If you are after the motown drumsound, then ludwig and felt strips are the way to go. BUT you have to remember that the front head on the bass drum was missing on these early soul tunes. This gave the mic placed a few feet away, more definition of the beater impact on the batter head. try taking the resonant head off a modern bass drum, apply a felt strip to the batter head, and you'll see what i mean. You will get a 'note' from the drum, popular then with jazz still being so prominant, but not so popular after the 60's!

Actually,they might have it Old.....come on out!

I don't drink booze no mo either

Cobbled together? You mean all this great music was recorded with a lowly players kit? Cool1

The beauty of that MD article is that it really shows how random the drum set-up could be, just totally about the vibe and decisions made in the room on each session...

If anyone has been to the Motown Museum (which is one of the original Hitsville USA buildings...) they have some drum gear lying around and I've always wondered when that kit got there.

Here is the kit in the museum, looks to be 60's Ludwig 20", 13", 16". Perhaps this was the "final" kit purchased before they moved to LA, if this kit even was truly around the studio at the time.

I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't been to the Motown Museum. The day I planned to visit I called ahead and was informed that it was only going to be opened for a few hours. I postponed my visit and still haven't made it down there. However, I still plan to go and will definitely ask about the kit in your pic once I'm there.

I DON"T think they played the kit as show..........

Floor tom about to fall over/cymbal backwards etc...get it together people!

Yeah, and is that a '70s Atlas hi-hat stand??:confused:

Not to nit-pick, but thats a Ludwig Hercules hihat stand.

Guys, guys...the kit that is in the Motown museum is NOT the actual Motown kit. It is just a kit of the era used for display for the general public. The general public wouldn't know or probably care that it isn't the actual drumkit. It just represents the era. Someone who was just visiting the museum and liked the music, but wasn't a musician probably would just see that it's old and that would be enough for them.

It's no worse than the vintage Ludwig kit used in the movie the Wonders using modern Armand series cymbals along with it. It's a representation of the era, not a historically significant kit.

Besides, if anyone paid attention to the DVD I mentioned before, its not the room or the particular instruments that made the classic Motown sound, it was the musicians. (I'm paraphrasing and I can't remember off the top of my head which Funk Brother actually said it, I think it was Uriel Jones)

The DVD of the Funk Brothers is worth the money just to watch the guy play tambourine. He was a master>

Another major component to the overall sound is the recording equipment used. I would guess they still had mostly tube equipment for recording and mixing.