Professional Tracking/Mixing/Mastering How Much?

[Robertt8]

I know this is kind of a loaded question, but is there anyway to gauge about how much it would cost to head to a local recording studio?

I mean I know there's tracking, mixing, and mastering, but how do you gauge how long this would take? Again, I know it'll be dependent on how fast we can record and all that, but is there an average?

our music is VERY basic...2 acoustic guitars, bass, vox and drums, and we know the tunes well.

You can hear some of the stuff we're thinking of recording at: http://www.bagoftoysmusic.com/music.html . Songs 1-5 were all done by me with the entire band, so that would give you a pretty good idea...

How long (roughly) can you figure it would take to mix each song, then master them when it's all said and done?

What would the low end of a decent recording/mixing/mastering session cost?

I know it's going to be all over the board, but there's got to be "safe bets" out there. isn't there?

[tubesrawsom]

i have a great idea ask the dude who is gonna recording your music
every one works different but the tracking time is up to the band know your stuff well so u can do less takes
good luck

[ryanlikestorock]

Usually, budget is the limiting factor. How much money do you have? Find out, then find a way to do an album for that much. You can find engineers who work for $100/day and some that work for 10x that. Expect to get what you pay for.

If you're taking things fairly seriously but still want to do things on a tight budget, aim for about 1-2 songs per day, including mixing. Mastering should be done by someone else and expect to pay between $50-100/song, depending on who you go to.

Cut corners where you can, but expect a direct relationship between time/money/quality.

[Massive Master]

I think the "up front" costs are so much more of a deciding factor - Guitar strings, drum heads, bass strings (and lots of them - I'll use a set in the studio for about an hour - There isn't any processor in the world that will give you that "new bass string" sound), tubes, WD-40... I know plenty of drummers who are in serious need of a drum tech to show them how to really tune a kit. That's some of the best spent cash out there. Rent gear if you need to. A budget Ibanez through a Crate stack is going to difficult (if not impossible) to tune in. Contrast that with a nice mid-70's Les Paul through a Twin or something - You actually have to *try* to make it sound bad.

If you can get your core sounds down - Not "they sound fine" down, I mean really in the pocket, you can make a "respectable" sounding recording almost anywhere. This is what home recording used to be all about - Pre-production. Get it to sound right with nothing more than a 57 and a tape deck (it *can* be done), and it's going to sound great through a decent rig, and like gold through something really nice.

Plus, getting your sounds right before going to the studio is going to save hours and hours of tweaking time that can be better spent during a nice, relaxed recording session. A crappy set of heads can put the brakes on creativity faster than a set of bass strings lose their snap.

[Dogman]

There's several people here that will show the studio rates on their website. That will help give you an idea, at least if you know what kind of time, effort they will have to put into it. I've listened to some of your stuff, and it already sounds damn good. So, check out the guys who post here, and see what they can do.