About Dubplate Studio

Hi, I'm Carter Young. I'm a musician and a developer, and I built Dubplate Studio for my own records before anyone else's.

Why I built it

I make psychedelic instrumental new wave as Garden Atlas, and I have thousands of song ideas and projects across all kinds of genres: songs that are finished, songs I'm still working on, and new projects taking me somewhere else. The bounces landed wherever they landed, and to hear how an album flowed I'd upload unfinished tracks privately, just to listen to them in order.

I wanted one private place on my own computer where every idea could be found in seconds, where one click opened the session it came from, and where I could hear the record front to back before anyone else did. I couldn't find that without sending my music somewhere, so I built it.

I could have kept it all in a folder in Finder. But a folder holds files, not an artist’s catalogue. I wanted to see how it feels: to decide the album art, the Canvas for each track, the way the album flows from one song into the next.

The idea

Before a record comes out, a dubplate gets cut: one private pressing, made so the people who made the music can hear what they've actually got. Dubplate Studio is that, for everything before release. It's the room where you decide what the record is, before any of it is public.

How I build it

I build Dubplate Studio while I make my own records, and I use it on my own music. Every part of it is something a real release needed: finding a song, getting back into its session, putting the tracklist in order, matching the artwork. It's built for catalogs in the thousands, multiple artist profiles, or someone just starting out needing a place to keep organized. If something breaks, it breaks on my music first. That's why it keeps dated copies of your library, and lets you back it up wherever you like.

What it stands for

• Your music stays yours. Your library lives on your computer. No account, no tracking, nothing uploaded.
• It never touches your files. It reads your audio and projects where they are, and never writes to them.
• The record is yours to make. It doesn't write, mix or master anything for you. It's there so you can do your own work faster.
• Made for musicians. Built by someone who makes records, for people who make records.

Who I am

I'm Carter Young. I run Clay House, an independent home for the software, records and games I create. Clay House Software, the branch that makes Dubplate Studio, is one person: me.