Dear all,
I've been busy mixing a new version of Surf's Up: 1966 backing track, combined with the 1971 'vocals only' track. So that means: no fly-in Brian vocal, and no organ overdub.
In my opinion, the music really benefits from this balance. The spooky emptiness of the arrangement at the start of each verse never really worked out in the 1971 album version, because the organ breaks up the suspension. It 'glues' everything together, while I believe the main feature of the arrangement is to feel lost, not knowing which chords you're hearing, etc (because the bass doesn't play the tonic most of the time!).
Of course this was also done in 2011 by syncing Brian's demo vocal with the backing track. However, I never really liked the general idea of flying in missing vocals as was done on the 2011 box set. And especially since we have some finished lead vocals for Surf's Up by Carl in 1971, I prefer to use those.
So here's my effort. It's got it's flaws (for example, the 'bygones' were really loud and overlapping with the lead vocal. I tried to balance them separately but it wasn't ideal). But the synchronization is almost spot on if you ask me, and the music and arrangement just work very well this way.
https://youtu.be/a214BiislnoLet me know what you think about it.
All the best,
Stijn