Associated was owned and operated by Nathan “Nat” Schnapf and Paul Friedberger, who met while working as radar technicians at Western Electric during World War II.
With the ascendency of Rock and Roll in the 1950s and 1960s, Associated's staple business became making “demo” records for up and coming singers and bands, and for New York's large community of songwriters, publishers and producers seeking to strike it rich with a hit song.
These songwriters acted independently of the major record labels, often working for one of the large number of publishing companies inhabiting the Brill Building and surrounding area.
It maintained a large assortment of standard and exotic instruments – from penny whistles to Hammond organs, and its engineers were always willing to experiment with new recording techniques to get that new sound many artists were looking for.
See, for example, David Simons, Studio Stories, Backbeat Books, San Francisco, 2004; Ken Emerson, Always Magic in the Air – the Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era, 2005, Viking Press.