The
story about ChurchGarden Studios is at the same time the story about the founder
and owner, Lars Dahlqvist.
Everything
started in the beginning of the 60`s. The founder Lars Dahlqvist was playing
electric bass in a rock and roll band. The band made a recording in a small
radiostation up in the northern parts of Sweden. They recorded on a Revox G36, a
valve operated tape recorder made for semi professionals, it was a very
fashionable tape recorder at that time. The recording and the song did not turn
out to a hitsong, but Lasses interest for recording started at that time. He got
educated in the restaurantbusiness and the second half of the sixties and the
beginning of the 70´ he was making the familyplatform and a business career.
Ever
since that day Lars has carried out his interest for recordings and productions.
He built his first professional recording studio 1979. It become at the
same time a musicshop where he could combine the latest inventions in
soundengineering up till the best sounding instruments you could by for money at
that time. The studio named Tonecontroll was one out of the few real
professional studios you could find in Sweden at that time.
He
sold out his business 1984 to one of he's best friends, Andrzej Poniatowski, a
famous producer and engineer from Poland. He still operates today, now as a
mastering lab audiomix@algonet.se . In
an old farm Lars created his next studio 1984, now he was going digital.
He bought two Hitachi Digital Taperecorders
and via ping-pong technique he made
very good sounding recordings of classical music. 1986 he sold out
his second studio and made a
new carrier in the restaurantbusiness.
Lars
returned to his hometown 1991, still carrying the dream of making the ultimate
studio for production. It took him four years to find what he wanted. He bought
an old Baptist church -95 and started to build what turned out to be
the ChurchGarden Studio.
He met an Scottish musician Tom Mac Lear http://www.maclear.net
touring with the famous actor and rock and roll singer Joe Penny. Lars
and Tom became very good friends and the two started to fulfill the plans what
was going to become the Churchgarden With financial support from Tom and
with a big effort from Lars and his closest friends Anders Sellin,Mats Byström.
The studio became a reallity the summer of 1996. Tom has visit the studio once after he moved back to USA but hopefully he is going to make his next album in his church I strongley recomend a visist to Toms Home page
Lars has during the time the studio has existed been struggled and working hard to make a platform for helping and supporting engineers and producers We could mention names as Mårten Eriksson, Mikael Nilsson, Brian Frank, Per Svensson that has gained there experinces from the concept that was created by Lars and Tom
Lars
and Tom had three basical thoughts about the studio.
First
to make a place with an international feeling where you could loose yourself
into some kind of timeless and placeless state where the sensitive artist find
his soul. Outdoor inside to achieve such an environment where you could stay
over a long period with out missing anything the conveniences is at a very high
level.
Second
was to make the best out of analog and combine with digital technique. There choice of equipment is not a
coincedence, it has been handpicked and saved over
the years.
Third
to make the studio to be a scool for young musicians who wanted to become
producers and musicmakers. They wanted to share there experiences with the next
generation of engineers and producers in Sweden .
Every
thing has been fulfilled exept for
the school ! That is another
question, sooner or later everting will turn out for the best. It happens now
and then that he practices as a chef in the kitchen downstairs.
He often says that running a studio is a way of living and after I´ve
spoken to him and been seeing what he has made out of his dreams and
visions I fully agree.