or those could have been. Very interesting.

I'm also wondering if this was an original feature on that board's design, or whether it was something created *after* that specific board and studio became known for the Wall Of Sound, and this was a tweak to make something in that process easier? Like my simple mind and thought process is thinking the standard process of blending the dry and wet signal isn't that taxing, so why design and introduce a separate circuit and signal path to do the same thing.

Re: Vari-speed. I need to track down those takes where the backing track is slowed down and Brian adds a vocal on top. It's somewhere on the SOT WIBN string of takes. It stuck out to me the first time I heard it that the tape was vari-speeded as in the old technique used to hit higher sounding notes vocally, not at all what I heard so many times from bootlegging maladies and bad dubs.

Re: Re: The "new" take posted. That's much closer sonically! Indeed.
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« Reply #23 on: March 09, 2020, 06:02:27 PM »

Thanks for the involved criticism, Craig; I appreciate thoughtful feedback!  And of course I mean criticism in the actual sense of the word, not what the sense has become of only negative.

RE varispeed—it is really hard to know how the bootlegging process “added” to what we hear.  We just can’t know what the bootleggers we’re doing (or not doing) but in any case, all we know is that the speed was foda-ed with at some point.

I already feel like I need to make a follow up video!  I forgot to say a lot of things.

One thing corresponds to Craig’s observation about distance.  Larry Levine described the Gold Star board as having a special circuit that modulated the dry input from a channel in some sort of inverted response to the reverb send getting turned up.  I don’t think it was as simple as just attenuation—I think there was more to it, and that might be at play, too.

I also have more to say about the swing—I guess I will make an addendum!!

The parts in bold: I don't remember reading about this circuit on the Gold Star board! I know it was customized, but would like to know more info on this aspect of it.

Maybe I'm reading it a different way, but it sounds like a similar circuit to what was a pretty basic circuit and signal flow on the old Fender reverb tanks. There was the "mixer" control, which was basically dry at "0" and wet at "10", so the original signal was always passing through but the pot lowered the dry signal and increased the volume of the signal after passing through the springs, like a simple blend control...I'm trying to figure out how such a circuit as described by Larry would be any different or better than the basic way you'd return the "wet" signal from the chamber and blend it to suit. If it did create some frequency changes or introduce some sonic artifacts (as the old Fender tanks did but in a more basic way), I'm wondering what that or those could have been. Very interesting.

I'm also wondering if this was an original feature on that board's design, or whether it was something created *after* that specific board and studio became known for the Wall Of Sound, and this was a tweak to make something in that process easier? Like my simple mind and thought process is thinking the standard process of blending the dry and wet signal isn't that taxing, so why design and introduce a separate circuit and signal path to do the same thing.

Re: Vari-speed. I need to track down those takes where the backing track is slowed down and Brian adds a vocal on top. It's somewhere on the SOT WIBN string of takes. It stuck out to me the first time I heard it that the tape was vari-speeded as in the old technique used to hit higher sounding notes vocally, not at all what I heard so many times from bootlegging maladies and bad dubs.

Re: Re: The "new" take posted. That's much closer sonically! Indeed.


I dug up the Levine quote.  It's from here:  https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-ronettes-be-my-baby

"Later on, everybody had a split off the inputs and sent the signal to the echo chamber, and the level determined how much echo they would get. However, at Gold Star there was a relationship between the presence and the echo — if you added level to the echo it would reduce the level going directly into the console, so there was a spatial effect, and that worked really well."

Sounds like an "insert" vs a "send"?

Anyway, my hypothesis might have moved beyond this already, but I'm not ready to reveal it just yet...
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Joshilyn Hoisington
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« Reply #24 on: March 09, 2020, 06:08:53 PM »

And this from the Behind the Glass book:

"The echo chamber at Gold Star had a very distinctive sound, but wasn’t there also something unique about the way the console routed signal to it?

Actually, we had a series of echo chambers at Gold Star. Stan and I had tried building echo chambers of all kinds, and most of them sounded terrible when we were finished. For awhile, the best echo chamber we came up with was located in a bathroom, and we’d actually put the singer in there. One day we had a singer come in and do a demo of a song called “Well of Loneliness.” [laughs] After that, we didn’t use that particular echo chamber much any more.

But before we even had any echo chambers, the way we’d create that effect was to just open the door to the hallway at one end of the studio and have the vocalist—the only one who ever got echo, by the way—stand half in, half out, and then we’d put a microphone down at the end of the hallway to pick up the delay.

So, really, our concept of echo was distance—not an enhancement of a voice or an instrument, but just distance from that voice or instrument. To our way of thinking, when you put echo on something, you made it go farther away. Consequently, Dave Gold, the co-owner of the studio, designed our mixing console so that when you raised the echo on a channel, the level was also lowered automatically—it was all one integrated control, which no one else has ever done, to my knowledge. In other words, as you fed more signal to the echo send, you simultaneously sent less level to the output bus. That had a lot to do with why the Gold Star echo sounded as good as it did.

In a way, it’s similar to sending echo pre-fader.

No, it’s not the same, because in a pre-fade send there’s no direct relationship between the amount of signal being sent to the echo and the amount being sent to the output bus. The way we had things set up, it was as if every time you turned up the echo send, the fader was automatically being lowered correspondingly.

Again, it just came from our concept of echo being the opposite of presence, so that as you increased the echo, you decreased the presence, and vice versa. Somehow it worked very nicely for the kinds of records we were making at the time. In essence, we were just playing with depth of field. And I don’t know that we would have done the same thing if we had stopped and thought about it; we might have just thought, “Hey, let’s just come up with a way of sending signal to the damn echo chamber and not worry about reducing presence at the same time.” [laughs]

I remember going to another studio with Phil when we were making a record with Ronnie [Spector], and he kept asking the staff engineer there for more echo; every time the poor guy turned it up, Phil kept saying, “No, I want more!” He was getting quite exasperated, and the engineer couldn’t satisfy him. That was because he was used to hearing it the way we had things set up at Gold Star—he wanted to not only hear more echo, he wanted to hear less direct signal. In the end, the engineer just turned the echo send all the way up and Phil turned to me and he said, “What the hell is this guy on?” [laughs] That’s one of the reasons why Phil would have difficulty with certain engineers."
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