A former alternative rock musician whose band had success recording on a major studio label and touring with the likes of the Tragically Hip has now turned his attention to recording other musicians in a one-of-a-kind Parkdale studio.

John Critchley, former frontman of Toronto-based 13 Engines, has turned a century old building, tucked behind his Parkdale home, into the Green Door Studios.

Critchley has worked on albums for a number of notable musicians including Elliott Brood, Jane Bunnett, The Warped 45s, NQ Arbuckle and Vancouver's Dan Mangan from Vancouver, recently short-listed for the Polaris Prize.

"Being on this side of the glass, what is most enjoyable is helping people to create what they are hearing in their head and trying to envision what their dream is," he said.

Critchley is currently working with local bands Dora Alexander, Graham Wright from Tokyo Police Club and Mexican Divorce. The space is also used as a rehearsal studio and has hosted the likes of Sarah Harmer, Sun Parlour Players, Fiest and The Rheostatics.

He bought the house in 2002 largely because he thought the century old brick building in the backyard would make an ideal space to make music.

He isn't really sure what the building's original purpose was although he suspects it was a blacksmith's workshop or some other industrial purpose.

Critchley had been living in the Annex and admits he wasn't familiar with the Parkdale neighbourhood. It wasn't quite yet the hub of musicians and artists it is today.

"Parkdale in the past there was always an artistic scene, visual arts and music because it's downtown and it used to be affordable," he said. "I think Parkdale has managed to pull off a pretty neat trick in the sense that it has managed to retain so many artists and musicians and to flourish and yet it is getting more gentrified.

"When we bought this place the building had a dirt floor and the ceiling was caved in and didn't have any power or water," Critchley said.

Now it is two complete rooms: a live room and a control room fashionably decorated with colourful carpets and exposed brick walls - and of course the distinctive green doors.

He built the live room first with the intention of using the other room as a place to park his car.

"So I had this little studio and people started showing up to record so I decided to expand and make this a control room," he said while sitting in the space, once meant for a car, now home to a 32-channel Yamaha PM2000 analogue console, a rare find in most modern studios. He pairs this with The Radar II, a 24-channel digital recorder.

"Part of what we do is we try to marry the digital side of things with the analogue side of things and use nice-sounding analogue gear and mix it analogue and use good sounding digital gear, which to me makes a huge difference in the sonic sound," said Critchley, who is largely self taught.

Digital recording is getting better, but he said with some of the equipment there can be a lack of depth in the recording so Critchley combines his years of musical experience to bring the two forms together.

Critchley grew up in North Bay and was always involved with music. He moved to Toronto at the age of 18 and studied music at York University.

"The studio at York University had these big huge old analogue synthesizers that looked kind of like the controls on Star Trek with big knobs and switches, not like a modern synthesizer at all," he said. "It had a four-track analogue reel-to-reel and a mixing board and I would do the school work I was supposed to for the course, which was all sonic soundscapes, audio collages and do a lot of editing of tape with a razor blade."

When he finished his schoolwork he would sneak his band in to record songs.

Those recordings were the ground work that lead to 13 Engines, an alternative rock band active in the 1990s, which Critchley was the singer and lead guitarist.

"When we started, terms like alternative rock didn't really exist and independent music was just really starting to happen at that time," he said. "We did a couple records with a label in Detroit called Nocturnal Records and then we did three records with Capital/EMI."

The band recorded a number of albums and toured extensively before going their separate ways. Critchley continued as a solo artist and recorded an album with ex-13 Engines guitarist Scott Stevenson entitled Crooked Mile in 2000. Critchley continues to write music for film and television.

"In the late 90s I spent a lot of time getting into computers and exploring the possibilities of recording that way, which at that time was not nearly as common as today," he said. "I got pretty fascinated with the whole process, so I spent a lot of time recording myself and learning about the technology of recording."

He knew a lot about analogue recording from working in 13 Engines and also studying music, but then took the time to learn the whole digital side of music recording.