The abandoned music studio
The abandoned music studio

The abandoned music studio

The abandoned music studio

A real monument in the history of music left abandoned

North of Montreal (Quebec), Canada

Built by record producer Andre Perry in the early 70s, Le Studio is a real monument in the history of music. Located in the Laurentian mountains, an hour and a half north of Montreal , the site was a huge recording facility, featuring the most advanced analog recording technology at that time. Artists would come from all over the world to record on the SSL E console, which only Abbey Road and Le Studio had at that time. What also made Le Studio so unique and world renowned is its environment, in the middle of the mountains, right across a private lake. Musicians used to come there with their families and entourage, staying at the private guest house, skiing in the mountains and getting inspiration from this beautiful Quebec rural area.

Perry sold Le Studio at the end of the 80s, and the next owners were not able to sustain the costs of operation of such a big recording facility, adding the fact that digital home studios were then becoming very affordable and high quality. The current owners are people living in United States and even if they have a spa conversion project, the place is clearly left abandoned and unused. 

Of course, we cannot talk about Le Studio without mentioning some of the records produced there. Think of Synchronicity by The Police, Saturday Night Fever by The Bee Gees or Moving Pictures by Rush ( Tom Sawyer's video was entirely shot there), to name a few. Those records changed the face of rock music. Speaking of Rush, the Canadian trio was a Studio regular, having recorded music there  up until 93, even when Le Studio wasn't Perry's property anymore. Cat Stevens, David Bowie and Keith Richards were also charmed by Perry's beautiful creative environment. The sound of those iconic records were still vibrating in the walls while I was in there. Or was it only in my head…

At the end of the 80's, Perry, again, ahead of his time, saw the growing multimedia market and expanded Le Studio with a whole video and computer graphic facility. The new section featured high end video technologies, where TV shows and shootings were being produced. The multimedia wing of the studio can be seen on the pictures with the beautiful window mosaic.

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