Mastering BEACH BOYS "Pet Sounds" again, leaving the "2 db step fades" intact...

Ha!
Ain't it the truth.
(Audio geeks might be an exception ... for day one)

 

So, I was watching Michael Fremer's: 100 All Analog In Print Reissued Records You Should Own.


and the AP Mono Pet Sounds comes up and he said "This is cut from the best available source, not from the master tape. Nobody knows where the master tape is."

No-one knows where the master tape to PET SOUNDS IS!!! WHAT!

Have I not been paying attention? how could one of the most important records of all time have its master lost to time? (I might have this all wrong so bear with me)

 

This is how a record sound when mastered under the influence...

 

Question and slightly off topic.

What tape was used to master the mono CD for the 1996 30th anniversary box? What is the general consensus of the sound?

 

Can you help me out here Steve and sort out my confusion?

 

Sometime after Steve had the master tape and it was used for the Reprise Brother So Tuff/Pet Sounds vinyl the master tape was lost. The New York copy of the tape - which Steve used also as he recounts above - is the earliest generation master still extant. But the multitracks of the Pet Sounds master takes exist, both instrumental and vocal, which is how a stereo version was created for The Beach Boys Pet Sounds box set.

 

Well here we are.

 

I have heard of extreme levels of incompetence but how does of lose the master tape to PET SOUNDS!!!

 

That’s the great mystery, isn’t it? Put in the wrong tape box? Someone absconded with it? Discarded by mistake and destroyed? Nobody knows.

 

That is crazy. To think that someone could be so careless with such an important item. Let's pray that it was just put in the wrong box and its found promptly

Anyway, this whole discussion got me back in a pet sounds mood. So I felt for my own amusement I thought I would try and right one of the wrongs of the 1996 Stereo Mix.

So for Wouldnt it be nice I synced up the 1996 Stereo Mix, Instrumental + Backing Vocals and the Mono mix and pulled Mike out of the mono mix and stuck him into the instrumental and crossfaded it with the stereo. It actually turned out pretty good.

WIBN Mike Love Bridge in Stereo - Clyp

I would love to see this technique used sometime in the future to possibly fix some of the missing elements in the Stereo Mix

 

That was on the UK pressings right up until the 1990s. I have one of the last ones (bought in 1990/1) and that dreadful mix is on there. Luckily, despite saying 'Stereo' on the front, the rest of the tracks are all in mono, proper mono.

 

Has to rank with the early 'Stereo' mixes on Elvis's Golden Records as one of the worst fake mixes of all time.

 

I just did a search to see what release that was.

The tapes been missing since 1972!!??

 

no no no I totally misspoke. I believe Wouldn’t it Be Nice was damaged after the Reprise vinyl release and was substituted with an inferior copy tape on to the master. Obviously it was sometime after the master was returned to Capitol after 1992 that it was lost.

 

Oh! Well that gives me more hope (but not much)

 

This is really old (2006) and I have no idea if it is even accurate. Neat picture at the bottom.

Pet Sounds - lineage