Members scapier Posted October 8, 2011 Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 Throwing this out there: Has anyone else found clients are coming to the studio with less and less money expecting a full album? I know people who are doing full albums for clients for 3-5K and basically living in their parent's basement, but I sure can't produce and record a CD for that much. I mean I have a mortgage and stuff. The problem is the CD is no longer a straightforward income stream anymore so how to amortize the expense of recording one is a challenge. I used to set $15-$20k as a basic folk album budget, but for most of my clients nowadays they can't bring themselves to spend that kind of money. Sure I can do it for less, but then I'm just a hobbyist at that point and I should take up model trains instead. It's cheaper. Where is everyone else at in this new digital economy, and how are you convincing clients to spend the bare minimum for professional quality work? Regards, Spencer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 This is a very interesting and important question, and I look forward to reading what everyone has to say... I don't want to bias things, so I'll let others make the initial replies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scapier Posted October 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 8, 2011 hmmm. so what does it say that no one is responding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 9, 2011 Share Posted October 9, 2011 That this is one of the slower forums on HC, and since it's the weekend, not a lot of people have seen it or had the time to respond yet? Hang tight Spencer - I suspect you'll see a few more responses once the work week kicks in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 9, 2011 Members Share Posted October 9, 2011 I occasionally record full albums for clients for under $5000, but I don't depend on my earnings to make a living, and I record in my house. But I get rock bands coming here sometimes thinking that they can make an album for under $2000 or even under $1000. "Oh, we'll just do everything live and knock it out. It'll go really fast." Great. Are you going to mix this yourself? I guess we're not doing overdubs either? And rarely does it ever go that fast, especially with inexperienced players. So I suppose it's all relative. $2000 or thereabouts...that's a mixing budget for electronic music maybe (I find electronic music typically much easier to mix...well, just about anything that doesn't have acoustic drums is easier to mix, really). If someone comes in and has a whole bunch of WAV files (stems) of keyboards and keyboard basses and guitars, wants to record vocals, and then wants to throw down an instrument or two and have me mix this, this can be done for way under $5000 at my studio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scapier Posted October 9, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 9, 2011 Well those numbers seem quite reasonable, (except the overly optimistic live off the floor guys, those kind of people crack me up). Are you producing too, or solely engineering those kinds of projects? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 9, 2011 Members Share Posted October 9, 2011 I think they're reasonable. I'm considered "inexpensive" for what I do and the quality and all that. I'm not really producing, particularly if it's a project I see all the way through, more engineering, although if appropriate, I certainly inject my opinion. And also, people often will come to me for a certain aesthetic already, so they kind of know how I'm going to track and mix already. Just about every time I get someone saying, "Oh yeah, we just set up, we'll do it all live and knock it out!!!" they're the ones who grossly overestimate their abilities and underestimate how long a recording project typically takes. And so despite my description of describing how long the mixing process takes in relation to tracking and everything else, these always go far over what they imagined the budget and time would be. Most bands grossly underestimate the time it takes to overdub and mix. Basic tracks often take approximately 10-20% of a recording project's overall time; the rest are overdubs, vocal overdubs, or mixing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kalebmation Posted October 9, 2011 Members Share Posted October 9, 2011 My band is recording our first record right now. We are paying a local studio $250 for ten hours of drum recording sessions on our 45 minute record. They have really nice gear and they are very talented. The rest will all be done by me at my home studio, in which I own all my own gear. I did make some pretty substantial purchases/upgrades to do this, though. I'd say that we are going to be around $3-4k when it's all said and done. I will most definitely send out my record to have it mastered, as I am recording/producing/mixing everything besides the drums myself. I am also doing a 5.1 mix of our record as well, for fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 10, 2011 Moderators Share Posted October 10, 2011 I got out of it because of this. I was charging 4k for a 10 song album. It killed me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 10, 2011 Members Share Posted October 10, 2011 Tracking is a lot more thankless work than mixing, and it's about the same amount of money. By thankless work, I mean the setting up that no one ever seems to acknowledge, people banging on drums or playing guitars loudly or chattering away loudly while you're trying to get sounds for other instruments, wondering why their {censored}ty guitars and tiny transistor amp don't sound like their favorite band, wondering why their untuned drum set and cymbal bashing doesn't sound like John Bonham, and the "the singer will knock all the songs out in an hour" sort of thing when we all know that it will take several nights and tons of warm-up and tons of comping (that the band hasn't factored in to their budget) to get it just right, and so forth. And that's even when people are really friendly and creative and nice. I'm not burned out on this by any stretch, but it is sooooo much more work that bands don't ever seem to consider. But I do want to do more mixing. I think the mixing has become a little more gratifying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Johnny-Boy Posted October 10, 2011 Members Share Posted October 10, 2011 Unfortunately money is extremely tight these days (foreclosures galore) and musicians are usually the poorest of the lot. At $15,000 I doubt you'll find many takers today. Especially since there's little chance in recouping that with CD sales. Furthermore, some decent recording gear can be purchased for that amount. More and more musicians are recording in home studios, then sending their mixes out to be pro mastered. There you may still find a market - mastering. Anyway, technology changes everything. "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change" - Clarence Darrow or from Jurassic Park- "Life finds a way". Spencer needs to find a way. Good luck, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scapier Posted October 10, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 10, 2011 Yeah, I think I don't want to work with hobbyists who don't understand the recording process anymore, and maybe I'm more in Lee's position therefore. I'm not interested in mixing crappy albums that newbies have bashed out on their own iMac and a copy of cubase. John is right too, being responsive to change is the way forward, if I decide to make it work. I'm just not sure I want it to work that way. Friends in theatre seem to be still putting plays on and rehearsing them the way they've always done, mostly because live theatre still boils down to people in a room working towards a common creative goal. Perhaps recording music is no longer about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beyer160 Posted October 10, 2011 Members Share Posted October 10, 2011 On the one hand, we all know about all the challenges facing the music industry today. The bottom line is that there's less money to go around. It isn't just the economy, either- music itself is being commoditized to the point of irrelevance. On the other hand, I heard this exact same conversation in 1991. ADATs were supposedly about to make professional studios extinct because low-cost demo studios were popping up on every street corner, taking away a traditional revenue stream from the "big" studios. A lot of them did go out of business, but others adapted and survived. Bands have always wanted everything cheap. In the late '90s I spent two years carrying around a notebook with an ever-changing studio business plan. I just couldn't make the numbers work, and I eventually realized it was because the numbers wouldn't work. I couldn't afford to build the studio I wanted, based on the prevailing rates and client base in my area. So, I kept my little basement demo studio going and worked freelance at other places. I've made $3K albums, it can be done. You just have to communicate to the band exactly what they're getting for their money- they get studio time, not a guarantee of a finished album. If they can't finish the work before their money runs out, they're welcome to save up their pennies and come back to finish when they have some more jack. Some of these records take six months to make, one weekend at a time. At the end of the second day of tracking when the band is burned out and has half an album's worth of rhythm tracks and no overdubs, they'll get it. Or, maybe you get lucky and they really have the chops to knock out a basic, live sounding record in two days. Then you have to get ready to mix fast! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 11, 2011 Members Share Posted October 11, 2011 I've made $3K albums, it can be done. You just have to communicate to the band exactly what they're getting for their money- they get studio time, not a guarantee of a finished album. If they can't finish the work before their money runs out, they're welcome to save up their pennies and come back to finish when they have some more jack. Some of these records take six months to make, one weekend at a time. At the end of the second day of tracking when the band is burned out and has half an album's worth of rhythm tracks and no overdubs, they'll get it. Or, maybe you get lucky and they really have the chops to knock out a basic, live sounding record in two days. Then you have to get ready to mix fast! I can sit down with them and make a plan of attack. That sometimes can give 'em a dose of reality before the recording ever starts. Communicating what your expectations and plans are at the outset is very important. If you do that and give them a sort of time frame and plan of attack, you can make a $3k album. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scapier Posted October 11, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 11, 2011 Usted and Beyer you both make a lot of sense. Is it fun though, to work with people heading for a train crash? I could totally see the challenge in that, and helping them through it. I'm more of a producer with some gear rather than a studio owner, though. Instead of a band playing for free, I have songwriters wanting to hire players. There's where the higher budgets have come from. This might also explain why the only successful producers I know out there doing albums for under five grand are also drummers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Johnny-Boy Posted October 11, 2011 Members Share Posted October 11, 2011 Usted and Beyer you both make a lot of sense. Is it fun though, to work with people heading for a train crash? I could totally see the challenge in that, and helping them through it. I'm more of a producer with some gear rather than a studio owner, though. Instead of a band playing for free, I have songwriters wanting to hire players. There's where the higher budgets have come from. This might also explain why the only successful producers I know out there doing albums for under five grand are also drummers. It not the question of helping people that may be "heading for a train crash". It's about supplying a service to those willing to pay. It's business. When I used to teach piano, I had students that I knew would never become good players. But those ill-equipped students would at least learn to have more appreciation of music (which they did). You're supplying an education for those train-crash victims. When I first recorded in a pro studio, I was no where near being successful. But I learned a lot from those early experiences. Also, you may think the product you make for these train-crash survivors is worthless. But your customer may be delighted with the results and feel the money was well spent. Anyway, very few businessmen can pick and choose their customers. Just be happy you have some. Best, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scapier Posted October 11, 2011 Author Members Share Posted October 11, 2011 The piano lesson comparison is apt, I can see that working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 12, 2011 Members Share Posted October 12, 2011 Usted and Beyer you both make a lot of sense. Is it fun though, to work with people heading for a train crash? Sometimes, if they're inexperienced but willing to learn. Those artists are fine because they're willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work. The ones who are perpetually unrealistic and think they know what's going on but don't are not so fun. Nevertheless, I'm going to try and get the best performances and the best recordings out of them and do my job. By the way, I've always said that the recordings coming from my studio that sound the crappiest are the ones I worked hardest on. The fantastic sounding recordings I've recorded? They were great musicians with great songs that were arranged really well and played on really great, well-tuned instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TBush Posted October 12, 2011 Members Share Posted October 12, 2011 That this is one of the slower forums on HC, and since it's the weekend, not a lot of people have seen it or had the time to respond yet? Hang tight Spencer - I suspect you'll see a few more responses once the work week kicks in. I've been out of the loop- gone all last week and catching up on my firewood cutting this week. I have 3 streams of income- individually small, but combined it supports a family of 5. Average $ for CD? For me it's 3k-4k, but I just recorded a punk record for $2100- all hourly, and they're pleased with everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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