Golden World 1966 ...

[jsmith]

A mag piece from 1966 ...
it contains details of the Golden World studio ... i.e. STUDIO B ....
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[jsmith]

Has a full list of the outside productions cut @ the studio between 1964 & Motown taking the facility over ever been compiled ?
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[ralpht]

Great piece. Thanks for posting.

[jsmith]

Did Motown update the studio equipment or retain everything that was already in there ?

[woodward]

A very informative article. Wish more were discussed about Golden World. It basically was a great label with great plans. You don't see much in print about it. Custodians of a Hummingbird by Al Kent had a lot but it was unfortunately not organized in any logical manner and it was poorly proofread before publishing. I am glad that I have a copy of it though. It is like an encyclopedia and weighs a ton.

[soulwally]

Thanks John. At last a pic of the mysterious Richard Morris. I asked ages ago on the Motown forum did anybody have any info on him, what became of him etc. no one knew

[MIKEW-UK]

Woodward, saw your comment on 'Custodians Of The Hummingbird' by Al Kent. I've been trying for years to get a copy, but have always failed. Very frustrating. Your comment prompted me to try yet again, and hey, success! Finally today, a new copy arrived! It is indeed a very large tome, and initial glance reveals it is packed with rare photos and insights. Thank you!!!
Mike

[ralpht]

Did Motown update the studio equipment or retain everything that was already in there ?

I'm not too sure, but the console might have been updated and multi track capabilities go from 8 to 16 track. Bob Ohllson would know better than me.

When I recorded there with The Sunliners in 1965, the studio was using two 4tracks.

[jsmith]

Many thanks for your reply Ralph.

[jsmith]

Anyone know the story behind this 45 ... Myto Music; John Rhys; Pied Piper Prod.Attachment 20616

[ralpht]

Looks like some sort of deal between Jack Ashford and Ed Wingate. John Rhys was a staff producer at Golden World in the mid 60s.

[robb_k]

Anyone know the story behind this 45 ... Myto Music; John Rhys; Pied Piper Prod.Attachment 20616

20 Grand was The Wingate's C&W subsidiary, founded in 1964, according to the announcement blurb I read in the record industry's trade paper. I saw one other issue on the label, and both were C&W artists [[this record had 2 instrumental sides). I can't remember if the other record was done with Pied Piper, or not. I doubt that the label, itself, was a joint venture between them, unlike the issue shown above.

As an aside, the article above was incorrect about Golden World having been started in 1964. It was only resurrected in early 1964, after several months of inactivity. Both Golden World and Ric-Tic Records had been started in early 1962, by Ed and JoAnne. During 1962 and the first half of 1963, their creative operations were carried out mostly in New York, run by Leonard Reed, with Ed and JoAnne commuting back and forth between Detroit and New York. In 1964, they started up again, with better funding, and the plan to build their own recording studio, and bring all their operations completely to Detroit.

[jsmith]

Robb, thanks for the info.
It did seem unlikely to me that the outfit got it's 1st hit record just 8 weeks after the company had opened up for business.
With the Reflections 45 being an 'in-house' production, it must have taken almost all that time to sign the group, book & undertake a recording session, mix & master the tracks, order & undertake the pressing of the 45, get copies out to radio stations, set up deals with distributors and get enough copies into the shops for it to sell in large enough quantities.

[Graham Jarvis]

The Modern Times "Happy Man" Golden World 115 1973



This record was recorded by Richard Becker inPac3 "Garageville Studio" for Ed Wingate.The members of the group became"Al Hudson & The Soul Partners" in the late 7T's and later changed the name to "One Way"

Hard one to find "Stompin Crazy Legg" great Funk record, "Happy Man" played at NS events. [I'll upload the SCL if interested]


Woodward & Robb K, mentioned this one before in 2014:
https://soulfuldetroit.com/showthrea...pin+crazy+legg

[bradburger]

Very interesting clipping - thanks for posting.

Mike McLean wrote a piece on the old forum about his thoughts, and a brief guide to what happened to the GW Studio when Motown took it over in late 1966.

The Golden World Story
Studio Appraisal

An open letter to Bob d'Orleans from former Motown Engineer, Mike McLean. This letter was displayed on the forum of SoulfulDetroit.

Dear Bob,

When Motown took over Golden World, the Hitsville studios were in full operation with the one-inch, eight-track format. As I remember, Golden World had a 1/2 inch three-track Ampex 300-3SS, and [it seems to me, but I could be wrong] a Scully 1/2 inch four-track recorder. The natural tendency on the part of everyone, from Berry on down through all the producers, like Norman Whitfield, etc., was to consider this lack of eight-track technology an unacceptable limitation that rendered the newly named DAF [Davison Avenue Facility] unusable. Right off the bat, the pressure was on to revise the equipment so as to make productive use of the DAF a possibility.

Here are some specific points:

1. ACOUSTICS. The acoustic treatment of the studio and control room was not as elegant or elaborate as that which we had installed at Hitsville, but it was sufficiently good that we never felt the need to make any changes.

We had been through hell at Hitsville, with several experimental acoustical treatments, when finally RCA Custom Records lent Mr. Alan Stevens, who had supervised the construction of the many RCA VICTOR studios, to Motown. He understood the details of the "RCA design" that had originally been developed by such RCA men as Michael Rettinger, John Volkmann, etc.

As a "moonlight" project, Mr. Stevens, for a fee, prepared a set of construction drawings for Motown that we used to have a new acoustic treatment installed at Hitsville. The result caused a considerable reduction in the size of the main studio room, but the acoustical quality was entirely satisfactory, and remains at the Motown Museum to this day.

I feel that the fact that the Golden World acoustic treatment could hold it's own, in competition with this elegant RCA design, is an indication that this aspect of the Golden World studio design was outstanding, considering the limitations of time and money that existed when it was built.

2. ECHO CHAMBER. We had three chambers at Hitsville: 2644, 2648, and 2652 West Grand Blvd. 48 was the original "funky" chamber. 44 came next, and was idealistic to the extreme. Then we did 52, which was similar to 44, but a little less idealistic. 52 was lost when the building burned down. The Golden World chamber was similar in construction to 52, and worked well.

It took Motown three attempts to reach an optimum design. Golden World built a very similar chamber first time out. I think that this indicates that somebody was doing something right. The DAF chamber was never modified other then to upgrade the transducers, and it seemed to do an entirely satisfactory job.

3. MONITOR LOUDSPEAKERS. When I came to Motown, the monitor was a pair of Altec-Lansing 605A coaxial units. They sounded screechy to me, and I embarked on a horrible journey that included Bozak and Acoustic Research monitors, over the period from 1961 until we took over Golden World in about 1967.

Golden World was equipped with Altec-Lansing 604E coaxial units. These were much more transparent then the old 605A, and at that point I threw in the towel. At my recommendation, Motown switched over to the 604E as the standard monitor throughout the complex. It took Golden World to finally drive the point home, so that I could get my head out of the clouds [to put it politely] and install a "professional" monitor.

Again: There seems to be some evidence that a guy who had some smarts was calling the shots when they built Golden World.

4. CONSOLE. We felt that we should have an eight-bus console to compliment the eight-track recorders that we were going to install. Further, we had some creative ideas about how we wanted to configure the microphone preamps, with a gain control and an adjustable high pass filter on each microphone input. Further, the wiring in the existing console used a special twisted pair wire made out of twisted, fine gauge, non-stranded, "magnet wire" [enameled, instead of with conventional insulation.] The clamping of the cables was not well done, and these wires were being flexed back and forth during normal maintenance operations to the point where we were in mortal fear of them breaking off.

All of this made it a forgone conclusion that we would build a new console, instead of modifying the existing one. However, we reused many of the fine components, such as the Neumann equalizers, the Altec-Lansing 470A plug-in amplifiers, Etc. The fact that we were able to reuse many of the components reflects the fact that the Golden World console was selected by someone who cared about quality.

5. DISC LATHE. The Neumann AM-32B lathe, equipped with a Neumann ES-59 lateral [mono] cutter head was installed in a very small room in the most northwest corner of the building. I felt that this installation was far too cramped to even consider its use. Further, we wanted to locate the disc mastering activities at the "Motown Center" downtown. Eventually, we set up the Golden World lathe there, with a nice Neumann SX-68 stereo cutter head and home-brew cutter head drive electronics. For several years, Motown used this room on the ninth floor, until the Motown operations in Detroit were closed down.

It seems to me that the fact that we were happy to use the Golden World lathe for our new installation speaks well for the fellow responsible for its selection.

Bob, all things considered, I think you did a fantastic job when you built Golden World.

Sincerely, Mike McLean

Cheers

Paul

[ralpht]

Thank you, Paul for the information.

[Optimal Saint]

is there a Golden World box set?

[MIKEW-UK]

I'm sure there isn't, just as there is no Ric-tic boxed set. I was researching exactly that earlier this week. Very frustrating that no such boxed set or compilation exists. Ric-tic Relics vinyl album issued in the UK on Tamla Motown seems to be the only official compilation. [[There were some unofficial cd compilations released in Thailand).

[woodward]

There were actually two unofficial CD compilations released by SoulWorld. SW-106 is entitled Girls of Golden World Records and includes 28 songs as well as Guys of Golden World Records SW-107 that includes 25 songs. This is probably the closest we will ever get to a box set. It's a shame that a box set has not been produced as I believe that the vast majority of the tapes lie in the Motown vaults as a result of Motown acquiring them. What do others think about this possibility? Soulworld is located in Thailand.

[jsmith]

The UK album ... Attachment 20636

[jsmith]

Send in your stuff right now ...
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[Optimal Saint]

I'm sure there isn't, just as there is no Ric-tic boxed set. I was researching exactly that earlier this week. Very frustrating that no such boxed set or compilation exists. Ric-tic Relics vinyl album issued in the UK on Tamla Motown seems to be the only official compilation. [[There were some unofficial cd compilations released in Thailand).

I do own this CD

[Graham Jarvis]

The other Ric-Tic Volume 2
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