By The Old Miner (195.93.34.12) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 11:41 am:

Is anyone aware of a recording Studio named Olmsted in or around the Detroit area?

I don't mean Olmstead Sound Studios in Manhattan although I would like to know when that studio opened for business.

By brian d. (67.25.216.170) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 01:12 pm:

I was keenly aware of the studio scene in the Detroit area 1967-1977. There was never an Olmstead here, only in New York. I bought a piece of gear on consignment and it came from Olmstead in New York, around that time.

By Ron Murphy (68.42.90.140) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 02:52 pm:

I can't recall a studio by that name around Detroit.

By dvdmike (68.253.213.250) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 06:10 pm:

I believe The Miracles cut a few songs at Olmstead in early 1959 including "Bad Girl."

By The Old Miner (195.93.34.12) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 07:49 pm:

Can I revise the location to Chicago and ask for comments on that?!!!

The time slot I'm specifically seeking is 1959/60/61.

And the spelling of Olmsted varies to Olmstead regularly in my searches!

There seems to be Olmsted (Falls) in Detroit and at least in Ohio, North Olmsted exists.

There also seems to be an Olmstead District in or around Chicago.

The web tells me a famous landscape architect called Olmstead was active in both Detroit and Chicago a fair while back - presumably parks and such - so maybe he gave his name to districts and then in the Chicago District, a studio opened there?

By Michael McLean (67.30.237.71) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 01:03 am:

Berry Gordy Jr. sent me to New York City in early 1962. At that time, Olmstead Sound Studios were very much in business.

Mr. Olmstead was a nice fellow that designed Central Park. Fifty years ago, it was hip to name a sound studio after him.

Today, all the ignorant fools write to this forum to ask stupid questions that they could answer with GOOGLE.

By Edith (64.12.117.16) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 03:46 am:

Michael,
Personally, I love this forum and I would rather read, have fun and be educated by this forum then spending time on Google.

By The Old Miner (195.93.34.12) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 05:11 am:

Mike - sorry for my foolish ignorance and thank you for your answer!

Google was indeed my first port of call but there was nothing specific enough there for me.

Whilst I'm on, Mike, how long is a piece of string? I'm sure you know the answer!

By David Meikle (81.130.211.124) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 06:03 am:

Mike

Please show some respect to the good folks of SoulfulDetroit.

There really is no need for that pompous crap.

David

By kh (81.79.217.193) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 06:52 am:

dvdmike

BG (in his book) recalls "Bad girl" being cut at United Sound (in Detroit). Be interested to know where you heard that it was cut in Chicago.

The second version of "Way over there" was cut in Chicago, using the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and other tracks,both around that time and later, were also recorded in Chicago - I don't know what studio(s) they used.

In the notes to the new Mable CD, Dr John recalls that the second version of "No love" was cut in New York - but she doesn't say which studio.

Keith

By dvdmike (65.208.234.61) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 08:03 am:

What studio was "Way Over There" cut at? It doesn't sound like it was done at Universal. It sounds more like a mono single track or two track recording. I was just guessing about "Bad Girl." On the inside jacket of the "Lost And Found" CD, a couple of songs that were cut around the same time as "Bad Girl" were credited with being recorded at Olmsted. My bad.

By Average Arizona Drummer (24.56.1.37) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 11:22 am:

Central Park was designed one hundred and fifty years ago, not fifty years ago, but I like most people who post to this site, have the good manners to not make any nasty or snide remarks about someones mistakes.

By Ralph (209.240.205.62) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 11:55 am:

AAD,
I misread Mike's post also. What he was saying was fifty years ago it was fashionable to name things after this guy. Other than that, I agree. Mikie, you're being a jerk again.

By Eli (68.236.27.208) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 11:57 am:

FYI,
Tony Orlando and Dawn recorded a lot of their fluff at Olmstead!

By Ron Murphy (68.42.90.140) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 12:14 pm:

Berry Gordy's early demos(57-58) were recorded at a small studio in a garage behind a house on Cameron Street in Detroit called Echoic(I Love You by The Volumes on Chex was the biggest recording from there)Berry cut his masters at 3 Detroit studios: United Sound Systems, Special Recordings and B-B Productions which was run by WJLB DJ Bristoe Bryant. it was Bristoe's equipment that Gordy bought in around August 1959 and started the Hitsville studio with. the first offical master recording done at Hitsville was the first version of "Way Over There" which has a master number of H55501 it was a very poor sounding recording, in fact you will notice a big improvement in sound when Mike McLean comes on board in January 1961.....the 2nd version of "Way Over There" is cut at Universal in Chicago along with the 2nd versions of The Satintones "My Beloved" and Eugene Remus' "You'll Never Miss Your Water" with Riley Hampton arrangments which continued on other Miracles and some Eddie Holland tracks..."Jamie" is the first track using strings from the Detroit Symphony...also The Satintones M1006 and M1010 use a string section from the Wayne State College in Detroit.

By Eli (68.236.27.208) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 12:18 pm:

Great info Ron!! Thank you.
You da man, man!!

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 12:29 pm:

Folks:
DVDMike posted session information a while ago that refers to the Olmstead Recording Studios here in NYC.

Quite a few hits were cut there -
"Handy Man" & "Good Timin'" - Jimmy Jones
"Lightnin' Strikes" & "Rhapsody In The Rain"- Lou Christie
"Candida" & "Knock Three Times" - Tony Orlando & Dawn (in fact, the majority of their Bell Records output was recorded there as indicated by Bobby Eli).

Kevin Goins - KevGo

By Eli (68.236.27.208) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 12:51 pm:

The main enginer at Olmstead was the late Bill Mc Meekin who also worked at Mirssound.

By dvdmike (65.208.234.61) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 01:22 pm:

"Good Timin" was cut at Olmstead in NYC, but "Handy Man" was produced by Otis Blackwell at a NYC demo studio, don't know which one. Lou Christie's "Lightin' Strikes" was cut at Olmstead, a studio that MGM Records used quite a bit after they closed their own Metropolitan Studios. If "Way Over There" was cut at Universal, it must have been in one of the smaller rooms there. At one time, Universal Recording had 10 rooms. Do you know if "Would I Love You" was cut at Universal as well?

By Garo (192.234.106.2) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 01:42 pm:

The Tokens recorded at Olmstead Studio.

By dvdmike (65.208.234.61) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 01:44 pm:

Do you know when both versions of "Way Over There" were recorded? Both versions are credited with being released on April 4, 1960.

By Ron Murphy (68.42.90.140) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 04:32 pm:

there were 4 pressings of Tamla 54028 the first was "The Feelings So Fine/"You Can Depend On Me"-1st version,,these sides were cut at Special Recordings sometime around August 1959 and was pressed and released soon after as this record was given out at record hops free in September,the 1st version of "way.." along with the 2nd version of "Depend" were cut at Hitsville in around Nov./Dec 59 and pressed up in Feb.1960..this was withdrawn...the 3rd pressing couples the 2nd version of "Way"(w/strings) along witrh the 1st version of "Depend" that had been recorded at Special this was released in April 1960 and the 4th pressing couples the 2nd versions of both songs which is the one most everyone has, which also has a April 60 release date. it was the first record Motown distributed itself on a regional basis and sold about 60,000 copies.

By dvdmike (68.253.176.22) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 05:18 pm:

Thanks Ron, you really know your stuff. "(You Can't Let The Boy Overpower) The Man In You" was recorded at RCA Victor's Mid-America Recording Center at 445 North Lake Shore Drive in Chicago on August 17, 1963, I think Riley Hampton might have been the arranger on that date.

By John Lester (81.132.251.71) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 06:13 pm:

Ron

Have you completed that book yet....I have my dollars ready...

..and I am NOT kidding you either!!

By Ron Murphy (68.42.90.140) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 06:54 pm:

hi John and thanks. I'm starting to work on a book about the cutting of techno records that I've been involved with for the past 15 years, then I want to do the story on George Lemons/Gold Soul Records and that is quite a story,as you may know the 3 brothers(George,Roy and Bill Lemons) and their mother Alberta Easter were given life in prison for killing 3 Inkster,Mi police officers but all the things that led up to that makes a great story. so I'm trying to do something.

By Lynn Bruce (68.41.110.49) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 07:55 pm:

Damn,so the Lennens were those guys!! Being brought up in Inkster,I followed that story very closly as that area was my home stomping ground. Those guys were some evil mo fos.
They belong where they are today!!
But if I were the king,I would have turned them over to the Inkster police dept. to have their way with them.

By Eli (68.236.27.208) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 08:28 pm:

Ralph,

I remember the story which you told me about the Lemons but Ill let you post it if you want.

By brian d. (67.26.9.104) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 09:48 pm:

Ron - you are a wealth of knowledge. I'm ready for the book also! I still would like to know where the early Golden World hits were cut. Deep Freeze, Romeo & Juliet, Recipe of Love, and the Darrel Banks tune, Open the Door to your Heart. I know you know, so please tell us. This period of time in Music History will never be repeated.
The more that can be preserved, the better.

By Gary (172.161.48.241) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 09:53 pm:

Ron Murphy/Lynn Bruce..I had almost totally forgotten about the Lemmon (sp?) Bros. and their mother until I read your posts. That whole episode was something that really shook up Metro Detroit at the time.

Ron...Can you briefly clue me in on what was the deal with Gold Soul Records? You've got me curious.

By Ralph (209.240.205.62) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 10:19 pm:

Ron,
All I can do is echo Lynn...DAMN...
Well I knew they were bad news when I was dealing with them.

By Ron Murphy (68.42.90.140) on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 11:20 pm:

Gary believe me it is one long story that covers a lot of interesting turns from them moving to Detroit in 1968 and to the end of the court trial in 1988 some 20 years. they were great con-artists that managed to swindle 3-4 million dollars from Detroit area business people. they ended up living at the bungalow motel in Inkster about to be arrested for writing a bad check for a rental car. if they would have used their talent the right way Gold Soul Records might have did something good instead of just selling stock and riping people off. anyone wanting more details should contact me off the SD forum and I'll discuss any certain details that anyone wants to know.

By kh (81.79.217.193) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 06:40 am:

Ron, here's another question you might be able to answer. When Hitsville started up, did they have facilities for mixing and making mono masters, or did they just have a recording facility there? If they sent the session tapes out for mixing, where did they go?

Like many others, I really appreciate your contributions to Soulful Detroit. Your knowledge of the inner workings of Motown in those early years is unparalleled. I thank you once again.

Keith

By acooolcat (210.200.105.227) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 10:27 am:

brian d.
I think you'll find the answers about studios in the article about Golden World - just go to the Home Page (look left of screen) and click on the icon.
Graham

By Averafe Arizona Drummer (24.56.1.37) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 10:34 am:

You are right Ralph, I've got to slow down when I read.It does read as you stated.

By Ralph (209.240.205.62) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 10:38 am:

Keith,
Mixing would have been done in-house. Considering things were done on a three track in those early days, there really wasn't much mixing involved.

By The Old Miner (195.93.34.12) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 02:41 pm:

Ralph - what about overdubs? Say the strings for instance where a first pressing appears without them then a second version appears with ?

Satintones and Mable John recordings come to mind.

By Ralph (209.240.205.62) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 04:02 pm:

Miner,
To be honest, I'm not sure how Motown was doing it in the days of three track. Probably some pretty creative track bouncing I would think. As far as a strings / no strings, version of a record, I would just chalk that up to production changes.

By Ron Murphy (68.42.90.140) on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 05:19 pm:

hi kh: yes all the mixing was done at Hitsville ,the masters were sent to Bell Sound in New York for the cutting of the master records for the pressing of records. they really had no way to do any EQing in sound back then,and most of the time "fixing" up the master was done by whoever was cutting the record master, which is still done today. if you played any early Motown master tape though the 60's you will find that the record sounds better which is because of the additional processing at the record cutting stage,I believe around 63-64 Motown purchased additional processors for test cutting,however when they had the EQ settings these were sent to RCA to cut the masters and make the metal work for the several pressing plants they were using. it wasn't until the late 60's that they started to cut their own record masters in house. for an example ,when I started as an recording engineer in 1966 we used Motown session people and I recorded flat to tape, now my "hero" for cutting records was Sheldon in Chicago(he cut the hotest records at the time to me) we drove down to Chicago and when he played the master tape it had no bass at all..now I heard the bass in our studio but the monitoring was giving me something that was not going on the tape, but he had 2 pultec equalizers(the best EQ at the time) and he pluged them in back to back and build up the low end and made that record sound good. do you remember how the early Motown oldie CD sounded not to good in the 80's, well that's because the master tapes were being transfered flat as is, later they started using tube pre-amp's and additional processing to make these sound like the original records and better.