Post by zebulan on Feb 16, 2020 14:01:16 GMT -5
Summary
I've been working on this since around the start of 2019. I've changed the track order multiple times, reworked my Heroes and Villains mix even more times, and spent many hours refining everything and second-guessing myself. But now I'm finally ready to share my fan mix of the album that probably has more fan mixes than any other album in history. Introducing the Zebulan 2020 mix of SMiLE!
This fan mix attempts to be mostly authentic to what the completed album would have sounded like, using only footage from 1966-1971. Of course, due to SMiLE being an incomplete album, there are some artistic liberties taken here and there, but I try to keep everything reasonable. The album is organized into 2 sides, with each being somewhere around 20 minutes long, thus fitting on a vinyl LP. There are 14 tracks, or 13 if you count my pseudo-Elements suite as a single track, or 12 if you don't count Our Prayer. Each song is a separate track, though I have been very careful to choose an order where songs mostly flow into the next one as well as possible, while keeping the track order as historically plausible as I can make it. This means keeping with the tradition of opening each side with lead singles (ignoring Our Prayer, of course), and ending the album with Surf's Up.
Before reading the following explanations of my mixing choices, I'd recommend just listening to the mix first. That way you get to be surprised by some of my editing choices. 
Download using torrent (recommended):
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6188acba126997d0060dc265d1b8f56029aaaa99&dn=SMiLE%20%28Zebulan%202020%20mix%29I used the .7z archive format since it's a lot more compact than the common .zip format. If you don't already have an archive manager that supports extracting from .7z files, use 7-Zip if you're on Windows, Keka if you're on macOS, or Ark if you're on Linux.
Detailed track descriptions and my editing choices (spoilers ahead!)
Like the majority of fan mixes, this one starts off with Our Prayer. I just used the 2011 stereo mix for this track. Moving on...
Heroes and Villains comes next. A lot of fan mixes copy BWPS and open H&V with Gee (usually modified with the H&V horn motif at the end). However, while I do enjoy that sequence, I don't think it is historically plausible at all. I didn't want to just go straight into the verse, however, since I didn't think it flowed quite right after Our Prayer. I considered using Good Vibrations here instead, but it just didn't feel right to not use the lead single of SMiLE as the first track (after the "intro to the album"). I struggled with this for a while, but eventually I got an idea.
The track opens with Mission Pak, which makes the transition from Our Prayer to the H&V verse a lot smoother, in my opinion. Coincidentally, no one seems to know where Mission Pak was supposed to go, so I think it's fairly plausible it was created for this exact purpose: opening H&V... at least on the album, anyway; I would imagine this bit could be left off the single.
As for the rest of H&V, I switched between several different structures while working on this mix, but I eventually settled on a mix that is based on the structure of the February "2fer" mix, with some notable modifications near the end. I wanted my H&V mix to avoid using sections from other songs, but also to remain within the realm of plausibility.
Verse 1 and 2, as well as the Acapella Bridge are sourced from sydsutcliffe's Alternate Smile Sessions Box Set. He managed to edit together the Smiley verses and bridge that matches the mono 2fer mix really well, and despite several attempts I was unable to create a mix of these sections that sounded as good as his. (I'm not sure what sources he used or how exactly he pulled it off, but I'm really glad he did it.)
Cantina is sourced from TSS. I kept both the "woo-ooo-ooo" and "you're under arrest!" because... well, I didn't really care enough either way to remove them. My H&V mix is already only barely over 3 minutes long, so I didn't feel the need to make it any shorter.
Children Were Raised is sourced from TSS and Three Score and Five is sourced from soniclovenoize's 2018 stereo mix, though I'm pretty sure he just sourced TSS so I guess I could have just sourced from TSS directly. It doesn't really make a difference, though, so I didn't bother swapping it out.
Whistling Bridge is sourced from soniclovenoize's mix again, though this time I'm not entirely sure how he made the stereo mix of this section. TSS has the section in stereo, but without any of the "tape explosion" effect. I think soniclovenoize might have recreated the effect himself, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I didn't think I could do it better (nor did I know how to create the effect anyway) so I just used his mix.
Between "three score and five" and the Whistling Bridge, I've inserted the "la la la... stand or fall" verse, sourced from TSS 2011 stereo mix (because the 2012 Smiley Smile mix seems to have an editing error on the organ overdub if you listen closely). I would imagine that if H&V was actually completed with a structure similar to this, the "so long to the city" lyrics would go where the "la la la"s are, thus completing the 4th and final verse.
Instead of using the Sunshine fade, I use Part 1 Tag (sourced from TSS), which is the only H&V fade that isn't based off of a section from another track. As it turns out, this section also happens to transition really well into...
Vega-Tables, which is mostly just the 2011 TSS stereo mix. I did make one change, however. For the "I know that you'll feel better" reprise, I used the version with additional overdubs from the Smiley Smile Vegetables 2012 stereo mix. This was a pain to sync up and splice in, since it fades out on the Smiley Smile track, but that section doesn't fade out in TSS structure. Luckily, the additional overdubs end just before the track starts to fade out, so after a lot of fiddling I was able to crossfade back into the 2011 TSS stereo mix, resulting in an almost seamless edit.
I think it's quite fitting that the other potential single for SMiLE comes right after the first, and coincidentally, this also matches the Smiley Smile order.
Next up is Do You Like Worms, which ended up being just as hard to edit as H&V. I chose to use the humbeedoodah vocals on both verse sections in order to be more historically accurate, and I lowered their volume to make them sound more subdued. They are too loud in most fan mixes, in my opinion, and WAY too loud in TSS mono mix. They're supposed to be backing vocals, so they should be clearly audible, but not overpowering. The verses are entirely sourced from TSS.
Some fan mixes just use the 2nd Roll Plymouth Rock vocals twice, since those are the only ones included acapella on TSS, but I decided to be more realistic and use the actual 1st RPR vocals where they belong. Luckily, they exist in stereo on the DYLW mix from Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 16, and I was able to isolate them from the backing track by simply removing the center channel, so I could use them with the higher quality backing track from TSS.
Bicycle Rider was probably the biggest challenge of all, and I can't count the number of times I listened to the section over and over trying to refine my mix. Something I noticed about nearly every fan mix was that the Indian chanting vocals were almost always buried, and the lead vocal and electric bass drowned out everything else. I wanted to fix this and make a mix where everything was as equally balanced as I could get it.
Ultimately, I ended up using UM17 disc 1 track 20 as the basis of the section. It has the instrumental backing track, indian chanting, ba-ba-ba, and first layer of lead vocal overdubs all locked into mono, but they all happen to be really well balanced relative to each other. This was the only high quality copy of the section containing the complete first lead vocal overdub. For the instrumental first half of Bicycle Rider, I use TSS before cutting to the UM track. I spent a lot of time adjusting the speed of the bootleg track to match the speed of TSS track preceding it.
I then used the stereo Bicycle Rider overdubs from TSS on top of the UM track, completing the section without any redundant parts (and thus avoiding both phasing issues and overly loud elements). I panned the 2nd ba-ba-ba to the left, I panned the 2nd lead vocal layer to the right, and I panned the electric bass 50% to the right. Unfortunately, the TSS track has some studio chatter at the tail end that you can't completely remove ("I like it"), but luckily, the UM track I'm using happens to be the electric bass overdub, so I extracted the electric bass from the left channel and crossfaded the end of the higher quality copy from TSS into the UM track to avoid the studio chatter. Also, I used soniclovenoize's 2018 DYLW backing track reconstruction for the spliced-in harpsichord note at the end, in order to avoid the various bits of noise audible in the UM track. I'm not entirely sure where he sourced that spliced-in harpsichord note from, but I don't feel like bothering to find out when I can just source from his already-completed backing track.
As you can probably tell, this was a really complicated series of edits all for a single section. But in the end, it was worth it, because I finally got a version of the DYLW chorus where I can hear everything properly. Unfortunately, the stereo image is somewhat narrow due to so many elements being locked into mono, but until better sources come along, this is the best I can do.
At the transition to DYLW part 3, I leave off the final harpsichord note, but I keep the electric bass going. It might be more authentic to have a completely hard cut here, but I think letting the bass fade out over the start of part 3 does a lot to smooth the transition. It could also be because I'm so used to how TSS handles it. For the vocals, I discovered that TSS stereo acapella used the wrong number of loops for the vocals and brought in some of the elements too early... or something like that. Just listen carefully to how the backing vocals come in on soniclovenoize's 2018 stereo mix of DYLW and compare it to mine to hear the difference. Anyway, I got lucky here, because saltymarshmallow had properly edited/timed isolations of the backing and lead vocals. I'm not sure how he did it or where he got it from, but I'm really happy he posted a download link to them, because it was the missing key to completing my mix of part 3.
It's also worth noting that I kept the lazy-sounding... uh, thing in the backing track. (What instrument is that? I'm not the most well-versed when it comes to recognizing instruments.) I know it was muted in the later vintage mixes, but I personally liked it, so I decided to keep it.
For the RPR reprise after part 3, I just synced the 2nd half of the 2nd RPR vocals over the backing track. I figure that if the following harpsichord section was supposed to have vocals (and I'm pretty sure it was; it would be an extended version of the "nah nah" melody heard in the Smiley H&V chorus, but with the "having returned to the east or west indies" lyrics), then this section most likely also had vocals. I have no idea if the chorus reprise/fade would have vocals or not, but I'm leaning towards not, so I left it without vocals in my mix.
I'm in Great Shape is the next track. It starts with I Wanna Be Around, which as usual transitions into Friday Night (Workshop). But then, it cuts to the title section of the track, using the isolated vocal from the Humble Harv demo spliced and synced to the looped backing track fragment from Wake the World. This then cuts to Barnyard, which serves as the fade of the song. I think the fade out is a bit abrupt here, but that's because I'm using Who Productions (now known as Stereo Masters) stereo mix for this section, which ends a bit earlier than it should since it follows the BWPS edit of cutting to My Only Sunshine. I would've made my own mix of this section, but I didn't feel up to the challenge of syncing up the Humble Harv demo lead vocal to the backing track. If anyone happens to have an isolated lead vocal that sounds better than the SMiLE A.D. isolation, let me know.
This is probably my most questionable track order choice, but Child Is Father of the Man comes next. I follow the acetate mix that goes chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, half-chorus. All choruses use the same vocals, because I wasn't able to find a stereo high quality source for the other take of the chorus. If anyone knows how to assemble a stereo version of the other chorus, let me know. In my mix, I've changed up the panning and volume levels in an attempt to make the track sound more like the vintage acetate mix heard on Wake the World. Most notably, this means toning down the "wah wah" horn and the piano during the bridge.
Inspired by soniclovenoize's SMiLE mixes, CIFotM is followed by My Only Sunshine, which serves as a fitting end to side A, in my opinion. I use TSS for The Old Master Painter section, and I use Who Productions' stereo mix for the Sunshine part, since it manages to make the fade sound a little more stereo than usual (presumably by using the instrumental backing track and/or Brian-only vocals on top of the acetate track, though I'm not entirely sure).
Side B opens with Good Vibrations, continuing the tradition of opening sides with singles. I chose to use IHeartMikeLove's fantastic stereo mix, since I think it sounds better than any other stereo mix I've heard. It does have one editing flaw where the final section kicks in half a beat too early, but other than that, it sounds as close to perfect as you can get... at least to my ears, anyway. Since there was no flac download for this mix, I just dropped the highest quality YouTube audio extraction I could get into Audacity and called it a day. I don't notice too much quality loss, and honestly, I'm in Great Shape is in far worse condition.
Wind Chimes follows. I went with the more historically accurate structure of verse, chorus, tag since I think it's more interesting (and also helps to keep the running time of each side balanced). The verse and chorus are sourced from soniclovenoize's 2018 stereo mix (I can't remember why I used it instead of just sourcing the 2011 stereo mix directly), and the tag is sourced straight from TSS.
I thought the sound of Wind Chimes tag felt similar to the feel of Wonderful, so that's the next track. I sourced the track from soniclovenoize's 2018 stereo mix. (I have so far been unable to get my hands on the upstream source he used; I think it was the GV 1993 box set version of Wonderful.) I used channel isolation to separate out the second layer of backing vocals, and I used Spleeter to separate the lead vocal from the backing track in the center channel, thus creating a full stereo mix of the song. I'm really happy that Spleeter worked so well on this particular track, because up until now I've never heard a full stereo Wonderful that didn't have noticeable noise artifacts or phasing issues.
Cabin Essence comes next. The BWPS order of CE to Wonderful is nice, but I think it works even better the other way around. The verses and tag are sourced from soniclovenoize's 2018 stereo mix, and the chorus is sourced from Who Productions' stereo mix.
One of my favorite song order choices happens right here. The end of Cabin Essence is followed by the raging start of Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. I opted to not use the Organ Waltz (or whatever the "fire/H&V intro-but-maybe-not-actually" section is called), partially to cut down the side B length, but also because I think the transition from Cabin Essence flows better. I used a Spleeter isolation of the Fall Breaks vocals (with a bit of the SMiLE A.D. isolation crossfaded in at the end), and tempo-adjusted them to line up perfectly with the 3rd and 4th rounds of the track. The backing track (including fire SFX) is sourced from sydsutcliffe's Alternate Smile Sessions Box Set. It's the shorter, approximately minute-and-a-half-long version of the track based on vintage mixes. I think the longer version is just a bit too long.
The final drum beats of the Fire part of The Elements is followed by the similar but friendlier drum beats and lush melodies of Love to Say Dada, which serves as a stand-in for the water and air elements... and maybe earth too, depending on how you look at it. Of course, there's no way to have a truly authentic version of The Elements in any fan mix, but the water/air-themed elements of LtSD (as well as the obvious CCW connection) make it the best substitute. I figured that The Elements (or at least my approximation of it) would work best as the penultimate track(s), so that ended up being one of the major deciding factors in picking the track order I did.
To connect LtSD Part 2 with Part 2 Second Day, I used- actually, you know what? I think I'll just let you listen and find out. I'm really, really happy with how it turned out. If you have any questions about how I did it, feel free to ask.
If there's one thing that I wish I could do better with my mix, it would be to include the Part 2 vocals. Unfortunately I was unable to find a way to include them without using a noticeably lower quality copy of the backing track that the vocals were locked to, and I couldn't find any good isolations of the vocals, nor was I successful in using Spleeter to extract them myself. The GV 1993 mix of LtSD is pretty high quality, but it's mono, and I wanted to keep my fan mix in stereo wherever possible. Maybe I'll make a mono mix later if I feel like it.
The Pickup to 3rd Verse-ish ending of Dada happens to work quite well for transitioning to the final track: Surf's Up. I used soniclovenoize's 2018 stereo mix for this song. (Again, I can't remember why I didn't just use the 2011 stereo mix directly, but it doesn't really make a difference as far as I can tell.)
At the end, however, I added a little something extra to give a little more oomph to the coda. After listening to Direct Dubs' Surf's Up stereo mix on YouTube, I suggested that he try adding some sound effects from Talking Horns to his mix, similar to iluvleniloud's mixes. Direct Dubs then used Talking Horns in a similar but not quite the same way in his revised Surf's Up mix. I liked his take on it more, so I did something similar (but again a little different) in my mix.
One thing I'd like to change in the future is to use the 1971 version of the coda with additional synthesizer sounds, since I like how they sound. I didn't do that here because I had not yet got my hands on a high quality copy of the 1971 version of the track, and I didn't want to delay releasing this fan mix any longer.
Bonus features
I've included most of the other SMiLE era tracks as a bonus, cut to flow nicely and specifically ordered in a way I thought made the most sense. Plus I included a sort-of custom mix of the barebones CIFotM, intended to be used as a "hidden track" if you decide to burn my mix to a CD.
Speaking of which, I've included a front cover and tray card that you can print out and cut if you want to get really fancy.
I've also included a few alternate mixes of some songs. The most notable one is the "Smiley chorus mix" of H&V. For H&V mixes containing the chorus, this is my preferred structure. (Though I may change my mind later as I have many times now.) I used the Smiley Smile 2012 stereo mix for the verse and chorus here, since I currently prefer those mixes over other any other ones I've heard.
There's also mixes of CIFotM and DYLW containing vocals from BWPS, as well as a version of CIFotM with an instrumental 1st chorus, plus a Surf's Up mix that starts with a bit of George Fell. The most unusual mix here is probably the LtSD mix that includes pitch-shifted CIFotM vocals on the bridge; it doesn't sound amazing, but I thought it was clever enough to include.
I've also included a fanmixer toolkit containing some helpful isolations of some BWPS vocals and a few other bits and bobs to make the lives of other fanmixers easier. I've also included every Audacity project used in the creation of my fan mixes, so you can check those out if you want a more in-depth look at my editing choices or if you want to create your own mixes using mine as a starting point. I recommend checking the track names since they usually contain hints as to what source was used and how much I've changed their speed to sync up with other elements.
Final thoughts
I hope this fan mix brings you plenty of enjoyment, and I also hope it inspires and helps future fanmixers to create their own mixes. I couldn't have done this without the help of many others who came before me. I'd like to give special shout-outs to:
- God, for helping me discover my musical side by leading me to discover this album and become inspired to start writing my own songs, and for blessing me with the ability to accomplish this massive editing feat, causing me to learn quite a bit about audio editing in the process.
- The Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, the Wrecking Crew, Stephen Desper, and everyone else involved in the creation of the original recordings which have entertained and inspired so many people.
- Alan Boyd, Mark Linett, and all the other people involved in bringing us the official releases and mixes of this fantastic music and the related session footage.
- The bootleggers, who gave many fans a look at SMiLE long before the official releases, and who have provided us with the material necessary to fill in the gaps of many fan mixes.
- The historians, researchers, and all the nerds on Beach Boys forums across the web, including but definitely not limited to saltymarshmallow, Cam Mott, petsite, craigslowinski, AGD, and many others whose discussions have taught me a crazy amount about the history of this album and helped me to decide how to make my own mixes. Without the countless discussions and debates I've seen, I would have never come to know so much about SMiLE in such a relatively short time.
- soniclovenoize, Who Productions, iluvleniloud, IHeartMikeLove, dumdangel, Direct Dubs, Stereo Masters, Lee Wall, sydsutcliffe, seltaeb, dvakman, Nick Confalone, Phoenix, The Old Master Painter (bobdylan on this forum), and countless other fanmixers who have inspired me and shown me so, so, so many different versions of the same great songs.
I'll say it again: this project would not have been possible without the help and prior work of so many people, and I hope this fan mix will help pass the favor on to those who come after me. Thank you, everyone. You've given me many things to SMiLE about.
