Mixing techniques for Motown sounds

[Wave theory]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

That was completely staged and not even a rehearsal! Yipes, we were all so young!!

Other than that Temps, do you recognize the people in the video? Were the guitar and bass players really squished together like that? Not that that's bad- we should probably do that these days.

Also wondering who was playing hand percussion. Was there a funk sister?

[Mike O]

Bob has commented often on the music education available at that time. In that context, I'd be most interested in what those charts actually looked like. It would be interesting to know just how detailed they were. Surely some must have survived?

[Hardtoe]

Originally Posted by chessparov

FWIW lots of the classic Country or Country/Rock artists ala Merle Haggard, Porter Wagoner, Ricky Nelson, Don Williams, Del Reeves, Charlie Louvin, etc. sounded stellar on the 635a.

IMHO guessing the flatter RE15 is generally more suited to "Classic Soul" vs. the mellower 635a.
My understanding is that the RE15 was one of the main studio vocal mics at Chess, and RCA for years.

Also the value on the RE15 has been going up rapidly, can't imagine it'll surpass as a used RE20-but who knows nowadays!

Chris

Ok, thanks for the tip - I'll be sure to try out the 635a on lead vox and see what it gives me. I gotta say, these little mics both have a great tone.
(I guess I was lucky to find the pair for $100.00)

[Bob Olhsson]

The charts were all done by arrangers. Typically the writer and producer would meet with the arranger for developing specific ideas for rhythm figures, bass lines, etc. Then at the session the producer would decide what was working and what wasn't and musicians would offer their suggestions. The complexity of the rhythm charts varied a lot and were really mostly an outline. Strings and horns were fully scored.

[spectrasound]

....that a lot of motown recordings were not done at the Hitsville studio, and it was a myth about the studio. (Check out "Spectacle" show on him, Netflix)
He said the "Motown Sound" was the songs, players and arrangements. Although I am a fan of vintage analog gear, and understand that this was part of the vibe...I have to agree with him!

[zorf]

Hey Chesparov,
I read that a lot of the classic country guys you mentioned actually recorded in LA at capitol and used condensers.
i got that from the classic tracks series of articles, which are really fun.

[vernier]

Need old tubes and analog tape to emulate Motown tone. If it's ever been done otherwise, I'd like to hear it.
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[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by spectrasound

....that a lot of motown recordings were not done at the Hitsville studio, and it was a myth about the studio. (Check out "Spectacle" show on him, Netflix)
He said the "Motown Sound" was the songs, players and arrangements. Although I am a fan of vintage analog gear, and understand that this was part of the vibe...I have to agree with him!

I agree a lot of magic has been mis-attributed to Hitsville.

On the other hand everybody I know who has engineered sessions at Hitsville considers it to have very finest studio acoustics of any small studio we have ever encountered. That studio and a more modern control room would be mighty hard to beat.

Up until it closed in 1972 the rhythm tracks for I'd guess at least 90% of Motown's hits were tracked at Hitsville although occasional rhythm and plenty of overdubs were done in LA as early as 1965 at Armin Steiner's.

[vsthalion]

Heres a live recording at hitsville
******//www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcA2-...e_gdata_player

[andychamp]

Originally Posted by vsthalion

Heres a live recording at hitsville
******//www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcA2-...e_gdata_player

Check about 12 posts back...

[chessparov]

zorf, I study many of the great live performances WAY back on TV and/or concerts preserved now on Youtube. A high percentage used either the 635a,
or the RE15. Great way to reference various dynamic (including ribbon) mics.

Chris

[zorf]

Hey Chris
I think ev mics were popular for tv in those days.
Non glare finish, small,ncardiod with little bleed, and durable.
I get the feeling the singer would just use whatever the tv tech would suggest.
If what I read was correct, they used condensers in the studio for vocals.
Or at least buck and Merle.

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by zorf

Hey Chris
I think ev mics were popular for tv in those days.
Non glare finish, small,ncardiod with little bleed, and durable.
I get the feeling the singer would just use whatever the tv tech would suggest.
If what I read was correct, they used condensers in the studio for vocals.
Or at least buck and Merle.

It's hard to tell because a lot of TV was actually lip syncing. I'm told Elvis Presley used a handheld RE-15 wrapped in foam in the studio.

There are very few recording studio pictures that weren't a staged photo shoot where a photographer had chosen and placed the mikes.

[Ben Logan]

Really enjoying this thread. Educational. Thanks all.

[chessparov]

Me too, thanks again Bob O. for all your helpful insights.

Chris

[Blast9]

Originally Posted by vernier

Need old tubes and analog tape to emulate Motown tone. If it's ever been done otherwise, I'd like to hear it.
.
.
.

Bob O clarifies that in an older thread

******//www.gearslutz.com/board/157075-post6.html

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

We had one studio with all Altec solid state preamps and another with a combination of Langeven tube pres, home made 12AX7/UTC xformer pres and Altec and Ampex mixers. We also occasionally used Sculley 280B mike pres and Shure M-67 mixers when we ran out of anything better.

The 20 input Electrodyne consoles we bought after going 16 track were used strictly for mixing and had no mike preamps.

[Jimmi Accardi]

Makes sense that Elvis would've used an RE-15 wrapped in foam (or actually ANY hand held mic) since he had a hard time standing still while recording vocals. He liked to move around while he sang.

[thenoodle]

The 60s lasted ten long years. Motown and all of the rest of us living in those days were working way different at the start of the decade compared to the end of the decade.

"Mixing techniques for the Motown Sound"... to take this topic sideways for a sec, I just picked up a quote below from somewhere or other regarding 1964-1967 technique. That's the era I think of most when one says the word "Motown"

I yapped (on another thread regarding old days tracking around here) about how this was my method of working back when I only had two 4-track machines in the 60s. I called it submixing. Apparently, Motown called it pre-mastering.

Whatever the name... this was/is an art. And the below topic contributes A BUNCH to the resulting sound BEFORE YOU EVER GET TO MIXING.

Read the below part and just think of all the times the signal was redurgitated through the electronics BEFORE MIXING.

>>>>>>>>>>>
1. Any staff engineer would record a basic session on three tracks. The engineer was strictly forbidden from using any eq, compression or any other type of signal processing.

2. Lawrence Horn would mix together the three tracks into one track. To do this, he would play the multitrack master on a playback machine and record onto track one of the 3 track master recorder. Lawrence would use all of the processing gear to make this mix. He was basically doing a "final" mix of the rhythm track. This procedure made a "B" reel that could further be recorded on.

3. Any Staff engineer would cut the horns onto tracks 2 & 3 of the B reel. Brass instruments would be on one track and woodwinds would be recorded on the other track. Again the engineer wouldn't be allowed any signal processing.

4. Lawrence Horn would take the B reel and mix the horns with signal processing onto track 2 of a new 3 track tape, making a C reel to allow further recording. Track 1 (final rhythm) would be copied to the new C reel at the same time.

5. A more experienced engineer would record the strings onto track 3 of the C reel. This job wouldn't be given to the greenest engineer on staff.

6. Lawrence horn would mix the stings and horns onto track 2 of a new, D reel, using, of course any signal processing he deemed necessary. Track 1 would again be copied to the new D reel at the same time.

7. Any staff engineer would record background vocals onto track 3 of the D reel without any signal processing.

8. A more experienced engineer would bounce the background vocals and add lead vocals, using signal processing to a new E reel on track 3.

The E-Reel had all of the final "mixed" elements and was the final multitrack reel used for mixdown. All staff engineers would be invited to mix the production off of this reel and submit their mixes to the Quality Control Department. Quality Control would pick the best mix. Engineers would "compete" for the mix that was chosen for release.

Since Lawrence Horn did the transferring & mixing to make the multitrack, he actually did most of the mixing on the released version. Since he was good at mixing, he often would be the engineer that won the mixing competition.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I didn't know that Motown was doing this. I did it. Everyone in town I knew did it that way too. We ALL ...ALWAYS ... needed more tracks. The Beatles did it this way too. Anyway, that's another topic.

But I'll tell you... that procedure above really messes with your sound. Some call it magic by the time you get to mix time.

To take that concept a bit further, for large projects, I STILL often create subgroup/automated mixes on daw #1 and feed them out the sound card in stems and over into a completely different computer. Rather than mixing to tracks on daw #1.

It's a mindset thing left over from the old days.

Maybe porting over at a completely different sample rate on the second recording computer. Often printing effects out the outputs of one daw to another. Sometimes with 24-30 tracks moving over that way. Automating the stems out of one computer and into fresh tracks on the second.

And maybe then (on large projects), still run the 24-30 or more new tracks on daw #2 into the console to mix with the vcas for a bit more tweaking into the stereo mix.

Just like the old days. Submixing. Premastering... whatever you want to call it.

Dunno if anyone works that way.... out realtime from one system to another. But to me, it's a simple workflow extension to the old steps between dual tape machines.

Some would shudder at the idea of "damaging" a pristine signal by sending the signal out the d/a converters of computer one and into the a/d convertors (or adat) of the second daw.

Doesn't matter to me. Again... just think of the signal mangling happening on that procedure listed way above between tape machines over the course of many many submixes.

I like this thread and this topic. I have my views on how to track and mix based on what I grew up with and what works for me. I may disagree with how others do it, but the information is good to exchange. And I do hear tips from time to time that sound interesting to try.

These were not wide open topics back in the 60s... or in the old R-E-P magazine days.... because everyone KNEW how to do these basic submix things ... from necessity.

But these techniques ... that I noted above regarding Motown ....added just as much mojo or magic or whatever you want to call it (many of us called it frustration back in the days) as the final mixing steps.

[Bob Olhsson]

FWIW: That's just Lawrence Horn's version of the story! The various generations were kept on the same reels and the paperwork didn't match that scenario very often. I moved from mastering into the studio in 1967 after Lawrence Horn, Holland Dozier Holland and Bob Dennis who wrote that description left.

I've learned that overdubbing to that extent was pretty unique to Motown. Most people were tracking everything at the same time to mono with the 3-track used to derive a stereo mix or save a track where the recording engineer lost the ride on the lead vocal.

The earliest Motown records, such as "Money" in 1960 had their backing tracks recorded to mono using a 4 input mixer in Berry Gordy's sister's basement. Then they were taken to one of the two advertising studios in Detroit where vocals were overdubbed by mixing the backing track with a live mike to a second tape machine. For the time that was a relatively radical approach.

[chet.d]

Love this stuff.

Trying to find sonic quality and efficient workflow that also lends itself to creativity in 2012 using a DAW, good converters, some outboard, some plugs and tape when called for is an interesting puzzle to work on.

I do think the better the front end w: mic - transformers, tubes converters etc. the less tape is of significant importance.(a whole other debate though)
Joe Henry's excellent work comes to mind along w- Ryan's engineering.

This thread offers some good jumping off points.

[gravyface]

Mind.

Blown.

Honestly, just a regular joe wannabe here, making noise in my basement like I did when I was a teenager on my Yamaha cassette 4-track... just completely blown away that a forum like this exists with real legends interacting with us!

I work in the IT field and the "legends" rarely get involved in forums like this... and they're c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r professionals!

[pan60]

i am a very big fan of the RE-15 and i think the vale will at some point be very close to the RE-20, i have seen some of the really nice ones get very close.
great mics!

[Peacock]

Any EQ reccomendations for motown sound

Bass

kick
snare
oh

gtr

vox

etc

[retone]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I should add that RCA used the same Studer C37 tape machines and we supplied them with our filters and equalizers.

Looking a singer in the eye and singing along in your mind while riding the mike fader during tracking is a powerful technique that has almost been lost today. When you do that the vocals never need nearly as much compression.

brilliant brilliant brilliant!!!!