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Post by Kapitan on Jan 30, 2022 12:33:52 GMT
It was the arrangements on Pet Sounds that really served as my entrance into the Beach Boys, or at least Brian Wilson. That was the album I incredulously bought in the mid '90s, hearing the guy who I thought of as mostly the architect of "Surfin USA" (and with that stupid Sunkist commercial in my head ruining my impression of "Good Vibrations").
And when I listened, I remember being shocked how little of it was a drum kit, bass guitar, and guitars. By then I was into plenty of more ambitious music, but I didn't associate it with the Beach Boys at all. Somewhere along the line, I recall thinkging 'I hear saxes, strings [or whatever: I don't recall the song], but I don't hear a guitar here AT ALL.'
As simple and dopey as that sounds now, it left a big impression on me.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 2, 2022 15:35:18 GMT
I submit to the board:
The best arrangement in Beach Boys-related history is "Wouldn't It Be Nice," which goes above and beyond the fact that it's one of the best songs to begin with.
Am I wrong? Why?
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Post by jk on Feb 2, 2022 18:10:11 GMT
I'd say there's no question of right or wrong. It's all so subjective -- everybody has their own preferences when it comes to arrangements (of anything, by anybody). My choice of best arrangement in Beach Boys-related history is also from Pet Sounds, namely the aforementioned "I'm Waiting For The Day". It has everything: Brian's voice, first tender then urgent; Mike's super-goofy bass burblings; the soothing cor anglais and strident flutes; the joyous descending bass lines; the oasis of emotional calm when the strings briefly take over; to say nothing of the tympani, here in stark contrast to their role on "Don't Talk"... To these ears it's the most satisfying of all Brian's arrangements.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 2, 2022 18:13:56 GMT
I'd say there's no question of right or wrong. It's all so subjective -- everybody has their own preferences when it comes to arrangements (of anything, by anybody). Well, of course I agree with that. I think that goes unstated! I was phrasing it in a way to get responses, drawing a line in the sand, so to speak! Clearly meant in fun, though.
However, I guess I could be a devil's advocate and say there CAN be a question of right and wrong in arrangements if one is working within a specific tradition that has rules. For example, if you're arranging something according to strict counterpoint rules, something that includes parallel fifths or similar motion into a perfect interval, that is wrong (in the context of counterpoint)!
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Feb 2, 2022 19:02:55 GMT
WIBN is pretty close to an objectively superior arrangement!
I think what makes it so good is that everything is so tight and does exactly what it should do. Every aspect of the arrangement is tasteful and not overdone. You've got one of the most iconic guitar sounds of all time but it only plays briefly. The Timpani accent the cadences but are not there for throughput bombast. The saxes provide that nice sax cushion when it's right, and when it's time for the lick, they play the lick. The rhythm section is perfectly subtle and tight, with two pianos -- one for presence and one for definition, a very subtle rhythm guitar that just kind of glues it all together, and of course the accordions in heavy reverb.
I think if you take the reverb off the accordions, the arrangement fails. One thing I'm planning to do when I start getting into these productions on my video series is to present my recreations without any effects to show how important those effects could be -- this is one place where the reverb itself is part of the arrangement.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 2, 2022 19:16:07 GMT
I agree entirely.
Beyond that, let's not forget the vocal arrangement! The bridge especially is almost a miracle, combining the feel of old doo wop with the syllables "run run wee-ooooh" with almost angelic ascending ooohs, and then the fugal entries (e.g. "we could be married / we could be / we could be married..."). The underlying chords are great, but the vocals in that section...
There's also the ritardando, really hamming it up, and then BOOM BOOM, the outro at tempo.
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sockit
The Surfer Moon
Posts: 234
Likes: 181
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Post by sockit on Feb 3, 2022 1:33:07 GMT
Arrangements? Let Him Run Wild Discuss...... Ok, it would be bad form for me to just throw that out there and not comment. Seriously, though, to me this is the most Pet Soundish non-Pet Sounds track I know. The instrumental arrangement is incredible. This is one of Brian's tunes that really defies categorizing into a genre. It's really not rock n roll. The stereo mix of this song is quite extraordinary. Ok, now discuss....
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Feb 3, 2022 2:41:46 GMT
Arrangements? Let Him Run Wild Discuss...... Ok, it would be bad form for me to just throw that out there and not comment. Seriously, though, to me this is the most Pet Soundish non-Pet Sounds track I know. The instrumental arrangement is incredible. This is one of Brian's tunes that really defies categorizing into a genre. It's really not rock n roll. The stereo mix of this song is quite extraordinary. Ok, now discuss.... It's interesting to observe this arrangement as part of Brian's discovery and experimentation with combining a vibraphone with some other instruments he was already familiar with, in this case, piano -- but of course on Salt Lake and CA Girls it's with the Hammond Organ. This, along with Salt Lake is really staking claim to the exploration of splitting the basses up, here the string bass and the electric bass play completely different things in the verses, and then unite for the choruses. Brian would continue to explore having the electric bass act as a sort of cello line for the rest of 65 and 66, and it's one of my favorite things that Brian did. Hal's drumming here makes a big difference to the feel of the song; the verses were typical Brian, but the choruses go pretty close to full-on jazzy, with Hal actually riding a cymbal and adding accented accompaniments on the snare and toms. I would consider this to be another example of where the engineering and effects are so integrated into the sound of it that it counts as part of the arrangement -- and indeed, the reverb situation is kind of unusual in that it sounds to me like they routed things such that some of the instruments are actually reverberated by two discrete reverb devices. I tried to ask Mark Linett his opinion but he didn't answer my inquiry.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 4, 2022 14:48:08 GMT
Hal's drumming here makes a big difference to the feel of the song; the verses were typical Brian, but the choruses go pretty close to full-on jazzy, with Hal actually riding a cymbal and adding accented accompaniments on the snare and toms. This seems to me to be pretty rare in BW arrangements. Definitely not as much timekeeping on a ride or hat as you find in most jazz or rock.
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Feb 4, 2022 15:29:04 GMT
Hal's drumming here makes a big difference to the feel of the song; the verses were typical Brian, but the choruses go pretty close to full-on jazzy, with Hal actually riding a cymbal and adding accented accompaniments on the snare and toms. This seems to me to be pretty rare in BW arrangements. Definitely not as much timekeeping on a ride or hat as you find in most jazz or rock. I think that it was not just a Brian thing -- recording with the drums in the same room as all the other people, as they did in that time, made it very easy for cymbals to kind of wash into everybody's mics, plus the tambourine was trendy in LA, so that kind of became the go-to "every beat" percussion instrument instead of a hi-hat or a ride. That said, Brian still went in hard on this. As a consequence, it freed up a hand for the drummer to hit the floor tom on the backbeat as well as the snare, which gives a lot of Brian's productions that big backbeat sound (that he liked from the Spector/Nitzsche tracks.) I recently was transcribing/re-recording "Girl Don't Tell Me" and was somewhat surprised to discover (or re-discover, I'm not sure) that Dennis is riding a ride cymbal throughout. It's very washy, but Brian wanted it on there for some reason!
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 4, 2022 15:35:10 GMT
In jazz, though, they certainly still did it (often on the ride, but also hat). I hadn't ever really connected pop-rock as avoiding hat especially though. Now I need to listen for examples.
When did more fully isolating drummers during recording become more common? I mean while still playing as a group, not layering instruments one at a time (which I assume really took off in the 70s).
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Feb 4, 2022 15:54:25 GMT
I think it was less of an issue in jazz because either it was a smaller combo with less open mics, OR they would be "bigger" arrangements anyway, like big band; it's instrumental, big horns, etc, so it didn't matter quite so much if a cymbal was washy. It's not entirely clear to me but it's what I've put together from various comments from engineers that I've come across. This is precisely the kind of knowledge I'm trying to save from being lost! As far as increased isolation -- that's a super interesting question! There was never any serious effort to really cordon off the drums in a lot of cases, deep into the late 60s. I think the mindset for a while was more to protect other instruments from the drums, so you will see string basses get cordoned off, and pianos and harpsichords covered with packing blankets. They started putting up the short gobos around 64 or 65 sometimes, which wouldn't have done a heck of a lot acoustically, but probably made things a little more manageable. www.alamy.com/phil-spector-us-record-producer-about-1967-with-asistant-jack-nitzsche-image8049470.htmlYou can see there that people have their little cubicles, but it's not extensive isolation. www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GettyImages-73906805.jpg?resize=1800,1200&w=1200 There you can see more comprehensive isolation. I'm thinking that's 68, 69, or 70.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 4, 2022 16:05:40 GMT
Along the same lines of more fully isolated drums, I've got a question that might not be something you can answer (or it might be obvious and I'm dumb for asking). But do you know whether the primary reason was getting better drum sounds (e.g., in the '70s, as we get more tracks and people are into close-mic'ing more drums, submixing them a certain way), or making it easier to edit/punch-in, without having to account for ensemble bleed?
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Feb 4, 2022 16:32:16 GMT
Along the same lines of more fully isolated drums, I've got a question that might not be something you can answer (or it might be obvious and I'm dumb for asking). But do you know whether the primary reason was getting better drum sounds (e.g., in the '70s, as we get more tracks and people are into close-mic'ing more drums, submixing them a certain way), or making it easier to edit/punch-in, without having to account for ensemble bleed? Well, I have a thesis about this, so prepare for a disquisition! I think that it's always going to be a bit of a chicken/egg deal, but ultimately, it does come down to the combination of having more tracks available and the change in how people thought to use them. It's the 16-track that really does it. In my opinion, the 8-track was a machine that was still part of the mono era, and the 16-track is part of the stereo era. To me, the mono era is defined by real-time creation (And though the final product was most often in mono, it's not really 'about' being in mono, it's the mindset.). The mid sixties was a time where multitrack tape machines were used both as mono-capture devices (as in Brian's big sessions, like WIBN, say) or as multi-tracking tools using sel-sync (Like Pet Sounds, the track, or that's not me, where the arrangements were built up with overdubs.). The later method foreshadowed the more full-on embrace of this when more tracks became available. I think that 4 and 8 track machines give you a similar kind of flexibility, but the 16 track really opened things up. Within the space of 3-4 years, engineers had over 5 times the amount of tracks they'd had in the early 60s. So what the heck do you do with all of those tracks? Most consoles only had 12-inputs for most of the 60s. So the effect of this is that now overdubbing becomes assumed, rather than a possibility. And that's what leads to isolation. When you know ahead of time that you're going to be overdubbing a lot, that means you can't have any sign of anything else on one discrete element's track, because then you can't truly erase it. The best way to ensure clean multi-tracks is to literally record everything separately. Then 24-track came along, there were even more tracks to fill, so again I think engineers were like "hmm what could I put on all these tracks" and the answer became drums. And then when we got unlimited tracks, again, drums tended to get the expansion the most. So now, the "industry standard" is to use 25 mics on drums, 3 on the kick, 2 on the snare, 2 on each tom, a hi-hat mic, individual spot mics for the cymbals, stereo and mono overheads, and at least 5 room mics. Ah! but how do you avoid getting cymbal in your snare mic!? Well, enter drum samples. Now lots of live drum performances are replaced by editing in clean samples to replace the live performance, so engineers can have even cleaner tracks to work with. So -- what was wrong with recording a drumset with 1, 2, or 3 mics? Nothing! But you need a good engineer and a good drummer... Anyway.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 4, 2022 16:56:29 GMT
So, in essence, "build it, and they will come"? Once it's possible, it will be used?
It's funny, because as much as I think expanded multi-tracking is a godsend--especially for hobbyists like myself, but also for professional musicians who have done amazing things thanks to technology--there is something truly lost in today's place on that path begun decades ago, a laptop-studio world with unlimited tracks and no decisions required until you decide you're done tinkering.
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