Arrow Manual
Universal Audio History
258
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 conjunction with Ed Long, the 813 family of speakers.
Mentor and Innovator Allen Sides, currently owner of Ocean Way Recording, whose
studios today 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,” recalls Sides. “He’d designed his own mastering systems, because you couldn’t
do it any other way. He was recording on custom made 30 IPS 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,’
appreciated Putnam on many levels. “He was an exceptional businessman, with a
tremendous understanding 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.
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