Chapter 16: The Record Producer and the LA Sound
Following the release of Pet Sounds in 1966, Brian Wilson’s reputation as a visionary musician began to take hold more broadly, especially in the U.K. music press. Although the album was not a commercial blockbuster in the U.S., it was celebrated in Britain, where musicians and critics alike recognized Wilson’s ambitious compositional techniques and innovative production. Capitol Records and Wilson’s close circle, including former Beatles publicist Derek Taylor, began promoting the slogan “Brian Wilson is a genius” in interviews and articles. While this campaign succeeded in raising Wilson’s profile as an auteur, it also intensified the already immense pressure he was placing on himself to deliver something even greater.
Wilson was keenly aware of what could be described as a friendly artistic rivalry with the Beatles, whom he both admired and felt compelled to surpass. After hearing Rubber Soul in late 1965, Wilson described Rubber Soul as a “whole album with all good stuff,” which inspired him to approach Pet Sounds as a unified artistic statement. When Revolver followed in 1966 and the Beatles began their own studio experimentation, Wilson felt that the stakes had been raised yet again. With the groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the horizon, he became obsessed with creating a response that would not just equal it but outshine it. This drive led to the conception of Smile, a project he described as a “teenage symphony to God.”
The first single associated with this project and the immediate follow-up to Pet Sounds was the wildly ambitious “Good Vibrations” (1966), which Brian Wilson famously described as a “pocket symphony.” This track marked a radical shift in pop production, showcasing Wilson’s revolutionary use of the recording studio itself as an instrument. He treated the studio’s acoustics, microphone placement, and mixing console as tools and sonic colors to be shaped and layered. By exploiting the unique tonal characteristics of different rooms and echo chambers in each studio, Brian Wilson transformed the studio itself into a compositional tool.
To record the song “Good Vibrations,” Wilson employed modular recording, an innovative method at the time. Wilson recorded sections separately—often in different studios and on different days—and then meticulously pieced them together from various reels of analog tape. Tape splicing itself was a highly labor-intensive and delicate process: engineers physically cut the magnetic tape using razor blades or specialized cutting machines, then joined segments with adhesive tape. Precision was essential to ensure smooth transitions without audible clicks or timing errors. Because there was no digital editing, any mistake meant redoing the process, making Wilson’s iterative approach all the more painstaking and remarkable.
One of the most distinctive sounds on “Good Vibrations” comes from the electro-theremin, an early electronic instrument that produces eerie, wavering tones through manual manipulation of oscillator frequencies. The electro-theremin is a distinct instrument from the traditional theremin. While the traditional theremin is controlled by moving one’s hands near two metal antennas to manipulate pitch and volume without physical contact, the electro-theremin uses a mechanical interface—such as a slide or keyboard—for precise pitch control, making it more stable and better suited for pop music recording. Invented by trombonist Paul Tanner and engineer Bob Whitsell in the late 1950s, the electro-theremin was designed to mimic the theremin’s sound while offering more precise pitch control. It features a mechanical slider (or rotary dial) attached to a pitch control circuit, allowing the performer to glide smoothly between notes by physically moving the control along a continuous scale. This gave the instrument its distinctive swooping sound, but with greater tuning accuracy than the original theremin. On “Good Vibrations,” the electro-theremin’s shimmering, voice-like tone adds a haunting, psychedelic dimension that was utterly unique among pop songs in 1966.
Wilson also layered additional unconventional instruments into the track’s kaleidoscopic soundscape. A key example is the mouth harp (also known as a jaw harp or Jews harp), a small plucked idiophone that produces twanging, vibrating tones. The player places the instrument between the teeth and plucks a metal tongue while using their mouth and breath to shape the overtones. Its rhythmic, bouncing sound adds a quirky, percussive texture to the song’s introduction and verse sections, contributing to the surreal, carnival-like atmosphere. Another textural highlight is the tack piano, an upright piano modified by placing small metal tacks into the hammers that strike the strings. This creates a bright, jangly, slightly metallic sound evocative of honky-tonk saloons or music boxes that cuts sharply through the dense arrangement.
“Good Vibrations” breaks from traditional verse-chorus structures through its modular construction and contains a collage of contrasting musical episodes, each recorded independently and later spliced together. The song opens in E♭ minor with the lyric, “I, I love the colorful clothes she wears,” introducing a tight, syncopated groove with sparse instrumentation and a slightly ominous tone. This leads into a surprising modulation to G major in the pre-chorus (“When I look in her eyes…”) where the harmonies soften and the texture expands, offering emotional relief. The chorus shifts again to B♭ major (“I’m pickin’ up good vibrations…”) where soaring vocal harmonies and the gliding electro-theremin enter and give the song a harmonic lift.
After a second chorus, the song enters a breakdown section with the lyric, “Gotta keep those lovin’ good vibrations a-happenin’,” where tempo slows, textures thin, and the harmonic center becomes fluid. Cello ostinatos and organ pulses float beneath the surface, creating a surreal, meditative soundscape. The track ultimately returns to its chorus material (“Good, good, good, good vibrations…”) but this reprise is fuller and more texturally dense, layering voices, theremin glides, and percussion into a swirling finale. Rather than resolve neatly, the song fades out into silence. Wilson’s bold use of key changes (E♭ minor to G major to B♭ major), modular form, and innovative instrumentation creates a result that is less a pop song than a miniature symphonic work, one that mirrors both his restless creativity and the expanding possibilities of 1960s studio production.
The production of “Good Vibrations” was famously laborious, spanning over six months and involving more than 90 hours of tape. Sessions took place across four major Los Angeles studios: Western, Gold Star, Sunset Sound, and Columbia. At an estimated cost of ranging from $15,000 to $50,000—equivalent to over $450,000 today—“Good Vibrations” was the most expensive single produced up to that time. Its commercial success, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100, demonstrated that experimental and highly crafted studio work could resonate with a mainstream audience. For Wilson, the single stood as both a creative peak and a tantalizing preview of the even more ambitious Smile project he was already conceiving.