July 1998 - Home Recording

THE SECOND ISSUE - JULY 1998 "HOME RECORDING"

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From The Editor - July 1998

Many of you may have noticed that we have a very hot summer going and may have wondered why. What's heating up our weather is the "Hot" Recording Engineer's Quarterly Magazine Site. We have installed most of the promised features.

Our on-line training program is set to be available starting September, 1998. The first available module will be the "Pro Audio Specialist" training module. Read our Industry Information article of this issue for more information.

Our featured theme this month is Home Recording. I am pleased to announce an association between Recording Engineer's Quarterly and The Recording Website. The Recording Website is the biggest home recording site on the net and is co-sponsoring our new Online glossary. We have linked to it's message board where you can leave questions and get back answers by others reading the board. We regularly visit the site and answer questions. Another site, The Music & Audio Connection Forum, also has an audio board that we visit regularly; this is also linked.

While putting together the home recording articles, I got a realization. The home recording of today is much like the professional recording of decades ago. Following this idea, we went on a guided tour of the Motown Museum. This museum has the original Hitsville USA studios of Motown Records in Detroit. While I worked for Motown, we cranked out over 20 gold records in the mid-1960's. The interesting thing is that the studio is not that far off the "cottage" recording studio we describe in this issue's lead article. The lead article gives fairly complete plans for building your own cottage studio and therefore obtaining your own gold record.

I could go on and on about what is in this second issue of Recording Engineer's Quarterly - perhaps it would be better for you to just read the articles.

Bob Dennis

Editor

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LEAD ARTICLE

"Our Feature For This Issue"

BUILDING YOUR COTTAGE RECORDING STUDIO

BY ROBERT DENNIS

Editor's Note:

Cottage Industry:

A system of production where workers make or work on products (such as clothes), usually at home, for a merchant or distribution company who pays them for their work.

Cottage Recording Industry:

A system of recording a music production where much of the recording is done in a well-equipped home studio and a larger, better-equipped studio is only used for recording or mixing functions that are beyond the capabilities of the home studio.

The cottage recording studio began appearing in the 1970's where major record producers and recording artists began to install home studios to "try-out" or "start" a production without the cost or pressure of a professional recording studio. Originally this was a "rich-man's activity" with "cheep" 24 track recorders costing $30,000 and decent recording consoles costing $50,000. Today, however, 8 track 20 bit master recorder can be had for less than $2000 and a full-function all-digital console can be purchased for as little as $4000. Thus the "Cottage Recording Industry" is booming.

The cottage recording studio is the premium home recording studio. For anyone interested in home recording, it is the ultimate. We understand that you may not want to make your home recording studio as good as the plans laid out in this article. You will, however, find ideas about studio design that you can apply to any budget.

Now for the article:

The Problem:

Many people have put "home recording studios" in their basement. The basement home recording studio is fun, but has inherent difficulties when trying to use it as a cottage studio, as follows:

1. The ceilings are usually to low to provide the best sound and isolation form the living area of the house.

2. It is difficult to isolate the family activities of (for example) using the kitchen or laundry area, from interfering with the studio operation.

3. It is difficult to isolate traffic from the living area of the house. Many spouses will object to "clients" wandering through the house.

The Solution:

Many houses have an associated building called a "Garage." The garage usually houses the car, the lawn mower, and a bunch of junk. The lawn mower and garden tools/equipment can go into an inexpensive shed next to the garage. The car can be parked in the driveway and the junk can go in the basement. The cottage studio can go in the garage.

With its higher ceilings (usually 8 feet) and large area (usually 24 feet by 20 feet), its peaked roof, and its isolation from the house, it is a much more suitable area for a studio than the basement. Famous professional studios have started in the garage.

Disclaimer

This plan is a guideline that the author feels will provide acceptable results. Before actually starting construction, one must check with local authorities to make sure the construction will meet local building and zoning codes. Permits and licenses may be necessary to legally start construction or use the facility once it is built.

Local, legally-binding, codes vary a great deal from one area to another. Urban areas tend to be more restrictive than rural areas. Because of this, it is also suggested that you get some legal advice from a local attorney. A clerk in a city office may want to put you through more red tape than you legally have to endure. An attorney may help you fill out applications with the least hassle from authorities

Assumptions & Basic Floor Plan:

We are assuming that you have a stand-alone or attached garage that measures 20'x22' with a peaked rood and on a concrete slab. Sizes of garages vary from 20'x20' to 22'x24' which means the basic floor plan may have to be modified slightly to fit your garage size. Surveying a national building supply chain, we found the 20'x22' to be the most common size.

Figure 1 shows how the total area has been subdivided to 5 areas for effective band recording:

Room 1: The Studio area that measures approximately 16'x10' that would be used for the drums and musicians for recording.

Room 2: The Control Room area, measuring 11'4"x7'.

Room 3: A main isolation booth of approximately 5'6"x4" that can be used for guitar or vocals during the session.

Room 4: A 3'x4' closet area for storage of studio equipment and that can be used as a second guitar booth.

Room 5: A 8'6"x8' "Entrance area" that can be used as an office or divided up into storage lockers for tapes and control room supplies. This area can also be an "emergency" isolation room.

This plan assumes you want to be able to record bands with live drums. If you expect your studio to specialize is MIDI work with synthesizers and drum machines, the larger room could be the control room and Room 2 could function as a small studio/large isolation room. You could still do drums in a pinch, but musician eye contact would be harder to achieve. Keeping Room 1 as the Studio will yield a better drum sound.

Room Dimensions:

The first two rooms (Studio and Control Room) are carefully modified from the ancient Golden Section dimensions. A Golden Section is an area that has a specific ratio of height to width to depth. The ratio is approximately 1 (high) by 1.6 (deep) by 2.6 (wide). When a room conforms to these dimensions, it will evenly reflect all frequencies so that any area sounds substantially the same. The ambience in the room will reinforce the tone of the instruments rather that sounding "muddy" or "thin".

In smaller studios, it becomes impossible to strictly maintain the Golden Section dimensions. Often the ceiling would be too low to be practical. If you take one of the surfaces of the room and increase the dimensions (like ceiling height) and you can maintain much of the Golden Section acoustics if you make the surface evenly absorb all frequencies. With this modification, 5 of the six surfaces will evenly reflect the frequencies and the 6^th surface will not reflect sound. If you need to modify the room dimensions to fit your specific garage, keep the room 1.6 times wider that the depth to maintain the Golden Section acoustics.

General Construction Techniques:

We will get as specific as room allows for this article. Unfortunately, we don't have the room to get to every specific detail.

Shell Preparation

The garage will need some modifications to prevent as much sound leakage into the neighborhood as possible.

The side door of the garage may have to be moved into the right area, although it should be approximately correct without moving it. You will probably want to replace the door with a well fitting, solid-core door with proper weather stripping to make an air-tight seal. Often the door is only 30 inches wide, and you may want to modify the opening to accept a 36" wide door.

Garages often have small windows. Any window should be removed and the open area framed in and covered to match the normal garage wall.

The garage door should be fastened shut and get an air-tight seal around the entire opening. The opening for the door should be framed in so that the area has studs, just like the other walls.

In the area where the roof meets the walls, there is usually an air gap of 1/2 to 1". This allows the garage to "breathe". These areas should be well-stuffed with high-quality fiberglass isolation.

The entire wall and roof surface are should be closely inspected and sealed with caulk so that there is an air-tight seal to the outside world in all areas except where the roof meets the walls. Pay particular attention to how the wall meets the slab and where there are seams in the siding.

Finally, all of the shell surface area gets a 6" layer of high-quality fiberglass insulation. This includes the wall areas and the entire inside of the roof area. Cracks and gaps between the studs and the door jam of the outside door get stuffed with fiberglass.

Dry Walling the Shell Walls:

Before the dry wall is installed, any electrical boxes needed for switches and outlets are installed. These backs and sides of these boxes should be wrapped in fiberglass insulation to prevent sound leakage. Duct tape can be used to keep the fiberglass in place. The fiberglass should lap-out a half-inch in front of the box so that the installation of the dry-wall compacts the fiberglass, making a good sound seal. The openings in the dry-wall for the electrical boxes should be closely and accurately cut.

All of the shell walls will be dry walled. All dry walling will be applied in two layers of 8'x4' half inch dry wall sheets. The first layer will have the seams running vertically. This layer needs to be sealed with tape and joint compound, to get a good seal between sheets and between the sheets and slab. The second layer is applied with the seams running horizontally. The final layer is sealed with tape and joint compound.

Main Isolation Wall:

Next, we install the main wall that isolates the Studio from the Control Room (per Figure 1) This wall is a double-stud wall with an inner and outer set of studs placed two inches apart. As per the figure, the studs are arranged in a staggered manner so that the vertical studs of the outer wall are placed between the vertical studs of the inner wall. Any opening for electrical boxes (etc.) in the inner wall should be 4 feet away from any opening put into the outer wall.

This main isolation wall goes from the floor to the roof. The inner and outer set of studs each get 6" fiberglass insulation. Dry-walling is done to the inner-surface of the inner wall and the outer surface of the outer wall. Each surface will be two-layers of half-inch dry wall installed in the same way as the drywall sheets were installed for the shell walls. The isolation wall is well-sealed to both the roof, and the slab floor.

Control Room Window:

The window between the Control Room and the Studio is actually two separate windows that do not physically touch. Each window is installed in its own frame and set in a felt or cork filled channel. A felt runner can be placed between the windows to dress up the gap between the panes.

For proper isolation, it is important that the windows are each thick and of different thickness. We recommend (as a minimum) that one pane be 3/8" thick and the other pane be 1/4 inch thick. The different thickness means that the two windows tend to vibrate at different frequencies.

The window on the studio side should slant down so that the bottom of the window is 3 to 4 inches into the opening compares to the top. This slant helps with sound isolation and helps control reflections of instruments' sound off of the studio side of the window.

Inner Walls:

A double inner stud wall is placed whenever a Control Room, Studio or Isolation Room wall is an outside wall of the shell garage. These walls are places two inches from the outer wall, have 6 inches of fiberglass and are covered with two layers of sheet drywall. Single stud walls will separate the Control Room from the Entrance Room and the Isolation Rooms from the Studio and each other. The single stud walls are packed with fiberglass and covered with two drywall layers on both sides. All of these walls use similar construction techniques to the other walls making sure that each layer of drywall is well-sealed. These walls are 8' high.

Doors should be solid core with weather stripping for an air-tight seal. Gaps and cracks between the studs and door jams should be fiberglass stuffed.

Ceilings:

All of the ceilings are suspended ceiling construction with porous (absorbent) acoustic tiles. It is suggested that 2" fiberglass sheeting be placed above the suspended acoustic panels.

Any lighting fixtures that extend into the ceiling should be wrapped with fiberglass. Any access holes for fixtures and cables cut into the ceiling tiles should have cracks/gaps stuffed with fiberglass.

Electrical:

You will want to provide an 90 amp (minimum) service panel for your cottage studio. Off of this service, you will want to run a minimum of four 20 amp circuits. Circuits should be run in metal conduit. Non metallic electrical cabling often doesn't meet electrical codes and, more importantly, radiates a strong magnetic field that can be picked by audio equipment and wiring. An easy to use flexible conduit can be purchased that already has wires installed in the conduit; The greater expense of this type of cabling is well worth it.

Circuits 1 & 2: These circuits are used for lighting and for any "office" plugs in the Entrance Room that are used for office equipment. It is especially important that a copier be on a circuit that doesn't have any studio/control room equipment plugs. Keeping the audio equipment electrically separate from the lighting & office equipment will allow dimmers to be used with the lighting.

Lighting is probably best accomplished with track lighting. Alternatively, in-ceiling fixtures may be used. In any case, the lighting should be incandescent, not florescent.

Circuit 3: This circuit is for your cooling and heating. You can easily verify that one circuit is sufficient if the heating is a gas forced-air furnace. If electrical heat is installed, more heating circuits and a larger central service panel will be required.

Circuit 4: This circuit is for your audio equipment. Studio plugs that will be used for synthesizers and guitar amplifiers are hooked into this circuit. It is important that the ground wire of every plug be separately run back to the service panel and there is a separate ground wire in each run. Do not count on the conduit properly grounding the plug. You can get away with as little as 2 to 3 plugs, using heavy duty extension cords and power strips to branch the power out to where it is needed.

Heating/Cooling:

Heating/Cooling is probably best accomplished by a small forced-air furnace/central air unit installed in the Entrance room. Because of the large amount of insulation, a relatively small capacity until can be used. To determine the exact size, consult with a heating/cooling contractor or building materials supplier.

Lined ducts should branch out close to the unit and be separately run to each room that has a set of registers. Using lined ducts and separately running them, greatly reduces sound transmission through the duct work. Generally, try to use a duct size somewhat larger that a contractor would recommend; the air flow out of large ducts is slower and therefore quieter.

Any openings in walls or ceilings for ducts and registers must be packaged with fiberglass to help maintain a sound barrier.

In Conclusion:

This article has reached it's size limit.

As stated, you should be able to obtain a professional, usable studio converted from your under-used garage area. The result may not be good enough to record metal bands at midnight in a crowded urban area, but you should be able to mix at a reasonable monitor volumes late into the night.

I am experienced enough to know that people will want to use shortcuts to save money. If you are tempted to do this, try to get the installation as close as possible to the plan. This is a relatively inexpensive proposition, especially if you are doing the labor yourself. If you have to save money, try cutting down on heating/cooling and lighting that don't effect sound quality. Remember that it is more expensive to try and bring a poor job up to snuff than it is to do it right the first time.

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MICHIGAN MUSIC

"Devoted To The Rich History and Bright Future of 'Made In Michigan' Music"

SUCCESSFUL HOME RECORDING

BY BOB DENNIS

This issue's spotlight is on Jerry Gore who managed to turn a Michigan basement 4 track recording studio into a successful independent record company.

In the late 70's Jerry would skip school to go to the Powerhouse Gym and practice his chosen sport - boxing! He met his friend Jack at the Gym. Jerry & Jack hit it off because they both had the same passions in life - Boxing & Music.

Jack would pursue boxing more seriously than Jerry, going on to get a Golden Glove award. Jerry would pursue music more feverishly, largely because his mother found out he skipped school to go to the Gym.

Jerry would sort of bounce around for the ten years following high school by trying to open a Jazz record shop (which failed), working for his father in a plastering business and even getting a factory job at Ford. Jerry was working the dull, no mind factory job at the Wixom Mazda plant. But Jerry maintained his friendship with Jack who was a singer and performed cover tunes in local bars on the weekends. Each day at 4PM Jerry would bang on the family piano trying to write songs with his friend Jack singing the creations. As things unfolded Jerry, performing the "originals" on the gig, attracted an independent label who would record and release a tune on Jack that was written by Jerry. The record was a mild Detroit hit but did well enough to warrant another release. The third release on Jack, written by Jerry, was a national hit record.

By 1988 Jerry would be going into recording studios "producing" a singer (Marvin) and selling the productions to labels. By 1989 Jerry borrowed money from his family and put in his own 4 track recording studio - first in the garage, then in the basement and finally, in 1991, moving it to a garage-like addition to the back of the house. The first "gold record" that Jerry made in his own studio was a million seller called "Shop Around."

Sounds like a fantasy story - right? It isn't - but a few facts were changed to make it interesting. In actuality, this is the story of Motown. The dates were made 30 years later. "Jerry" is Berry Gordy. "Jack" is Jackie Wilson and "Marvin" is Marv Johnson. The first "hit" record on Jackie Wilson was "Lonely Teardrops." The first gold record was "Shop Around" by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. The basement studio was not a 4 track but a 3 track As a point of factual correctness, it was actually Jackie Wilson who skipped school, lying about his age, to get a golden gloves award at the tender age of 16.

It is remarkable how the circumstances and even the equipment and studio used to establish the largest 1960's independent record company in the world (Motown) is similar to the equipment and studio facilities available to today's home recordist.

Is there another success story out there?

Bob Dennis

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RECORDING TECHNIQUES

MOTOWN ENGINEERING SERIES No. 2

THE EXCITING COMPRESSOR

By ROBERT DENNIS

Editor's Note:

Motown developed a mixing method that allowed presence, bite and intensity on lead vocals. Even when the vocals were mixed at an even level with the music, you could hear every word clearly. I've released two past articles on this subject and every time I get bombarded with comments about how great the technique is.

The Pre-Motown Mix

In the 1950's and early 1960's records were generally mixed with the vocal far louder than the music. The vocal had a very natural sound to it except the there was a lot of reverb applied to the vocals. The artist that really had this sound was Frank Sinatra. Even back then, when listening to Old-Blue-Eye's records, you heard the music way in the background. This sound, however, wasn't exclusive to Frank. Even the "Rock & Roll" records of the time, like Elvis & Ricky Nelson had the vocals way out front.

The Motown Mix

Motown had a "better" idea. Motown was selling "excitement." The thinking was that the rhythm of the music is what made the record exciting and what the kids danced to. There actually was a lot of melody and important lyrics in these old records - but rhythm was the key. Actually Motown started a revolution in mixing and most modern rock (and even pop) releases are mixed in this style, even today.

Regarding reverb, another Motown innovation was to have more reverb on the music than on the vocal. There were three custom built reverberation chambers at Motown - all used during a mix - unheard of in those days. Again today a typical control room today has 4-8 (or more) effects devices for reverb (and other effects).

The 1970's "Exciter"

In the 70's a processing device by Aphex called the "Aural Exciter" (probably a tradename), started gaining popularity. The exciter took any instrument and generated a high-frequency signal component that could be added into the mix and would add "excitement" to the sound. A lot of people were impressed with this device (and clone devices that followed) especially to make the vocal sound brighter. I was very unimpressed. To my ears the unnatural high end added by the compressor may have added excitement but it also destroyed the vocal's natural characteristics. Another reason I hated the exciter units was I was familiar with the "Exciting Compressor" used at Motown a decade earlier. the name "Exciting Compressor" is mine but the technique I believe was first used by Lawrence Horn at Motown in 1963.

When a producer would ask me for an exciter, I would tell them I had something better - the Exciting Compressor. Every client I used this on was very impressed and happy with the result.

The Motown 1960's Exciting Compressor

With the Motown mix approach there were problems. If you wanted the lyrics to be heard you had to use a lot of compression on the vocal so that the the softer words could still be heard over the higher-level music. In addition you boosted the "presence range" (around 5 kHz) with an equalizer. The only problem with this is that it took the life & natural dynamics out of the vocal.

Lawrence Horn came up with a brilliant idea. He took the vocal and split the signal so that it when to 2 console channels. Before the vocal signal went to the second channel, it went through a compressor. Now he had two channels of the vocal - one compressed and one uncompressed. On the uncompressed vocal he added very little with the equalizer and he added the reverb. On the compressed channel, he compressed the h**l out of it and added a ton of high-frequency equalization. What he would do is bring up the "natural" channel to full level to get the basic natural sound on the vocal. On the other compressed and equalized channel, he brought this up just enough to add excitement and presence to the vocal sound.

The result was nothing less than amazing. In the mix the vocal sounded very natural and bright. None of the music ever "stepped on" the vocal and you could hear each and every syllable in the lyrics. The vocal never got lost.

Using The Exciting Compressor.

I don't know if anyone at Aphex knew anything about this technique - BUT - the purpose of their product and the older Motown technique seen basically the same. As you try this technique out you will find it works for other instruments as well. Often the frequency of EQ needs to be changed for the instrument. The vocal works well with tons of 5kHz to 8 kHz added to the "exciting compressor;" guitars work better with 3 kHz - 5 kHz and bass guitars work better with 800 hZ to 1.5 kHz.

For analog recording or working with an analog console, splitting the vocal into two console channels is easily done with a Y-chord or similar function at the patch bay. For digital consoles, it's a little harder; usually the best results are obtained by actually having two vocal tracks recorded on the tape.

Bob Dennis

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THE DRUM CIRCLE

"About Drums & Drumming"

THE SPIRIT OF DRUMMING

By STEVE "MURUGA" BOOKER

Editor's Note:

We are very pleased to have a world-class drummer like Muruga write articles for us. Muruga's credentials include drumming with acts from Weather Report & Dave Brubeck to drumming with George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Sly Stone and Jerry Garcia.

This issue's article goes into "why" we drum and even how to make your own personal drum. For more information on Muruga, visit: http://www.bhakti.com/Muruga/musart.htm

Now for the article:

Greetings in spirit in the drum domain. Nice to be with you, thanks to the drum.

The spirit of drumming has been around since early mankind and has been used to glorify the creator spirit since then. The early Sages of India heard the heart beat in deep meditation and aligned their consciousness with it. Playing to the heart beat on the drum assisted the sage to pass that spirit vibration to the student.

East of us have that correlating vibration within us - we just have to tune to it and let it come through us . Feel your pulse with one hand and play that beat with your other. The heart beat rhythm is the central rhythm for the native American ceremonial music and dances. A good example of this is the trance heartbeat drumming Premdas did on our Journey of the Drums album. These spiritual Shamnic rhythms are heard in most tribes around the world. All modern music are influenced by early Asian, African, European and Native American Cultures resulting in today’s world beat!

Music stems from that melting pot of sound and spirit consciousness and that’s why we like it. Blues, Jazz, Rock, Funk, Folk, Tecno, Rave, Classical music tunes us to our spirit selves and our tribal, social, and communal nature. Song, dance and art is the first language. It’s in our genes and it’s instilled in us only waiting to be tapped into, channeled, and used. That’s why, when you really like a musician, you say he or she really has soul. When the music is real (you’re not just copying but playing your heart-felt music) you say "It swings," "It rocks," "It’s funky," "It’s got the dope beat," "It boogies," etc. - you got to feel what you do. So no matter what style you play, project your true feelings in it - people will feel that. Some great technical musicians don’t have soul or feeling in their music and other, less technical musicians come along with soul and more feeling and become more successful. This is because the people can feel it’s vibe.

In Detroit there was a polka musician "Little Walter." Many were better than him but he had more feeling. The people related to him more and he got most of the gigs. This applies to every music style. Relate to who your playing for with all your gut feelings, mind and spirit - you’ll do great. The people will see you and love what you do.

You’ll always have time to get better [technically] and work on it - but in the mean time feel what you do in the now. Don’t wait till you’re better - feeling it will make you better. When you put feeling to what you do, it becomes better right away. Technique is important. First you must know that, then put feeling to it.

When I studied a bit with Joe Morello, he told me "I’m not going to teach you what kind of music I play, but the technique of how to play what you already do, better. You should get his books and videos - they’re great teaching tools. He’s a great drummer. You can hear him on early Dave Brubeck albums like "Take Five," and "Time Further Out." The early Jazz drummers were all great innovators and technicians with soul. Check out Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Joe Jones, Allen Dalson, Gene Krupa (who is the father of the tuned trap set), Buddy Rich, Baba Olatunji, and Ala Raca (with Ravi Shancar) Check out the Greek drummers in Detroit’s Greektown - backing the belly dancers. If you in Detroit, go to the Eastern Market where they sell the belly dancing jar drums for really cheep ($25 to $ 50). These drums sound great - I used one on the Weather report "Sweet Nighter" album.

Early drummers always made their own drums or instruments to express their inner vibrations and ideas. This concept led me to inventing my Nada Drum that Latin Percussion put out and I used to record it with George Clinton and Jerry Garcia. You don’t have to only buy a drum from a store - follow your own vision and dream - manifest it like you do your music - make a drum that is you. It feels great to play your own drum - you’ll then play your unique music that has your own sound and style.

If you would like to make a jar drum, as I did, enroll in a local college clay course and make some clay shells. First visit Greektown, [or a local drum shop] see the drum and see how they put the goat skin on. After you make your shells, get a goat skin from a music or drum shop. Mark the size of the drum on the skin, making the circle 1 1/2 to 2 inches larger. Mark the circle in the middle of the skin and cut from the outside edge in towards the inner marked circle making a skin lacing out of it. Then soak the skin in water till soft. Use Elmer’s glue on the edge of skin that will touch the drum use a large sewing needle and sew the skin to the drum. This may sound vague to you, but when you see a drum it will become evident for you as it did for me. If you by these drums in a regular music store the drum costs from $ 75 to $ 200. 25 pounds of clay is about $7.00 a skin is $10 to $20 depending on size. For the price of one drum I made 6 drums. Now I know how to make them in a special way for my own needs and size.

Also take an RID recording course to learn how to record your self to have control of your sound. Good recording musicians are good producers. Not only are most Stars good producers but also good song writers and good businessmen. Get some books on the music business [or take RID’s Music Business Course]. It’s important to be successful. Stars also understand marketing, promotion and investment policies. After you learn this, you’re well rounded to enter the music business. Also learn computers. From recording to business - it’s a must to learn and to stay on top of the haps [happenings] that are deciding the future. Finally, sell your albums on the net - tap in to the world now!

God bless - Keep playing. See you soon with some more Spirit drum talk.

Love,

Muruga

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THE MUSIC & RECORDING INDUSTRY

OPPS - THIS ARTICLE IS LATE AND DIDN'T MAKE THE DEADLINE - IT WILL BE ADDED NEXT WEEK.

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THE MOTOWN RECORDING REVIEW ARTICLES*

Editor's Note:

In the mid-1960's Motown Records developed a revolutionary recorded sound (for that period) and became the largest independent record company in the world - Not bad for a home-recording setup. The following articles highlight the history and techniques used to achieve this success. The 11 articles are separated into 3 category links.

A PICTURE TOUR OF THE MOTOWN HISTORICAL MUSEUM - See the equipment and facilities that Motown used in the 60's and compare it to what you have in your basement.

OUR MOTOWN RECORDING HERITAGE - Stories about what it was like around the studio in the mid 1960's

MOTOWN RECORDING TECHNIQUES - Because of limitations in equipment in the 1960's Motown developed techniques to get a hit sound. Most of these techniques can be used to your advantage today.

MOTOWN LINKS - Specific sites on the web about Motown.

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END OF "CURRENT ARTICLES," WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO BACK TO THE HOME PAGE?

(Disclaimer: RECORDING ENGINEER'S QUARTERLY, RECORDING INSTITUTE OF DETROIT and the MOTOWN RECORDING REVIEW ARTICLES are not affiliated with Motown Records or its parent company Seagram / Polygram. The views and opinions on this site do not necessarily reflect that of Motown or any of its affiliates.)

Recording Engineer's Quarterly has posted a series of articles called The Motown Recording Review which are historical and educational in nature with the purpose of educating current recordists, recording students and recording engineers.