before the Audio Cyclopedia

[PRR]

Some of us learned a craft through Tremaine's Audio Cyclopedia.

Here's what he was doing in 1947: teaching a section of Don Martin's school.

1655 Cherokee, Hollywood Calif is still standing, because it is too fancy to knock down. Seems to be hosting a "drag queen" (not drag race) show. Dunno what the guards are for.

[PRR]

In 1949 it was called University Of Hollywood.

Perhaps to cash-in on GI Bill tuition benefits. I know the school I went to was a sleepy broke place until (in part) several hundred ex-GIs clamored for education 1946-1960.

I suspect requirements were lower in those days. Today no accreditation agency would allow a BA on 18 months classwork; anyway part of the idea of "University" is a broad education, not a trade school.

[shooter]

Today no accreditation agency would allow a BA on 18 months classwork

The Navy classes were 5 days a week, 7hrs a day.  the program I was in had me doing that for 2yrs 10 months.  The math says, yep, that's way more hours in class than a "proper" education.  The proper Ed did credit me for the work, they just wanted 2 MORE years of the "well rounded studies".  I bought a truck and pop-up instead 

[PRR]

May 1950, first BS degree conferred. (Hmmm-- less than 8 months rather than 18 months?)

John Hilliard got an honorary, because he truly was a star of audio. From early talkies to special horns to stress masonry like an Atlas rocket takeoff.

Oliver Read was the editor of this and other audio magazines.

[PRR]

The 1950s are murky for Tremaine. Turns out he was in a secret project. But 1956 he and his dean did put out a book.

[pdf64]

The 1950s are murky for Tremaine. Turns out he was in a secret project…

Any thoughts on what that might have been?

[PRR]

Yes.

Meanwhile: this is probably the side-job which led to the Audio Cyclopedia. And a note on the state of the world.

[Grees01]

Very cool and interesting information PRR. Thanks for sharing. I'm local to Hollywood approximately 45 miles away. I venture down to the GC there from time to time. Does anything still happen down there at the University? Other than hosting drag queens?
G.

[PRR]

I would assume that 1655 Cherokee is a rental property (isn't all of SoCal?) and has had many many tenants over the many years. It does look in nice shape today, from the outside. I'm sure the "school" is long gone.

In 1960 Tremain got a job in BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panorama_Film_Studios
Panorama Film Studios, sometimes referred to as Hollyburn Film Studios, was a two sound stage and projection/dubbing theater complex constructed circa 1960 in the lower foothills of Hollyburn Mountain at West Vancouver, British Columbia. It was financed with help from UK investor(s) including Lord Folkestone, hence the name of the paved private road that ran from the Upper Levels Highway (Trans-Canada Highway 1) to the large studio parking lot. The studio address was 2280 Folkestone Way. Dirt mountain roads led from behind the studio up the side of Hollyburn mountain, at the time totally pristine tree-covered land. The building was eventually demolished and today the area is residential.

The studio consisted of two buildings: a large concrete block/poured cement structure consisting of two large soundstages, two floors of offices and dressing rooms. There was also a large projection room/dubbing stage plus projection booth, 35 mm sound equipment machine rooms and four large editing rooms. The sound equipment installation, primarily supplied by RCA, was designed by Howard Tremaine, author of the famed Audio Cyclopedia, who moved from Hollywood to live in Sunset Beach/Lions Bay area just northwest of the studio. Previously Tremaine had worked at the USAF's Lookout Mountain Film Studio and also owned and operated the private film technology school University of Hollywood.

Tremaine had installed large wiring troughs of shielded audio cable, running from the stages to the machine room, presumably to allow recording and playback. The building was wired with "wig-wags", bells and flashing lights to warm of active filming.

The earliest production at Panorama was The Littlest Hobo, a television series that ran from 1963 to 1965. The Trap (1966) and Robert Altman's "That Cold Day in the Park" (released in 1969) were early productions shot at Panorama. The sets for the former production stood on the two stages for several years until demolished in 1970 for Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge.

The facility went bankrupt in the mid-1960s and most of the sound equipment was removed and sold.

"...today the area is residential."

Holy moose! Many-million-$ multi-unit row-homes all the way up the slope!

[PRR]

Back to 1946-- Naval Research Lab, dynamotor noise. (This goes on for many 1/3rd pages.)

[PRR]

Obituary and life story.

[PRR]

The 1950s are murky for Tremaine. Turns out he was in a secret project…

Any thoughts on what that might have been?

In the obit you see "Lookout Mountain Air Force Station". This was actually the movie branch of the military and/or Atomic Energy Committee. We have all seen film of the atom-bomb tests in Nevada, Bikini, etc. Those are the ones which were declassified. There are others where the President was flown to the bunker in Laurel Canyon, north Hollywood, for eyes-only film showings.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Lookout+Mountain+Air+Force+Station
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lookout-mountain-airforce-station

[PRR]

J. D. Ryder was another important guy in electronics writing.
https://www.ece.iastate.edu/files/2019/10/John-D.-Ryder.pdf

Way more than you wanted to know.
https://ethw.org/Oral-History:John_Douglass_Ryder#Postwar:_Teaching_and_Textbooks

[PRR]

The secret project's location was spilled in 1958. (I'm sure this was cleared-- you could actually drive past the gates of the place, you just could not know what they did there.)

[PRR]

Later, Tremaine updated a 1950s book for the swinging '60s.

[shooter]

...Modest Mathematical skills... Is a relative concept 

[PRR]

Minor article in Radio & Television News, Jan 1952, gives Tremaine's racket as 'Hollywood Technical Institute,
3359 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, California'. Building dates to 1947. Today that is a dog-groomer, but across the street used to be Universal Studios, later Hanna-Barbera, altho now the 101 Hollywood freeway goes between.

[shooter]

We hired a double E college student, he was born in Mexico, migrated here at 14
one day Ro shakes his head and says; "did you know there are dog grooming places??"  ya, why?
"Only in America would someone pay to give a dog a bath!!"