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

So I'm working on PET SOUNDS again for 24 karat Gold CD and it's been a long time since I've played the album from start to finish. I've enjoyed hearing it again in order and I am picking up on stuff on the original mixes that I have not heard before, the subtle stuff that is buried but nonetheless audible when listening on a high quality playback system. Let's face it, this album will never, but never be a sonic masterpiece but it is one of the greatest albums ever made so we must take it at face value. Since Brian Wilson worked so hard on it, what is on the tape (even the most subtle stuff) is there for a reason. I have made sure that the new Audio Fidelity Gold CD (and hopefully 180 gram LP in a few more months) is as true to the original 1966 LP release and the ORIGINAL INTENT as humanly possible.

Since the mono original album mix is the only authentic version of the album in existence I've tried to keep as true to what Brian Wilson wanted as possible this time. It's poison to second guess some sonic decisions that were made in the good old year 1966 but one thing Brian didn't seem to be bothered by were the famous (infamous) "drop fades" that the old pots at Western Recorders had implanted on the fade-outs of most of the songs.

In other words, the fades have the volume dropping two db every turn of the knob until the sound just is killed at the end. If you've heard CALIFORNIA GIRLS on the DCC Gold CD I did of "Endless Summer" you have heard a "drop fade". I left it in there because I felt it was charming and I didn't want to do a smooth fadeout and gyp you of every bit of audible sound. Same goes for PET SOUNDS.

I have our half-inch mono head-stack 30 IPS AES Agfa-Gevaert full-bandwidth transfer that I made back in October or so of 1992 and consider it the best and most accurate version of the original release that exists in the world, having cobbled it together with the correct mixes for all songs including WOULDN'T IT BE NICE and a few bits and pieces of other songs that needed mending and my the new HDCD transfer is stone FLAT (neutral) as being played back on an Ampex ATR 100-2 with special vacuum tube electronics into our new A/D converter.

Point is with all of this, I left the fades "STRAIGHT". So you will hear exactly what Brian Wilson heard in the studio during the fade outs of all the songs. I did NOT help the fades at all. They are exactly like Chuck Britz did them at Western, sort of a bouncing down to quiet and then a steep and sudden drop-off. I find it totally authentic and (as I said earlier) quite charming but a few of you might find it disarming or just weird so I wanted to warn you about it in advance.

On the various cuttings I have heard of this album the mastering engineer always "helps" the fades of the songs by starting them early to avoid the two db drop offs but the consequence is that each song is shorter by a few seconds or even more. I can't stand that. Give me the entire song, as long as possible and then fade ON leader, not before it..

So, there you go. When you hear the new Audio Fidelity PET SOUNDS you will hear the wacky fades just as they were done in the studio by Chuck Britz and Brian Wilson (and incidentally just as they appear on the ORIGINAL first Capitol LP cutting). I have used NO noise reduction of any kind and no compression, limiting or anything of a compromising nature on this mastering. It is as pure as possible; there isn't even a mastering console in use, just the playback deck to the recorder with nothing in between.

Hope you dig it. Other than furnishing you with your own Altec 604 speaker to listen on and a McIntosh 60 to play it back through the regulation Universal Audio 610 module, this is the best I can do to bring you the Beach Boys wonderful PET SOUNDS as close as possible to Brian's vision. The first Capitol LP mastering (that was approved by Brian) sounds similar to this but the sonic compromises necessary at the time (in the minds of some Capitol execs) to cut a phonograph record that would play on the kiddie machines of the day meant that the top end on the record was filtered at 10,000 cycles above and 50 cycles below (sort of a flat, dead sound on the original LP was the result) and the compression ratio was 2:1 (at least). No such sonic compromises were put in to place during this new mastering. Let's not take authenticity too far!

We at Audio Fidelity hope you will enjoy the new PET SOUNDS.

See other threads for my thoughts on the Beach Boys stereo Chuck Britz "non-incredible two-handed early fades" and why they stink (and why they didn't have to be).

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=12179&postcount=7

 

Excellent looking forward to that one

Simon