Studio rates!

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RomoDrummer

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hey guys I am fairly to this whole home studio/music recording deal, and i would just like to ask more of the veteran recordists or whomever wants to help out there. What would be the best price to charge somebody to record in your studio or how would you do it? per song, hourly? i mean i duno that's why i came here lol. i have a client and he gave me his tracks and he wants me to drums on them and he told me to mix and master it for him and he'll pay me and i duno what a good starting price for a home studio to charge is I was thinking maybe 15 to $25 per song to start of then later i could raise the price.


THANKS FOR THE HELP! :D
 
Don't charge by song charge by the hour. Otherwise you could spend days working one one track and end up making $0.05 and hour. Make your hourly rate what your time is worth to you.
 
It all depends on how much skill you have and how well you judge that skill. My guitar teacher makes $50.00 per hour for studio recording time.
 
I've done a hand full bands over the past couple years. I'm not really "open to the public". Just friends, or by-referral type stuff. Most of the stuff I did in trade- one band painted all the exterior trim on my house for me. Another band cleared out and tilled our old garden (an all day endeavor for the 4 of them). One band had a guy that did HVAC maintenance and he checked out our air conditioners one year. Up until recently, I wouldn't say my recordings were worthy of being paid for in cash. One of the more recent bands I worked with (again, friends) we made an agreement that I'd get a cut of each cd up to a certain limit- we said like $500- that way they didn't have to come up with cash out of pocket, but if they did well with it, I wouldnt feel like I just gave my time away. They sold enough cd's and brought enough people in the door at their release show that they decided to just pay me in full right there. Of course, you have to actually trust the people that you're making the arrangement with, so that can be an issue with acquaintances or strangers (or even friends, I guess).

Like Yonce said, you have to consider what you're time is worth. But you also have to consider the quality of product your are able to deliver (whether thats due to limitations of your gear, room or skills) and consider what your product is worth... which really will determine if you should be charging anyone for recording services anyway, lol...
 
Flat-rating anything is the road to hell, be it "per song" "per music video" or anything else that isn't completely cut and dried in terms of what needs to be done.
As soon as opinions start coming, with the understanding that the opinionator basically has "paid" already, you can be off to the races for days because you said "per song."

Friendships end that way, sometimes.

C.
 
I'm just starting out too as a broke college kid with a lot of time on his hands...I'm starting next week when the rest of my equipment shows up and I came up with a neat little idea. I'm going to charge $10 a session and each session is going to be about an hour or so after I get my equipment set up. I'm doing it this way so that the people who have thier stuff put together get in and out, and if it takes them an hour for just the guitar or drums then...they schedule another session. I have time on my hands so I'm mixing for free but thats just my 2 cents.

Also dont charge by track because it could take some people hours to get even 1 or 2 tracks the way "they" like it. Let them pay for thier own perfectionism.
 
As stated above, you have to gauge your capabilities and charge accordingly, but you also have to find out what others are charging in your area. A few years ago in Utah, it seemed like even the basement studio guys were charging $40 and hour, now I see a lot of them charging $20. The pro's are around $65 an hour or more.

I"ve done the per song thing for two bands now. The first time I ended up working for less than a dollar an hour. The second time was better because I spent more time assessing their expectations and making it clear what I would provide; it still got messy once they got some label attention and wanted to re-work things to improve commercial appeal.

I think the trick is to come to an agreement on when a song is 'done'. You have to make it clear that (1) they don't get to re-do it over and over till their friends like it (2) they don't get to record different versions, each with different production values, (3) they don't get vocal tuning and drum tightening unless it's very minor stuff, (4) insert your experience here...

#3 has eaten my lunch numerous times.
 
Keep your pricing dynamic... There's nothing wrong with charging flat rates for some things as well as a per hour fee.

Evaluate their needs against your capabilities/resources and charge them accordingly.

I've recorded enough tracks for folks to pretty much know what it's going to take to give them their finished product.

If it's a straight 4/4 Verse/Chorus/Verse/Chorus 'money-beat' ditty (75% of them are), maybe with a few hooks, I'll give em raw tracks at $50 per song.

If they are wanting 5 songs or more, I'll usually cut em a deal for less $$$ per song (volume, volume, VOLUME!) :D

If they also want a polished stereo mix-down of the drums, I can have those done in 2 hours or less at $25 per hour, so block rates can still be quoted at $75-$100 per song. The clock starts running for any 'special' acrobatics after that. (i.e. the super-producer lead vocalist wants a flange effect on the ride cymbal during half the chorus and on the other half, do hard pans per beat on every hit yada yada) :spank:

Again, the most important thing is to know what you're in for ahead of time and what it will REALISTICALLY take you to deliver a quality product.

Does their scratch track have a click? Are there multiple time signature and tempo changes? Listen to what they want you to do, evaluate and quote.

:)
 
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