Mushroom Studios

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Mushroom Studios is a music recording facility located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is notable as the location that many classic albums have been recorded including those by Heart, BTO, Loverboy, Queensrÿche and Sarah McLachlan.

[edit] History

In 1946, one of Canada's first studios named Aragon Recording Studios was opened in Vancouver, aided by Al Reusch. Reusch was a musician, big band leader, and one of Vancouver's first DJs. By 1954, Reusch acquired sole ownership of Aragon Studios which would lead to the construction of Mushroom Studios.

The current home of Mushroom Studios was built in 1966 at 1234 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver. Built by Aragon from the ground up as a first class audio recording studio, it was an orchestral recording room for special sessions by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Howard Tremaine consulted on the original acoustic design and equipment installation. One of the first clients was Diana Ross and The Supremes, and later Led Zeppelin would also record there.

Within five years, Reusch (who apparently did not like the idea of recording post-Beatles rock and roll) would sell the facility to Jack Herschorn. Herschorn had previously co-founded Studio 12 on West 12th Avenue with Tom Northcott. Herschorn appointed Mike Flicker as Chief Engineer, Howard Leese as program manager and Charlie Richmond as Head Technical Advisor.

Herschorn bought the Universal Audio vacuum tube mixing console from United Western Recorders in 1971. Custom built by Bill Putnam, it had been housed in United Studio A at 6050 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood since 1957, and recorded hundreds of hits by such artists as Bing Crosby, Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Ray Charles. Jack had the console, along with other purchases, shipped to Vancouver and installed in Aragon.

In a sponsorship deal, the studios were named "Can-Base Studios" and later renamed to the current "Mushroom Studios" name. The studio gained prominence when Heart's hit debut album Dreamboat Annie was recorded at the studio.

The studio was updated in the 1980s to accommodate over 50 musicians in semi-isolated concert format to do film scoring for dozens of feature films and movies of the week from Chuck Norris to a redo of The Dirty Dozen. The studio was recognized for the film score album of Top Gun.

Recently in 2005, Rob Darch, owner of Hipposonic Studios, bought the Mushroom building from John Wozniak of Marcy Playground fame. The gear was not part of the purchase however, it will remain at Hippowest and for use by clients. The studio is currently managed by Engineer/Producer Aaron Nordean and functions with Shawn Penner as House Engineer.