Re-creating the Motown sound - worth a watch IMO

[soulwally]

Stumbled across this on YouTube, a bid to re-create the Motown sound.Lots of technical bits and bobs, but I found this fascinating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TysRGMSjtpQ

[jobucats]

soulwally, This is a gold mine find! In the past we have heard generic reasons as to how the identifiable Motown sound was created; however, I never seen it explained from an acoustic standpoint, an instrument placement/recording approach, and actually recording engineering and mastering angle as this. As a hobby, I record and mix my compositions and on many, I try to duplicate the Motown sound/feel. THANK YOU so much for this find.

[soulwally]

Thanks for that jobucats. I like the bit about Jamerson's foam rubber pads behind the strings. They're a pretty good band all round

[snakepit]

Great Stuff Soulwally.

[mowest]

What a fascinating documentary. Thanks, soulwally, for posting this!
P.S. They did a very good job of recreating “the sound."

[StuBass1]

Fascinating stuff... First of all, great to see some of the old clips with many of the people I've had the pleasure of meeting and knowing through the years, many no longer with us... As for this concept...excellent and quite realistic recreations on several levels with in depth explanations as to what was actually happening. A few observations I did make... Drums...quite spot on re-creations and sound... Good explanation of Jamerson's string dampening, however, perhaps a bit more extreme in this re-enactment than Jamerson actually did, allowing his legendary "ghost notes" that seemed to hang in the air to find their way onto several recordings... Guitar parts, technique, and recording process explained quite well... That said...in the final recreation of My Girl, lead part created and played by Robert White on the actual original session had the unique sound of his thumbnail picking technique that was absent in this recording, and Roberts line was significantly more staccato... Piano parts done well... As for the use of Jack Ashford's tambourine recording on the same track with the drums...I can only assume that Jacks volume control was based on how far he stood from the mics, although one of the signature features of the Motown Sound was how hot the tambourine was on most of those recordings...something that had rarely been done before... Finally, the string and horn representations were also well done here... All that said...when one listens closely to many of those Motown tracks, there were absolutely intonation and tuning issues that Berry Gordy and the producers let slide on some of those tracks, but were not so noticeable that they had a significant impact on the popularity of the song, or even to the extent that only the most pitch attuned listeners would even notice unless looking for it... The vocals on these recreations were also very good, although the guy doing Marvin's part on Ain't No Mountain High got some of the lyric lines a bit wrong...but forgivable. Very enjoyable video though...

[marv2]

This does look interesting.

[Philles/Motown Gary]

Excellent find, soulwally. Good to know that people are still trying to duplicate "The Motown Sound". Like they say, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".

[rovereab]

I so enjoyed this, thanks Soulwally :)

[Worntorndress]

Loved this, thank you!