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well as Sinatra's "It Was A Very Good Year," and The Mamas and The Papas' "California
Dreamin'". The United Western studios, still in existence today as both Cello Studios and Allen
Sides' Ocean Way Recording, are still considered to be some of the best sounding rooms ever
built.
Universal Audio and UREI Meanwhile, upstairs in the 6050 Sunset building Universal Audio
was thriving, and changing names. Now called UREI®, the company had acquired the patent
rights to the LA-2A leveling amplifier, and also to National Intertel, which became the Teletronix
division of UREI®. It was a unique situation; Putnam was always searching for better ways to
do things and the combination of studios and manufacturing led readily to new product ideas.
Out of this synergy came the 1176LN leveling amplifier, the 1108 FET preamp and, in con-
junction with Ed Long, the 813 family of speakers.
Mentor and Innovator Allen Sides, currently owner of Ocean Way Recording, whose studios to-
day encompass almost unchanged what was part of United Western, calls Putnam "my best
friend." "When Bill started designing control rooms they were about eight feet by six feet and
they were calling them booths," he says. "He built the first of what we now call conventional
control rooms, with speakers above the windows. The whole control room concept we think of
today was Bill's. The first console that had equalizers in every channel was Bill's, the feedback
equalizer was Bill's creation, he built all his own limiters, his own consoles, he could tune his
own pianos; he basically did the whole deal.
"Around 1962 he was doing half speed cutting, to get the high frequencies on the discs," re-
calls Sides. "He'd designed his own mastering systems, because you couldn't do it any other
way. He was recording on custom made 30ips machines and he was doing all the super hi fi
stuff, like the Mercury Living Presence series."
Sides, who is renowned for both his golden ears and his abilities in the 'art of the deal,' ap-
preciated Putnam on many levels. "He was an exceptional businessman, with a tremendous un-
derstanding of things," he says. "If I had a complex deal and I couldn't quite figure out how to
approach it, I'd sit down with Bill and he'd reason
it out in the most amazing way.
"There's a great story about when stereo was
coming on. The record companies really weren't
that interested — everyone was cost conscious.
They didn't want to spend any more money and
they were saying that stereo was a waste of time.
But Bill could see the potential, and around 1959
UAD Powered Plug-Ins Manual
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Chapter 57: History
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