Quote Originally Posted by Sotosound View Post
The ‘64-‘65 period was possibly when Motown still had a tube mixing desk. They went solid state some time in 1965 IIRC.

My ears also tell me that something changed studio-wise around the time that STYNGUT and CSTGYOOMM were recorded.

It it was around this time that Motown went over to stereo-only albums and, for some reason, the sound of that time was super-clean, and a world away from the glorious distortion of only a few months earlier.

New studio equipment was possibly the underlying reason. If so, then your wish was impossible to grant, even back then.

Had they gone 16-track? Perhaps Ralph or Soulster can comment on this angle?

The clean recording angle was slightly redressed in the UK, however, when CSTGYOOMM was released as a B-side. The UK mastering engineer managed to bring the maracas right up in the mix during the intro such that they splattered right across the stereo picture even though the track was folded down to mono. Lovely noisy stuff!
Love reading what you wrote. The technical end of The Motown Sound has always fascinated me and only recently have I learned how much of a difference a tube-mixing desk can make vs. solid state. When I wrote about being able to hear a "watch ticking" on those recordings from '64,'65, I had in mind Jimmy Ruffin's "As Long As There Is L-O-V-E Love". On the intro, I swear, if you listen closely, you can hear something ticking and it's either a metronome or Jimmy's watch!

I do like that distortion on that material, but then again, I also like the sound Motown had from '66 and '67. "Some Things" though recorded in '68, really has a great, exciting and dynamic "crisp" sound. It's clean, but not so clean as to be antiseptic or generic.

I'm going to have to find a UK mix of
CSTGYOOMM. I would love to hear that mix.