The Automatt

The Automatt was a sound recording studio in San Francisco, California, promoted for its early mix automation system. During its eight active years, 1976 to 1984, it was one of the top recording studios in the region. The Automatt was founded by producer David Rubinson and opened in an existing studio subleased from Columbia Records, who continued to record in the same building for a few years; thus it was sometimes referred to as CBS/Automatt. Rubinson leased the whole building in 1978 and from that point, operated three rooms for recording and mixing, a mastering room, a rehearsal room, and offices. The studio complex was known for its top-notch equipment, for the hit records it produced, and for the famous artists who recorded there. Under Rubinson and chief engineer Fred Catero it served as the training ground for respected recording engineers such as Leslie Ann Jones and producers such as Scott Mathews.

The first recording studio built at 827 Folsom Street in San Francisco was a brand new location for Coast Recorders, one of many recording studios Bill Putnam operated in U.S. cities. Putnam leased the Folsom location from its aging owner, John Vitlin, a Russian immigrant who co-founded Global Merchandising, an import/export company in San Francisco. To replace an obsolescent building housing Coast Recorders on Bush Street, Putnam designed a two-floor studio complex containing all the necessary record company elements under one roof: three recording and mixing rooms, a mastering room with a disc-cutting lathe, a high-speed tape duplication room, and office space for label and studio management. Unusually, five echo sends were available for use throughout the facility, two of them stereo echo chambers normaled (connected by default) to the main two studios.Francis Ford Coppola leased space on the second floor for his American Zoetrope film studio. The first session was taped on June 23, 1969, in Studio B, and the grand opening was held later that November. Less than a year later, on September 15, 1970, Putnam sold majority control of the building to Columbia Records, a division of CBS.

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