tighter than usual, in order to feed the plate more audio signal and get a cleaner sound returning from the device. So much signal was being sent to the plate that Porter disconnected the associated VU meter so that he would not be bothered with its needle slamming against its peg. Porter related that the EMT's springs frequently broke under the increased tension, and he would have to replace them, but that the trouble was worth achieving a "brighter and fuller" echo effect. Porter recorded nearly all of Presley's number one hits upon the singer's return from Army duty in 1960. Porter had not studied Presley's earlier recordings—he started fresh, "doing what I thought it should be." Instead of the usual microphones used by RCA, Porter chose to use a Telefunken U-47 on Presley's voice, recording several songs through the night of March 20–21, 1960, including "Stuck On You" and the ballad "Fame and Fortune". After Porter edited the two songs from the session tape, an RCA executive took the tapes from his hands to fly them to New York, where record presses were standing by and labels were pre-printed and waiting. The single "Stuck On You" with "Fame and Fortune" on the B-side was released three days later and immediately returned Presley to the number one chart position. Porter engineered "Are You Lonesome Tonight", "It's Now or Never", and other early 1960s Elvis hits. Much of RCA's business was what they called "custom" clients—independent labels not affiliated with RCA, but willing to pay for recording sessions at the proven hit-maker studio. One outstanding client was Monument Records under producer Fred Foster, bringing his client Roy Orbison. Porter was able to create for Orbison his trademark sound, with background vocals brought nearer the foreground, beginning with "Only the Lonely". For that session, Porter discarded his standard mix style of building up from a foundation of percussion, and instead used the vocal countermelody as the foreground sound, and built the other sounds below and around it, leaving the percussion almost inaudible. The song's success cemented this mix style as Orbison's sound. Other Orbison hits recorded for Monument at RCA Nashville were "It's Over", "Running Scared" and "Oh, Pretty Woman". Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" and Al Hirt's "Java" are other Monument recordings that Porter engineered at RCA. By October 1960, Porter was pulling in so many non-RCA clients that RCA decided to