I own Jackpot!, a recording studio in Portland, Oregon. There are many other recording studios in this town, including Kung Fu Bakery, Supernatural Sound, Smegma, Type Foundry, Dead Aunt Thelma's, Falcon, Mississippi, 8-Ball, MastanMusic, Audible Alchemy, Sound Impressions, Northstar, Dig/No Moving Parts, Magic Closet, Haywire and Insta-Fame to name just a few. In fact, Googling "Portland Recording Studio" turned up a number of studio names I've never heard of. There appears to be a lot of competition. But is there?
When I first opened I was wary of other studios. Understandably, I harbored a bit of an insecurity complex about my place. I had a tiny selection of oddball gear and had been recording in my basement for only a few years. Not yet a legitimate engineer, I felt that I would be perceived as someone trying to steal clients from other businesses, and therefore did not reach out to any of them to announce my opening or make contacts.
Years later some of these people have become friends, many are a phone number or email away and all have become resources and assets to my studio. "Resources?" one might ask. What do you do when a client will spend a week on overdubs in your studio, but you don't have Dolby on your 24-track to dump tapes to Pro Tools? What if you have a deadline for album completion and need to do overdubs while your studio is booked up? One of the reasons I first bought a 24-track tape deck was so I could take projects between my place and other studios — and of course Pro Tools has only made this easier.