[2] His partners were Bernie Clapper (a former Valparaiso Technical Institute roommate) and Bob Weber (who Putnam had met while working with the U.S. Army).
The Evanston facility consisted of one small studio with a Western Electric broadcast console and a Scully recording lathe with Westrex system purchased from Otto Hepp.
Putnam won a lucrative contract with to record and delay broadcast transcriptions shows for the ABC radio network.
Such artists as Patti Page, Vic Damone and Dinah Washington came through the doors; Al Morgan's "Jealous Heart" sold a million copies on the in-house Universal Records label.
Putnam and his studio's reputation grew quickly thanks to work with blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley, Little Walter, and Chuck Berry, and jazz artists like Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Little Walter, and Duke Ellington, who said Putnam was his favorite engineer.
Producers and arrangers such as Nelson Riddle, Mitch Miller and Quincy Jones grew to prefer the studio for their big band and orchestral recordings.