STUDIO A LIVE ROOM STUDIO B
MULTI-PURPOSE HALL (L-R) OCL STUDIOS’ MEGAN OWEN, JOSH GWILLIAM & SPENCER CHEYNE
4K console that Potter and one of his tech-
nicians are in the process of restoring and is
just about ready for action.
Owen recalls a point where they had a
client renting The Hall and a band working
on an album project in Studio A; subse-
quently, there were musicians and creative
types all around the property, some focused
on work and others enjoying each other’s
company during some mutual downtime.
“I was just standing there thinking, ‘This is
why it all came together,’” he proudly enthuses.
Cheyne was the first of the studio’s current
crew to come aboard by a few months. In
2010, he and a partner founded The Station
Recording Co. in Calgary’s West Hillhurst
neighbourhood, which he continued to oper-
ate concurrent with his first few years at OCL.
Owen approached Cheyne about joining
his staff when he was ready to reopen and, as
Cheyne recalls, “The timing really worked out.
I figured, rather than trying to compete with
Dan and this big, beautiful studio, we might as
well just join forces.”
Around the same time, Cheyne’s stock
as a mixer was soaring on the back of his
work on Jocelyn Alice’s smash single, “Jackpot,”
which helped attract industry attention and
new business to his new professional home.
36 PROFESSIONAL SOUND
With Owen deciding to invest in a
dedicated mix room partway through 2018,
Cheyne formally shuttered The Station late in
the year and brought all of his work to OCL,
temporarily setting up in The Hall.
“I used to do a hybrid [analog and dig-
ital] thing,” Cheyne begins about his current
workflow. “I have an SSL AWS console and
had a ton of outboard gear, but I’ve slowly
been getting rid of things and right now am
always working in the box. I mean, the UAD
plug-ins sound so good and, really, I think I’m
doing the best work I’ve ever done.”
He cites instant recall as being one of
the key advantages of working in-the-box
these days. He also notes that, with Gwilliam
working on the Neve and a collection of
sought-after outboard gear, most of what he
mixes has already absorbed the sonic advan-
tages of analog circuitry.
While OCL can and does cater to virtu-
ally any musical style, both Cheyne and Gwil-
liam acknowledge that country comprises
a healthy percentage of their work, with
high-profile clients like Brett Kissel, Leaving
Thomas, and George Canyon spending some
time there in recent years.
Cheyne notes that, as country contin-
ues to push into the pop world, clients are
wanting an increasingly clean production
that’s conducive to working in the digital
domain; however, he plans to take advan-
tage of the SSL 4K in his new space when it’s
ready to go.
Over in Studio A’s control room, Gwilliam
brings nearly two decades of recording expe-
rience to his current post. He started his career
at Calgary’s MCC Studios before moving over
to Audities Studio while also doing some free-
lance work.
In 2010, Gwilliam bought a retired CBC
mobile broadcast truck and converted it so he
could record music pretty much anywhere,
from garages to old churches to abandoned
warehouses and beyond.
“That’s what got me really heavily into
shaping sound and knowing how to work out
a vibe in a room – walking into all kinds of dif-
ferent spaces and understanding how they’re
going to behave,” he tells Professional Sound.
The engineer knew of OCL Studios in the
first few years of its operations, though admits
that his professional curiosity was only piqued
when he heard about the Neve 88R coming
north. “So right away, I gave Dan a call and
asked when I’d be able to record some drums
there.” Owen told him they were still about
six months away from having the Neve being
operational, so Gwilliam bided his time in the
mobile truck until he got his callback.