Hitsville USA Studios, Detroit

The original Motown recording and mastering studios in Detroit, Michigan (USA). For the Hollywood, Los Angeles, use Motown/Hitsville U.S.A. Recording Studios.

Hitsville U.S.A. was the name of the Motown Headquarters, purchased by founder United Sound Systems.)

Within seven years the complex expanded to the neighbouring houses on West Grand Boulevard. Hitsville U.S.A. remained for the istrative office and what became known as Studio A, with Jobete's publishing office, Berry Gordy Jr. Enterprises, International Talent Management Inc. and finance, sales and A&R departments in the surrounding converted homes. Since 1966 mixing and mastering took place in the additional istrative buildings.

In 1967 Gordy moved to what is now known as the "Motown Mansion" and his sister Studio B.

The Mastering Lab (technically not part of Hitsville) was housed in the Motown Center and included two cutting facilities: a stereo room on the 10th floor and a mono facility in the basement. The stereo mastering system consisted of a Neumann AM-32b lathe, a Neumann SX-68 helium-cooled cutting head, a Studer C-37 tape machine that was modified for tape-to-disc transfer, and a custom-designed electronics rack built by the Motown technical department. The mono mastering system consisted of a Neumann AM-131 manual lathe, with either a mono Grampian or Neumann ES-59 cutting head.

In mid-1970 Gordy purchased Esther Gordy Edwards remained in charge of what was left of the Motown office at Hitsville. She took care to preserve Studio A and in 1985 the Motown Museum opened on the site.

Studio B was vacated ca. 1974. The Donovan building was eventually demolished in January 2006 to provide parking spaces for Super Bowl XL. In 2019 Kem was the first artist in almost half a century to do a recording at Studio A.

Chief engineer: Cal Harris.
Recording/mixing engineers: Orson Lewis, Austin Lewis, Donald Brown, Robert Gavin, Vincent Shensky.
Mastering/cutting engineers: Norman Elder.
Technical department: Mike McLean, Michael Grace.