During the middle years of Motown in Detroit, Mike McLean added a significant element to Motown’s studio equipment. Berry Gordy wanted to be able to explore different versions of a particular recording, but he preferred the studio engineers to cut different versions of a song rather than modify the sound post-recording using complex equipment, which risked losing the vibrancy of the original performance. Having various versions on disc meant that choices could be made more easily by the quality control team.
McLean set up disc-cutting equipment that allowed the engineers to cut test reference acetates to check on the quality of various mixes. Motown used a Neumann AM131 lathe, with a Neumann/Teldec ES-59 cutter and a Studer C37 tape machine. The equipment allowed half-speed cutting, which produced better recordings according to McLean: “The Westrex cutter that everybody else was using had a resonance at the high-end that was bad for naturalness of sound but very good because it took the heat off the drive coil. You could push those about as loud as you wanted, because in that sense, that resonance was working for you. The Teldec cutter was pure, sweet and resonance-free right out to 20 kHz, but had nothing to give you help on that power requirement. The solution was a converter for the Neumann lathe that made it run at half speed, so all you had to do was run your master tape at half speed and fix the equalization.” (See George Petersen’s article on the Motown equalizer he bought for $20 in Recording Magazine On-line).
The tiny recording booth in Studio A
The studio was improved year on year and facilities were also set up in other buildings that Berry Gordy slowly acquired. McLean oversaw the modification of the mixing desk from the original two-track installation to a three-track system at the end of 1961 and then to an eight-track system by the end of 1964. Later, the recordings were made on a sixteen-track system, installed in 1969. McLean remained a key figure in the studio up until 1972, when Motown headed West and McLean left.
Lawrence Horn also made a significant contribution during the middle years, especially when he found a way to solve a problem that had emerged as the session men increased the volume of the backing tracks. Despite the best efforts of the engineering team using equalisers and compressing the vocals, it was proving impossible to lift the vocals to stand out from the guitars, drums, strings and horns. Horn loved experimenting with sound modification techniques and he came up with a solution.
The vocal tracks were first duplicated. One copy was compressed to make the vocals sound bigger, then the second copy, unmodified, was combined with the compressed version. The result was perfect, a bigger sound that still had the excitement of the original.
Lawrence Horn
In addition to his work behind the desk, Horn was active as a songwriter and producer, often working alongside Berry Gordy. Junior Walker & the All Stars benefitted most from his input up to the end of 1967. In 1968, Horn decided to follow Holland, Dozier, Holland out of Motown’s door. He joined them at their new venture Invictus Records.
Bob Olhsson walked into Motown in 1964 in search of a Summer job. He was given a tour of the studio by Mike McLean and an explanation of the eight-track recording and cutting equipment. A job offer didn’t come, but Ohlsson did stay in touch with McLean! In 1965, he was hired as a mastering trainee. He completed the training by the end of 1966 and went off to Boston, where he had been offered a job in a studio.
Bob Ohlsson was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History Project
A phone call from Motown brought him back to Detroit in 1968, to work in Studio A, probably to fill the vacancy left by the departure of Lawrence Horn.
Russ Terrana formed a band with his twin brother Ralph and some of their friends when they were ten years old. They played together through school. When they began to perform seriously, they eventually became the Sunliners, who arrived at Golden World Records in 1965 to cut a single “All Alone”, written by band member Pete Hoorelbeke. He soon realised that the cards were stacked against him as a performer.
Russ Terrana
Photo: tapeop.com
However, Terrana had an ace up his sleeve. He had studied for a degree in electrical engineering and was dreaming of a job that would combine his technical skills with his love of music. He came to Motown in search of this ideal job and was appointed as a sound engineer without further ado. He was twenty-three years old. He spent his early months working at the mixing desk, putting together songs by many of the top Motown acts, under the watchful eyes of Mike McLean and Lawrence Horn. His chance for promotion came much sooner than he was expecting, as Lawrence Horn moved to join Holland, Dozier, Holland at Invictus Records in early 1968.
Between them, these four engineers were largely responsible for all the recordings that came out of Motown’s studios from 1963 to 70. They brought incredible expertise to Berry Gordy’s project and their names are iconic within the industry. They were a key part of Motown’s success.
