The world’s friendliest record company

Great music starts with someone who cares.

Dave at the keyboard with Sally watching

The Studio makes music for people who need it, helps independent artists create great records, and shares the entire journey openly.

🎯 Goal one

We strive to make
great music.

Our best songs, ready to play right here. Tap any song to hear it.

Featured songs

5 picks from the catalog

  1. 01 Lead Me Lord artwork Haddie - Lead Me Lord
  2. 02 Warm Music artwork Haddie - Warm Music
  3. 03 Sally, I Am Strong artwork Sally - She Is Strong
  4. 04 Find Your Island artwork Jah Vibez - Find Your Island
  5. 05 Just Dance! / Sola Baila! artwork Just Dance! / Sola Baila!

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Musical projects

Three projects.
One studio.

Music made in the open at The Studio. Three projects so far, more on the way.

Dave, project one of The Studio

Project one

Dlaney

The first artist of The Studio. Learning five instruments in a year and writing fifty songs in public. Warm, honest sunrise music about starting over.

20,370Total views
1,053Total plays
Sally singing, project two of The Studio

Project two

Sally

The second artist of The Studio. She sings for the kids who have been through a lot, writing songs in a notebook she hides under her mattress. Her journal is where the songs begin.

Short Bus: The Musical album cover, the cast leaning out of a yellow short bus at sunset

Project three

Short Bus

An original musical from The Studio. One little yellow short bus, five days at Pine Lake Camp, and songs about finding your voice and the friends who sing you home.

11/15Songs recorded

Want to join a record label? Learn more here.

The Short Bus kids together Meet the team

The $20 challenge

Get paid $20 to play an instrument for two months.

Learn an instrument for 60 days or get your first song up on the internet, and we will pay you $20.

Take the challenge
A twenty dollar bill

Open source

Mega Dashboard.

We share everything. No secrets at The Studio. Everything is open to the public: all of our streams, data, sales, and more.

Mega Dashboard Updated Sep 30, 2026 Streams 1,05321% of 5,000 goal Views 20,37041% of 50,000 goal Email subscribers 982 on Substack, as of Aug 31, 2026 Subscribe View the Mega Dashboard →
Dlaney smiling and waving hello

🐄➡💻 Our story

From cattle farm
to Silicon Valley.

Dave grew up on a cattle farm in the middle of nowhere, where the nearest movie theater was an hour and a half away. At 15, before he could even drive, he set up his first startup. That road led through New York City, a book-reselling business, and Denim Blog, the largest jeans website on the internet, reaching 25 million people.

Now it is The Studio, where technology, entrepreneurship, music, storytelling, and community come together. And he is learning piano in public, 67 days into a 99-day challenge.

The Studio brings more than 30 years of Dave Dlaney's work under one creative company, held to one standard: world-class people, world-class work, execution at the highest level. The record label is the music project inside that larger company, built on a simple open-source promise. Songs, lyrics, stems, tools, numbers, dashboards, money, experiments, mistakes, and lessons, all of it out in the open for other people to learn from.

The road here ran through a web design agency started at 15, New York City, six months working in India, six months at an orphanage in Bolivia, a book-reselling business, and Denim Blog, the largest jeans website on the internet, reaching 25 million people. Every chapter kept coming back to the same belief: ambitious ideas matter most when they stay connected to real people.

Dlaney is the flagship artist. The one-year mission is to learn five instruments, write 50 songs in public, and share everything that happens along the way. The aim is not to pretend every experiment is finished work. It is to make, listen, learn, improve, and leave a useful trail for the next artist.

And the measure that matters is simple: one person writing back to say the music genuinely moved them. Streams and views help measure reach, but a real human connection is the reason The Studio was built.

We are hiring

Come join
The Studio.

Paid roles, all fully remote. Come make music with us.

  • Social media partner$99/hr
  • Female gospel vocalist$65/hr
  • Male vocalist$45/hr
  • Music producer$45/hr
See open roles

Our mission

Spread goodness.

We are building the studio we wish existed. Open-minded, human, experimental, and committed to leaving people with more than we asked from them.

Read our manifesto

Contact

Say hello.

We would love to share our music and talk about the ideas we are building. Come join the conversation.

Message Dave on Instagram

Follow along

Listen and follow.

Hear the experiments, follow the process, find the finished releases.