client billing/studio rates

  • Thread starter Thread starter maskedman72
  • Start date Start date
M

maskedman72

Member
i know most people charge by the hour. does anyone charge by the project? if so how do you do it?
i was thinking of charging $300 for an ep(15-20 min)and $600 for a full length(35-45 min). the price would include the final mix and matering too. i know that if i were in a band and i came across this deal i would jump on it.
 
Yeah, that sounds like a good deal. For the band.
Try backing into your numbers.
What I mean by that is think how long it will take you to set-up, record, and mix 45 minunets of music. Include your breaks.

Its going to vary with everyone, but I'd think a general rule of thumb is about an hour and a half for 3 minutes of music. Maybe more, maybe less, but we'll use that. With breaks, and additional set up times for working with a group instead of just by yourself, lets say 2 hours. And that's probably still low.

Run the math. Crunch the numbers.
Thats 30 hours of work.

If you charge $600, thats $20 per hour.

Are you going to do this as a legitimate business?
If so, you have to pay taxes on that $20.
I don't know what your tax rate is, but I'll bet it's over 25% after you include self-employment.

So at the very best, you're left with $15 an hour.
And you still haven't mastered the project yet.

You tell me. Is your time worth that?
 
Are you going to do this as a legitimate business?
Click to expand...

What about a parttime home business/hobby?

Legally what are the options, I am planning on setting up my studio as a place where bands (that are starting out) can get a demo/first cd recorded and doing this on weekends/some nighttime work (I'm not qutting my dayjob in other words).

Where can I find out information on this. (Sorry if this is off topic)

I was planning on charging about $20-30 per hour. Estimating about 2-3 hours a song.

larry
 
One thing about charging by the project instead of by the hour is that it encourages the band to come in and mess around and waste time.

One way folks get around that is by selling blocks of time -- xx dollars for xx hours, which should be enough to complete an average project. If the band is cool and you have the time to spare, you may let the band go overtime once in a while -- but that would be your choice.

Its amazing how many musicians just starting out use the recording process as a way to write their music. You want to encourage the band to plan out everything before they step foot in the studio.

-lee-
 
well, let's look at this another way.

Packages are a good, ballpark figure, way to get people coming into your studio, or at least calling you. You'll have something to advertise other than your usual rates! Think of the $1.99 breakfast. it brings people in the door. It gets you coffee, 1 egg, and toast. And of course if you want to expand on that.. Oh, you want bacon? that's extra. You want two eggs? extra... People like deals and packages so they can plan their spending.

So put together some packages, but just put some strict guidelines on them to protect yourself.

For instance here are some packages with your prices:

300$ Artist Demo Package includes- 3 hours studio recording time, 2 hours of mixing and mastering and 1 CD with label. Package may not exceed 5 songs or 25 total CD minutes.

$600 Deluxe Demo Package includes 6 hours of recording time, 4 hours of mixing and mastering, and 5 Cd's with labels. This package must be completed in a maximum of 3 sessions. Package may not exceed 10 songs/ 50 CD minutes total.

According to my math that's $60/hour. Not bad for home studio demo work.

Maybe add some fine print:

When recording limit is reached. the recording session is complete. In order to complete mixing and mastering within package limitations- mixing and mastering is at the discretion of the engineer. We'd be happy to discuss your recording objectives before the session starts. If you have concerns, please ask us for sample of our work.

Spell out what happens if they go over. Offer a way to renegociate/ extend the package if they desire. This offers bands that have their act together a chance to come in and get a decent price, while the ones that go over or want to do more have to pay extra.


And to show that this is not totally hypothetical- today i had a jazz trio come in. Elect Gtr, Upright bass, Vocalist. Took maybe a half hour to get them set up and tweeked. They basically played live with only the vocalist wearing phones. They did a 4 hour session and knocked out 10 tunes. It's 4 tracks: vox, direct bass, mic'd bass and mic'ed guitar. we'll mix it fairly quickly, do some simple mastering and editing and they should have a sweet demo in about 6-7 hours total.

Now that i think of it, I should have sold this as a package!

DAN
 
the problem i see is that everyone wants to spen a pre-set amount of money. they call and say we have x amount of dollars and we want to do 50 songs. i have to turn them away cause they cant afford the $60/hr.
so i feel that since i have a good day job and my studio space rental for a 16x28 room will only cost me(my part)100 a month, that gives me a really low overhead. all i need to do at first is make 100 a month and anything over that can go back into the gear and what not.
i want people to call me, i want to suck them all in. and i think those ste prices are the key to that. like mr. jones said it is a good deal......for the band. and that is the point. screw me..give the bands a deal they cant pass up and if you do a good job for that price they will come back. alot of bands want to do 1 song.
at my big studio(where i am employed) our block rate is 550 a day.(12 hrs). but with this 1 song will be 100 bucks. all i need to do is 1 song a month and im even.
 
I charge by the day which also corresponds with edited or non-edited final mixes. I could easily spend 8+ hours on a single 4 minute tune just making it quiet, lining up stuff in the DAW, identifying those subtle clams that ARE in there hiding, being creative in general vs just tracking a band and mixing the raw tracks down and handing them a CD. That's 2+ hours per song at the low end of the scale to 2+ days per song. I'm doing a high tweak 5 song CD for a group right now and I've been working on it 8 hours a day for the last 5 days and I'm only half way done.
 
I didn't realize how time consuming it could be until I did my first project as an engineer a few months ago. Since the studio wasn't finished and I did want to get my feet wet. I did a charity project for a friend of mines Son's band. We did a five song demo cd in my living room/dining room/bedroom as tracking room.

We did 8 hours of tracking time on Sat.
10 hours on sunday mixing/mastering (within my limited capabilities)
We were all very pleased and proud of it.

I took it to another studio (a friend of mine) to critique. He totally critiqued it and made some suggestions and showed me how to remix it. Another 18 hours later I had a remix which made the original mix sound like crap.

Point being I guess, if a band wants high quality work it takes time and money, but on a limited budget, like most bands they can have something that will be pleasing to them, but defintely not commercial ready. Ya gets what ya pay for.

larry

BTW: does anybody know any good books/resources on running a project studio as a small/parttime business, I am really interested in doing this as a hobby/home business but legally.
 
Don't get me wrong.
$20 an hour is better than $0 an hour.
Especially if your a new studio in town, and you don't have a name or track record. But like Dan said, take measures to protect yourself so you don't end up working for free.
 
i think at first if i decide to do this i will charge either 10 or 12 an hour(if i go by the hour and not the project). now for a 24 track 24 bit recording that was tracked entirely through a great river(except toms and oh's) by an engineer that knows what he is doing that is one slammin deal! i am all about getting people to come in, spend less money that they would at another place and go tell everyone where they cut it.
cause my overhead would be so low i wouldnt need to charge big bucks. most studios that have the same type of set up that i do charge around 15-25 an hour.
 
What I'm wondering is what the market is like in general. With so much gear available now, how many bands are left that DON'T have an 1880 or a d1600 in a bedroom somewhere? I'm building my project studio over this winter in my home. I want the space for me, but I have definate plans to bring in clients. What concerns me is if there are any clients left who actually have to spend bucks in a studio, as opposed to getting a setup themselves.

Dan
 
Shockwave: these guys will probably have some VS-type recorder, but no monitors, good sounding room, someone with experience, a nice environment, some nice microphones, a lavalamp :D ,...
You'll have to make the difference there.

Herwig
 
maskedman72 said:
ii am all about getting people to come in, spend less money that they would at another place and go tell everyone where they cut it.
cause my overhead would be so low i wouldnt need to charge big bucks.
Click to expand...

Call me an arrogant capitalist, but, I could have NO overhead and not want to provide a complete studio with engineer for $10/hr. That a hard way to gross $80 a day! Unless of course you're calling it charity work or doing it for good friends. Aside from the fact that you are a qualified engineer with good gear and a studio- by the time you power up the gear, make a pot of coffee, flush the toilet a few times and burn one cd for them you have accumulated $10/hr in expenses. And how do you pay for repairs/ gear upgrades? Out of your profit?! Truly, at that rate you've taken it upon yourself to subsidize the local musicians. a worthy cause no doubt, but I think McDonalds would be a better paying part time job-with food benefits ( OK, maybe that's not actually a positive..)
 
What I'm wondering is what the market is like in general. With so much gear available now, how many bands are left that DON'T have an 1880 or a d1600 in a bedroom somewhere?.
Click to expand...

Sure, but how many bands have pro sounding cd's made on these things.
I've heard a ton of them and vertually none of them were
"ready for prime time" and could not compete, sonically, with a commercial cd.
I have mixed a pile of these guys stuff after they record it badly.

Back to the original thread...

I agree with many here about the hourly or block rats.
Less than a day and I get $50/hr from joe blow and $75 corporate.
My blocks are $350 and $525 respectivly. I have several packages
like the ones mentioned above, for single song and EP projects.
I get to charge a lot more if i have to play anything and even more
if I write or arrange anything. On most full album projects I have no
problem getting 1k to 2k and (sometimes points)as producer.

the money's out there, go get it.....

jef
 
If you're running a home studio, essentially its your time and your gear, so you can pretty much charge by the hour, or by the song, or by the album, or by the day/week or whatever. No harm in this whatsoever.

If you're running a pro-studio, there are a lot of factors.

Are you the engineer? Are the artists/record company providing the engineer? Are the union?

What are your per-hour costs to keep the doors open and the lights on? Are you booked 2-3 weeks in advance? Or are you begging people to come in?

what are your competitors charging? (very important).

I've never professed I'd be the least costly studio around (when I finally get to building it - have the building and most of the gear), but charging double what your three neighborhood competitors charge is not necessarily a good thing.

Case in point... where I'm eventually housing my pro studio, I've found four competitors within a 15 minute radius, three semi-pro and one is a home studio.

The home studio guy is all analog, and a lot of really nice, older gear that produces real nice sound. he charges $60 an hour with him as the engineer.

Two of the other three are hybrids... digital recorders (adat or hard disk) with mackie analog boards and no mastering ability that I could hear. (I saw gear, just not the expertise).

The fourth is going to be a thorn in my side. Protools all around, digital everything, the guy is older, experienced, and probably knows every trick in the book. Being retired, he charges $45 an hour with him as the engineer.

Since I own the building my studio will eventually be in, and 1/2 of the space is currently rented out for a bag of pretty penny's, I can afford to keep the doors open indefinately whether I have clients or not. This is why semi-pro home studios are often successful - less overhead.

The bigger the studio, the more people you need to run it, the more lights, larger electric bill, etc, you need to put all that fixed costs together to determine what you really need to charge, assuming you're running a pro studio.

Hope that helps!

Frederic
 
gatorhaus said:
BTW: does anybody know any good books/resources on running a project studio as a small/parttime business, I am really interested in doing this as a hobby/home business but legally. [/B]
Click to expand...

Just bumping this. I would really love to hear if you guys have any suggestions on this.

larry
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top