31 Facts About Bill Putnam

Milton Tasker "Bill" Putnam was an American audio engineer, songwriter, producer, studio designer, and businessman.

Bill Putnam has been described as "the father of modern recording".

Bill Putnam was the inventor of the modern recording console and is recognized as having been a key figure in the development of the postwar commercial recording industry.

Bill Putnam was born on February 20,1920 in Danville, Illinois.

Bill Putnam began singing with a number of regional bands which played college campus gigs, developing his interest in jazz and the music business.

Bill Putnam returned to his hometown of Danville to work in the engineering department at WDAN, and later became the chief engineer at WDWS in Champaign, Illinois.

Bill Putnam began writing articles for Radio and Television magazine.

In 1941 at the age of 21, Bill Putnam received a draft notice and became a civil service employee working on radio ranges for the United States Army Corps of Engineers under the Sixth Service Command in Chicago.

Bill Putnam later worked for G-2 on several different projects, the first one was miniaturizing mine detectors to develop a miniature, concealable gun detector used by the United States Secret Service to protect President Franklin D Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference.

Bill Putnam worked for the Armed Forces Network to record big bands.

In 1946, Bill Putnam founded Universal Recording Corporation in Evanston, Illinois to pursue the development of specialized recording equipment and new recording techniques.

Bill Putnam secured a lucrative contract to record and delay broadcast transcriptions shows for the ABC radio network.

In 1947, Bill Putnam moved Universal Recording to the 42nd floor of the Chicago Civic Opera Building striking a deal with The Harmonicats to help facilitate a recording session and record release in exchange for a portion of the sales of the record.

The song sold 1.4 million copies, inspiring Bill Putnam to establish the Vitacoustic and Universal Records labels and attracted new clients to record with Bill Putnam at Universal Recording.

In 1955, Putnam built Universal Recording a new 15,000 square foot facility at 46 E Walton Street.

Bill Putnam's reputation grew quickly thanks to his work with artists such as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Little Walter, Dinah Washington, Vic Damone, and Duke Ellington, who said Putnam was his favorite engineer.

In 1957, with support from Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, Bill Putnam sold his interest in Universal Recording and moved to Hollywood, taking over and remodeling a defunct film studio at 6050 Sunset Boulevard establishing a new company, United Recording.

In 1961, Bill Putnam acquired the neighboring Western Recorders located at 6000 Sunset, remodeled it, and incorporated it into the complex which was renamed United Western Recorders.

Bill Putnam was Frank Sinatra's preferred engineer, and Sinatra put him on retainer to ensure his availability.

At the time Bill Putnam started United Recording, stereo recording was new and considered by the major record labels as little more than a novelty.

Bill Putnam negotiated a lucrative deal, whereby he was recompensed not for the finished recordings, but for the studio time used in mixing the stereo versions.

In 1962, sensing a business opportunity in the Bay Area's commercial jingle industry, Bill Putnam purchased a majority interest in Coast Recorders and moved the studio to a location at 960 Bush Street.

Bill Putnam eventually relocated Coast Recorders to a two-floor studio complex of his own design at 827 Folsom Street, where Francis Ford Coppola leased space on the second floor for his American Zoetrope film studio.

Less than a year later on September 15,1970, Bill Putnam sold majority control of the building to Columbia Records, a division of CBS.

In 1963, Bill Putnam extended his studio presence to Las Vegas when he established United Recording Corporation of Nevada, or URCON, complete with a fully-equipped remote recording truck.

In 1985, Bill Putnam sold the original United Recording studio to Allen Sides, who renamed it Ocean Way Recording.

Bill Putnam developed the first US multi-band audio equalizer and established Universal Audio as well as Universal Recording Electronics Industries in the second story loft of United Recording, in 1958 as a means to develop and manufacture studio equipment.

Bill Putnam's companies were responsible for the vacuum tube-based LA-2A and 176 compressors, and their transistor based successors, the LA-3A and 1176.

UREI outgrew the loft above United Recording and relocated to a wing of the Western Recorders building, later moving again to a much larger headquarters in North Hollywood, with Bill Putnam eventually selling it to Harman Industries.

Miriam died unexpectedly and Bill Putnam did not marry again until after he sold the company and retired.

Bill Putnam died in Riverside, California at the age of 69; he was laid to rest in Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village.