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n the studio at work with Stan Kenton (seated at piano).

Editor's Note: The Journal is pleased to publishd in a series of interviews with m ajor figuresmber 21, 1980 Pete r Suthe im was moderato r of

recording. An ed ited transcript of the interviewon April 13, 1989 (his obituary appears on p. 532

Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 37, No. 9, 1989 September

Sutheim: As a brief introduction, let me begin with theyear Bill founded Universal Recording in Evanston, Illi-nois. It was 1946, and in abou t a year he moved to Chicag owhere he founded the Universal label. By the early 50salmost half the hits on the charts were recorded by Bill.Skipping over some 25 years brings us to 1980 when Billwas cha i rman and ch ief opera t ing of f i cer o f Uni tedRecording Corporation, which then included UREI, UnitedWestern Studios in Hollywood, and Coast Recorders in

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Five years afterBing 's lastrecord, and tenyears after Bill'slast mixingsession, Bingcalled and askedhim to cut a newrecord. Billquipped, ''If youthink you canstill sing, I guessI can still mix!"

San Francisco. He was responsible for developing severalproducts including the UREI 1176 limiter, various studiosignal processing and equalizing devices, as well as thefamous UREI monitor loudspeakers.

An abbreviated lis t of some of Bill 's recorded artis tsinclude Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, DeanMartin, Pat Boone, Billy Vaughn, Stan Kenton, Guy Lom-bardo, Nat King Cole, Nelson Riddlc, Gordon Jenkins andAndre Previn.

A f e l l o w a n d h o n o r a r y m e m b e r o f t h e A E S , B i l lreceived several awards for h is contr ibut ions to soundrecording and film.

Bill. would you tell us some of your early experiences insound recording and film?

Putnam: There has been a lot of interest in "the way itwas." particularly from younger mixers. They are curiousabout the hardware o r the lack of it , the s tudio environ-ment; and the early days which ushered in the era of tryingto create new sou nds.

I was personally involved in making the first records forthe Chess Records label; and that's about as early as youcan get. Before anybody ever heard of them, I was record-ing a r ti s ts s uch as M uddy Wate r s, B o D idd ley , ChuckBerry, Little W alter, Fats Do mino - could go on and on.There was a very famous jazz singer named Joe Williams,

who started out as a Rhythm and Blues s inger on Chessrecords. He later emerged via the Count Basie Band andbecame one of the top jazz singers.

The same was t rue of people l ike Dinah Washington,w ho I first recorded as a m emb er of a spiritual quartet, andwho later became a pop star. Another example was RayCharles, who started out as a rhythm and blues singer, andb e c a m e a m u s i c i a n ' s s i n g e r . H i s t a l e n t w a s u n u s u a lbecause of the broad spectrum of his performan ces.

The techniques improved, of course , as the hardwareimproved. With the advent of the feedback cutter, whichprobab ly con t r ibu ted more in a s ho r t s pan o f t ime toimproving our ability than any other single innovation ofthe time, we were able to record not only wider bandwidthbut higher levels with low er distortion.In going back through the archives and playing somerecords made 20 or 25 years ago [55-60], was amazed tofind that there was a lot more quality there than I ever real-ized was on the record because we have m uch better repro-ducing equipment today.

Sutheirn: How many microphones typically were usedin a session at that time, which w as before stereo?Putnam: Well , typical ly , so few i t would b low yourmind. One of my first experiences of ever having anyone

dictate to me how a session should be set up was in the724 J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 37, No. 9, 1989 September

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In session Na t King Cole (left) and Bill listen to a p layback .days when Decca records was surviving because of BingCrosby and some other names like Guy Lombardo. Therewas one session when Lom bardo not only brought in a dia-gram, but actually showed me where to place everything inthe studio.

There was one 44BX. which is an excellent old RC A rib-bon, on five saxes. They literally were seated in a semicircle.There was another 44BX on four brass. The brass were on ris-ers and the saxes were on the floor in the conventional band-stand set-up. The drums were behind the brass. The drummersuffered from several things: bad time, which had nothing todo with the recording. He couldn't see through the brass; andhe was so far away from the rest of the rhythm sect ionbecause the Lombardo band recorded with two pianos. Thepiano duet was important. What we did was place a 44BXbetween the two piano s with the pianos facing each other.

Universal Audio assembly (1954) behind the echo cham bers.Four original employees work on cascode mic-preamplifier,which put the company in bu siness.

Lombardo would have the band play chords , and hewould listen, pick out each part in the band, and then theywould play a cascading chord or a pyramid chord. Oncethe balance was established, I was instructed not to d o any-thing- and I mean it was hand-slapping time if you did.

Sutheim: Did you mic the drums at all?Putnam: No. Everything we g ot (most of the drum pick-

up) would be on the brass mike. All you have to do is lis-ten to the record. Probably m ore than an ything, my person-al efforts in the field were trying to introduce reverberationas another signal processing tool in order to enhance theenjoyment of records. We took a giant step forward in 47when we used the rnens' room in the Chicago Civic Operabui lding as an echo chamber . We obvious ly had someinteresting stories.

We had a very successful record that used reverberationas an important part of the whole sou nd in the Harmonicatsrecord of "Peg 0' My Heart." Suddenly everyone got onthe bandwagon. The addition of reverberation became veryimportant because it was a way of making three harmonicaplayers sound really big. That stimulated a knee-jerk reac-tion in the industry - ven Decca started using reverbera-tion and echo.

Sutheim: Can you tell us how you began manufacturingconsoles?

Putnam: We gradually started making modifications tothe broadcast consoles everybody was using. I started inthe manufacturing business about 1949 in Skokie, Illinois,while I was still located in Chicago. Out of those earlydays came the remotely-equalized preamplifier, the cas-code front-end design, and the first plug-in module.

One of the other products that we built at the time was alimiter. Most of the limiters on the market were broadcastlimiters (RCA, which was slower than molasses, and theWestern Electric, Collins and G E). Ther e was nothing actu-ally designed for the needs of a recording studio. The Uni-versa l Audio (which i s now UREI) model 175 l imi te rbecame the 176 with variable compression rat io, whichthen b ecam e the solid-state 1176. It was designed to satisfythe need for supplying the ability to optimize attack andre lease t ime as a func t ion of program mater ia l and toc h a n g e t h e c o m p r e s s i o n r a t i o t o a c c o m m o d a t e e a c hspecific type of u se.

On the hardware scene, I guess that was the genesis ofUREI back in Chicago. Of course, there are many thingsthat you can not fix in a microphone with equalization. Wewent through a period when we l i teral ly equal ized our-selves out of business, since we couldn' t put on a diskwhat we produced in the studio.Sutheim: You mentioned 112 speed mastering. Tell us

about that.Putnam: There was an ad by JV C that claimed they had

innovated half-speed mastering. I documen ted a recordwhich we released in 1956 on Mercury with a record num-ber and the liner notes. The reason I half speed mastered itwas a matter of circumstance. It was the only way I couldget it on the record. I happened to have a Scully lathe that Ibought from Larry Scully that had 16 213 rpm pulleys. Itwas built for the Institute of the Blind. I woke up about

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On e of th e record ing studio s at United (circa early 60 s) showing 2-track, 3-track ta pe mac hines , and "bass-reinforcing" soffitabove console.three o'clock one morning and thought about our fightingthe battle between the AE S, AES m odified, RIAA , and 1 6other pre-emphasis characteristics. The final modified AEScurve did not deviate much from RC A Orthophonic, whichreally became KIA A.

Then you lay on top of that the 13.7 dB, or whatever itis, pre-emphasis at 15 kHz. It seemed logical that if I couldmove e ve ry t h ing d own a n oc t a ve , t he p rob le ms o f 5 0cycles becoming 25 cycles at the low end might be lesssevere than the extant high-frequency problems. In 1953,we had built slip-over capstan sleeves for a number of tapemachines so as to double the speed to 30 ips in order toimprove the SIN.

I literally got up at 3 one morning and went to the studio,played the 30 ips tape back at 15, changed the Scully latheover to 16 213 rpm without evcn equalizing at the low end,just to get a feel for what was happening. I learned enoughbetween that time and breakfast to rriove everything down anoctave, which really gave us some headroom.These first Mercury records which were released in 56were half-speed masters. That's why I get such a kick out

of hearing that half-speed mastering was invented in Aus-tria. I can tell you that it happened in 1953 at 46 East Wal-ton in Ch icago, Illinois, at 3 a.m.Sutheim: What was your fi rst encounter with a taperecorder'?Putnam: My first encounter with a tape recorder was the

PT 6 Magnacord. M agnacord in Chicago had secured alicense from Magnetophon in Germ any and was building a30-inch wire machine.

Incidentally, in 1947, the only way you could splicc waswith a square knot, which was a little untidy and not tooreliable. By the way, you couldn't hear the knot go over thehead. It is a very delicate operation to get a square knot ona down beat. It's like doing it with a band-aid.

Early in 47 there was a hot record artist by the name ofPatti Page. Jack Rail, her manager, conceived the idea of amultiple v oice recording. No w this precedes Les Paul andMary Ford by a year. Les and I were goo d friends, and wewere comparing notes at that time. What I commend Leson is that he d id it all on disk.Sutheim: You preceded Les Paul?

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Putnam: Yes. The first multiple voice recording that wedid in 1 947 was with Patti Page. It was a subject of her awardon the country and western show where she received the Pio-neer Award. I was fortunate to be on the show only as it relat-ed to having done the first multiple voice recording. I did theoriginal tracks, the rhythm tracks on disk at 78 rpm on theoutside diameter of a 17 114 inch disk.Then we did the second generation and the rhythm trackwith one vocal part, usually the lead. I did the second genera-tion to wire, playing the disk back using either the WesternElectric 9 A o r the Pickering pickup. I found another trick: thedistortion characteristics of the 9A were different than theywere with the Pickering.1 ound that the distortion was not as no ticeably additive if I

alternated the pickups. In other words, I played back one gen-eration with a Pickering and the next generation with a 9A.The record was "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming."

Sutheim:You said your first encounter with a tape recorderwas a disaster. In what way?Putnam: You know, tapes spilling over because of trans-

port problems and so on. The fact that we were w orking inan area that was new to us resulted in various problems. Itwas more our fault at the operational level. Let 's face it ,there is nothing worse than a thousand little pieces, all lessthan an inch long - articularly when it's been a long day.The material was breaking and stretching , and we wereunable to adjust the tape. But, as far as sound techniques,the exciting things were the things we did on the staggeredhead- agnacord.

The other interesting thing was the demonstration we didfor the Chicago acoustical group in which we did eight tracksin 1953 on a staggered head machine using Brush heads.

We simultaneously recorded eight channels with a S/hT ofless than 30 dB and channel separation at 10 dB. Eight loud-speakers were placed around the room in the original positionof the performers. I mean you guys can laugh about the S/N ,but when you get a standing ovation for a 30 dB SIN, yo udon 't fight it. Audio did a big write-up abou t it.I know these things sound ludicrous, but there is a certainthrill that I hope all of you have a chance to enjoy at sometime in your life: it is the thrill of doing something first, andbeing a pioneer, as poor as the result may be. If you miss that,you are missing a lot in life. I can only encourage each andeveryone of you to try to find the circumstances under whichyou can achieve that, because it is more rewarding than inter-esting. It doesn't have to be good- hat's thc point. And theopportunities are there.

Many of our products at LREI started out on the basis ofwhat happened in the studio. I would say to myself, 'can RCA

be absolutely that right, that correct, and isn't there a betterway to d o it.' Th e first time I was ever involved in a film scor-ing session with David R ose in Hollywood and saw how theydid click tracks- couldn't believe it. I felt we were anti-quated in the recording business but that blew my mind. Eventhough it wasn't a big market, a click-track metronome wasobviously a product that was needed - o we made one[model 9681.Sutheim: Can you tel l us any anecdotes about recordreviewers?Putnam: There was a record reviewer in one of the high

fidelity publications about five years ago who had an 8-trackcartridge of a record that I had made 18 years ago. He ravedabout how rem arkable it was that this combination of jazz an dclassical music could be accomplished in a single room withDolby noise suppression and multiple track recording.The record they were talking about originally came out on

101 Strings Label and involved the Los Angeles Symphon ystring section and the woodwind section, and Stan Kentonalumni. It was a jazz takeoff with 60musicians live in studioA at United back in 195 9 or 60.

This particular reviewer went on about how amazing it wasnow that this could be achieved. Well, it so happens that I didthat simultaneously in mono and in 2 track, and what youheard is what you got. I was thrilled to death to get that kindof a rev iew, particularly using an 8-track cartridge; but it wasall done live.Sutheim: In 1 962 you wrote a description of the mostimportant qual i t ies a sound mixer should possess. What

would you say about that today?Putnam: In fact, I think it summarized my feelings better

than I could say it today. If you'll allow me (The moderatorreads):

The qualifications of a successful sound mixerrepresent a unique and rare combination of skills.He mus t be a de qua t e l y , t e c hn i c a l l y o r i e n t e d ,understand and evaluate the performance of thevar ious e lec t ronic and acous t ica l devices wi thwhich he works. H e must have sufficient musicalaptitude to interpret the wishes of the arranger/conductor. He must be creatively artistic, imagi-native, have a flair for showmanship, be willing totry the impossible, and have the ambidexterity ofan oc topus . He must have the unique ta lent ofbeing able to com mun icate with artists and direc-tors at any artistic level and to perform his func-tions deftly under extreme pressure. Abov e all, hemust have the patience of Job.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTWe wi sh t o t ha nk Bra d P l unke t t, o f Harman/UREI, Dean Aus t i n , a nd Bud Morris for the i rvaluable assistance in the preparat ion of this art icle . We also express ou r gradi tude to Bi l l Put-

narn ' s w idow Carol ine for her generos ity for a l lowing us to reproduce these ra re presona l photos .

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