In 1989, the Walton Street building was condemned, and Universal Recording moved to 32 West Randolph Street.
At its peak, Universal Recording Corporation employed over 400 people. Murray Alan became President of Universal Recording in the early 1970s. Upon Putnam's departure, Bernie Clapper became President of Universal Recording Corporation. In 1957, Putnam sold his interest in Universal Recording and moved to Hollywood, where he established United Recording Corp. Engineer Bruce Swedien began working for the studio. Producers and arrangers such as Nelson Riddle, Mitch Miller and Quincy Jones grew to prefer the studio for their big band and orchestral recordings. Universal Recording was the most advanced and largest independent recording facility in the country. His period at Universal saw a number of 'firsts' for the recording industry, including the first use of tape repeat, the first vocal booth, the first multiple voice recording, one of the first to use 8-track recording (preceded by Les Paul and Tom Dowd), the first use of delay lines in the studio, and the first release, in 1956, of half-speed mastered discs (on the Mercury label.) His reputation grew quickly thanks to his 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. Putnam's company quickly became Chicago's largest independent studio, recording projects for Chicago blues labels such as Vee-Jay, Mercury and Chess. In 1955, Putnam built Universal Studios a new 15,000 square foot facility at 46 E. The technology was developed by Cook Records in New York and exclusively licensed to Universal Records. In 1949, Universal Recording was granted a patent for "Double Feature", a method for putting two songs on each side of a 10-inch record. 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. Universal Recording soon became the hotspot for the Chicago music business. The song sold 1.4 million copies and gave Universal Recording Corp. His use of the building's bathroom as an echo chamber for the recording of Peg o' My Heart was the first artistic use of artificial reverb in a popular song. He struck a deal with The Harmonicats to help facilitate a recording session and record release in exchange for a portion of the sales of the record. Recognizing the need for Universal Recording to have a location closer to downtown Chicago, Putnam took over the studios on the 42nd floor of the Chicago Civic Opera Building at 20 Wacker Drive in Chicago. Putnam won a lucrative contract with to record and delay broadcast transcriptions shows for the ABC radio network. The Evanston facility consisted of one small studio with a Western Electric broadcast console and a Westrex recording lathe purchased from Otto Hepp.
The initial investment, most of which Putnam had borrowed from his family, was $20,000. His partners were Bernie Clapper (a former Valparaiso Technical Institute roommate) and Bob Weber (who Putnam had met while working with the U.S. north of Downtown Chicago in Evanston, Illinois in 1946. Putnam established Universal Recording Corp.