Track Anatomy – The O’Jays “Ship Ahoy” (Strings & Horns)

Track Anatomy takes a look inside the make up of classic tracks.  Study the past and define the future.

Today we will take a quick look at the make up of the horn and string sections in The O’Jays classic & EPIC soul track “Ship Ahoy.” Here is a snippet…

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“Ship Ahoy” Arranger, Bobby Martin…

“Some arrangements are more challenging than others, like ‘Ship Ahoy.’ My job was to get the music across to people, so I had to do something special with those strings and horns. Sometimes I’d use as many as 17 strings – one cello, four violas, 12 violins. For the horns I could use up to five saxophones – baritone, two tenors and two altos – and four trumpets and four trombones. It can be a very delicate, very precise and very beautiful process, especially when you get a gold record out of it!”

I reached out to Philly producer/songwriter/musician Bobby Eli, who chimed in on the EPICNESS of the record…

“For the mix on that particular song, both of Sigma’s studios had to be used because all of the sounds and effects,whips and chains,and various sounds of disparity took up more channels than the twenty four on the board in studio 1 so studio 2′s board had to be used in addition with tie lines between the two studios. That was certainly groundbreaking for 1973! …and the board in stdio 1 only had ONE efx send so they had to have very creative ways with which to maneuver those or any extra efx… The downstairs board was more “advanced”in the efx send dept. Man.the engineers were communicating by intercom and running up and down the steps between the two rooms. Classic stuff.”

Purchase the full 9 minute version of “Ship Ahoy” here for .99 (MP3, 256 kbps)