The Alan Boyd Thread

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I think I remembered hearing that DWB and W of the S were lost.  Too bad.  That makes sense...maybe Brian would have recorded the track, his lead and the group, then doubled the group, mixed tracks 3 and 4 down to one track on a new tape, then he'd have a free track for the doubled lead.

I don't know why I didn't think of that.

Probably too much home recording on my computer where, if I had the processing power (which believe me, I don't...), I could have an infinite number of tracks.  With my ancient technology, it's more like...one track.

[c-man]

Alan, if you haven't already, please check out my essay on the recording of the "Today!" album, where I listened to all available sources (available to me, that is) and see if you agree on what I came up with.  I welcome any corrections or comments from your perspective.

www.beachboysarchives.com

[c-man]

Oh and Alan, while you're at it...do you happen to know the identity of the man who engineered the vocal session for "In The Back Of My Mind"?  He has a very distinctive voice...he also pops up on a few other sessions, like "Ballad Of Ole Betsy" and I think "I Do".  It's definitely not Chuck Britz.  I identify him simply as "Unknown Western Engineer" in my writings.

Thanks a lot,
C-Man

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Craig, have you investigated the possibility of that voice belonging to H Bowen David?

[c-man]

Yep...a few years ago, I got in contact with Mr. David's daughter, who was kind enough to send me a photocopy of a United/Western newsletter from 1967 or so with a photo of her dad!

I sent her a CD with excerpts from a few sessions, including those, so she could ID her dad's voice.  She recognized him right away on the "organ bridge" Good Vibrations session from September '66, but indicated that the "mystery man" engineer was not Bo.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Wow, you truly are the (c-)man.  That's neat that you were able to do that.

How many different Engineers have you identified now?  Britz, David, Levine, Botnick...what about Lanky Linstrott, Cal Harris, did Jimmy Lockert's voice ever actually appear on a Beach Boys tape?  Not much by way of talkback going on in what we have of the sessions Jim co-ordinated.

I know it's not his voice that's a mystery Craig, but have you been able to find anything out about Ralph Balantin?  I've turned up zero for him, despite the fact that he engineered what might be considered the Boys best vocal work...

[c-man]

Wow...who's Lanky?  Must've missed that one!

Desper's voice turns up in a couple of places.  Maybe Lockert's.

Is that Balantin in the 1966 control room pics (short balding guy with the short-sleeved shirt & tie, and black frame glasses)?  Like in the "Pet Sounds" box booklet (the long one) and 1996 EQ cover story?

[guitarfool2002]

Wow...who's Lanky?  Must've missed that one!

Desper's voice turns up in a couple of places.  Maybe Lockert's.

Is that Balantin in the 1966 control room pics (short balding guy with the short-sleeved shirt & tie, and black frame glasses)?  Like in the "Pet Sounds" box booklet (the long one) and 1996 EQ cover story?

The man with the glasses is United/Western engineer Winston Wong, and I think he was often in the role some would call the "assistant" (which explains him sitting behind Britz in that photo). I have another photo of him in yet another Western newsletter as he's setting up a microphone for a session - another assistant role.

[guitarfool2002]

I just thought of something...are you talking about the *other* control room shot at (what looks like) Columbia, with yet another guy in a white short-sleeve shirt? The guy with Britz is definitely Winston Wong - the other guy at Columbia, I don't know.

[guitarfool2002]

Speaking of mystery engineers - I'd like to bring back a question/discussion that has probably since been lost in the old Smile Shop board archives.

I thought this mystery engineer voice might have been a man named Jerry Ferree, who at the time of this session was the chief engineer at United/Western. Yet I'm not certain "In The Cantina" was tracked at Western...This is from one of Brian and Van Dyke's "In The Cantina" piano sessions, and it went down something like this as Brian was trying to track his piano part:

Brian: How does this sound?
Engineer: I don't like that. There's uh, there's no, no presence at all. That's not for recording.
Van Dyke: Let me go listen.
Brian: What do you mean, it's not...hey, man?
Engineer: You got more of one end of the piano than you do the other end of the piano, man!
Brian: (garbled)...here.
Engineer: Just put it over the center, up a little higher if you want to.
Brian: Hey Jerry, man, listen, you know, maybe I want some kind of (garbled) there, man!
Engineer: (overlaps Brian) Yeah, but I'm tellin' you it don't sound good.
Anonymous: You're listening to it out there...
Brian: Van? Van, would you play the thing I was doing?
Engineer: Yeah, well, that's right, but you don't...
Van: ...which isn't gonna...
Brian: Second, let's just...
Anonymous: Bruce, coffee.
Engineer: Take 12.


What a fun clip. Ring a bell? Does anyone have a record of who engineered that session and had the back-and-forth with Brian about the piano sound?

[c-man]

Yep, I remember that session (well, I mean I remember the tape of that session...of course, I wasn't there!), and I've wondered who that Jerry is, too.

And yes, I was referring to the "other" (Columbia) control room shot, featured in color in the long box set booklet and also in EQ.  I suspect that's Mr. Ballatin.

[Cam Mott]

Isn't "Jerry" called out and heard on some vocal session too?  I've had the impression he must have been a Columbia engineer but maybe I had a wrong impression.

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Inside Pop: Scene Descriptions, and The Hunt For The Reels

Durrie Parks' Acetates

Any new news on either of these?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Nope, but that would be a fine name for a Smile cover band. 

[Mark A. Moore]

Wow...who's Lanky?  Must've missed that one!

Lanky Linstrot tag-teamed many of the Jan & Dean sessions with Bones Howe . . . that is, from an engineering standpoint. Chuck Britz also did some engineering for J&D (as did others) . . . but mostly it was Bones & Lanky.

M.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Alan, on another thread you mention:

On the track sheets for the 2" masters for Til I Die and Fallin' In Love, there's a listing for "RHYTHM KING"

And in doing so opened up a small can of worms, because I'd like to know the entire contents of the track sheet for "'Til I Die" if you have extra time that you're not sure how to spend.  I promise I won't ask you the contents of every track sheet in the Beach Boys catalog.

I think the Til I Die one would be an interesting companion to the Desper Mix on the soundtrack to your fantastic film, since there's so much exposed in that mix.

[Alan Boyd]

Here ya go:

TIL I DIE:
1 - Rythm King
2 - Lo vox
3 - bass
4 - RMI
5 - Organ
6 - Organ
7 - Gtr/drm
8 - Vox (different lyrics)
9 - Hi vox/vibes
10 - vibes
11 - bkg vox
12 - bkg vox
13 - more vox
14 - ore vox
15 - org/vox
16 - org/vox

Looks like this one had some dubdowns on the way to the final 16 track master.

[Andrew G. Doe]

RMI ?

Wot dat ?

Really marvellous instrumental ?

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

You're the best.  That also clears up a question I've had in the back of my mind about the electric harpsichord used in some songs of that era.  RMI electra-piano, it was!

Interesting how many shared tracks there are.  Must have been a tricky mixdown.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

[LaurieBiagini]

Cool! (love lookin' at vintage keyboards) 

[Alan Boyd]

On SUNFLOWER the 16 track masters had so much shared information - snatches of vocals on a track that's mostly guitar, for instance - that Steve placed swatches of colored adhesive tape on the back of the 2" tape, in order to provide visual cues for the mixdown.  Mixdown automation was still years away, so all eyes would be on the 2" machine, and they'd see a red rectangle coming off the reel and heading towards the machine heads, and this would be a cue for a particular fader adjustment or a level change, etc.... Pretty resourceful, eh? 

The only drawback is the fact that after 30 years, the adhesive from the masking tape has "bled out" and caused massive dropouts, big clear sections on the tape where the oxide has come in contact with the adhesive tape and peeled right off.  Thankfully, these huge, rather scary-looking droupouts aren't as noticeable as one might imagine.  The A capella mix of "Add Some Music" came out OK despite this problem.

Those songs are so very rich sonically that some of them might have filled 48 tracks if not for all of the dubdowns and shared tracks.  Steve and The Beach Boys were way ahead of their time.  Honestly, I noticed this when I got the "Sunflower" LP when it was released in 1970 - and I was only 8 at the time!  I listened to that album with headphones the day I got it, and even then I could tell it was something very new and special.  I'd never experienced an audio "landscape" like that.  I suppose, in a way, I've spent a good portion of my life since then trying to figure out how they did it...

Alan

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I don't know if anybody has caught up with what was done on Sunflower and Surf's Up.  I can't think of any modern record that has the depth of those recordings and mixes.  I'm trying to catch up, and Steve has been so helpful in explaining how to make recordings better.  But it's still a battle (particularly with my undesirable recording set-up which limits me to somewhere between 4-12 tracks, depending on how my hard drive is feeling that day) and always an inspiration.

[guitarfool2002]

RMI ?

Wot dat ?

Really marvellous instrumental ?

Rocky Mount Instruments, Inc.

They did other instruments besides the one shown in that photo - I have a somewhat rare demonstration LP record from RMI where they play  through the sounds and features of their "Harmonic Synthesizer" and "Keyboard Computer". The unusual feature on these was they were controlled by a punch card system, like banks and offices everywhere used for years on those primitive computers. To program the sounds into the "computer", you had a series of punch cards to insert into this keyboard, with each card hloding different instruments and sounds which you'd use to build your own. And there was a bank of pedals for pitch bends, and other modulation effects and controls.

RMI had offices in Pennsylvania, sales offices in Macungie to be exact. "Chris D" for one should be familiar with Macungie, PA. So I'm happy to have found this album in Pennsylvania, with some very interesting (and useable) sounds that are pretty desirable today in some music circles. I seriously doubt you'd find a working example of the RMI "Keyboard Computer" with enough of those punch cards to have it work 100% with access to all the sounds, so albums like these are a great resource for samplers and sound designers.

I'm going to check if any famous albums or tunes used one of these punch card synths...

As far as the RMI rig shown in the photo - I'm more of a Wurlitzer, Clavinet, and Pianet kind of guy.  Cool sound, though!

[Bean Bag]

I'd never experienced an audio "landscape" like that.

Perfect.  Well said.

Yeah, its dense...I always get the feeling it's a juggling act with so many overdubs like that.  I mean sonically you're really treading water when things start to pile on like that....which makes me think they HAD to have had that all planned from the get go.  Otherwise it would have been a pile.  You know?

All I Wanna Do, especially...it teeters on the edge of that big time...which lends it it's otherworldly vib.  It's soooo frickin' amazing...