The Marvelettes- My Baby Must Be A Magician

Quote:

Originally Posted by WaitingWatchingLookingForAChance

I've always thought the mono/45 mix of The Marvelettes' "My Baby Must Be A Magician" had more of a "flat" sound as opposed to the bigger, expansive, "hot" sound Motown had on their pre-68 singles [[compare the mix for this to "You're The One" or "Hunter")

Actually, it seems many of the Motown singles seemed to have been mixed at this point, '68 on, with less of that reverb and red-zone hot sound and more of a dry mix. The Miracles' "If You Can Want" is a very dry mix as well.

Was this more of a trend in the recording industry at the time, going for a more natural, dry mix?

https://youtu.be/JDnbB_rLF_o

Same for "Honey Chile" by Martha Reeves And The Vandellas and "Shoo Be Doo Be Doo Da Day" by Stevie Wonder. Both of these single mixes are very dry, and in both cases the strings are mixed so far back as to be almost inaudible. To my ears, both of these mixes sound slightly unbalanced as a result.

My ears also suggest that a lot of stereo album mixes from that time were similarly very dry and a bit clean and sterile. [[Thinking about most of the Four Tops' "Yesterday's Dreams" album as an example.)

Interestingly, these stereo mixes were probably also among the first stereo mixes to be issued as the only album mixes since mono had just been dumped as a format by the record industry. Perhaps the fact that these mixes were often going to be listened to on mono gramophones affected mixing decisions.

However, could this also be related to a change in studio equipment or a change in mixing engineers or something like that?