home studio rates for beginners?

[RomoDrummer]

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 start charging somebody to record in your studio or how would you do it? per song, hourly? or with payments? and how much would you charge them i mean i don't know 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 don't know what a good starting price for a home studio to charge is I was thinking maybe $5 $10 $15 $25 per song or something per track to start of then later i could raise the price.


THANKS FOR THE HELP!

 

[Farview]

It's really about how much your time is worth and how much time it will take you. I've put drums on a song for as little as $100. My mixing rates are between $150 and $500 per song, depending on the complexity.

It's really about assessing how much you want to do the project vs. how much money you need to make you not feel like you are being taken advantage of.

What ever you do, don't do it for free....ever.

 

[Shadow_7]

If you're renting gear it's generally 1% to 10% the value of the gear. Plus whatever your time is worth. I've seen services for gear marketing. Give us your mics, we give you studio time. And other less than iconic bartering. It really depends on what you want out of the deal. And/or how much you like/hate the group in question. Payment before results, make sure you let them know that up front. None of this when we make it big, we'll pay you stuff. Unless you're just a charitable guy, which you probably aren't given that you asked about the non-charity side of things.

And then there's guys like me that do it for free (as long as it doesn't cost me anything, admission, parking, ...). I used to be thinking that I'd never do that to my peers, but then I got that royal mod treatment on one of those other sites. So I got over that pretty quick. Plus it's kind of hard to charge top dollar these days when anyone with a cell phone can make a youtube video now.

 

[Shadow_7]

If you go hourly rate, I generally do it recording time x4. x1 to capture, x1 to determine edit points, x1 to edit, x1 to verify results. But I don't do anything that complex. So if you're wanting $10 an hour (for the content), that's really quite a bit more of a time commitment. Especially if you don't have a clear game plan from the starting gun. A guy has to eat... x1 to burn media, x1 to deliver it, x1 to .... It really depends on what services you're offering. And how much it's going to cost you to do the commitment. If you're out $50 in materials, you want at least $100 for that, $50 of which buys the materials.

 

[Captain Ego]

I recorded a guy for beer before but my setup is pretty meagre and I would have just done it anyway because I had just set up my "studio" (aka laundry room) so I wanted to hammer out the kinks.

I would think if its fun, do it because its fun, if it's a pain in yer butt, charge per hour. My buddy made the mistake of charging some hip hop people with good talent at rapping and singing but none for making a 'beat' $50 per track and ended up with them always coming back wanting this or that changed and worked with them on and off for about a year for $150 bucks, programming, reprogramming, playing basslines, changing basslines, and so on, vocal take after vocal take. He never did that again.

Just sayin. Just like in construction, careful what you bid on a job you might end up shorting yourself.

 

[Jeff_D]

It's really about how much your time is worth

^This, AND the quality of product you're capable of providing. Ultimately, if you aren't to the point yet where you're able to provide a decent sounding recording, then I'd say your time is worth $zero no matter how long you work on it. The first 6 years that I spent recording other peoples bands from my home studio, I pretty much worked for bartered services. I had one band do some painting for me. Another did some pretty heavy yard work. One did some insulation for me. To me it was a good way to start out and get some real experience without taking cash for something that might not sound good.

 

[Twinhit]

IMHO, this thread should become a sticky.

 

[moresound]

Well your a beginner ..... how fast are you with keyboard short cuts? how fast can you fine sweet spots while micing up something and know where to have a GOOD idea where to start right off the bat? Your tracking and mixing capabilities?

If your pretty good or good enough that your clients don't think that your wasting there money with you figuring things out ..... then $25. an hour for an advanced beginner isn't out of the question. As long as you provide a great product and at the best price that a client can find.

 

[moresound]

Forgot that you'll also need a good wow factor recording space as well.

 

[mcmetal]

^This, AND the quality of product you're capable of providing. Ultimately, if you aren't to the point yet where you're able to provide a decent sounding recording, then I'd say your time is worth $zero no matter how long you work on it. The first 6 years that I spent recording other peoples bands from my home studio, I pretty much worked for bartered services. I had one band do some painting for me. Another did some pretty heavy yard work. One did some insulation for me. To me it was a good way to start out and get some real experience without taking cash for something that might not sound good.

This is where i'm at on this too.If you don't have a lot of experience then you shouldn't be asking for a whole lot.If you do have some experience and have tracks of your work available for others to listen to then you have a starting point.If you do good work it'll speak for itself regardless of your experience.On the other hand if your mixes are crap then you shouldn't be charging much.It takes time to get good at this stuff and although you feel your time is worth something,so is everyone else's involved.

I've been there done that.I tried to record a buddy's band with my old 4 track cassette portastudio once.They just wanted a rough demo of them all playing together at once.I miced up everything and did the best i could running everything through my mixer to get a decent mix.I was outside the practice place in a cold van for what seemed an eternity.Til it was said and done it sounded like crap.I had a whole day into it.Didn't charge them anything cause i wasn't proud of the results.Was my time worth something to me.Yeah,but the end didn't justify the means.It was a learning experience for me and nothing more.

On the other side of the stick i once went to guys home studio who was offering free 4 song demos.He was just starting out with a 24 channel digital recorder and wanted to recording bands.We had to use his drum set which he had those internal mics set up inside his drums.Til it was done it wasn't that great of a recording.Not to mention how many times we heard "well it's free"We drove an hour to record and while it wasn't costing us money we gave up a lot of our time.I would've rather paid someone who knew what they were doing and gotten better results.

 

[Twinhit]

Forgot that you'll also need a good wow factor recording space as well.

Considering what you said, I consider myself a very novice studio at this point in time.
I thought that I would like to do some specialised work dominating in the area of vocal(spoken or
sung) /instrument (acoustic or electric) recording soloists at the beginning then up to a 5 piece band
with a drummer using a 9 piece kit.
How much space would you recommend for the 5 piece band size room.

I am not able to start on a room at this time as I will be moving from San Diego to Honolulu.
It will probably start in a bedroom sized room. hence small specialized project recording.

As far as equipment goes, I will get to that at another time. But my thoughts are good front end and back end
with a very decently capable computer software based DAW. Good equipment is obviously essential but a good
room on a very tight and limited budget appears to be what I am facing.

 

[Massive Master]

What ever you do, don't do it for free....ever.

Best advice on the page. As much as I'd like to be independently wealthy and do this stuff "for fun" or what not, it's a job, it takes a rather specific set of skills and those skills are worth something (even if for now that "something" is little more than pizza money). Once you make them available cheap/free/what-not, you will find yourself being taken advantage of almost without fail.

 

[Shadow_7]

You have to charge something. You're paying for the electricity to power the gear. The HDD space to store the content. The deliverables in optical media or whatever else qualifies. Even if it sucks, you have to charge something. But if you suck(at recording), let them know up front.

I do it for free, because I only record the content that I want to record, and it's all practice of sorts for me until I get my feet wet. Good gear is essential. You don't need a good room / space if you do on location recording. Which is what I do. You do have to be able to adapt and know where to put yourself at the venue. With gear that can handle ANY conditions. i.e. weather proofing, battery powered, and other things. A lot of my time investment is DIY rigging to come up with something flexible and roughly equivalent to some ridiculously expensive gear. It's a tripod, why does it cost more than my car? And stuff. Most of my free stuff is testing out various riggings. And just getting familiar with the gear that I have. And learning the editing half which is where 95% of the gains in my quality has happened. Fortunately I captured the old stuff at the highest sampling rates available. Why not? It's there and HDDs are cheap now.

As one who saw a need to record in late 2006. Without any real gear until 2008. And various changes in inventory to better address the situation. i.e. No laptop (PITB to setup/tear down), no power cords (safety hazard and extra weight to be lugging). Basically my whole rig could be carried one handed. Not that I'd want to given the current weight of the rig. But it's still one person, one trip without the aid of any wheeled dolly(yet). And that's with a video element as well.