Pioneer Bill Putnam, an early architect of the modern recording studio, used techniques at his studio at Chicago’s Civic Opera that would come to define the modern record engineer, such as the use of tape and multi-tracking, creatively-deployed reverbs, and overdubbing. The post-war era also saw the rise of important independent studios such as Radio Recorders in Hollywood, Gotham Studios in New York, and The Barn in Nashville.

Companies such as RCA – who maintained studios in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood – Decca, Universal Recording Corporation, and Columbia Records began to focus on developing studio techniques. However, the idea that recording studios could play a key part – in terms of equipment and atmosphere – in the creation of great music took hold in the 40s, with the proliferation of tape as a recording medium (when thermos plastic allowed for considerable improvement in the sound quality of recording). In the 30s, record companies were focused on producing and selling soundtracks to the film industry. The music industry never looked back, and Victor, Colombia, and HMV were among the first record labels to seize on the ability to record electrically and organize an industry to produce and market the records that were now mass-selling products. The big transformation in that decade was when microphones and amplifiers could be electronically mixed to form a single signal. Photo: Library Of Congress, Manuscript Division, Brady-Handy CollectionĪt that time, musicians would be recorded as they played or sang in real-time, and the performance would be captured directly on master discs. Thomas Edison, pictured with one of his earliest phonographs, in 1878.

Photo and audio mixer