a job in sound engeneering

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Veering back to the original topic... sort of.... :)

In my opinion there are really two roads to go here:

1.) Getting a job in the audio industry

OR

2.) MAKING your own job in the audio industry

I think that #1 is pretty difficult these days, because there are a number of people exercising the #2 option.

Which leads me to....

TexRoadkill said:
If they are paying $25/hour for first year engineers in Ohio then I am moving.
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Ohio is a great place to start your own recording business. Why? Because we are not NYC or LA... there isn't much of a recording industry here in the first place, but there are a lot of people in bands that want to record if you go out and find them, talk to them, and sell them on your services.

Most of the studios here in NW ohio S*U*C*K big time. Not all of them, but in this area there are only a few here and there that are any good. In Toledo most of the bands that are serious about recording go to OTHER cities to record--be it Cleveland, OH (large city), Detroit, MI (large city) or Ann Arbor, MI (large and rich college campus, many bands). I think that it is *pathetic* that bands have to travel almost 150-200 miles to go to a decent studio to get a decent sound.

There is one place around here that is 50/hour that does good work depending on the engineer. There is another place that *used* to do good work (for the time) but they haven't upgraded past a Mac G3 400mhz/MOTU 2408 MK II in 5 or 6 years... falling pretty behind the tech curve. Finally, there is a larger studio that mostly does commercial recording that virtually never records bands because they are 75/hour+ and have an older Pro-Tools system that was still 16 bit as of last year (plus they are pretentious nobs because they have a 96 channel PT system.... woopee).

What I'm trying to say is that the good market is in the medium sized cities like Toledo. There aren't any PRO studios here. Not one studio that could handle a professional major label album; not one studio that has anything remotely as cool as a single LA2A that I've seen. Most of these places try to impress you with their Aphex preamp... ROFL! It's a total joke and they are open to competition in today's market.

But there are over 1 million people within a 50 mile radius of here... some of them ready, willing and able to record if they can find a place that meets a decent price point. It's not going to be the same everywhere--but cost of living is so low here in NW Ohio that 25/hour is a decent fee to charge if you can keep yourself booked about 20 hours a week and don't have ludicrous amounts of bills and overhead.

The studio I work at is *so* booked with rappers that to stem the tide we built a 'studio B' and set up an apprentice engineer that is going to stay at 25/hour and the 'studio a' where myself and the studio owner is going to 40/hour.

I guess the moral of the story is one good tactic if you want to open your own studio is move to a place with a need and demand--typically a smaller city, lots of college students, a few affluent suburbs, low building costs and taxes, relatively weak competition and devote yourself to audio engineering.

Now if you're trying to open up a new shop in Boston, LA, NYC or even Jersey City... god help you. Those places are super saturated and filled with engineers with probably 10 times the experience and connections. I wouldn't even bother if I lived someplace like that.
 
25/hour is a decent fee to charge if you can keep yourself booked about 20 hours a week and don't have ludicrous amounts of bills and overhead.
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and you eat at the rescue mission soup kitchen


Cloneboy,

Why do you think those studios have not upgraded? IT's because it takes MONEY! At $25 bucks an hour there is no way you can buy groceries (unless it's only ramen noodles), pay rent and upgrade the gear in 2 or 3 years especially at 20 hours a week. That's only $500 a week. $500 a week to upgrade gear, pay bills and pay wages? Something is missing here. That's $26,000 a year gross. Janitors at our school district make more than that and get benefits.

There is a big difference between $25 an hour as a wage and $25 an hour as a business. If your business is washing windows and all you need to buy is squeegies and your overhead is a little truck and a ladder then $25 an hour is an ok wage. BUT, for a studio? I would suggest you take business classes and get up to speed on business math. How much is your general liability policy? What happens when I come to record, slip and fall in your bathroom or trip on a mic cord and then sue your ass (even if I'm faking it). Theft insurance?

Those other studios have not upgraded because to upgrade takes money out of the rent and grocery budget. Figure it out man.

$25 and hour is still basement/garage hobbie money unless you can book 24/7 then your gonna have to pay some other people to run things while your getting some sleep. How much could you pay them out of $25 an hour and still pay comp, taxes, unemployment insurance and still have some of it left for you? Not much, eh?
 
The Record Plant is dumping another 1.5 mil into the studio... for some, $25 an hour isn't even worth getting out of bed for.
 
slobbermonster said:
Why do you think those studios have not upgraded? IT's because it takes MONEY! At $25 bucks an hour there is no way you can buy groceries (unless it's only ramen noodles), pay rent and upgrade the gear in 2 or 3 years especially at 20 hours a week. That's only $500 a week. $500 a week to upgrade gear, pay bills and pay wages? Something is missing here. That's $26,000 a year gross. Janitors at our school district make more than that and get benefits.
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But janitors clean toilets... not record music. Big difference.

See most of you are way too greedy to even belong in this marginal industry. Maybe you should have been a doctor if money is so important to you. It's really not about the big big money, it's about doing your hobby as a profession.

Starting out charging 25/hour is fine, especially if you keep your day job like I did for the last few years. Charging 25/hour is fine to attract clients to leave where they are recording and come to you. Later on you can start to charge a bit more and upgrade a bit.

Speaking of upgrades, early on it's probably not a good idea to upgrade too much except in critical areas. And when you do upgrade pay cash so you don't incur debt.

Your theory would be fine if you only booked 25/hour, but the studio I'm working at books about 60 hours/week at 25, and another 40-50 at the 15 an hour side of the house. We have to TURN AWAY business because we're so booked, and raising rates to 40 and 25 respectively. And it's a smaller medium sized studio. Granted, they are almost all rappers.

By the way, we have insurance. We got broken into last week and the insurance covered it all. We also have a security system. That's probably why the dumbass thieves only made off with a single laptop before running out the door.

Furthermore, you have to modify your thinking of what a studio is. A studio isn't some huge Pro-Tools rig and Neve console with oodles and oodles of LA2A's on every channel and vintage Pultecs humming away. Studios nowadays are Mackie 24*8's hooked to Alesis HD24's with a few M*One's and maybe a few 3630 compressors, or a D8B and HDR 24/96 running a ton of plug in cards.

Too many of you are in love with wanting to be the next [insert name of big producer] and spend too much time coveting what you can't have. You have to realize you are small potatoes and always will be small potatoes.. and you have to GET THE BUSINESS to STAY IN BUSINESS.
 
Don't ever make the mistake of being cheap. There's always someone being cheaper.

Be better than someone else for a reasonable price.

Here's one of the inexpensive studio's in my country, 19euro ($22.70) per hour for the studio and 8 euro for the engineer. It's a nice place, PT96 and a DDA Profile big board. I don't know how they survive, but it must be tough.
http://www.4design.nu/lobbes/
 
DJL said:
The Record Plant is dumping another 1.5 mil into the studio... for some, $25 an hour isn't even worth getting out of bed for.
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Yeah but those are people that virtually nobody on this forum have recorded, will record, or will even meet.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
Yeah but those are people that virtually nobody on this forum have recorded, will record, or will even meet.
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I wouldn't be so sure about that if I was you... lol. Anyway, I wish you the best.
 
DJL said:
I wouldn't be so sure about that if I was you... lol. Anyway, I wish you the best.
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Note use of the word "virtually". I know there are a few lurking around here and they are the very, very few. How many of them do it often and for a living? Recording 'Hootie' one time doesn't make you a big shot.
 
Take a look at the prices at Albini's Electrical Audio to get an idea of how crappy even the upper level income is. http://www.electrical.com/booking.php#

It's amazing that you can get him and his studio for $1250/day. They probably work 12 hour days and that's just a bit over $100/hour. Chances are Steve has to work a few extra hours doing administrative crap that he can't bill out so his true hourly income is probably even worse. He has great equipment and rooms and I don't understand how they can afford it. I hope he makes a lot more on producing residuals.

The point isn't that we want to be millionaire producers. I bet Albini only clears a hundred grand a year. To live in a half decent city, afford a home, decent car and take care of a family you need to take home at least $30K/year. In a city like Phoenix you need to gross at least $50k/year if you have kids and that is not living extravagently by any means. To do that you need to pay yourself $200/day and work 5 days a week.

It's gotten to where being an audio engineer is worse then being a painter or a poet. At least they don't need $20K in gear just to get started. Hairdressers make more then most AE's, lol.
 
Once again, if you are doing it for the money you are a sucker. Wait, let me rephrase that... if you're doing it for the money you are a SUCKER.

The big trick is to get to the stage where you can have 2 studios working at the same time with engineers that are paid a portion of the hourly fee, but not all of it (50% at most). Business is about making money thru the exploitation of others.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
Once again, if you are doing it for the money you are a sucker. Wait, let me rephrase that... if you're doing it for the money you are a SUCKER.
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If you are doing it and charging $25/hour you are a sucker and just killing your own market. I'm as guilty of doing that at times as anyone else. If you are engineering and feeding your family you are successful.

I'm not quite sure why you are being so defensive. I've made a meager living doing production work most of my life. I've also had a few great years in the software business but that sucks now too so I figured if I was going to be poor I might as well do what I want. The point is that being an AE exclusively is "almost" guaranteed poverty or slightly better.

We're all in this together and there is no point in suger coating things for people who want to jump into an already crowded market. There's a reason that most studio owners got rich doing something other then recording music.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
Too many of you are in love with wanting to be the next [insert name of big producer] and spend too much time coveting what you can't have. You have to realize you are small potatoes and always will be small potatoes.. and you have to GET THE BUSINESS to STAY IN BUSINESS.
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Most of us here
just don't give a fuck
about making $ in this.
We just want to record some shit that doesn't suck too bad, and have fun doing it.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Take a look at the prices at Albini's Electrical Audio to get an idea of how crappy even the upper level income is. http://www.electrical.com/booking.php#

It's amazing that you can get him and his studio for $1250/day. They probably work 12 hour days and that's just a bit over $100/hour. Chances are Steve has to work a few extra hours doing administrative crap that he can't bill out so his true hourly income is probably even worse. He has great equipment and rooms and I don't understand how they can afford it. I hope he makes a lot more on producing residuals.

The point isn't that we want to be millionaire producers. I bet Albini only clears a hundred grand a year. To live in a half decent city, afford a home, decent car and take care of a family you need to take home at least $30K/year. In a city like Phoenix you need to gross at least $50k/year if you have kids and that is not living extravagently by any means. To do that you need to pay yourself $200/day and work 5 days a week.
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I really have no business in this thread, and I hate to be nitpicky, but I just wanted to point out that using Steve Albini/Electrical Audio as an example is probably a poor choice. I'm a tad of an Albini nerd so I follow his recording some. Anyways, he pays himself an annual salary from Electrical Audio that is somewhere in the low 20s...I believe its $24,000 but it might be a little more or less. Granted, this doesn't take into consideration that he can write off a lot of things as business expenses, but still, I'm 23 and I make that much money, and its not exactly living large. He also refuses producer credits and points on records, so he sees no residual income from albums he engineers. He does this so that he has no vested interest in the quality of the recording (IE being more meticulous on records that will sell in large quantities).

Regarding his prices, which you pointed out are quite low considering his caliber of ability, he actually recently raised his own hourly rate by $100/day maybe 3 months ago. He was forced to either raise his rate or risk having to close his doors. Bear in mind that he's recorded the likes of Nirvana, and Page/Plant. He chose to raise his rate, and not the rate of renting his studios or using a staff engineer, because he didn't want to alienate clients who might want to use his facilities but couldn't afford to record with him.

Basically, I think its safe to say that Albini is an enigma in the recording industry, and garners his business from a combination of his high quality records, the desire by many indie bands to work with him, and his ethics. I think that if just about anybody else approached the business with his mentality they'd see little to no commercial success.
 
Hey CloneBoy. You are in Maumee. LOL I am 1 hour from you up here in Detroit.

This is a good market. Back when I got started I was charging 25/hour to Engineer.

Now I run a Studio charging 35 and up per hour. I own the gear and I keep it current. People dont upgrade cuz they care more about ther personal comfort than their business. But they forget the biz affords them the personal comforts.

I Love personal Comforts, but My business is A priority so I can sit around and watch TV.

I have gone as far as to get additional engineers to cover sessions now as I am starting to be booked on days that i travel as well.

Just Plain Good Biz.
 
Adam P said:
Regarding his prices, which you pointed out are quite low considering his caliber of ability, he actually recently raised his own hourly rate by $100/day maybe 3 months ago. He was forced to either raise his rate or risk having to close his doors. Bear in mind that he's recorded the likes of Nirvana, and Page/Plant. He chose to raise his rate, and not the rate of renting his studios or using a staff engineer, because he didn't want to alienate clients who might want to use his facilities but couldn't afford to record with him.

Basically, I think its safe to say that Albini is an enigma in the recording industry, and garners his business from a combination of his high quality records, the desire by many indie bands to work with him, and his ethics. I think that if just about anybody else approached the business with his mentality they'd see little to no commercial success.
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I thought his rate went up since I had last checked. Albini may be alone in his ethics but not his rates. A band I recorded had the tracks mixed by Jack Endino, who has some pretty serious credits and artistic credibility, up in Seattle and they only had to pay about a 1/3rd of what Albini costs.

Maybe these guys are bad examples but it just seems that even if you do get lucky enough to get some big breakthrough albums there is no guarantee of a career payoff.
 
Funny that there's one thing nobody's mentioned really, and that's TALENT!

I'm just getting into this home recording stuff, largely because of a love for music, with maybe the effect of one day leaving my gray cubicle government type job to do something I really want. However -- I have no illusions, and anticipate keeping my day job for quite some time (most likely till retirement).

The key thing though, like in most other professions, is TALENT. It's not just that you know what all the little buttons on your machine do, but that the music or sound the comes out of them at the end of the day sounds good. This isn't something they teach at school, or the streets, or wherever, it's something you have, or you don't. You can develop your ear, and train and get better, but it's your product which is going to determine your value in either the wage or self-employed situation.

Nobody's going to pay you to record stuff if it comes out like garbage, or worse than what someone else can do for a similar wage, especially with all the home-recording type guy around.

So for those of you that support yourselves, congrats-- I'm most supremely jealous.

For those of you looking to support yourselves through recording (like me) good luck, but remember it's not just the buttons and faders that matter, it's what it sounds like when you're done.

Satch
 
Satchmo....
that's right... and if it takes going to a school...paying your dues for 20 years, natural talant....whatever. You have to have it (talant) to do well in this business. People with very modest setups are doing very well because they are very talanted. And.....some people spend LOTS of bucks but can never pay off their overhead.... why?..not because of no clients..but because thay don't have the talant to attract clients or to land themselves a desired job in the field. It's kinda like the same in most fields...eh?. The more talanted you are, the more in demand you become and are compensated for it. It just so happens that everyone and his brother seems to want to be a recording engineer, record hit records, and reap the benefits of those "making it." Kinda makes the numbers staggering at times, I suppose. But the people with some decent talant, GENERALLY are the ones twisting the knobs on the Neves, or recording the "desired" projects.
 
Talent still matters... LOL I thought it was all marketing these days. LOL

I have 3 Gold Records, hasnt helped me much in my market. :)

Now if I were to leave.........
 
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