20,370
Total views
YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. 41% of the 50,000 goal.
1,053
Total plays
Suno plays plus Spotify streams. 21% of the 5,000 goal.
Counts as of September 28, 2026.
The numbers
Where things stand.
The scoreboard. Real counts, updated every time we ship something.
Short Bus album
11 / 15
Songs recorded for the original cast recording.
First Light album
5 / 10
Songs recorded for Dlaney's debut album.
Piano challenge
Day 67 / 99
Dave is learning piano in public, one day at a time.
Demo catalog
46
songs on SoundCloud, from first sketches to finished demos.
Music videos
3
out on YouTube: Lead Me Lord, Find Your Island, Lift Me Higher.
Free tools
4
live experiments, free forever: MusicBot, the Equalizer, BPM Tapper, Be Happy.
The next two years
What we're building.
Ambitious on purpose, and every bit of it in public.
The mission
The world's first open source record label
Every song, lyric, stem, dashboard, and dollar, public. The playbook is the product.
Dlaney
5 instruments, 50 songs, one year
Dave is learning 5 instruments in a year and writing 50 songs in public. Demos today, debut album tomorrow.
Short Bus
A full original musical, plus two albums
Six teenagers, one little yellow short bus, five days at Pine Lake Camp. The Original Cast Recording and Dlaney's debut, First Light.
The audience
5,000 streams, 50,000 views
Real listeners, real views, no shortcuts. Then we 2x it and go again.
The craft
99 days of piano
One piano challenge, learned in public, one day at a time. Currently on day 67.
The toolbox
Tiny free tools for music lovers
MusicBot, the Equalizer, the BPM Tapper. Small things, built well, free forever.
The team
A paid, remote creative team
Vocalists, a producer, a social media partner. Real pay, fully remote, working in the open.
The business
A store that funds the music
Canvas packs, consulting calls, and more ways to support the work directly. Artists keep 100% of royalties.
Live builds
Try what we shipped.
Real things, live right now. Click through and play with them.
Experiment
MusicBot
Pick a song, play the easy notes. Real notation for beginners, transposed to C major with the letter name under every note.
Try it →Experiment
Equalizer
A full-screen live mic visualizer: play music out loud and watch it dance, in four color schemes. Nothing is recorded.
Try it →Experiment
BPM Tapper
Tap along to any song and get the tempo in BPM. Simple, fast, free.
Try it →Experiment
Be Happy
Happiness postcards in vertical 9:16, made to fill a phone screen. A little good thing, every day.
Try it →Build log
Everything we shipped.
Newest first. Big launches get a gold star. The full running log lives at /build.
The dashboard leads with the big numbers
Total views and total plays now sit at the top of the dashboard in giant type, so the two metrics that matter most are impossible to miss. The project cards sit underneath, unchanged.
Listen Now plays right on the homepage
Clicking Listen Now on the five featured songs now opens a SoundCloud player under the song and starts playing, no new tab needed. Clicking the song title still opens SoundCloud.
★The dashboard is live, at /dashboard/
Everything in the open on one page: the numbers at the top, the two-year vision, the live builds, and this full build log.
TikTok joins the footer
The Follow the music footer nav now links TikTok alongside Instagram, YouTube, and SoundCloud.
Arrows, fixed on iPhones
The little ↗ arrows across the site now force text presentation, so iPhones render them as clean text arrows instead of emoji.
Behind-the-scenes card, reframed
The homepage open-source card is now a behind-the-scenes card ("Come take a look behind the scenes"), linking the full behind-the-scenes doc, moved down between Short Bus and the tools.
Instagram DM paragraph, removed
The "Send Dave a DM on Instagram to learn more about our recording studio" paragraph is gone from the homepage about section.
The site speaks Spanish, at /es/
thestudio.io/es/ is the homepage in Spanish, translated automatically on load, with a flag toggle to switch back to English. Send it straight to Spanish-speaking friends.
Album cards, forced square
The two album covers are wrapped in square frames that hold a perfect 1:1 box in every browser, no more stretched or cropped covers on phones.
Full story, expands in place
"Read the full story" now pops the whole story open right under the button instead of jumping to another page.
Lowercase URLs everywhere
Canonical URLs are now all lowercase: /studio, /dlaney, /sally, /sallyjournal. Capitalized versions redirect to the lowercase pages, so old links keep working.
Sally's journal moved
The journal now lives on its own page at /sallyjournal, and /Sally is her full artist page, in sync with /Dlaney. Old /sally links redirect to the journal.
Footer, reorganized
The homepage footer is a clean three columns now: the "Good music" statement with the hiring pill under it, Explore, and Follow the music, with a copyright and Legal line along the bottom.
Hiring page, simplified
The vocalist and producer shortlist cards on the hiring page are now one minimal reference block at the bottom of the page.
Origin story, minimized
The homepage "From Cattle Farm to Silicon Valley" section is now a tight strip: one short paragraph, four photo thumbnails, and a link to the full story on the behind-the-scenes page.
Vocalists for hire
We opened /hire-vocalists: Millicent (gospel), Zamar, and Joel are available to sing on your songs. Send Dave a DM on Instagram to book them.
La página habla español
A 🇲🇽 button in the homepage footer now translates the whole page into Spanish. Gracias, Gloria.
Sally's journal is live
Sally got her own page: her story, her songs, and her journal, at /sally.
★The Studio store opens
Two products on day one: the Spotify Canvas Pack ($50, we turn your clips into looping Canvas animations) and a Marketing Call with Dave ($99, up to an hour). Browse the store.
★MusicBot is live
Pick a song, play the easy notes. Real notation for beginners, transposed to C major with the letter name under every note. Try it.
★The Equalizer is live
A full-screen live mic visualizer: play music out loud and watch it dance, in four color schemes. Watch it move.
Reading, on e-ink
A Few Thoughts, Thoughts on Kindness, and the Short Bus kids book, all rebuilt for reMarkable e-readers.
★The Short Bus website launches
Characters, story, songs, and the full kids book, all in one place at /shortbus.
★Album milestones
Short Bus: 11 of 15 songs recorded. First Light: 5 of 10 songs recorded. Progress bars are live on the Albums page.
★Three music videos
Lead Me Lord, Find Your Island, and Lift Me Higher are out on YouTube. Watch them.
Day 67 of the 99-day piano challenge
Dave is learning piano in public, one day at a time. Two thirds of the way there.
Open source, for real
The 11-page open source guide and the First Thousand Streams research guide, published free for any artist to learn from.
Homepage polish: images, mission, nav, footer
The two about-section photos now sit side by side instead of stacking. The mission panel and the closing quote merged into one section: "We are building the studio we wish existed," then the mission, the poster, and the manifesto link. Store moved out of the header nav (still in the footer), and the language flag now sits right next to Legal in the footer.
Next up
- The Warm Music video premieres October 1
- The last 4 Short Bus songs and the last 5 First Light songs
- Short Bus vinyl concepts