Motown mono mixes: 1964

[soulster]

I've been working on my personal 1964 comp, and listening to the songs, i've noticed that the Motown mono mixes from this period, in particular, sound so spectacular. The have lots of depth, a great sense of space, and very laid back and mellow, almost audiophile, in a way. I notice this most on hits by The Temptations, Martha & The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, and The Supremes. The songs before and after don't quite sound so great, especially for 1965.

This is a question for those who were there, or who are schooled on the gear they used: what makes those mono mixes from this particular time period sound so good? What gear did they use at the time? Bob Olhsson?

[daddyacey]

Well for me ,being a 10 year old music buff at the time ,I would say that
1) There was stereo at the time but ,it was relatively new and was never thought to be the force it would become in the later half of the 60's and the standard it became in the early 70's. Then ,in the late 50's and early 60's there was mono ,and the next step was "Hi-Fi" ,which is like H.D. is to media today. Mono was at its best then with the advent of better recording machines and "microgroove" technology etc. Stereo used the same technology, times 2 ,and its primary advantage was two channels for recording and playback and added "depth of field".

2) Multi tracking was used at the start ,to make fuller sounding mono mixes ,a step up from sound on sound and sound with sound [[ala Les Paul).

3) Classic Mono sounds so good because you only had that one take to get it right. The room acoustics ,mike placement and performance had to gel just right cause there was no "fixing it in the mix".

[soulster]

Daddyacey, I'm not interested in stereo discussion at this point. I know how those were created, and not the scope of this discussion. What i'm getting at is what was it the engineers did, or what gear did they use to produce such stellar-sounding MONO mixes? In comparison, many of the MONO mixes in 1965 sound horrible! During late '64 and 1965, Motown went from three-track directly to eight-track, and skipped four-track. During '65 and early '66, the engineers were always switching stuff and repairing things, which probably contributed to the sound being all over the map, but in '64, they seemed to have the perfect set-up in place. There was real magic during that time, soundwise. I'm looking for techno-geek stuff.

Many of the veteran Motown engineers lurk on this board, and i was hoping one of them could chime in. I considered posting this on Gearslutz, where I know a lot of them hang out, but I figured i'd get a faster response here.

Thanks four your input, though.

[robbert]

Probably Ralph or Russ might be able to come up with names who were working at the mixing consoles in 1964. Those names might differ from the ones that were there in 1963 or 1965, hence the difference in mixing?

[soulster]

I'm sure Russ was there, as was Mike Mclean. Lawrence Horn is currently unavailable to comment.

[marxthespot_]

I think the "variations" in sound quality have more to do with which person did the engineering and/or mxing of a particular track. Most of the effects, reverb, EQ, really come at the mixdown stage....That is where all the pieces come together. That "depth of field", etc. comes more from the remix, the effects used, and the artistic judement of the remixer.

[soulster]

Yeah, I know all about the recording and mixing process. but, Motown was always switching out gear, fixing things, and there may have been a time when all the parts were just right.

[randy_russi]

At that period of time record execs figured most people hear a song on the car radio for the first time and at that time
car radio wasn't stereo. The mono sound was the sound kids also heard on their transistor radios, which every kid
had. Therefore, they wanted the sound to be spectacular on the little transistors and the car radios.

[soulster]

Randi, that's not what i'm getting at....ahhh...never mind.

[randy_russi]

Ok, didn't follow.

[marxthespot_]

Soulster, I think you are referring to whether certain equipment dictated the sound of mono singles in 1964 and that a possible change in equipment in 1965 could have changed the sound of mono singles....
It may not be just one factor [[i.e, change of studio recording equipment), it could be a combo of many things [[monitor speakers, remix engineer's artistic judgment).....

In your first post, you mentioned the songs of certain artists - what is a specific example[[s) [[name of song/artist) of 1964 mono mixes that you think sound great and a 1965 mono mixes[[s) [[name of song/artist) that you think doesn't sound great. That would give us a clearer idea of what you have noticed. Also, a specific example might trigger a specific recollection from Bob Ohlsson or another Motown engineer who reads the thread.

For me an example of great 1964 mono mix - Mary Wells/My Guy - the mono mix is so nicely balanced with nice echo/reverb on Mary's voice.

Conversely, a bad 1965 mono mix is Shotgun/Jr. Walker & All Stars - distorted and harsh...

However from 1965, Four Tops/I Can't Help My Self sounds great....

[soulster]

Soulster, I think you are referring to whether certain equipment dictated the sound of mono singles in 1964 and that a possible change in equipment in 1965 could have changed the sound of mono singles....
It may not be just one factor [[i.e, change of studio recording equipment), it could be a combo of many things [[monitor speakers, remix engineer's artistic judgment).....

Bingo! But, I don't think it was all human effort. Why, then, would mono [[and even many stereo) mixes in 1965 sound so bad?The mixing engineers didn't suddenly get bad or sloppy. It had to be something in the gear setup they used. Like I said, Motown jumped straight from three-track to eight track in mid-1965. Could the console have changed? Motown used tons of rack gear, limiters, EQ's...hell, they would EQ the EQ's! But, what the hell gave those mono mixes such depth during that period? I don't hear it before or after that period.


In your first post, you mentioned the songs of certain artists - what is a specific example[[s) [[name of song/artist) of 1964 mono mixes that you think sound great and a 1965 mono mixes[[s) [[name of song/artist) that you think doesn't sound great. That would give us a clearer idea of what you have noticed. Also, a specific example might trigger a specific recollection from Bob Ohlsson or another Motown engineer who reads the thread.

For examples:
Wild One - Martha & The Vandellas
I'll Be In Trouble - The Temptations
The Girl's Alright With Me - The Temptations
Baby Love - The Supremes

Now, you're not going to hear the depth i'm talking about on a boombox or cheap headphones. I don't think it's all in the mastering.


For me an example of great 1964 mono mix - Mary Wells/My Guy - the mono mix is so nicely balanced with nice echo/reverb on Mary's voice.

Well, FWIW, I never liked the mono mix of that song. :)


Conversely, a bad 1965 mono mix is Shotgun/Jr. Walker & All Stars - distorted and harsh...

Yeah, that was done in 1965!

However from 1965, Four Tops/I Can't Help My Self sounds great....[/QUOTE]

[keith_hughes]

Just thought a note from the archives might be helpful to this discussion: the first stereo mix to be saved on a duplicate master [[DM) tape was "Nowhere To Run". There's no date on the box for this track, but other tracks on the same [[stereo) tape have dates in December 64 and January 65. [[They never issued this mix, btw: the stereo mix that appeared on their "Greatest Hits" dates from nearly a year later.)

Co-incidentally [[?) this was the very same time-period when Mike McClean unleashed his new state-of-the art 8-track recording desk in the Snakepit. The earliest 8-track multi-tracks saved were a bunch of songs recorded by Billy Eckstine, including "Down To Earth" and "The Prime Of My Life", in February 1965. [[NTR was recorded on 3-track, btw.)

I'm there with Soulster in preferring the mono mixes of 1964 [[and earlier) material. Motown took a while in coming to terms with stereo mixing, which after all was a real cult rich-kids' thing back in 1965. I was buying records as quickly as I could get the money in 1965 and 1966, but didn't acquire a stereo player or record till Christmas 1967. And no record stations [[in the UK, anyway) played stereo music till late on in the sixties. The first stereo 45 over here [[if I recall correctly) was "All Along The Watchtower", by Jimi Hendrix, in mid-1968.

[soulster]

Just thought a note from the archives might be helpful to this discussion: the first stereo mix to be saved on a duplicate master [[DM) tape was "Nowhere To Run". There's no date on the box for this track, but other tracks on the same [[stereo) tape have dates in December 64 and January 65. [[They never issued this mix, btw: the stereo mix that appeared on their "Greatest Hits" dates from nearly a year later.)

Thanks, but stereo does not factor into this discussion, as stereo mixes were done at night by some other engineer in the house next door! They actually wired the two rooms together!


Co-incidentally [[?) this was the very same time-period when Mike McClean unleashed his new state-of-the art 8-track recording desk in the Snakepit. /QUOTE]

That's correct! But, the first eight-track recording was supposed to be "My Girl" by The Temptations. That was recorded in November of '64.

I'm there with Soulster in preferring the mono mixes of 1964 [[and earlier) material. Motown took a while in coming to terms with stereo mixing, which after all was a real cult rich-kids' thing back in 1965. Like I said, this thread is not about stereo, but Motown did pretty good with it by late 1966. The singles were all mono until 1972, but their last mono LP was 1967.

[soulster]

I just remembered a little thing Harry Weinger posted long ago. I just remembered that I copied it. After reading it, I stand corrected: "My Girl" was NOT an eight-track recording. But, it was a monster spread out over four three-track tapes...at least that's what I can make of it! There was tons of bouncing and overdubs. But, this is not germane to this thread. Just to let you know I was wrong about that.

[robbert]

This is a very interesting discussion. Step by step, but I can sense we'll be getting somewhere!

Soulster wrote: "The singles were all mono until 1972, but their last mono LP was 1967."

USA singles, I assume you mean?
I remember very well that in Holland SomedayWe'llBeTogether/DRATS was the first Tamla-Motown STEREO 45 to be released on the Dutch market.
We at EMI/Holland had to literally put up a verbal fight to get the stereo tape from the studios in Detroit... at first they sent us the USA mono mixed 45 tape, as usual. You have to understand Motown Holland always wanted tapes instead of masters, because we had a top talented cutter at the CBS plant, who also mastered the Motown MONO stuff... under the guidance of yours truly).
Anyway, we [[my boss Pete Felleman or I) started to fax that we wanted the stereo tape for SWWBT [[from the album WhatWasItsName... uh... GreatestHitsVolume3) and after a while we would get that tape. You see, Dutch public radio was beginning to pick up on stereo in those days.
That stereo tape was copied [[third generation tape, ouch!) and also sent to other European countries, Sweden, France among them. Not sure about Germany. Thus we got SWWBT played on Dutch radio, not only on the Pop channel, but also on Radio 2, the Adult Contemporary channel.
That was a breakthrough for Tamla-Motown stereo 45's in Holland and more European countries.

Sorry Soulster, just had to tell the stereo tale... now BACK TO MONO !

[soulster]

USA singles, I assume you mean?


Yes. I am talking About the U.S..

[bob_olhsson]

A lot of that was three track or three track bounced to eight. I agree that a lot of it sounded better than the eight track only productions.

The dedicated mix room was installed in 1966 and was our first solid state console with a 3M solid state eight track machine. Previously the mixing had been done in the Hitsville control room which was all tube gear.

Stereo was an after-thought much like 5.1 is today until the stores stopped ordering mono albums around 1968. Most mono pop songs are better mixes because they got the most attention.

[uptight]

Great post, Bob. The earlier records do have a bit more warmth while the later ones have a bit of crackly distortion. I always believed this was one of the differences between tubes versus transistors and capacitors.

[soulster]

A lot of that was three track or three track bounced to eight. I agree that a lot of it sounded better than the eight track only productions.


I read up on the notes on how The Temptations' "My Girl" was constructed before Motown got the eight-track machine. It was [[or started out as) a three-track recording, but it was bounced and overdubbed like crazy. I don't think it sounds that great in either stereo or mono, but that mono mix is marvelous, nevertheless.

In terms of depth and warmth, I agree with you 100% the three-track mixes sound superior.

[bob_olhsson]

Three track involved more things being mixed together "off the floor."

The original two eight track machines also had pretty serious hum on the two outside tracks. Ironically we had just replaced them with new machines when we were abruptly told to go 16 track around 1968. I'll never forget a conversation I had with Norman Whitfield wondering what we were going to do with 16 tracks and our expectation that it would probably be lots harder to mix.

[motownlarry]

[QUOTE=bob_olhsson;24346]Three track involved more things being mixed together "off the floor."

The original two eight track machines also had pretty serious hum on the two outside tracks. This post solves a mystery I've wondered about for forty years. The very audible hum on the Motown stereo albums in 1965 and 1966 came from the eight-track. Thanks Bob for clearing this up.

[mike_mclean]

Hello. My name is Mike McLean, and I was the Technical Engineering Department Head at Motown Record Corporation between January, 1961 through April, 1972.

I happened along to find this thread because I was checking about a post I had made about the passing of a friend, Ann Kubal. This post is hard to resist offering a comment.

I was right there in the thick of it, fighting out the day to day problems of selecting, purchasing, installing, and maintaining the recording studio equipment that was used to make all of those classic Motown Recordings. I remember when I approved the hiring of Bob Olhsson, who was an eager young fellow at the time. There were a number of theories offered in this thread, and some were very interesting. There were also some that I find offensive.

For example: I am a purest. I feel that more modern solid state [[post vacuum tube) equipment does a better job then the old technology. I also consider the lowly CD [[44.1 kHz/16 bit) to be far better, overall, then vinyl. There is a very complex true story about how early CD's got the reputation for harsh and raspy high frequency timbre [[garbled, rashness in the string sound) that was much true in many example in the first CD releases.

However, I feel that the CD format is a very satisfactory format for popular music today. Any love for the sound of old time recordings is because the distortion introduced by the recording equipment became linked, in the music lover's mind with the sound of the actual music itself.

Take "Honky Tonk" on the original 45 release in 1956, performed by Bill Doggat [[SP?) Now here is a "song" [[a 45 RPM format length) artistic expression in the musical format that must be towering in it's power to win the heart of any music lover. It surely won mine, hook, line, and sinker.

Take "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, released in 1966. It had an entirely different sound quality, but it was, at least for me, the equal of Honky Tonk.

How about the great album "Wish You Were Hear" by Pink Floyd? I was utterly overwhelmed by this masterpiece. Yet another sound quality. But the music had it's own way to reach into your heart.

Finally, how about the Blu-Ray of the 2006 film "King-Kong"? On a proper setup, this is some very impressive sound and picture, EVEN IF EVERY BIT OF THE SOUND WAS DONE IN DIGITAL FORMAT.

I love the 1932 RKO Radio Pictures film "King Kong" even if it is loaded with distortion caused by limitations in the sound recording microphones, amplifiers, optical film recorders, film processing, optical film reproducers, more amplifiers, and motion picture theater loudspeakers.

I am content to love the old King Kong for what it is, with all of the distortion, and love the new King Kong for it's demonstration of how wonderful modern technology can present sound to a lover of music and/or cinema.

All of that stated, I will try to offer some down to earth comments about the lusty question that opened this thread, and the strange waves of fantasy and insight that danced in the mist of the threads that followed:

1964 was the year that Motown changed from a group of people dedicated to rising from nothing toward being a success, to a group who were flooded with opportunity.

When the string of smash hits by the Supremes came to pass, suddenly, instead of paupers trying with all their individual possible effort to hang on an build a record company, the same folks were flooded with vast new responsibilities.

The tax structure of the Internal Revenue Service was then, and, I would think, now, designed such as to say that if you made huge profits in a fiscal year, you had better spend them on building your company into a larger operation, or else you would be taxed on a personal income basis, which meant that you would lose almost all of the money that you had earned.

One minute we all did anything to help Berry Gordy Jr. [[one of the most handsome, charming, and delightful fellows that one could ever hope to work for) and then the next minute the word was coming down from the top that we had huge amounts of money to spend on expanding building the company.

This shock was so profound that it turned HDH the Motown production team, into HDH the "Band of Gold" folks.

Now, let me ask you to stop and think about it: Would such a vast, almost overnight, change not have a similar effect on how much effort was placed on quality in mixing the masters for releases.?

It didn't take long before the difference between starving record promotion, and lavish record promotion became clear to the folks mixing the releases. It was like the difference between trying to light a campfire in the middle of a driving rain at 40 degrees, and breaking out the propane stoves and tents for a great barbecue.

Demands for albums, to round out the profit package for the company came rolling down from the top. Now the problem was to package all of the old second rate tunes that were never released because it was felt that they were not good enough, and further, to record more tunes as fast as possible, using the money that would be taken away by the s if we didn't "invest" it.

Imagine a dedicated music oriented sound mixing engineer at Motown [[this was actually Berry, Smokey, Brian Holland, and others, reacting to this input. Suddenly, what won the customers [[wonderful mixing) became work for suckers, to be passed on to the likes of the new generation of hires such as Bob Olhsson [[one of the best hires I ever approve) etc.

This is about the way it actually went down, as I remember it.

There is a great line, spoken by Stan Laurel, in a great Laurel and Hardy 2 reel comedy from the early 1930's: Hardy was over the top about some insult to him that had received publicity. "Oh, he said, my name has been forever filtered!" Stan replies, "Well, Ollie, you should remember: He who filters one's name steals trash."

The point is that the various periods during the history of the Motown Record Corporation contain various circumstances, and it is to be expected that the quality of the product will fluctuate along with these circumstances.

My own true love is classical music. During the period from 1959 through 1965, RCA Victor "Living Stereo" classical vinyl LP stereo classical records reach an awesome high level of quality. Recording engineers like Lewis Layton and Leslie Chase were recording one fantastic excellent classical LP after another.

Then, RCA introduced DYNAGROOVE recording, and the quality fell out and all that was left was sound that made the hip music lovers sick.

If ups and downs were good enough for RCA Victor, why should Motown be different.

Trying to figure out why one year of mixes at Motown was better then another is bottom feeding. Get a life!

By the way, that hum on the outside tracks was easy to fix, you connected the two tracks [[which included totally different musical content, so it made no difference to the music) to the mix in opposite polarity [[phase) so that the hum bucked out. Any sound mixer who didn't know how to do such a thing to deal with a limitation in the recording equipment such as this was, in my opinion, not qualified to be a recording engineer.

A recording engineer makes a great recording with the best equipment he has to work with, and finds a way to eliminate problems in the recording setup.

A mixer, takes the best source material that recording engineers, and sound editors, can present for final mixing, and makes the actual final artistic product [[mixing wise.)

Sincerely,

Mike McLean
Now living in North Carolina

[robbert]

Thanks very much for your contribution, Mr. McLean and welcome to the SDF forum.
I still cherish a photo copy of an article I got from some magazine years ago, in which you explain the building of a sound recording studio.
You, Bob Olhsson and others who were actually THERE in the Snakepit and/or other studios in the Motown hey days, are invaluable to shine their light on the many big and small questions that keep popping up about The Motown Sound. Don't let yourself be put off by the ceaseless and sometimes inmature discussions about Very Important Subjects you probably couldn't care less about [[like Supremes dresses).
It's the musical Motown stuff we care about most, at least I do.
Again, brilliant to have you aboard.

Having said this, I wonder whether you are in contact with the people at Universal Music [[Harry Weinger and his staff), who in the past years have made so many a release possible of never-before-released, remastered and/or remixed Motown material? I imagine you might make a huge contribution when material from the sixties is being reworked?

I would LOVE to exchange thoughts with you here, though I'm not a technically educated person.
I am from The Netherlands, having worked at EMI for Motown in the first half of the seventies.

[nomis]

Ive found that two mono 45s can sound completley different depending on where they were pressed..and with us all listening to mono mixes on completley different equipment the resulting differences are endless..this is a wonderful thread..

[nomis]

...Motown would mix a song usually dozens of times then once one was settled on,,all the other mixes were sent to the vaults..Berry would also release a single mix only to release another version..if the song started to climb the charts or have a buzz around it..some alternative mixes/early fades and alt edits slipped in as well such as Vandellas "Im Ready For Love"..

[robbert]

Right Nomis, I know about that. The mastering and lackering techniques in Holland in the latter half of the sixties, up to about 1972were famous in Europe [[Tamla-Motown in the UK didn't cooperate). Furthermore only pristine vynil was used, in the seventies the quality got worse, especially after the oil crisis in 1974.

[soulster]

Ive found that two mono 45s can sound completley different depending on where they were pressed..and with us all listening to mono mixes on completley different equipment the resulting differences are endless..this is a wonderful thread..

That's right! It's just like with CD masterings, two MEs will give different results. But, there are times when the sound they get will be almost indistinguishable! I have mastered things from the same source twice, using different software and gear, and have almost matched the two.

[soulster]

...Motown would mix a song usually dozens of times then once one was settled on,,all the other mixes were sent to the vaults..Berry would also release a single mix only to release another version..if the song started to climb the charts or have a buzz around it..some alternative mixes/early fades and alt edits slipped in as well such as Vandellas "Im Ready For Love"..

And, sometimes, if a song started to take off, they would do another mix, and that mix would be very close to the released one, except for some very small difference. This is why I love the technical stuff.

[Sotosound]

I found this old thread today via Google, and it probably needs to be placed in a gold frame and hung up on a wall somewhere.

As well as the meat of the discussion, there's an interesting counterpoint between one person's love for the minutiae of individual Motown mono mixes and their dismissal of other comments relating in part to stereo, and another person's love of well-recorded classical music and their dismissal of the first poster's love for the minutiae of Motown mono mixes.

It made me reflect again on just how far both fans and industry people have tied themselves up in knots over the years about mixes in a world where 99.99% of punters wouldn't even notice as long as the mix wasn't too bad.

For instance, on The Complete Motown Singles there are two mixes of "Bernadette" and, to be honest, although the second is marginally better, I doubt that it was in any way necessary.

And the single mix of "This Old Heart Of Mine [[Is Weak For You)" is a fold of an alternative stereo mix.

And in the UK we all bought a fold-down of the stereo mix of "War" by Edwin Starr and didn't even know.

Away from Motown, RCA in the UK put out the wrong mixes of several Mamas And Papas singles, as well as "MacArthur Park" by Richard Harris to the sound of crickets chirping. Nobody knew. We all just bought good songs that we heard on the radio.

And then there's Bill Porter, who just did a stereo mix that was set up to survive folding down into mono for wider release, and we punters never had a clue as we danced around to Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman" or cried to "It's Over" [[with its slight phasey-ness on the slightly recessed and folded stings).

So we, and that includes me, ponder the relevant merits and demerits of various mixes whilst most of those who bought the finished article probably couldn't have cared less in most cases.

This suggests that there's far more difference between those who create music and those who buy it than anything that makes a real practical difference in most cases and that, for the majority of recorded music, the search for a perfect mix is more a personal need in the creators than a commercial need for the marketplace.

YMMV. :)

[WaitingWatchingLookingForAChance]

I found this old thread today via Google, and it probably needs to be placed in a gold frame and hung up on a wall somewhere.

As well as the meat of the discussion, there's an interesting counterpoint between one person's love for the minutiae of individual Motown mono mixes and their dismissal of other comments relating in part to stereo, and another person's love of well-recorded classical music and their dismissal of the first poster's love for the minutiae of Motown mono mixes.

It made me reflect again on just how far both fans and industry people have tied themselves up in knots over the years about mixes in a world where 99.99% of punters wouldn't even notice as long as the mix wasn't too bad.

For instance, on The Complete Motown Singles there are two mixes of "Bernadette" and, to be honest, although the second is marginally better, I doubt that it was in any way necessary.

And the single mix of "This Old Heart Of Mine [[Is Weak For You)" is a fold of an alternative stereo mix.

And in the UK we all bought a fold-down of the stereo mix of "War" by Edwin Starr and didn't even know.

Away from Motown, RCA in the UK put out the wrong mixes of several Mamas And Papas singles, as well as "MacArthur Park" by Richard Harris to the sound of crickets chirping. Nobody knew. We all just bought good songs that we heard on the radio.

And then there's Bill Porter, who just did a stereo mix that was set up to survive folding down into mono for wider release, and we punters never had a clue as we danced around to Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman" or cried to "It's Over" [[with its slight phasey-ness on the slightly recessed and folded stings).

So we, and that includes me, ponder the relevant merits and demerits of various mixes whilst most of those who bought the finished article probably couldn't have cared less in most cases.

This suggests that there's far more difference between those who create music and those who buy it than anything that makes a real practical difference in most cases and that, for the majority of recorded music, the search for a perfect mix is more a personal need in the creators than a commercial need for the marketplace.

YMMV. :)

Nicely said. I made sure to save the link of this thread so that if such a discussion should come up again, I'll know where I read this or that comment. Reading Mr. McLean's comments was eye-opening [and conversation-stopping] to say the least. Yet, it was interesting that there were comments right after his that seemed to completely ignore his very, very, very in-depth response. It was a little like the time a few of us were talking about something or other; one asked a question, another responded for about a minute and a half - then, the one who asked the question, just kind of blew it all off by asking the same question again. Anyway, I'm glad you brought this tread back into the light.

[bradburger]

Thanks for finding this thread Sotosound.

I've been looking for a while with no success as it as it some information in it I was looking for!

I really do miss Mike McLean - the ultimate fly on the wall at Motown, and the one who removed the 'rose tinted' glasses view of Motown that I once had. ;) :)

Cheers

Paul

[Sotosound]

You're most welcome.

[bob_olhsson]

It was nice to see this. I should mention mixers Harold Taylor and Tom Nixon who along with Lawrence Horn and Brian Holland mixed a lot of those classic singles.

A lot of why the mono versions sound better was our competitive quality control process. The first mix was evaluated by Billie Jean Brown, Brian Holland or Norman Whitfield and revision notes were sent to a mixer along with an acetate of the first mix. Their job was to make a better, more exciting mix. They would send back several mixes; the best would be chosen, and it would be sent, along with more notes, to see if somebody could top it. This process was repeated until things seemed to no longer be getting better.

Here's a list of the DM credit codes for producers and engineers that will help you figure out who mixed what. The first letter is the producer, the second is the recording engineer and the third is the mix engineer.

A - William Stevenson
AS1 - Art Stewart
B - Berry Gordy, Jr.
C - Hank Cosby
D - Lamont Dozier, later Johnny Bristol
E - Richard Witte
F - Harvey Fuqua
G - George Gordy
H - Holland & Dozier
I - Harold Taylor
J - Billie Jean Stoudmyre, later George Kerr, later Billie Jean Brown [[Stoudmyre)
K - Al Klein, later James Greene
L - Lawrence Horn
L1 - Orson Lewis
M - Mickey Gentile, later, Clay McMurray
M5 - Larry Miles
N - Norman Whitfield
O - Warren Pete Moore
O1 - Bob Olhsson
P - Clarence Paul
Q - unknown or other
R - Robert Gordy
S - Richard Street, later Robert Rogers, then Ken Sands
T - Thelma Gordy, later William Weatherspoon
T2 - Russ Terrana
T3 - Ralph Terrana
U - Ronald White, later Cal Harris
V- Brian Holland, later Sidney McCoy
W - William Robinson, Jr.
X - Tom Nixon
Z - Davis & Gordon
Z1 - Frank Wilson
Z2 - Harold Davis

[Sotosound]

Many thanks for this list.

[bob_olhsson]

Bill Porter mixed to stereo off the floor because he felt the three-track machines screwed up the low-end too much.

[Sotosound]

Bill Porter mixed to stereo off the floor because he felt the three-track machines screwed up the low-end too much.
Interesting. Didn't know that!

[bob_olhsson]

I met him and attended some talks he was part of around 2005.

[Sotosound]

I met him and attended some talks he was part of around 2005.
Bill Porter is someone held in high regard on the Steve Hoffman Music Forum, and his recordings are quite distinctive in their own way. There's no obvious fading up or down of elements, and there's a natural, organic [[tube?) feel, rather like early Motown from 1963-64, which brings us back to the original thread topic. :)

[bob_olhsson]

The difference is that Bill Porter wasn't overdubbing anything while, for good or bad, we pioneered modern overdubbed pop music production from the very beginning.

[soulster]

Heh! I haven't actually read the thread yet,m and am interested in what Bob Olhsson says, but Motown didn't have eight-track until the end of 1964. Before then, it was three-track. I would hazard to say that it us the relative lack of excessive reductions [[bouncing) that contributed to the sound quality.

For me, the bad period was 1965, and I think it was because of all the constand upgrading and repairs during that particular time period. It all started to get sorted by 1966, but something indeed changed around that time.

[bob_olhsson]

I remember being told "Where Did Our Love Go" was our first eight-track production. It was released in June of 1964. Throughout 1965 everything was being recorded and mixed in Studio A. In 1966 a dedicated mix room was built.

[bradburger]

Just FYI, Harry Weinger and others have who have handled the and worked with the Motown multitracks over the years have confirmed that 'Where Did Our Love Go' and 'Baby Love' were 3 track recordings.

'Stop in The Name of Love' & 'Back in My Arms Again' were cut on the 3 track, and then bumped up to the 8 for completion [Bob mentions above that some 3 track recordings were bumped up to the 8 track].

Keith Hughes mentions above that the first full 8 track recordings kept were Billy Eckstein songs from February 65.

And thanks again Bob for posting the DM code list, plus how the mono mixing process worked.

Cheers

Paul