Joe Elaschuk, the grizzly young bassist from Toronto indie band Foxfire, enters the recording studio and is asked to run through his part. He glances at the reporters and photographers scattered around the equipment-packed room.

‘In front of all these people?’ he asks, intimidated.

But he has a trio of easygoing, bespectacled veterans at the sound board to put him at ease: producer Moe Berg, front man of platinum sellers The Pursuit of Happiness; Juno Award-winning sound engineer Laurence Currie; and assistant engineer Wayne Cochrane. Elaschuk straps on his bass and adds to the rhythm track of a funky tune called With Somebody.

Many takes will be ordered by the patient yet exacting recording team, which is clearly pleased with the work in progress. ‘Those drum tracks are as good as the first two Talking Heads albums,’ says Currie, if one’s hearing above the playback can be trusted.

It’s all part of a taping for the TV series MasterTracks on fledgling digichannel AUX. On the show, young artists are brought into the studio for one day to turn out a professionally produced song with the guidance of Berg and Currie. (The song is subsequently made available for download at www.aux.tv.) The setting is Metalworks Studios, a Mississauga, ON facility that has hosted world-class acts such as Bruce Springsteen, Prince and Barenaked Ladies. But it’s the likes of Foxfire that music-themed AUX will most often spotlight – artists who are not yet mainstream, but one day might be.

The show is shot in a low-budget DIY style befitting of a Category 2 digital specialty. Set to launch on Rogers Cable on Oct. 1, some of the channel’s programming has been available on the web since November. While the multiplatform world is usually about conventional broadcasters migrating to the online space, AUX did it the other way around, and in March got its TV licence from the CRTC. Viewers have been able to catch a two-hour preview of AUX shows on male-youth channel Bite TV, parent company GlassBOX Television’s other specialty.

There are some heavy hitters on board this little digi that could, including MasterTracks executive producer Jake Gold, a talent manager whose clients include Berg and Currie, and who is best-known as a judge on Canadian Idol. (When asked about the fate of Idol, which drew blockbuster ratings before CTV put it on ice, Gold says he will know by December, although he refers to the show in the past tense.)

What Idol and MasterTracks both provide is the boost that could put artists on the musical map, but Gold is quick to point out his new series is not reality TV.

‘We’re not trying to create drama; we’re not trying to create tension,’ says Gold. ‘We’re not trying to create ‘great TV.’ We’re trying to make a good television show that people will watch because it’s giving them an insight into how this process actually works, and the relationship between a producer, a band and an engineer, what the studio looks like, and how tracks are actually recorded.’

While local indie bands will inevitably be the focus of AUX original series such as AUX Live, Camera Music and Band Foto, the channel also welcomes international acts – if they can get them. The thematic thread, according to AUX music director Jeff Rogers, is artists of any size who are groundbreakers.

‘Those groundbreakers could be Radiohead or they could be Foxfire,’ says Rogers, who has been a talent manager, label owner, and most recently, producer of the feature film Suck. ‘If Radiohead or Mos Def were in Toronto and came to our channel to talk, I would hope they would be able to talk to younger bands that are watching – or people who aren’t even in bands – and tell them how to [realize] ideas.’

Higher-profile artists will figure in news roundup AUX Weekly, talk show ExploreMusic with Alan Cross, and the acquired London-based series Later… with Jools Holland, in which the former Squeeze member hosts top-notch guests who perform and chat. Meanwhile, the older series Classic Albums looks at the making of records such as U2’s The Joshua Tree and the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bullocks. There will also be music-themed dramatic and doc films as well as shorts.

But what gets Rogers most excited – in an age when music channels have become increasingly crowded with scripted and reality shows – is good old-fashioned music videos.

‘We’re going to play right to the maximum amount of music videos that we’re allowed to play,’ he says. ‘And the shows are all about music culture and the stories around music. That’s our push – music and music culture, and I believe that will draw a pretty strong audience.’

But that audience – targeted as men and women 18-49 – will be limited, at least for now. Rogers, with a reach only as far west as London, ON, is the only carrier that has so far picked up AUX, with most of its subscribers having free access through the Rogers Digital VIP package. Raja Khanna, AUX’s founder and president as well as co-CEO of GlassBOX, is happy with Rogers’ placement of AUX at channel 107 on the virtual dial, but is disappointed about the lack of carriage in Western Canada.

‘We’re eager to get the channel right across the country,’ says Khanna, a digital media guru from his days as founder of pioneering convergence firm Snap Media and co-founder of mobile-video company QuickPlay Media.

‘There’s obviously a gap in our coverage on the western side of the country, which is too bad, because there’s an incredible culture and music scene out there as well. And we do cover all that, but it’s too bad [viewers there] can’t see it.’

Of course, that’s the glory of the Internet. AUX has had a robust presence on the web from the get-go, and it’s available for free to audiences around the world.

And while it’s a tough time to lure advertisers, AUX has presold to unannounced key sponsors through agencies Omnicom and Mediaedge:cia. Companies that have advertised with GlassBOX on either AUX or Bite TV include Molson Coors, Honda, Bacardi and Alliance Films.

AUX’s launch campaign encompasses TV, radio and print ads, digital billboards, and presence on MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and Joost.

‘When we raised the money to do all this, the real premise was we were going to build a company that could reach a new generation of media consumers in an integrated fashion – in ways that they consume media,’ Khanna says.

Funding for GlassBOX was raised through 21 investors, including such industry heavyweights as former CHUM head Jay Switzer, former Standard Broadcasting president Gary Slaight – a couple of guys who know about music programming – and Frantic Films CEO Jamie Brown.

Although Khanna says the margins for AUX should be high, there is no question that for him and his colleagues the channel is primarily a labor of love. ‘This is my dream job,’ says Khanna, who plays guitar in a band called Dirty Penny. He insists that won’t necessarily result in puff pieces about his group scattered throughout the AUX schedule.

‘If there are, it will have nothing to do with me. I’ve made it very explicitly clear to everyone here that my band is not to get any favorable treatment,’ he says, laughing.