Does anyone here make serious money from their music?

I got a royalty payment of $187 once. Split it with 5 members of the band. We spent it on sushi, then I paid for the tip.

Still need to buy bass strings...
 
Im making enough to be constantly surprised every time I get a PRS statement , but sadly still not enough to facilitate me leaving my job and making my music a completely full time career.
As for facts......you'll just have to take me at my word =)
 
...and define "from your music". Many of us gig and make good money playing live. I also sell drum tracks to other musicians. As far as selling recorded music? Does anyone BUY recorded music? :D
 
I make my entire living gigging and have done so for over 40 years.
It's not a great income but has always been enough to almost pay my bills and I've never had the need to have a day job.
 
I got a check from ASCAP twice in 4 years one of $270.13 and one for $330.78...I paid for a new cheap power conditioner, and bought some groceries...Still didnt have enough money for bass strings though.
 
Ok. I define "serious money" enough to sustain your music career. And I really meant selling original music , not gigging, as I suspect gigging is gonna be a coverband deal at best right? YMMV.
 
RAMI said:
...and define "from your music". Many of us gig and make good money playing live. I also sell drum tracks to other musicians. As far as selling recorded music? Does anyone BUY recorded music? :D
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"from your music" means original music you create.."Does anyone BUY recorded music?" My point EXACTLY! So you sell samples of your drumming for how much? Why don't folk just use a good drum machine/program?
 
Lukesteele said:
Ok. I define "serious money" enough to sustain your music career. And I really meant selling original music , not gigging, as I suspect gigging is gonna be a coverband deal at best right? YMMV.
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I gig in an original material band and sell my music. I don't keep any of the money, and even if I did, it's not enough to sustain my lavish lifestyle. I do it because it's fun and I enjoy it. Only a naive fool thinks he's gonna make a living off his home recordings. I have one song in particular though that has inexplicably been purchased hundreds of times via various online retailing sites. I don't know how or why as i don't promote my shit at all. But this one song sells somehow.
 
Greg_L said:
Because real drums are always better. Always.
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I've done a record and a few singles with a guy, always using sampled drums.
For the next record we're planning to approach a drummer to get real drums down.

That's not to say there's no place for midi/samples, but IMO it's never going to sound the same as real drums.

BTW, the money that comes in from royalties far exceeds any money from record sales.
I imagine that's the same for a lot of people at this level.
 
Greg_L said:
I have one song in particular though that has inexplicably been purchased hundreds of times via various online retailing sites. I don't know how or why as i don't promote my shit at all. But this one song sells somehow.
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You mean as in streaming where you get paid $0.0001 per stream??? :D
 
Lukesteele said:
"from your music" means original music you create.."Does anyone BUY recorded music?" My point EXACTLY! So you sell samples of your drumming for how much? Why don't folk just use a good drum machine/program?
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Well, not really "samples". I have complete drum tracks that I sell for about 3 bucks a shot. They're tracks to my original tunes and a bunch of covers I've done. People buy them and chop them up for their songs.

But I also do custom drum tracks that I get up to $50 a shot for. People send me their demo with a click track, I play to it, send it back to them and they have real drums on their song.

As for why they don't just use a good drum machine, I guess the answer is because they want good sounding, well played drums. :D
 
When I was a teenager I got paid £6 to play 5 songs at a college concert with my band. They were covers, though, so don't count, right?
 
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