Universal Audio

Universal Audio - Behind The Brand
As CEO of Universal Audio, Bill Putnam Jr has pioneered some of the most important innovations of the last 35 years. In conversation with Sound On Sound's Sam Inglis, he traces the Universal Audio story back to its founding by his father Bill Putnam Sr in 1958. We hear how and why Bill Jr decided to relaunch the Universal Audio brand, and how they moved from meticulously recreating Bill Sr's analogue designs to cutting-edge digital modelling, culminating in today's launch of the latest generation of Apollo recording interfaces.

Chapters

• (00:00) - - Introduction
• (00:25) - - Bill Putnam Sr.
• (04:24) - - A Natural Entrepreneur
• (05:49) - - From Physics To Electrical Engineering
• (10:44) - - Early Technological Hurdles
• (12:46) - - Digitally Emulating Analogue Equipment
• (14:39) - - The Challenges Of Emulating Tape And Speakers
• (17:35) - - The SHARC Processing Chip
• (18:18) - - The Endurance Of DSP Platforms
• (20:44) - - Developing The Apollo Audio Interface
• (21:47) - - The Advantages Of Thunderbolt
• (23:16) - - Adding DANTE To The x16D
• (25:02) - - The New Generation Of Apollo Interfaces
• (26:09) - - Multichannel Speaker Calibration With Sonarworks
• (28:21) - - Getting Digital Corrective EQ Accepted
• (29:43) - - Townsend Labs And Mic Modelling
• (30:40) - - The Bock Microphone Range
• (32:26) - - The Motivation For Creating LUNA
• (36:55) - - Developing Products For Guitarists
• (38:46) - - The Next Steps For Universal Audio

Universal Audio Biog
Universal Audio was founded in 1958 by Bill Putnam Sr., a passionate innovator and favourite recording engineer of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles and more. Putnam was the inventor of the modern recording console, the multi-band audio equaliser and the vocal booth, and he was the first engineer to use artificial reverberation in commercial recording. Alongside his friend Les Paul, he was also involved in the early development of stereophonic recording. Many of his legendary studio and equipment designs are still in use today.

Universal Audio was re-founded in 1999 by Bill's sons, James Putnam, a skilled audio engineer and Bill Putnam Jr, who earned a degree in Electrical Engineering. Their two main goals were to faithfully reproduce classic analogue recording equipment in the tradition of their father and to design new digital recording tools with the sound and spirit of vintage analogue technology. Their award-winning products include the UAD Powered Plug-Ins platform and the Apollo audio interface, first introduced in 2012. Universal Audio is headquartered near Silicon Valley in Scotts Valley, California. A few miles away in Santa Cruz is the Universal Audio Custom Shop, where their classic analog gear is still hand-built, one unit at a time.

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

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