The History of Ocean Way

Learn how the recording studio dubbed “America’s Abbey Road” inspired generations of artists and engineers.

Few recording studios are synonymous with greatness. Prized by artists and producers for their unmatched acoustics and unrivaled gear, the rooms inside 6050 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood are such places. 

Now captured as a UAD plug-in with Ocean Way Studios Deluxe, these studios have helped shape nearly seven decades of recorded music. Here, we showcase their rich history and the artists they hosted.

 

Universal Recording

Throughout the 1940s, UA founder Bill Putnam was already writing the book on recorded sound. Under the Universal Recording brand, he treated his studios not merely as places to document performances, but as instruments themselves, advancing what was possible in recording.

In Chicago, Putnam employed the first overdubbing techniques on a hit record, by bouncing between a disk recorder and wire recorder. He was the first to use artificial reverb, sending signal to the studio bathroom as an echo chamber. He invented concepts that now define modern mixers: channel EQ, cue sends, reverb returns, multitrack switching. He designed purpose-built consoles and outboard electronics and embraced stereo recording earlier than anyone. His combined skills as a musician, songwriter, producer, engineer, technician, inventor, studio designer and entrepreneur remain unparalleled to this day.

 

Putnam's design at 46 E. Walton Street in Chicago brought studio construction techniques to new heights.

By the mid 1950s, Putnam owned and operated the largest and most successful independent recording studio in the country. Universal generated hit records from rhythm and blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. Putnam hosted bandleaders and composers such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie. Artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra all became his regulars.

 

M.T. “Bill” Putnam listening to playback with Nat King Cole, Universal Recording

 

United Recording

By the late 1950s, with a large chunk of Putnam’s business moving west, clients urged him to open a Los Angeles studio. Sinatra not only encouraged the move, but was financially invested. With this opportunity, Putnam envisioned a recording studio that embodied his engineering ideals and followed his philosophy of limitless creative control over the recording process.

Right in the bustle of Hollywood, a building at 6050 Sunset Boulevard was the ideal canvas for Putnam’s next leap forward. The space quickly transformed from a retired film soundstage into a purpose-built recording complex.

United Recording centered around two main rooms: Studio A — the larger of the pair — was built to accommodate orchestras, big bands and film sessions. At 70,000 cubic feet, its generous size made it LA’s biggest and most flexible room, and was described as being open, dynamic, and powerful.

Studio B was smaller, tighter, and perfectly balanced for smaller ensembles. At 23,000 cubic feet, it was engineered to capture every nuance of a vocal or rhythm section — an instrument in its own right. Of all his studio designs, Studio B was the one Putnam considered his most complete acoustic statement.

 

“Of all the rooms that Bill Putnam designed and built, Studio B was his favorite.”

Allen Sides

 

United Recording - Studios A and B in 1958

From the outset, United was more than a studio; it was Putnam’s living laboratory for sound. He drew up the electrical and acoustic schematics, designed the console topology, wiring harnesses, and custom electronics that unified the facility. On the second floor, he built an array of reverb chambers, each with unique, asymmetrical details and dimensions for a range of decay and color.

On that same floor, United became the first official home of Universal Audio, the manufacturing company Putnam founded to build the consoles, compressors, and amplifiers that powered his sessions.

United Recording was completed in 1958 and became the industry state of the art. The results spoke for themselves. Frank Sinatra tracked some of his biggest hits like “It Was a Very Good Year”, Ray Charles found its sound perfect for his blend of big band energy and soulful country music. Bing Crosby loved it for the intimacy, the way the walls seemed to caress his voice. Within a couple of years, United was viewed as a seamless union of artistry and engineering.

 

United/Western Studios

Schedule demand exploded in the wake of United’s success. In 1961, Putnam annexed and redesigned the adjacent Western Recorders at 6000 Sunset Boulevard, interconnecting the studios with tie lines. He renamed the expanded complex United/Western Studios.

Studio 1 was the flagship, capable of holding 70 musicians. It was famously used to capture “My Way”, “That’s Life” and many more of Sinatra’s hits. Studio 2’s medium size primarily attracted TV and film work, while the smaller Studio 3 became home base for many young bands and their producers. This expanded complex became the recording epicenter of Los Angeles, running 24 hours a day.

 

Frank Sinatra and Quincy Jones in United Studio A

Through the 1960s and ’70s, the artists and their records that defined the era — pop, folk, soul and rock — married performance and fidelity in a way that no other studio could duplicate. You could walk in one room and hear the Wrecking Crew backing up the latest hit singles or TV themes, and find The Beach Boys crafting their unique vocal sound in another. Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, The Righteous Brothers, The Mamas and the Papas, The 5th Dimension, and even Elvis’ Comeback Special were all recorded at Western. Later artists included The Doobie Brothers, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Player, Little Feat, and Blondie.

 

The Beach Boys in United Studio A - Rehearsing during the Smile sessions

 

The Garage on Ocean Way

In 1969, a bright-eyed audio enthusiast named Allen Sides secured a coveted summer job as runner at United/Western. It was his first direct encounter with Putnam’s recording-making empire. The experience had a dramatic impact, and imparted a wealth of inspiration and would ultimately set his life on a new trajectory. He did not yet know Putnam, but Bill had already become a mentor from afar.

In the 1970s, Allen Sides began building custom loudspeakers and leased a garage in Santa Monica as a hi-fi showroom. This garage was within steps of the Pacific, situated on Ocean Way. Knowing what sounded best on his speakers, Allen began cutting his own live to two-track recordings as demo material. He sold numerous speaker systems within the industry, thanks to those impressive demo tapes. But the musicians he encountered wanted their own songs to sound like Allen’s demos. From this, Ocean Way Recording was born.

 

Putnam’s custom console from Western 1, bought by Sides’ for his Ocean Way garage studio

Sides’ recording business needed a proper console. A serendipitous moment arrived when he heard Putnam’s business manager needed to clear space. Allen jumped on the opportunity, making a proposal on a trailer stuffed with United/Western’s retired equipment.

He made an audacious offer and carted off a trove: Fairchild limiters, Universal Audio limiters, McIntosh power amps, an array of tube microphones and Putnam’s original Studio 1 console from Western. Within hours, he’d sold select items from the haul to cover his check. As Allen said: “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure… It was enough equipment to completely fill my garage studio. And it led to a life-changing meeting with Bill Putnam.”

 

“For $6,000, he carted off Fairchild limiters, McIntosh power amps, tube mics, and Putnam’s original Studio 1 console."

On Allen Sides acquiring retired gear from Western Studios

 

When Putnam returned from a business trip, he was shocked to hear of the deal Sides made for himself. He insisted the two should meet. The mood in Putnam’s office quickly shifted from tension to laughter as the details unfolded over the young man’s victory. Bill was impressed enough to propose a partnership in surplus audio sales and studio liquidation, while each ran their own recording studios.

Their relationship developed into a lasting friendship rooted in their shared obsession with recorded sound and the equipment — both meticulous listeners, both inventors, and both practical businessmen. The meeting marked the beginning of an alliance that would ultimately link two generations of recording history.

 

Allen Goes to Hollywood

By the mid 1970s, Allen was working out of many studios throughout LA, including Putnam’s. In 1977, a previous lease on Studio B expired and Bill offered Allen a bargain deal to take it over. It was through this invitation into Putnam’s professional lineage that Allen Sides would carry the torch of audio recording and design excellence that Bill Putnam began. He accepted, and immediately rebuilt Studio B’s control room to modern dimensions, which accommodated his latest custom monitoring system.Early sessions included Neil Diamond, Bette Midler, Chick Corea, and Frank Zappa.

Sides also purchased and further customized the one-of-a-kind Dalcon console Putnam commissioned for Studio 1 in 1971. Allen later added a bank of 40 API 550 EQs normaled to the console preamps and GML automation. The payoff was an incredibly low-noise punch, with immense routing flexibility. 

The one-of-a-kind Dalcon Console in Studio B

Originally limited on space to just the main recording room, Sides created a hexagonal dome nicknamed “the cone of silence” that could be raised and lowered to create an isolation booth when combined with gobos.

Eventually the lease for the adjacent TV studio was up, and Sides was able to add a huge iso room to Studio B. In reality, this “iso room” is a complete studio itself. While Sides' business through United grew, he also found time sourcing hundreds of tube microphones from Europe as studios “upgraded” to the latest phantom-powered condenser mics. Few would argue that Allen Sides ended up with the best and largest tube microphone collection in the world.

 

Ocean Way Recording

In 1982, Bill began leasing Studio A to Allen, affording him nearly the whole building for his creative purposes. He immediately began enlarging the control room to support modern workflows, track counts and monitoring. He acquired and customized a massive custom 44-channel API console as the centerpiece. Studio A once again became one of the most popular destinations in town.

One of the first big album projects in the refreshed studio was Lionel Ritchie’s smash album, Can’t Slow Down. Within two years, Sides finally bought United from Putnam, renaming it Ocean Way Recording after his first room in Santa Monica. The torch had been passed.

When Putnam finally sold his remaining business holdings, Sides stepped in and purchased Western, thus adding it to Ocean Way Recording. Under Sides the control rooms evolved, but the studios never lost their core identity. Allen remembered walking down the halls of Western Recorders when he was 16 years old, as the hottest studio in the country. “I certainly never dreamed at that time that I would eventually own the place!” Many years later, Allen sold Western to a new owner who ran it as Cello Studios.

 

United/Western to Ocean Way - Allen Sides in Studio 1 with some prized mics

Allen Sides later landed on an exceedingly rare Focusrite wraparound console as the ultimate large-format solution for Studio A, which he heavily modified to improve performance and efficiency. During this period, Studio A was on long-term lockout with Producer Jack Joseph Puig, who famously packed the studio control room like an Aladdin’s Cave of treasured studio gear, perfecting his techniques on records from John Mayer, The Black Crowes, Hole, Sheryl Crow, The Goo Goo Dolls, Counting Crows, and Jellyfish.

 

The custom Focusrite console in Studio A

The list of artists who made records during the years when Allen operated both United and Western is staggering: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, R.E.M., Guns n’ Roses, Whitney Houston, 50 Cent, Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, Natalie Cole, U2, Beck, Radiohead, No Doubt, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Garth Brooks, Elvis Costello, and so many more.

Simultaneously, Sides expanded his reach with other studios: Record One, and Ocean Way Nashville and Ocean Way St. Barth’s. Under Sides’ stewardship, the Ocean Way name became synonymous with sonic excellence — a modern counterpart to the golden-age innovation that began with Putnam. Combining the complete history of Bill and Allen’s studios, they have sold in excess of a billion records. Bill Putnam passed away in 1989, and will forever be remembered as “the father of modern recording” by Allen Sides and all the world’s audio community.

 

Bill Putnam with Bing Crosby, their last session together

 

Same as it Ever Was

Ultimately, eras come to an end. Allen Sides sold his interest in Ocean Way Hollywood, returning to his original passion of speaker design under Ocean Way Audio. But when the studio resumed as United Recording in 2015, it wasn’t an act of nostalgia; it was historic continuity. The new United Recording immediately took on the mantle that Bill Putnam began. Record-making history continues at 6050 Sunset, with big album projects as recent as Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, and Paramore’s This Is Why.

 

United Recording today - Studios A and B

 

— Will Shanks

 

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