section_path: Artistry/Production style
section_name: Production style
paragraph_text: Production style
  
  Wilson's best-known productions typically employed instruments such as saxophones and bass harmonicas. He usually instructed his drummer to play only the snare and floor-tom afterbeats characteristic of Spector's records. Reflecting further Spector influence, Wilson rarely used ride or crash cymbals and often combined color tones to produce novel sounds. Other practices he adopted from Spector included recording two echo chambers simultaneously and having standup and Fender bass play identical parts. His bass lines were usually played with a hard plectrum, which imparted a more percussive quality—a technique he adapted from Motown.
  
  His first use of a string section was on "The Surfer Moon" in mid-1963. Before Pet Sounds, he seldom used string ensembles, preferring to overdub them after recording the basic instrumental track, which was then followed by vocal overdubs. Beginning with the 1963 track "Surfin' U.S.A.", he double-tracked the vocals, resulting in a more resonant sound.
  
  Starting in 1964, Wilson performed tape splices on his recordings, usually to allow difficult vocal sections to be performed by the group. By 1965, he had become more adventurous in his use of tape splicing. These experiments culminated with the complex editing processes adopted for "Good Vibrations" and Smile. Mark Linett, who engineered Wilson's recordings from the 1980s on, stated, "He certainly wasn't the first person to do edits, but it was unusual to record a song in four or five sections, and then cut it together."
  
  According to Wilson, after his first nervous breakdown in 1964, he had endeavored to "take the things I learned from Phil Spector" and maximize his instrumental palette. In Priore's assessment, Wilson reconfigured Spector's Wall of Sound techniques, aiming for "audio clarity" and "a more lush, comfortable feel". The 2003 book Temples of Sound states that Wilson distinguished himself from Spector through the usage of certain instruments, such as banjo, and by possessing a "clean muscle" missing in Spector's work. Danny Hutton remarked that anyone recording immediately after Wilson's session would fail to replicate the sound he achieved. According to Hutton, "There was a lot of subtle stuff he did. He was just hands-on. He would change the reverb and the echo, and all of a sudden, something just – whoa! – got twice as big and fat."
  
  Wilson's best-known productions typically employed instruments such as saxophones and bass harmonicas. He usually instructed his drummer to play only the snare and floor-tom afterbeats characteristic of Spector's records. Reflecting further Spector influence, Wilson rarely used ride or crash cymbals and often combined color tones to produce novel sounds. Other practices he adopted from Spector included recording two echo chambers simultaneously and having standup and Fender bass play identical parts. His bass lines were usually played with a hard plectrum, which imparted a more percussive quality—a technique he adapted from Motown.
  
  His first use of a string section was on "The Surfer Moon" in mid-1963. Before Pet Sounds, he seldom used string ensembles, preferring to overdub them after recording the basic instrumental track, which was then followed by vocal overdubs. Beginning with the 1963 track "Surfin' U.S.A.", he double-tracked the vocals, resulting in a more resonant sound.
  
  Starting in 1964, Wilson performed tape splices on his recordings, usually to allow difficult vocal sections to be performed by the group. By 1965, he had become more adventurous in his use of tape splicing. These experiments culminated with the complex editing processes adopted for "Good Vibrations" and Smile. Mark Linett, who engineered Wilson's recordings from the 1980s on, stated, "He certainly wasn't the first person to do edits, but it was unusual to record a song in four or five sections, and then cut it together."
  
  According to Wilson, after his first nervous breakdown in 1964, he had endeavored to "take the things I learned from Phil Spector" and maximize his instrumental palette. In Priore's assessment, Wilson reconfigured Spector's Wall of Sound techniques, aiming for "audio clarity" and "a more lush, comfortable feel". The 2003 book Temples of Sound states that Wilson distinguished himself from Spector through the usage of certain instruments, such as banjo, and by possessing a "clean muscle" missing in Spector's work. Danny Hutton remarked that anyone recording immediately after Wilson's session would fail to replicate the sound he achieved. According to Hutton, "There was a lot of subtle stuff he did. He was just hands-on. He would change the reverb and the echo, and all of a sudden, something just – whoa! – got twice as big and fat."