Good Vibrations (2021 Stereo Mix) + New SoundsOfSummer Info

no one has said this.
Everyone I’ve seen say anything negative about the new mixes all say the exact same thing.
The treble is too much.
The compression is too much.
Everything else is fine, or at least more up to personal preference.

Good. Because, judging by that podcast interview, Howie is giving Mark some truly awful advice, all of which seems to be based on wholly wrongheaded assumptions about listener preferences. Mark and Alan should be left alone to do the same sort of good work that they did with Made in California, Sunshine Tomorrow, The Smile Sessions, etc. Less is more. 

Man. Such vitriol.
That's what what my interview talking about The Beach Boys inspired?
THAT'S the take-away from, what, 40 minutes talking about The Beach Boys?

All this anger. All this pain.
Jesus.

Going out to play with my kids then dinner with my wife.

You guys should do the same.
Life's short.

Stop buggin' about records.

I don’t think Howie or Mark are to fully blame, I just truly hope they’re listening to the feedback.
Sounds of summer was presumingly mixed and mastered all in 2021, before or during the Feel Flows release cycle.
It’s done, The way it sounds is going to be the way it sounds, and they obviously can’t go back and change it now.
I just truly hope going forward that some of the fair criticisms of both feel flows and these tracks that have been released so far are being taken into account when it comes to future projects.
Obviously audio is very subjective, everyone likes something a little bit different, but clearly these recent releases are not without criticism from the majority of listeners.
There’s Plenty of criticism here, over on other message boards, Reddit, discord, Facebook, twitter, even some official publications have brought up the harsh sound.

This is kind of a pathetic post.

I'm 39 and happily married with two kids, the youngest of which was born two weeks ago and I'm over the bloody moon about it! It's a cheap shot to try to imply that those who disagree with you must somehow be unhappy and filled with anger with no life outside of 'buggin' about records'. It's such a lousy tactic.

The displeasure with your interview is solely because we're Beach Boys fans - we're all deeply passionate about this band - and you seem to be almost revelling in purposefully screwing with their music.

Yep, sounds like we are being told to just “shut up and go home”, as Brian once said. Take what we give you and quityourbitchin’. Hey, at least now we know where we stand in the grand scheme of things.

These are a "Remixed" not "Remasters". So, no problem...

Talking about this stuff, whether praising or complaining is what we do here. Please feel free to heap praise on the remixes here. I love hearing both sides of an argument (in the legal sense).

Me, I come from the “Squeaky wheel gets the grease” line of thinking.

Aw c'mon, folks.  Eat your burnt steak and dried out carrots and enjoy it! 

Just kidding!  But seriously, I'm not sure what to think of this new set.  On the one hand, I'm always intrigued with new mixes, although I'm mostly into remixes previously available only in mono.

The new mastering on any of the recent releases is what frightens me.  Seems like it's all over the place.  Kind of a crap shoot.  Much of the Feel Flows set sounds really good; much of it sounds terrible.  Fortunately for me, the terrible sounding part has already been released with better mastering.

Sometimes you gotta just get up and walk out, and go back to that restaurant that knows how to cook a steak!

Surf's up lp original mix was so flat, so sad... Feel Flows give it a new life. I love this mix. This lp is far better now.

I'm not super active on here, but have been following this thread. I love The Beach Boys and I love releases like this and the (usually) yearly archival releases a la Feel Flows, Sunshine Tomorrow, Wake The World, etc. Part of the reason why I'm permanently obsessed with this band is because of the Sunshine Tomorrow release - that acted like a catalyst that I could just get obsessively lost in. The new stereo mix of Wild Honey was amazing and all the session highlights and previously unheard material on that set blew my mind. It was my go to CD that summer it came out! I still have so much love for that release and the archival releases that surround it.

All that said... there has been a noticeable decline in sound quality for these types of releases over the past few years, and the new mixes of "Shut Down" and "Marcella" are a bit concerning / demotivating. For context, I work at an indie music distributor and suffice to say that daily I hear a lot of new music and I can't quite say that anything that comes through our pipeline sounds like this and if it did, it would be reason to reach out to the label putting it out and check in that that is indeed how they want their release to sound.

I've listened to Marcella on airpods, sennheiser headphones, my stereo setup, laptop speakers, etc and it's the same issue on every single one. I know these mixes don't detract from what original stereo mixes we have, but from the viewpoint of a consumer who purchases this material, it makes me feel like I've wasted my money when I turn it on and the music comes out in a trebly swath of overly-compressed sound.

I don't want to sound like I'm unappreciative, because I do appreciate that there are people who are working on these releases and want to get this music out to fans. The Beach Boys deserve that so so much, and I'm glad it's getting the attention that it rightly deserves. All I ask is that the music gets treated with the care and respect it warrants. It bums me out that our first real chance to hear previously unheard outtakes in high quality from 1972-73 like "Rooftop Harry", "Spark In The Dark", "Carry Me Home", "Out In The Country" etc etc will get released in this state and then that's what we're stuck with forever. If this were the equivalent of what Sunshine Tomorrow was to me back in 2017, I could imagine hearing this and being taken aback a bit by the sound and not listen to it as much. I'd hate for the sound quality to make younger fans turn away from engaging more with The Beach Boys and their vast catalog of music.

I can't overstate how much I appreciate Mark's work all these years, he's an absolute legend and his stereo mixes previously have been incredible and you can tell a lot of love and care went into them. All I want is that to continue with future releases he works on. Parts of Feel Flows sounded great! The Dennis material as a whole sounded fantastic in my opinion. But the singles released for Sounds Of Summer and last years Long Promised Road's soundtrack concern me a bit. I just hope the people working within these releases listen to people's rightful and understandable criticism and take it seriously. We all share a deep love for this band (why else would we be on this forum discussing this?) and I think all this criticism users are posting here comes from a place of love for the music and shouldn't be swept under the rug.