Manual
15
History
The 610B
Bill Putnam was awarded the 2000 Technical Grammy for his multiple contributions to
the recording industry. He was highly regarded as a recording engineer, studio
designer/operator and inventor. Putnam was considered a favorite of musical icons
including Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and
many, many more. The studios he designed and operated were known for their sound
and were an experimentation ground for his continuing desire to push the envelope.
Universal in Chicago, United and Western in Los Angeles (now Ocean Way and Cello)
all preserve elements of his room designs.
The companies Putnam started, Universal Audio, Studio Electronics, and UREI, built
products – mostly of his design – that are still in regular use decades after their
development.
In 1999 Bill and James Putnam re-launched Universal Audio to reproduce classic analog
recording equipment designed by their father and others. In a short time the company has
released two reproductions, the 1176LN and Teletronix LA-2A compressors, designed
the 2-610, a new mic-pre inspired by a classic, acquired a company (Kind of Loud
Technologies), and launched Powered Plug-Ins, the first in the Universal Audio Digital
product line. Whatever the endeavor, every project taken on by the UA team is driven by
it historical roots and a desire to wed classic analog technology with the demands of the
modern digital studio.
The 2-610 was inspired by the Putnam-designed 610 console built in 1960 for his United
Recording facility at 6050 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood (now Oceanway). As
was the case with most of Putnam’s innovations, the 610 was the pragmatic upshot of a
recurring problem in the studio: how to fix a console without interrupting a session. The
traditional console of the time was a one-piece control surface with all components
connected via patch cords. If a problem occurred, the session came to a halt while the
console was dismantled. Putnam’s solution was to build a mic-pre with gain control, echo
send and adjustable EQ on one modular chassis using a printed circuit board. While
modular consoles are commonplace today, the 610 was quite a breakthrough at the time.
While the 610 was designed for practical reasons, it was aesthetic appeal that made it
popular with the recording artists who frequented United and Western in the 60’s. The
character of the mic-pre in particular made it favorite of engineers like Bruce Swedien,
Bruce Botnick, Lee Hirschberg and Jack Joseph Puig; and artists including Sarah
Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and The Beach Boys. Swedien describes the
character of the preamp as “clear and open” and “very musical”.
Studios 2 and 3 at Western, which featured the 610 console, were the site of many classic
recordings of the 60’s, including the Mamas and the Papas (Bones Howe), Up, Up and
Away by the Fifth Dimension, Herb Alpert, Sergio Mendes (Bruce Botnick), and of
course Pet Sounds.
Legendary engineer Wally Heider, manager of remote recording at United, used his 610
console to record many live recordings including Peter, Paul and Mary “In Concert”
(1964), Wes Montgomery’s “Full House” (1962), and all of the Smothers Brothers Live
albums. Hieder’s console was later acquired by Paul McManus in 1987, who spent a