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Double Bass Motown D.I.

#41
beans-on-toast said:
The Ampeg B-15 has a relatively big output transformer for the 25W or 30W that the amps are rated for. The tone is rich and lacks harshness. There are other contributing factors but maybe the output has something in common with the REDDI in that respect.
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I can attest to that, based on the warmth of my B-15N(C) it's quite remarkable to me, that a 25watt Tube amplifier, with a 15" JBLD130 or Altec 421, can cover the entire frequency range of a bass instrument, with so much fulness and detail. I'm sure it's
cabinet design also comes into play, but it sounds as good as many very complicated 2 and 3way designs. So, if I want the sound of a REDDI, I guess I can just pull out the trusty B-15N, and voila I have the same sound, with a complete amp. Still it weighs 85 lbs. though, so I'm sticking to my trusty Walter Woods or QSC K8, with the Headway EDB-2 which has a very quite, warm D.I. built in. Just call me lazy.

Ric
 
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#43
Ric Vice said:
While I'm sure that REDDI sounds wonderful,
it's probably overkill for most of us who play DB, since IHMO, it's size and bulk make it roughly equivalent to carrying a second amplifier head. It weighs 10 lbs. with dimensions of (W x H x D) 3-1/2” x 3-1/2” x 14-1/2”.
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Very true Ric. Everything has its place and best application.

I had a neighbor that was a music student studying bass. He used to have a full size double bass that he wheeled down two long blocks and over several streets to and from school every day, even during the winter. I was amazed at how well he managed. A DB player needs to be practical and have common sense.
 
#46
LOL! I wasn't commenting on the REDDI. I've avidly lurked on the REDDI threads and you're someone I pay attention to so I know how you feel about the thing. I was just wondering what kind of practical common sense person ever takes up an instrument that costs as much as a sports car but won't fit into one? But you're quite right that we have enough to haul without packing a $700 10lb DI when even the best sounding pickup and DI is only a pale caricature of the natural sound of the instrument. Most folks with those resources would throw them at mics and preamps first. I'm in the process of amplifying a new bass and like I say it hadn't even occurred to me to use my REDDI when I have three good sounding mics.

A high end DI thread on the double bass side is really kinda weird.......very interesting so far but weird.
 
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#47


Here's me playing through the Motown DI for this recent release with Dennis Coffey. It's a fat sounding, passive DI that sounds thick. Similar to the Reddi but not as hot. It pairs really nicely with an API Preamp. Al Sutton and Ed Wolfrum are really committed to this stuff. I know because Al will have me over to the shop at Rustbelt Studios to AB the various prototypes as he improves them. I think what he's got happening now is pretty kick ass. I own a Reddi and several other DI's. I still use my Countryman Type 10 quite a bit too. I recommend you use your ears and not be afraid to change and adapt to what's needed daily.

These are great DI's
 
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#50
James Simonson said:


Here's me playing through the Motown DI for this recent release with Dennis Coffey. It's a fat sounding, passive DI that sounds thick. Similar to the Reddi but not as hot. It pairs really nicely with an API Preamp. Al Sutton and Ed Wolfrum are really committed to this stuff. I know because Al will have me over to the shop at Rustbelt Studios to AB the various prototypes as he improves them. I think what he's got happening now is pretty kick ass. I own a Reddi and several other DI's. I still use my Countryman Type 10 quite a bit too. I recommend you use your ears and not be afraid to change and adapt to what's needed daily.

These are great DI's
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tracks. It's essentially impossible to judge what aspects of the sound stem from the Motown DI as opposed to the rest of the signal chain. In any case, those sure are some atypical sounding DBs. :D
 
#53
"Motown DI"..that is pretty funny! You know, the engineers at Chess Records were using passive DI's alligator clipped to the guitar amp speaker terminals..plus the bleed in the room where the music was played. These were passive DI's with big iron transformers, like the UTI's that were found in a lot of channel strips back then. The engineers built their own custom DI's, and I'd assume that it wasn't any different at Hitsville.

Somebody should come out with the "Chess Records DI". Man you could be "just like" Chuck Berry, just by plugging in to that DI!

Us upright players want a "CTI DI"..please. pretty please. so we can all sound like Ron Carter in the '70's. :)

"Motown DI" is just another stupid marketing tactic. It might be a pretty good box, probaly built really well. We are living in a time in which progenitors of studio tones are being distilled into a little box with a name. Band in a Box. They probably didn't bother calling it the James Jamerson box, because that moniker will most likely become inside hip lingo and handshake code, a way to brag about how big and special your DI is without using the dumb term that it's marketed with. :)
 
#54
And that's right Paul, what you are saying saving the dough for a B15. After using the preamp out with a custom passive DI on my first B15 direct to the board 40 years ago, I really wasn't impressed with a lot of the DI's that were marketed over time. These days there are some really great ones using the big iron. I really like that REDDI. And the one that Aspen Pitmen (Groove Tubes) was building a unit was cool too, but he had some kind of dumb name like "The Brick" to try and get attention. From what I can tell that failed. Shame. If the guy from Mesa Boogie ever markets a tube DI, I certain it will be game over, because he has the kind of track record and marketing that inspires confidence in consumers. Not some fly by night like "The Motown DI".
 
#55
In defensive of the Motown DI, let it be known that the engineers at Motown were lab rats. At the time, they prided themselves in the audio quality that they were getting compared to other studios. Ed Wolfrum, one key builder and engineer at Motown, (he's my neighbor.. lucky me) said that they tried and measured many different transformers to land on the one they liked the best. You are correct about the iron content, it does not exist anymore.

Now, years ago Ed and Al started a collection of these transformers, these were all put in boxes and they sold them to the best studios around the world for a good price. Because of the success, Al really started on a quest to get Cinemag? (I believe) to go back and forth on a proper replication of the original transformer. There's a Cinemag in the Reddi, but not this one.

So, in regards to marketing, this DI is the closest DI to what all the guys at Motown, including guitar players, were using. The box is built in Detroit, and all the research was done by the guys "in the know". Ed and Al are very committed to what these boxes represent so I believe calling this DI "the Motown DI" is very appropriate.

Nobodies saying that you will sound like Jamerson, Babbitt, or Dennis Coffey.

Ed has also shared with me the mods they did to Jamerson's "stock Precision". Ed measured the resistance from Jamo's bass and the transformer they ended up going with was a perfect match.

Jamerson and Ed were serious about getting a great bass sound. It didn't just happen. They really worked on it.

Also, there was no B15 at Motown. Everybody went direct. The B15 has the iron though so it IS a cool little amp. Live, Jamerson mostly used the Kustom tuck and roll deal. There WAS a Fairchild compressor at Motown but those guys hated it. They laugh about it. They complain about how slow it is, there's a million tubes and it's an unreliable piece of kit that people in Japan will pay top dollar for.

Jamo's bass didn't need compression. It went in flat, with strings that dead and high action, you wouldn't need it. The strings were big and dead. There was no mute.. Not on HIS bass. Jamerson was just trying to sound like Ray Brown with his portable electric upright bass (called the Fender Precision). Ed mixes bass loud and they just turned him up, rightly so, and there was not a thunderous kick drum to compete with.

Between Ed's desire for pure transparency and Al's desire for vintage character, you've got a solid powerful combination happening with this DI box.

Hanging with Ed Wolfrum is the best experience. He played me his private mixes for the "What's Going On" album. Jamerson was even louder! Ed pulled all the Los Angeles sweeting off of it. It's raw and fat.

Ed helped me build my own Motown DI... he also has an active model that's JFET based. It's a real Kung Fo box with about 6 components. Dead flat "wire with gain" as he calls it.

Al Sutton, is a badass too. Very opinionated and wouldn't be caught dead being called "a marketing fake" Al made "Devil Without a Cause" with Kid Rock and some other slamming records. Al doesn't just buy gear, he designs and builds stuff too. Al is no joke. He's done a lot of hard work to bring these boxes to the public. This is the correct box that was at Motown.

Rustbelts Studios is also The Magneto Motorcycle Shop. They make aggressive rock & jazz records, build audio gear and work on motorcycles. It's a really cool place. The vibe is unique and productive.

I recommend setting up your own ABing station and record your basses through several different DI boxes. When you find that winning match, your bass will need very little treatment if any in my opinion. Ultimately, the purist side of me just wants to hear the hands doing what they do with as little as possible in the way.

The tracks shared above are just that. That's what my basses sound like when they're painstakingly set up, matched to the DI and just turned up. No compressor. There's no e.q. It's just all done correct from the beginning. The basses are passive, the strings are old. There's no mute. It's the bass, Motown DI into API (doesn't even have eq) then to the DA converter.

Do I sound like Jamerson? No I sound like me and I'm very happy with the DI box. Tony Levin likes his too.
 
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#57
Thank you again, James, for the interesting insights and historical glimpses. I think much of the discussion here highlights a point I made earlier with regard to "voicing" and the difference between the typical desires of the DB and BG sides.

On the BG side, it's desirable. After all, the instrument really has no sound of its own. By that, I mean that the overall sound of a BG stems from it being part of a link in a chain of electrical and/or electronic connections. (In anticipation of a potential misunderstanding, I am certainly not saying that the particular instrument doesn't matter!) Ed's attempt to match the impedance of Jamo's instrument to the primary winding of the xformer would have produced maximum power transfer and, of course, not necessarily a flat response when the rest of the circuit was considered. That's really no issue. Flat response wasn't and isn't necessarily the goal in such cases. The transformer and the transfer function (frequency response) of the box were/are very much part of the total "instrument system," if you will. They are adjusted and tweaked to get a desirable sound.

The situation on the DB side is very different. Most (certainly, not all) are after the holy grail of "my bass, but bigger". It's impossible to achieve, but it's the brass ring for which most of us are reaching. The instrument does have a sound of its own and we typically seek to preserve it.

All of this is reinforced by your own comments:
James Simonson said:
Ed helped me build my own Motown DI... he also has an active model that's JFET based. It's a real Kung Fo box with about 6 components. Dead flat "wire with gain" as he calls it.
Click to expand...
The phrase among techno-geeks is "a straight wire with gain." That is in contrast to what the iron-loaded DI boxes were and are supposed to be. They are built with frequency response characteristics that the players (and, hopefully, the listeners) find desirable. It sure worked in Jamerson's case!

James Simonson said:
As far as upright goes, I like this one. Just put the impedance switch to High+ and blam-o! Matches the impedance perfectly. Huge difference from all the rest.
The Headway EDB-2
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I gather, but can't say for sure, that the Headway is not "voiced." If so, then it makes perfect sense why you'd prefer it to the iron-loaded boxes for DB. As for it "matching" the impedance perfectly, that's not really what it does. It ends up providing optimal loading. Please see:

Pickups: Optimal loading, not impedance matching

So, we have different devices for different needs/desires. The needs/desires are very different across DB and BG. In short, we agree! :)
 
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#59
Yeah, on the BG side, new gear is pimped all the time. Pretty hard to get a buzz going on a product called the "Motown Box" over here..James Jamerson was a wonderful upright bassist, and they used a MICROPHONE on his upright. Thank-you. :)
 

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