[78-L] Beach Boys 78s

[Martin Fenton]

On 19/04/2011 01:11, David Breneman wrote:
 >
 > OK, so I pulled out these albums.  "Endless Summer" is
 > C152-81758/59 and "Spirit of America" is C152-81887/88...
 > I doubt that these records would have been remixed to
 > something different than what was sold in the US.

I discovered a few years ago that the tapes for the British versions of 
"Endless Summer" and "Spirit of America" were compiled locally, leading 
to some differences. The most glaring of these is that "Shut Down" is 
mono on the US LP but reprocessed stereo-from-mono on the UK. Quite why 
this is the case is unknown, as it was always a true stereo cut, being 
from the stereo "Surfin' USA" LP (which WAS issued in stereo in the UK.)

Then there's the first CD version of "Spirit of America," which came out 
very early on in the CD age (around 1984?) The entire disc is a mono 
fold-down of the stereo mixes (where applicable) or of the reprocessed 
versions, mastered through a fairly hefty dynamic compressor.


On 4/18/2011 9:57 PM, Royal Pemberton wrote:
 > I meant (please forgive my scrambled reply) that Beach Boys
 > recordings had the same mixes worldwide; none of their recordings had
 > special mixes for other countries.

Mike Biel replied:
 > Do you have documentation and research on this?

There are rare exceptions, but Mark Linett and Alan Boyd have pretty 
much confirmed what Royal has said through their extensive work in the 
Beach Boys' tape library and web presence on the Smiley Smile message board.

Most oddities that exist (such as the version of "Break Away" on the UK 
"20 Golden Greats" compilation*) have been generated from an original 
mix rather than a multitrack. The exception is the odd Dutch single of 
"Bluebirds Over The Mountain", where Capitol supplied a twin-track tape 
with the track on the A-leg and a percussion overdub on the B-leg. An 
instruction was written on the box to master it in mono with the B-leg 
9dB down. The note was disregarded (although the record was cut in mono) 
and the Dutch were consequently treated to a record with a deafening 
percussion overdub.

Bear in mind that Beach Boys fans are second only to Beatles fans when 
it comes to obsession. I remember once somebody claiming that the UK 
versions of "Today" and "Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!!)" should be 
regarded as remixes because the fades "sounded different." The mixes 
were the same, but those 1960s UK cuts were so heavily compressed 
dynamically (I sold mine on years ago) that the fades didn't appear to 
start until they were, in reality, a few dBs down. The other side-effect 
of this is that they don't appear to fade to silence, but they just cut 
off (although this might have something to do with the mixer at Western 
Studios, which worked on the principle of 2dB step-fades.)

*For those that don't know, this TV-advertised compilation had some 
tracks which were newly reprocessed into fake stereo. However, somebody 
took their ears off the monitors at one point and ran the genuine stereo 
"Break Away" through the fake stereo processing. Something similar 
happened with the 1977 reissue of the "Christmas Album."

Martin.