Professional Sound - August 2019

T

o call Dan Owen a “music

fan” would be a grand under-

statement.

Though the high-profile

Calgarian has carved out

a successful career in the

construction business, seemingly every other

facet of his public life pertains to music and,

specifically, the artistic community in his

home city and province.

Owen moved to Calgary from his native

Toronto in the ‘70s and has been a fixture of

its vibrant and ever-evolving music scene

since. In the ‘80s, he drummed in some

prominent touring rock bands and still per-

forms to this day.

He’s been a generous donor to ini-

tiatives like the National Music Centre and

currently sits on the board of directors for

The Prophets of Music, a local not-for-profit

dedicated to “supporting emerging artists in

the creation of exceptional music.”

Another notably cool facet of his

super-fandom is his vast and impressive

lot of instruments and music memorabilia

• including many pieces pertaining to his
  beloved Beatles. The crown jewel of that col-
  lection, though, is arguably the facility that
  houses most of the others: OCL Studios.
  Situated about 30 minutes east of Cal-
  gary near the small city of Chestermere, OCL
  Studios is one of the only commercial-grade
  residential studios in Western Canada, and
  while it regularly welcomes major projects
  from internationally-known clients, it also
  caters to emerging artists from Cowtown
  and its surrounding area.
  Professional Sound recently caught up
  with Owen and OCL’s two in-house engi-
  neers, Spencer Cheyne and Josh Gwilliam, to
  discuss the past, present, and future of this
  unique recording destination.

OCL Studios

273152 TWP 240

Chestermere, AB T0J 1X0

403-921-0429

http://www.oclstudios.com

“The germ of the idea came back in 2011,”

recalls Owen. “I was in a bar band back in the

‘80s, and we played all over B.C., Alberta, and

Saskatchewan for about four years, but we

never actually made our record.”

At that point, the idea was for Owen to

source some recording equipment and put

it into the “big barn of a house” just outside

of the city he’d purchased a few years earlier

without rhyme or reason.

One of his band mates suggested put-

ting in a call to Chris Potter, a renowned B.C.-

based studio designer and engineer who has

designed and built facilities for the likes of

Propelled by Passion

The Story of Calgary’s OCL Studios

By Andrew King. Photos by Oliver Banyard

AMS NEVE 88R CONSOLE IN STUDIO A CONTROL ROOM