Cutting Room at Motown (Hitsville USA)

[Cutterwoller]

I thought people might be interested to see the Cutting room at Motown's Hitsville studio.

http://api.ning.com/files/a2gHzs7G-4j2v53M0XIBLrrgfqUfuvrzcusHuDSgKiOXyDfKv238oxm9I7lga1CtvbwFXKdDJh8jiimOohuPsyenEuRXZScy/TheLATHE.jpg

The lathe i'm pretty sure is a Neumann AM131 (the AM31 was the same except without an amperes meter for stylus heat). I know they started with a Grampian head and then moved to a Neumann ES59, I think its an ES59 in this picture. Tape machine is a Studer C37, which is strange for America at the time. I can see some Pultecs and some homemade gear. I think there is a turntable in the rack closes to the camera. I love this picture! especialy the clock on the wall, all good studios have one of em!

The Numann AM32B was automatic and so was the VG66 and all the rest after.

Cheers, Lewis [/img]

[VinzVideo]

Hey, thanks!
I am a major fan of Motown music and artists.

I know that at their weekly staff meetings, the various producers would play demo acetates of their latest works (whether it was the their latest song on The Supremes, 4 Tops, Temptations, or whoever.) Everyone would vote on which song would be the next #1, and why.

This lathe cannot be for making production masters, it's got to be the one they used to make demo acetates. Any thoughts?

[Cutterwoller]

I am 90% sure they cut the masters on the in house lathe. I read today an article in tape op about Motown studios, loads of pictures. Its in the current issue. They intervied bob ohlson who I think is a member of this forum. You should check the mag out.

Lewis

[flozki]

i agree with lewis. i read somewhere else an articel about the mastering at motown. and they mentioned the same lathe.
the quality is the same as it was with a vms66 ot vms70. same mechanics. the only thing they had was fixed pitch.
so to verify we can grab just a few motown 7inches from back in the time and examine if they are cut with fixed pitch...maybe they sent also tape msters to different cutting places. but if there is an expert, or collector on this forum , who can locate original motown pressings, they must be fixed pitch.

i had one of these lathes and used it a lot. but by an unlucky accident someone sold it (not me) to a corean collector.damn.

by the way i know the next part of the motown story.
they moved their cutting room to hollywood.
it was a vms70 with technics sp-02 direct drive , compudisk pitch system and sal74b racks.
i dont know the exact date of the movement.
but i bought that lathe in 1999 or 2000. where it was layining in a backyard for at least 10 years or more. then it came to a friend in SanFrancisco
and later a famous cutting room in germany bought the lathe.
the compudisk gave lots of troubles and was not repairable for reasonable money. so now the lathe runs with pitch98 controller..

f.

[Aussie0zborn]

That's a nice piece of history, Flo - I don't doubt it at all. I'm sure there are more lathes in back yards somewhere. I hope this one was kept under cover.

[Perisphere]

Must have been used for in-house ref cuts. All the Motown (Gordy, Tamla, Soul etal) records from the 1960s heyday I've ever seen were all mastered by the custom division of RCA. 45s and mono LPs on typical Scully gear, stereo LPs on Neumann gear, and all the records have (amongst various markings) typical stamped RCA-style matrix info.

[Cutterwoller]

Im not sure. But, I am guessing that if they had a whole room dedicated to mastering an always buying the latest cutting equipment, they would have cut them in house. You can tell if a 45 is cut on a scully by the lock on the run out groove, ill check tomorow. Also, I spoke the mastering engineer of Motown (Bob Ohlson) a few years ago and he said they were always messing around with half speed cutting and trying to get very loud cuts, and you wouldnt be doing all that for just reference acetates. Maybe the RCA matrix marks were stamped on at the pressing plant, but lacquers sent from motown.

I dont know anything for sure. Be good to hear other comments.

L

[Bill Wilson]

Perisphere is correct, stating the masters were cut at RCA. I knew the mastering engineer @ RCA Studios, Nashville; late 70's. He had transferred from RCA, Chicago. He had cut a lot of masters for Motown.
They had a specially designed "Motown" filter they used for all of their records; the bandpass went out to 10khz & had an extremely steep cutoff.
The filter could only be used for Motown.

I had my own recording equipment sales/service business in Nashville at the time.

Bill Wilson [/quote]

[TotalSonic]

From my understanding both answers are correct - in that the mastering for the first Motown releases happened at RCA but Berry Gordy thought that better results than what he was getting from them were possible- so that sometime towards the late 60's he invested in the equipment for in house mastering at their Detroit studio.

Bob Olhsson - http://www.hyperback.com - was the in house cutting engineer for a good bit of these years and he has an active internet presence and has been very generous in talking about Motown's mastering methods in many posts on forums like http://recforums.prosoundweb.com and http://www.gearslutz.com

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[motorino]

Hello to all and welcome Bill

I have a Grampian type D and have a resonance about 10 khz
Apply a bandpass 4ur order filter (effect Gibbs) at that frecuency isnt dangerous for the cutterhead? The ES59 Neumann mono cutterhead have the same resonance at that frecuency too?

Im very interesting in Motown mono sound technics

Good sunday

Marcos

[cd4cutter]

Hi Bill, It sounds like you're referring to Randy Kling. I remember when he moved from the Chicago studios to Nashville. Our engineering manager at the RCA pressing plant in Indianapolis, Joe Wells, used to manage the Chicago studios when Randy was there. I used to keep up with Randy over the years when he moved to his own studio, Randy's Roost, but I've lost touch with him lately. Do you know what he's up to these days?

[Bill Wilson]

Hi CD4: Yes it was Randy Kling. I left Nashville in 84 & lost track of him. For the life of me I could not remember his name; thanks for remindng me.

I was very friendly with Harold, senior mastering engineer at Columbia & Jake Hottel who was the engineer for Roy Orbison's studio & Roy's dad Orbee Lee. At Roy's they had a Scully with Haeco head & electronics package; nice system.

[monomer]

Berry liked to have dubs cut, and the local kids over at motown to get a listen.

to see if it was a hit, he would always ask the kid if he would spend their money on this records, or on icecream.



This story was passed on from an interview with Ron Murphy - which you can find if you google it.

[cohearent]

Flo, you jumped into fast forward on the Motown story. Motown had a VMS at MoWest in Hollywood in 1972 when I worked at Artisan Sound. It was in a room about the size of a closet! No SP02 or Compudisc then...they hadn't been invented yet! It is possible that the lathe I saw was upgraded as you describe in the late 70s. I do remember that they were having awful problems with a mechanical noise with that lathe for months. I think they eventually replaced the lead screw.

[advanceball]

When Motown was dismantling their studio on Romaine in Hollywood in the mid 80's, there was one, possibly two, McIntosh MI-200 power amplifiers in what appeared to be a cutting rack, out in the parking lot, waiting for the trash pickup. I regret not rescuing the amps. Not conclusive but I suspect they had at least one mono Grampian cutting system powered by a Mac.
Guy Costa was the chief tech/engineer at Motown. After his passing I ended up with some of his tube collection including Siemens E130L output tubes. I believe they go to an early Neumann stereo cutting system of Motown's.
Not related to Motown, but I stumbled on a Neumann AM-31, Grampian/MI-200 system at Muscle Shoals as they were clearing out their river studio in late 2004.

[cohearent]

Motown LA also had a Neumann VG1 tube cutting system which I purchased in 1975 for $500. I left it at a previous house when I moved and it was subsequently trashed. I was in shock to find out they go for up to $5000 now!

[subkontrabob]

Motown LA also had a Neumann VG1 tube cutting system which I purchased in 1975 for $500. I left it at a previous house when I moved and it was subsequently trashed. I was in shock to find out they go for up to $5000 now!

[larryp7639]

I thought people might be interested to see the Cutting room at Motown's Hitsville studio.

http://api.ning.com/files/a2gHzs7G-4j2v53M0XIBLrrgfqUfuvrzcusHuDSgKiOXyDfKv238oxm9I7lga1CtvbwFXKdDJh8jiimOohuPsyenEuRXZScy/TheLATHE.jpg

The lathe i'm pretty sure is a Neumann AM131 (the AM31 was the same except without an amperes meter for stylus heat). I know they started with a Grampian head and then moved to a Neumann ES59, I think its an ES59 in this picture. Tape machine is a Studer C37, which is strange for America at the time. I can see some Pultecs and some homemade gear. I think there is a turntable in the rack closes to the camera. I love this picture! especialy the clock on the wall, all good studios have one of em!

The Numann AM32B was automatic and so was the VG66 and all the rest after.

Cheers, Lewis [/img]

Such a very amazing link!

[BongoJim]

Perisphere is correct, stating the masters were cut at RCA. I knew the mastering engineer @ RCA Studios, Nashville; late 70's. He had transferred from RCA, Chicago. He had cut a lot of masters for Motown.
They had a specially designed "Motown" filter they used for all of their records; the bandpass went out to 10khz & had an extremely steep cutoff.
The filter could only be used for Motown.

I had my own recording equipment sales/service business in Nashville at the time.

Bill Wilson

[/quote]

Hi Bill,

I actually now own that same VMS70 that was in Nashville RCA. Sean Davis recently installed it in my studio.

My understanding is that after Nashville it was sold to Epic here in London and cut all the Sony releases such as the Sex Pistols, Michael Jackson and so on.

Best,

Frank
The Carvery

[W.B.]

The Scully lathe used to cut the bulk of Motown singles (and mono LP's) at RCA's Chicago studios was in use at least since the early 1950's, and retired in 1969 - when they moved out of their Navy Pier studios at Lake Shore Drive where they'd been since 1935, and relocated to a new facility on North Wacker Drive in "The Loop." At that point, they switched cutting to another Scully that would be used on virtually all mono 45's through 1972-73 (the last cuttings they did would be of Motown Yesteryear reissues, before RCA sold the Chicago studio to Curtis Mayfield for his Curtom operations).

However, a few c.1969-70 Motown 45's were cut by RCA's Hollywood studios, though I can't say for sure whether Allen Zentz or Brian Gardner were among the mastering engineers on such releases; namely, The Jackson 5's first Motown single "I Want You Back," and The Supremes' first post-Diana Ross record "Up the Ladder to the Roof." Neither the Nashville nor New York studios of RCA, to my knowledge, cut any Motown material.