If Part of Your Gig Involves Music...Is the Great Recession Affecting You?

[uitar9]

It may be a combination of factors. we are a geezer band so don't play the younger bars and have day jobs

-we have been getting more regular gigs (that means a fri/sat once a month, for $200 a man) since the world collapsed in 2008 and re generally being booked at places that have an older clientelle, legions or outdoor family places-we still sell a few cd's-our audiance seems to be growing

-many popular bars are charging bands to play (the band trys to recover at the door) as these places are finding it more and more difficult to get clientelle #'s to spend a buck

-two of the places we used to play at are now closed, knocked down by the large corporate owner to make way for some form of highrise development, the bar owners were older and supported live music

-to suggest liquor laws have not impacted the bar business is like putting your head in the sand. No one wants to lose their license and not be able to drive to work

-Just a suggestion-the explosion of bars and coffee houses in the 60's and 70's may have been boomer driven-the boomers and there is a lot of them (and I'm one of them) may be spending a hell of a lot less on entertainment than they did when they were younger. Gotta start thinking about retirement and the kids/grandkids

-then there is on line availability

It seems if you are gonna make music from music today, you need to be highly diversified,

[techristian]

I have done most of my music over the past 20 years in the studio, but in the past 2 years, since I retired, I have been getting a real eye opener. "Retiring" for me meant picking up a few gigs a month for extra spending money but many of the bar owners here pay the same thing that I made way back in 1980.........$60 a night! Some kids are playing for free beer. The Casino here pays $175 (I heard), but they are even crying poor mouth now!

 

Then the bar owners are also doing something else underhanded. They book 1-3 piece acts and put on "jam sessions". This way they can sometimes end up with 7-8 musicians on stage at once.....for the price of 2 !

 

I went to 40-50 jams in the past 2 years, but I haven't been to one in 3 months or more. I'll be playing much fewer free "jams" for bars. I'm going to a private jam tonight at a guys house.

 

Dan

[Anderton]

I had an interesting conversation with John Storyk (the studio designer) a while ago about everyone talking about "the end of the studio." He said his company is busier than ever, because even though the big commercial studios aren't around so much any more, producers, engineers, and others are creating smaller studios (home studios, project studios, etc.) and getting them designed professionally.

[Extreme Mixing]

A client of mine read me an article from Pro Sound News yesterday that estimated that 95% of the music out there in consumer devices is pirated. That is just mind blowing. But I suppose it has no effect if you can still get a job for $60 per night, or jam for free. Commercial studios are going away, that's for sure. For $100K you can put together an AMAZING place to work. Many would argue that the number is much lower. So why would a producer make any other decision than putting a studio into the guest house? Mostly, we only record vocals, guitars, and other instruments one at a time. Talk of mixing in a studio makes me laugh. You only do that if you're going to one of the "big name" guys.

 

Film mixing rooms will be the next to fall. I turned a film in today and, in fact, just got back from the playback at Dolby Labs. 5.1, mixed at my home studio. It sounded great. Everyone there seemed pleased and the folks at Dolby were very complementary. That was the whole film, not just the music. I know of several highly respected film mixers who are doing all of their work from their home studios. Check out mix magazine, or better yet, John Storyk.

 

I'm hoping to re-invent myself a bit and see how this film mixing "thing" can work out. So it's not the end of the studio, it's the end of the commercial recording studio.

 

The change in the studio business is not subtle. It's a sea change. I notice my neighbor Ken said that his Akai Transfer business has tapered off a bit. I'm not sure what archiving tapes from 15 years ago has to do with the current state of Recording affairs, but if it's dropped off, then it's dropped off. I also know that Ken doesn't really depend on the recording biz to make a living. He has another career (as an educator), as I think most of the Harmony Central group does. Sometimes that sounds like a good idea to me, too, but I really love what I do, so I think I'll hang in there.

 

Steve

[UstadKhanAli]

It's difficult to tell if it's a longer sort of drop-off or not. We'll see. If someone is having financial difficulties, they're probably not going to pay for someone to transfer their 20 year old tape unless they *really* need it. I just did two tape transfers in the last two days, but I don't know if that's any sign that it's picking up again.

 

I did get a couple of recording gigs just before summer hit, recording a Doors cover band and mixing an album (both came out really well). But I usually get a bunch of people coming to record just before I go on vacation, so again, difficult to say that there's an upswing. Hafta look at the whole year and then compare. I may have two more gigs, including a progressive rock band, coming in the next few months.

 

The recording drop-off that Steve speaks of has impacted everything. Including the sound. If most are bypassing commercial recording studios and recording in homes, that changes the sound quite a bit. Someone is in a guest house, as he says, recording vocals, guitars, and other instruments one at a time. A few things are happening here. Smaller spaces. Lots of overdubs. So the sound is changing a bit from when ensembles recorded in larger spaces in commercial recording studios.

 

I don't make a living doing recording. It's nice extra money. I work extra hard to do that, but it's nice extra money to pay for gear and traveling. But regardless, it's important to do what you love to do. How lucky is that? So many people in the world scramble to do work of any kind just to put food in their family's mouth, so to be able to do something you love to do can never be taken for granted.

 

At any rate, Steve has a nice mixing setup at home. Very nice!!!