Interesting stuff

[Cousin It]

Found a link about recording engineer Bill Putnam,what a brilliant guy,he invented a lot of the stuff that is just taken for granted in recording studios nowadays.
http://www.uaudio.com/history/BPsr.html

[Steve Hoffman]

Yeah, he was the guy alright.

He invented echo, and much other stuff that engineers have used (and copied) ever since.

Listen to Ray Charles "I Can't Stop Loving You", engineered by Bill. That's the Putnam "sound" in a nutshell....

[indy mike]

Whooo, more, more, more of this kinda stuff needs to be posted - can we all maybe keep our eyes open and post cool daddy-o stuff like this???

[Douglas]

Anyone know what kind of console Bill is sitting in front of? 4 track? It's enorme. That's a great picture with the cig dangling from his lips.

[Sckott]

The "Sig on lips" is the #1 picture that comes to mind when I think of engineers of pre 1966. Tough, dippity-doo slicked back hair and drank-all-night look.

That's rock and roll. Kicking your ***.

[Steve Hoffman]

That's a Universal console, built by Bill.

Eight mic pots. You needed any more mics than that and you were ***** out of luck.

If Bill was engineering your session, you wouldn't ever need more than eight mics!

He would draw diagrams of his mic setup in the studio for a certain session and stuff the drawing in the tape box when finished.

Amazing reading!!!

[RetroSmith]

The "Cig on lips" is also responsible for so many of these talented peoiple being taken away from us.

I'm quite sure George Harrison wished he had never started!!

[lukpac]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman:
Eight mic pots. You needed any more mics than that and you were ***** out of luck.

Couldn't you add external boxes for more? I thought that's what Chuck Britz did. That EQ article made it sound like half the stuff was outboard.

[Steve Hoffman]

Of course. You could add 50 more mics. It's a free country! ;)

But, engineers like Putnam knew that the more mics, the more weird phasing problems there would be. The "old school" approach was to keep the mics to the bare minimum at all times.

Remember those great Big Band recording session photos in the 1930's and 1940's with two mics to cover the entire orchestra? They could have added more (like they would have if broadcasting a big dramatic radio show), but they knew that less sounded better.

Same approach that the Fines used on the one mic (three for stereo) Mercury Living Presence Hi-Fi series at the dawn of the 1950's.

Many engineers forgot their common sense (or retired) when multi-tracking came in...Carried away by finally having absolute control over the music.

What they forgot,(and a few are beginning to remember), is that music sounds best when the musicians have control over their own dynamics, etc...

[ December 26, 2001: Message edited by: Steve Hoffman ]