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Since 1974, Phase One has turned out
international hits from Toronto. Recently renovated and thoroughly
updated, our 7,500 sq. ft. four studio facility has played
a significant role in Canada's Recording history with more
than 100 gold & platinum albums to our credit.
Pictures
from the Past
Original owners Paul Gross & Doug
Hill
at the Phase One opening party
CIRCA 1974
Paul & Doug chatting with legendary
producer
Jack Richardson
Paul Gross and Saga.
Paul produced Saga's debut album
CIRCA 1979
Paul Gross & Mick Walsh in Studio
B
CIRCA 1982
Studio B with SSL console
August 1986
Howard Ayee & Joe Primeau
August 1986
Rebuilding
a
Legend
written by Ron Skinner - Professional
Sound - August
2001
If you have
listened to any Rock and Roll over the
past 25 years you have probably heard the
sound of Phase One Recording Studio. You
may not have been aware of it at the time,
but while you were listening to KISS,
Alice Cooper or Triumph in the 1970s and
1980s, or Big Sugar, Barenaked Ladies and
The Tragically Hip in the 1990s you were
hearing it. You were hearing the sound of
the vintage Neve console and the acoustic
design, the isolation booth where vocal
lines were sung and re-sung, and the large
studio floor of Studio A where hundreds of
drum kits were smacked and banged. Every
nook and cranny of this legendary studio
has been home to an instrument and a
microphone. Every closet. Every dark
corner. On literally hundreds of records
over the past 25 years, the sound of a
legend was being captured. That legend is
Phase One.
Phase One
originally opened its door in 1973. At
that time, Canada as a whole, and Toronto
in particular, was in desperate need of a
world-class recording studio. This was the
golden age of the record industry and with
the huge success of Canadian bands like
The Guess Who and the introduction of the
Canadian content regulations, Canada
needed a place where artists would make
the records that radio was going to play.
Record producer Paul Gross and his
business partner Doug Hill recognized this
need and decided they would be the ones to
build it. Phase One was there to fill the
void and was a success from the very
beginning.
In the 20 years
that followed the original opening of
Phase One, the studio had seen it all. It
became Canada's premier recording
facility. It was home to several of the
most successful Canadian bands and their
producers. It was also, until about 12
years ago, home to Canada's most famous
mastering facility, The Lacquer Channel,
which was located in the room where Studio
B is now found. Gold records lined the
walls and Phase One became a legend.
But, by the 1990s
the industry had changed and in many ways
Phase One was having a hard time keeping
up. The recording industry in Canada had
grown and evolved. Where there were once
only a handful of high-end recording
studios in Toronto, there were now at
least 20. There were also big changes in
how people were recording, and, with the
advent of the ADAT and other modular
multitrack recording devices, people were
making their records at home.
To top all of
this off, by the early 1990s Doug Hill had
moved on to pursue a career in computers
in the US and George Graves had moved his
Lacquer Channel business to a new
location. And while Phase One did manage
to weather all of these storms, it was
beginning to look worse from the wear. By
1999 Paul Gross began to grow tired of the
recording studio business and was thinking
it might be time to sell. This is where
Barry Lubotta stepped in and began to
rebuild the legend.
Barry Lubotta is
no new comer to the professional recording
studio business. A Montreal native, Barry
started his music career while attending
Ithaca College in up state New York.
Somewhere between his classes and his
schedule as a player for the Ithaca
College hockey team, Barry found time to
play in a band. Members of this college
band went on to form Orleans who had
several chart topping hits including,
'Dance With Me' and 'Still the One'.
After finishing
college, Barry returned to Canada and
began trying to scratch out a career in
the music industry while working at his
family's business. He started recording
his original material in his home studio
and before he knew it he had a couple of
second market radio hits. His once small
home studio began to grow and by 1990
Barry was looking to take his hobby studio
out of the basement. When the family
business was sold in that same year, it
was time for Barry to make the move into
the professional studio business.
Pizazzudio,
Barry's first professional studio venture,
opened its doors in 1991. Being a
self-described audiophile, Barry's goal
for Pizazzudio was simple: "I tried to set
up Pizzazz to get the very best sound I
could, closer to audiophile sound - " This
strategy seemed to work and soon Pizzazz
became one of Toronto's most successful
independent music studios. By 1998,
Pizzazz had built a strong business and it
seemed like it was the right time to make
major improvements. Barry Lubotta
explains: " About three or four years ago
we got the API console which put us into a
new league there. Once we got the API
console we were able to get a higher
clientele."
Once these major
changes took place at Pizzazz, the studio
became even more popular and business
grew. As Barry Lubotta explains, it would
only be a matter of time before Pizzazz's
clientele outgrew the physical size of the
one room studio. "We were there a total of
10 years; we did a lot of music. We were
busy, especially in the last year or two
or three years -- we were very busy,
successful but on a smaller scale. I used
to sit around with Donny DaSilva, who is
now the manager of Phase One, and we used
to say, 'where do we go from here? This is
just too small; we've got the equipment we
just don't have the space.'"
It was these
discussions that led to the purchase of
Phase One. The first idea was to expand
Pizzazz in its original location, but then
Barry heard a rumor that Paul Gross was
thinking of selling Phase One. "I just
heard through somebody that Phase One was
possibly available. I contacted Paul Gross
- we made an appointment and had several
meetings - " From there a deal was struck
and on September 14, 2000 Barry Lubotta
became the proud owner of Phase One.
In some
situations, the purchase of a business
could be seamless -- one owner leaves and
the new owner steps in, makes a few
changes and then it is business as usual.
In the case of Phase One, such an easy
transition was not possible. Phase One had
been in business for over 25 years and the
studio was one of the busiest in Canada.
In recent times the studio had begun to
show its age. Barry Lubotta describes his
feelings at the time: "The thing that
scared me was that Phase One was a tired
looking studio. It had been totally
well-used for so many years but really not
a lot went back into keeping it up." The
one exception to this was Studio A, which
had stood the test of time much better
than the rest of the facility. "By the
time I got here it looked like it had had
it, other than the A Room, which looks
similar to the way it looks today," he
explains.
Barry and his
crew from Pizazzudio knew that rebuilding
Phase One was going to be a huge
undertaking. "I knew it was going to be a
very expensive venture and that sort of
frightened me but I decided to go ahead -
then came the hard part -- six months that
I wouldn't want to go through again in my
life - "
Martin Pilchner
from Pilchner/Schoustal International was
brought in to redesign the facility from
the ground up. Martin hired Sounds Wright
Acoustic Technologies out of Oakville to
do the construction and with the
assistance of studio owner Barry Lubotta,
studio manager Donny DaSilva, senior
engineers Michael Jack and Darius
Szczepaniak and 25-year Phase One employee
and technical wizard Micky Walsh, began
the construction job of a lifetime. Over
the next three months, Phase One, with the
exception of Studio A, would be totally
converted from its old design to a very
modern state-of-the-art multi-room
recording facility.
"It took a good
three months to do the construction --
very painful and expensive and by January
1st we opened up here," says Barry. He
goes on to describe how during those three
months Phase One would take the look of a
construction site instead of that of a
recording studio. "We had saws right
outside my office. I mean this was like a
jungle for months and yet we were still
having some sessions in Studio A -- not
many, but some. You almost had to wear a
hard hat to go through the place just to
get to your session."
It is obvious
when talking to Barry that this was a very
emotional time in his life. Moving from
Pizzazz, the studio he had spent 10 years
of his life building, was not easy and the
transition must have been bitter sweet.
All of these emotions came to a head for
Barry and studio manager Donny DaSilva on
December 10, 2000. This was the day that
the movers were scheduled to transport the
equipment from Pizzazz to Phase One. Barry
describes what happened on that
emotionally charged day: "We were supposed
to have movers pick up all of our
equipment from Pizzazz and they didn't
show up. So, Donny and I went out and
rented a Ryder truck and just the two of
us loaded the entire studio up in two
trips and we drove it over here. We're
talking a 12-hour day of just loading -
That was an amazing day in my life, I will
never forget that, it was freezing cold
but we did it."
From that day
forward there was no looking back for
Barry and his staff. It is obvious from
the tone in Barry's voice that he has made
the right decision. "When you hear a
legacy like Phase One is for sale, it's
hard to turn it down. You are buying a
piece of history -- it's a brand name -
that is nice to have."
The
reconstruction of Phase One began with
Studio B. This room was home to the
Lacquer Channel for several years and was
later converted to a mixing studio. Barry
Lubotta and Martin Pilchner decided that
this would be the first room to be
rebuilt. Barry describes the
reconstruction: "Studio B was a studio,
but we tore it down totally, gutted it,
enlarged it four feet back, which made a
huge difference, and rebuilt it from
scratch." Studio B was the control room
that needed the most work. Once Martin
Pilchner started working on the room he
quickly discovered that there was little
of the original construction that they
would end up keeping. "When we first
started looking at the B Room, we started
peeling it apart and the more you start
peeling it apart the less you want to
keep. It's kind of like peeling an onion
-- the more you start stripping away from
that, in the demolition phase, the more
you realize what you have there isn't
really worth keeping," explains Martin.
"You start ripping all this stuff off the
walls and you see how the walls weren't
terminated where they should have been.
The back platform really wasn't going to
be usable to get the cable management in
the way it needed to be. So we started
ripping out the back platform and sophit
because it wasn't positioned properly or
oriented correctly."
Martin quickly
realized that the room could then be
extended by another four feet. " - And
then there was the whole concept of taking
the room farther back. So, we started
looking at how the room was actually built
and there was really not much there to the
infrastructure of the room so it was
fairly simple to extend the length of the
room." Once the room was extended and the
structure was solid it was time to start
thinking about acoustics and aesthetics.
"There were a whole string of issues with
the room. First of all, in terms of what
they expected in the final look. They
wanted to get more wood and more warmth
into the room, which was great. We had to
rework all of the mechanical, get the air
conditioning noise quiet again and solve
all of that kind of stuff."
It was then
decided that the original Manta Design MEG
speakers would be kept, which meant that
they had to be removed from the wall and
rebuilt. Martin Pilchner explains: "It was
decided that they were going to keep the
existing speakers. They got ripped apart
and refinished and rewired in order to
change the whole electro-acoustic system
to bring those speakers up to speed." The
overall idea in terms of aesthetics was to
keep it simple and human. "Overall we kept
the pallet of materials real simple. Some
wood, one colour of fabric and just kind
of really neutral paint colours. So, we
make the room appear simple, but kind of
refined and let the equipment sit out. It
gives a nice comfortable feel to it," says
Martin. The difference that was made in
Studio B is impressive and when past
clients come into the room they hardly
recognize it. "The people who used to work
in that studio who come in now and take a
look, their jaws drop," says Barry
Lubotta.
While all of this
work was going on in Studio B,
construction began on Studio C and Studio
D. "There used to be a little C Room
there, which was essentially an office
with some treatment on the wall," says
Martin. "The Studio C that was there was
nothing more than an office and we tore
that down in a half a day, says Barry
Lubotta. "The Studio C that we put up took
two months to build. It's a
state-of-the-art type of room. Right now,
we are using it as a mastering/editing
room. It's got 12-foot ceilings in the
back, sloping to nine foot in the front.
It's got walls that are 12 to 18 inches
thick in some places. It's just a
wonderful acoustically created space."
The construction
of Studio C was, in many ways, much easier
than Studio B. This is primarily due to
the fact that Martin Pilchner was able to
start from scratch instead of working
within an existing design. "That one
actually has a real floating floor in it,
real sound isolation walls and it was all
built up to the deck with its own new air
conditioning system. We ended up doing
more on the C Room than was originally
anticipated but Barry had no problem with
that. He was interested in getting a good
product out of it and having a very usable
space," explains Martin. The room has been
designed with the future in mind as well.
It is currently being used as a mastering
studio but was designed with 5.1 mixing in
mind. "It's set up for mid-field surround
work as well as for mastering. That is why
the treatments in there are set up for
putting 5.1 speakers in there later on,"
explains Martin.
When it came time
to build Studio D, the concept was simple.
The room was intended to be used as a
small editing room and it was decided they
would keep its design straight forward
while continuing the theme of the rest of
the Phase One facility. "The D Room was
just going to be a little edit suite and
we decided, 'okay, well, we have gone this
far, we might as well do a little trick to
that room too.' So, we gave it the same
feel as the other two rooms and we brought
it into the same perspective - to tie it
all in," says Martin. Barry Lubotta goes
on to explain that Studio D is currently
being used by Juno-Award winning
engineer/producer Jeff Wolpert. "Studio D
is a small little room that used to be an
office that we built a studio in. Right
now Jeff Wolpert is working out of that
room."
When considering
what to do with Studio A at Phase One, the
decision was quite simple. Studio A had
stood the test of time much better than
the rest of Phase One, and besides, this
was a winning room. Originally designed by
George Augspurger, Studio A had been the
birthplace of countless hits and had
become a part of Canada's music history.
Making major changes to this room seemed a
little sacrilegious. "The A Room is what
made Phase One famous in the first place.
We made some changes but we are not going
to affect the structural integrity; we are
not doing those types of changes.
Everything is the same but we put a new
floor and new carpeting in the live room.
We put a new producer's desk, new floor,
new carpeting in the control room. We will
do more cosmetic changes like that
throughout, but structurally its going to
be exactly the same," explains Barry
Lubotta. "Otherwise, why take the place
over. It was the one and only place that
we could say, 'leave the space.' Clients
love that room and why change it. The
truth is that room was constructed in the
1970s, and sounds like a 1970s room, which
is both good and bad. It's a winning
combination and it would be the height of
folly to go in and try to re-create
something that's already had so many great
records made in it. But to go in and make
it look better, I don't think anyone would
object to that. Everything needs some
refurbishing after 25 years. So, we are
slowly doing that step by step by step."
The
reconstruction of Phase One has been a
long hard process for Barry Lubotta and
his crew, but the end result is obviously
worth the struggle. Since doing the first
session after the reconstruction in early
January 2001, business has been
tremendous. "It's been fabulous. January
was a good month. February was a better
month. March was better again. April was
excellent and May is going to be very,
very good again. We have been very
fortunate," says Barry. When walking down
the halls of the new Phase One it is hard
to believe that just three months before
there was a construction crew tearing down
walls. "When we first moved in here and we
looked around and started working, and
when we realized the magnitude and the
scope of what we wanted to do here,
everyone was saying that the only thing we
could keep from the old studio was the
Coke machine. That was the only thing that
you could say 'That's a keeper, it doesn't
need any work.'" Well, the Coke machine
did in fact survive but more than that -
so did a legend. "Phase One has been the
rock studio for 25 years; it was a hit
from the day it opened," explains Barry
Lubotta. With the reconstruction now
complete and the doors once again opened
for business, it is sure that Phase One
will continue to be a hit for the next 25
years.
Ron Skinner is a
recording engineer/producer who lives in
Toronto.
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