How much should I be charging with recordings like these?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Henningsgard
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steve.h said:
So not knowing my gear, how close would you say my sound is to "indie" studios? I know I'm not there, but I'd like to think I'm getting closer :)
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Listen to the song "Cake eater" by Four Letter Lie. Compare that to your work, and you tell me. I compared both to http://www.myspace.com/dancegavindance - which was done in a studio here in town and is of a similar style.

Like I said, the gear isn't really what's important. Having an actual business location (i.e. not in your house - does matter to a small degree - and matters more the closer to commercial you get) I've found though that any indie level work has a certain level of gear. Does that mean it's necessary? I don't know. I'm just one over-opinionated a-hole.... :D

As an added note to my previous post, not only is the gear great at the $500 a day studios in town, several were designed by Russ Berger, and one of them the building was $5 million - no gear, just the building - although they kind of cheated - but that's a long story that would cause a big backlash, so I will let it go.....
 
ecktronic said:
Where I'm from there is a semi-decent studio, with not bad gear.
NT2s, D112s, SM57s/58s, Sennheiser drum mics, and Mackie pre amps.

It costs about $30 an hour. Which is pretty dang cheap I'd say.

They also have a load of practice rooms though so this will help them keep costs down.

Eck
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$30?..that's 15 quid eck? Park lane up the west end charges £300 a day for that shoebox of a live room, that's no more than an indie outlet in my book...one album from the Gyres, Baby Chaos...not a lot in between.

Then you've got The Core up by the tolbooth that used to be owned by wet wet wet's management. They have 6 rehersal rooms in there and yer still talking £500 a day for studio A and they're hardly kickin out albums like they were back when marty pello n co were hangin out there


Last time I was in Park lane they had that SSL...they were using about 12 channels of that beast as a front end and mixing in the box with logic.

I'm happy to charge the kids around here beer money. If I had a decent sized space I wouldn't hesitate to charge £50 a day never mind $50
 
NL5 said:
It took me a sec to get that, then I laughed my ass off! :D
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It took me a second too. Good one.:D

So not knowing my gear, how close would you say my sound is to "indie" studios? I know I'm not there, but I'd like to think I'm getting closer
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Your stuff is fine.:cool: Too many variables involved, like the quality of the band you are recording. There is no way for the listener to know that.

Ultimately, what matters IS the gear for pricing. Prospective clients will be checking the gear list FIRST, and then any mp3 samples you have. Its unfortunate, but it has to be a consideration when realistically considering prices. Some clients would basically be renting "your gear" more than any skills you bring to the table.

Ive seen studios around here for 10 bucks an hour.:D Thats basically the kid with the cracked copy of Cubase in his basement. The fanciest is $750 a day, they have all the good toys. Their mp3 demos suck, you couldnt pay me to use them. The guy I trust is 100 an hour, he has a strong classical background and definitely a "pro" studio with high end mics like Schoepps.
 
NL5 said:
Aren't you doing Indie label quality work? Your site says $50 an hour. I said $25-45, so you are at the upper end plus a few bucks, but aren't you in Chicago? Sounds about right to me if you compare the two markets.
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I just saw the $25/hr part and realized that I couldn't keep the lights on for that.
 
Yeah £120 for an 8 hour day at Urban Studios. www.urbanstudios.co.uk
There are 2, 1 on Argyle street I think, and another one a few minutes in the underground from Argyle street.
Hmm, the website has been down for a few months now, maybe they went bust? :)

The quality is good for the price, although its not up to pro standards.
Yeah I suppose you could call it demo standards, but pretty high demo standards.

Park Lane is well equipped! My mate gets taught at college by the owner and well established engineer of Park Lane, canny remember his name at the moment, but he is pretty well known in Scotland so that will bump the price right up!

LemonTree said:
$30?..that's 15 quid eck? Park lane up the west end charges £300 a day for that shoebox of a live room, that's no more than an indie outlet in my book...one album from the Gyres, Baby Chaos...not a lot in between.

Then you've got The Core up by the tolbooth that used to be owned by wet wet wet's management. They have 6 rehersal rooms in there and yer still talking £500 a day for studio A and they're hardly kickin out albums like they were back when marty pello n co were hangin out there


Last time I was in Park lane they had that SSL...they were using about 12 channels of that beast as a front end and mixing in the box with logic.

I'm happy to charge the kids around here beer money. If I had a decent sized space I wouldn't hesitate to charge £50 a day never mind $50
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glad you got the joke...:D i forgot about that post.

here in the cleveland area we have a 28 dollar an hour studio with a neve, an SSL, a couple seemingly nice rooms and an assload of great gear. however, it's worth way less than that. enough said.

i'm in contact with a few prospective clients right now where i am really too cheap as they are seeing me as a lesser service due to that. i think people also value the end product less if they don't put enough cash into it.

i'm looking at increasing my rates as i'm losing quality work due to being perceived as being too cheap so how could i be as good as the service that costs 'X'. price yourself a little above what you think you are worth...that's my advice as someone who has priced himself to the bottom end for years and now needs to get outta that gracefully. if you're high you can always wiggle down...wiggling up is impossible without collateral damage.

Mike
 
bigtoe said:
glad you got the joke...:D i forgot about that post.

here in the cleveland area we have a 28 dollar an hour studio with a neve, an SSL, a couple seemingly nice rooms and an assload of great gear. however, it's worth way less than that. enough said.
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Lava Room?:confused::D
 
Why are you guys talking about charging per song and then also charging per hour? Do you charge them per hour for the tracking and then a seperate fee for the song itself? Or are you guys talking about flat fees of sorts? :confused:
 
jndietz said:
Why are you guys talking about charging per song and then also charging per hour? Do you charge them per hour for the tracking and then a seperate fee for the song itself? Or are you guys talking about flat fees of sorts? :confused:
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Two different ways to charge. Studios are getting more and more desperate for work, and at least around here, there are several with flat rates. Even if they don't offer them, a lot of times you can negotiate one.
 
So your flat fee includes tracking and mixing? We just finished tracking a 12 song cd at $25 per hour. Now we are paying another $25 per hour to mix. Then the mastering is another charge at another facility. Is this the norm?
 
estring said:
So your flat fee includes tracking and mixing? We just finished tracking a 12 song cd at $25 per hour. Now we are paying another $25 per hour to mix. Then the mastering is another charge at another facility. Is this the norm?
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That's about half of what I charge.

Some places charge by the song. It may, or may not, be a deal. Even places that charge by the song have limits. If you walk in with 8 minute tunes and expect "dark side of the moon"-type production, the $110/song thing will be out the window.
 
estring said:
So your flat fee includes tracking and mixing? We just finished tracking a 12 song cd at $25 per hour. Now we are paying another $25 per hour to mix. Then the mastering is another charge at another facility. Is this the norm?
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totally.

Mike
 
I feel like charging hourly makes more sense during tracking because you might have some guys that really take up your time and well, you should get compensated for that. Mixing/mastering on the other hand makes more sense to have flat rates.

Thats what makes sense to me, at least.
 
estring said:
Totally, which :)...flat fee includes mixing or its usually broken out like I described?
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broken out per hour.

flat fees per song seem really weird to me but people do them. sounds like a recipe for conflict.

i charge by the day and half day. it has helped me communicate realistic expectations and no one is watching the clock so much.

Mike
 
jndietz said:
I feel like charging hourly makes more sense during tracking because you might have some guys that really take up your time and well, you should get compensated for that. Mixing/mastering on the other hand makes more sense to have flat rates.

Thats what makes sense to me, at least.
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You can run into that problem even in a mix. I have a guy in here right now that recorded these tracks someplace else. He wants me to mix them, but he wants the mix to sound like something that the tracks won't support.

He is trying to get something that sounds like 'Danger Zone' off the Top Gun soundtrack to sound modern. I accomplished that (as much as I could) by layering more guitars and not using a bunch of huge reverbs. Then he tells me he wants it to sound like Asia or Mister Mister... you know...modern.

If this guy wasn't paying me by the hour, I would have lost my ass 10 hours ago simply because he doesn't have the vocabulary to tell me what he wants.
 
Farview said:
You can run into that problem even in a mix. I have a guy in here right now that recorded these tracks someplace else. He wants me to mix them, but he wants the mix to sound like something that the tracks won't support.

He is trying to get something that sounds like 'Danger Zone' off the Top Gun soundtrack to sound modern. I accomplished that (as much as I could) by layering more guitars and not using a bunch of huge reverbs. Then he tells me he wants it to sound like Asia or Mister Mister... you know...modern.

If this guy wasn't paying me by the hour, I would have lost my ass 10 hours ago simply because he doesn't have the vocabulary to tell me what he wants.
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What's more Modern than Asia or Mister Mister?!??!?!?!!? :confused:

I bet half the people on this BBS never heard of either, or at least weren't alive in their heyday..........
 
NL5 said:
What's more Modern than Asia or Mister Mister?!??!?!?!!? :confused:

I bet half the people on this BBS never heard of either, or at least weren't alive in their heyday..........
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Not more modern than Asia, more modern LIKE Asia. It's even worse than you thought:(:o
 
Thought of this thread when I heard Allaire was closing. The studio business is getting tougher and tougher, being good isn't always enough. Grammy winning multi platinum albums couldn't keep it open.

Sad, very sad......


http://allairestudios.com/home.html
 
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