I opened my commercial recording studio (Jackpot! Recording) in 1997, after years of simultaneously having a busy home studio while working day jobs to pay the rent.Making this leap to a full-time recording engineer/studio owner was terrifying.I remember thinking I was making a big mistake; what if nobody booked the place? How would I find time to work on the recently started

My home studio was run as a part-time, small business. I basically used money from these sessions in my basement to pay for new recording equipment, and, in the meantime, I didn't turn a profit. But I'd been getting busier over the years and it felt like now was the time to move it out of my home and into a commercial space.
I'd partnered up with songwriter Elliott Smith, once we both realized we had the same studio space plans in motion. Having a partner also gave me some leeway on having to buy as much new gear, as well as freeing me up a bit from covering the entire rent and filling the calendar by myself. We found a space to lease, built a wall and sound treatments, and moved our gear in. I had taken out a small loan from my grandfather and maxed out several credit cards. When we had an opening party, a friend brought over a mutual acquaintance. Our conversation went something like this:

Thinking about it later, I was annoyed. "Luck?" I was putting my life on the line and she calls it luck? As it turns out, luck came and went, but hard work and sacrifice got tangible results. In the early years I worked as long of a day as a client would demand, for a flat $250 fee that included myself and the studio time. During one session I was a little too free with my information and I told a client what my rent and utilities were each month. That conversation was uncomfortable:
Of course it didn't. At the time I was paying off $30,000 in startup costs, and fronting the printing bills for
I also worked my ass off. I would engineer a 12-hour session, eat a burrito, sit in my office for three hours (post-session) editing
I won't make a super direct correlation, but my first two marriages did fall apart during this time. I stopped playing in a band. I'd been warned by
[ ] that friends would stop calling me to do stuff on weekends or to attend parties because they would assume I was too busy, and he was correct. It also seemed like every time I had a freelance engineer in and tried to take time off that that would be the moment all the equipment would break down.Life feels a little less hectic these days. When John came aboard and helped turn
Why am I telling you this story? Because some of you may be in similar situations. Possibly you are on the precipice of "hobby becomes job" like I was. Maybe you are just starting out and need to know how much of your life you need to put into this world to succeed. Or perhaps you've run a small studio for years but it looks like others have it easier (hint: they generally don't). Or maybe you simply wonder why friends stopped inviting you out!
It's not an easy path, but I'm not sure I'd want my life any different than it was and currently is. You need to be fully immersed in this world and ready to make sacrifices if you want to see things happen. I'm glad I did it.
Thanks to my dad, Richard Crane, for taking the photo of Elliott and me.
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