Contracts...Ownership Percentages...Controlling Your Music

[K9SaVeLLi]

I am an aspiring composer/producer/recording engineer and occasional artist. I am working with multiple artists as far as producing beats and recording songs for them. I want/need to start working with contracts for the work I am doing and not exactly sure how I should be going about this. Sometimes I am just recording vocals, sometimes just doing the beats and sometimes both.

From what I've been reading, most of the time the engineer is paid by the hour, the producer/composer is paid by the beat and/or percentage of ownership of the song/cut of album sales. What percentage of the song is the composer entitled to? If I was to produce the beat and record/mix the song for "free but not" then what? How and when do you bust out with the contracts...what contracts do I need?

I have a bunch of questions that I need answering. How should I be going about all of this? I'm sure some of you are or were in this situation at some point. How did you handle these situations...how should I? Any help is appreciated...Thanks.