Pro commercial release cost

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecktronic
  • Start date Start date
Mindset said:
For an established artist, the budget of them exceeds $5 million easily. Music videos by themselves, each costs roughly $1 million dollars to produce. Just for recording, I know that Kanye West spends for tracking & mixing about $300-350K easily. For bringing in other artists from different labels, that ranges can start from $25K to $1 million dollars for 1 song, 1 performance, from 1 artist. In the hip hop world, Dr Dre costs roughly that much to feature up on someone's track. Budgets from like Bad Boy Records have known to exceed over $20 million dollars once.
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Thats crazy money!
Eck
 
ecktronic said:
You dont really need a great room for the genre of music I am recording (heavy rock).
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Odd, that is a genre where I'd say the room is very important. Especially for drums. Danny Carey picks his studio on room acoustics first and foremost.
 
danny.guitar said:
$20 million?? :confused: :confused:
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Yup. I think back then, 1999 or 2000, P.Diddy (Puff Daddy, executive of Bad Boy Records. spent a record (then) $2.5 million on 1 music video. They usually put out maybe 2-3 music videos per popular group for 1 album, depending on how established they are. Since inflation went up so to speak, average major videos alone are around $1-1.5 million.
 
NL5 said:
Odd, that is a genre where I'd say the room is very important. Especially for drums. Danny Carey picks his studio on room acoustics first and foremost.
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For drums I can see why some people like to make sure they use a good room. But it isnt a necesity atall for this genre.

Eck
 
ecktronic said:
Ok. If you are still around this forum in a year and a half then we shall see how it turns out.
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If your band is still around in a year and 1/2. :D

.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
All else being equal (which it isn't quite, I know), I'd rather have a gunslinger of an engineer in an average prosumer project studio than a rookie engineer in a Big House.
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I agree with this completely. It's all about the engineer.

Not only will you get the advantage their skills when recording and mixing, but you'll also get the benefit of their advice every step of the way. If they are truly on top of their game that will have a positive effect on your production in countless ways both big and small.

That said, I think you'll find $10,000 to be a very tight budget. Realistic budgeting is important because you don't want to get half way through the project and then run out of money. That happens all the time on independent films for example, and it can delay the project by however long it takes to get the rest of the money together.

The best thing to do would be to figure out to the best extent possible where *every dollar* is going, before you start. I'm talking everything: engineer, studio, cartage costs, storage (i.e. hard drive or tape), what the tracking will cost, what the mixing will cost, what the mastering will cost, airfare, taxi, food, hotel, etc., etc., etc. I mean, do a full budget and then you'll have a better idea of how to proceed.

$650 a day for an engineer on a $10,000 budget doesn't sound realistic to me. If the band knows the music cold, and has been performing it regularly, then tracking wouldn't take so long because you could just go in and lay it down. So it's possible. But if tracking is going to be a "creative" process and the music hasn't been gigged much, then tracking alone could easily exceed the $10,000 budget.

You really need to get down into the nitty gritty of figuring out that budget.
 
ecktronic said:
For drums I can see why some people like to make sure they use a good room. But it isnt a necesity atall for this genre.

Eck
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Do you have examples of bands that didn't record in good rooms that obtained the quality you're looking for?
 
Mindset said:
For an established artist, the budget of them exceeds $5 million easily. Music videos by themselves, each costs roughly $1 million dollars to produce. Just for recording, I know that Kanye West spends for tracking & mixing about $300-350K easily. For bringing in other artists from different labels, that ranges can start from $25K to $1 million dollars for 1 song, 1 performance, from 1 artist. In the hip hop world, Dr Dre costs roughly that much to feature up on someone's track. Budgets from like Bad Boy Records have known to exceed over $20 million dollars once.
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Keep in mind that marketing (videos) and even manufacturing (mastering included) are not part of the record production budget...
 
chessrock said:
If your band is still around in a year and 1/2. :D

.
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Yeah they sure will be. We just signed a 3 album deal, so even if we didnt want to stick around for a year and a half (which we definetly do want to do, and more and more) then we wouldnt have much choise anyway.
Looks like yer stuck wi the Ol Serotone. :)

Eck
 
SonicAlbert said:
I agree with this completely. It's all about the engineer.

Not only will you get the advantage their skills when recording and mixing, but you'll also get the benefit of their advice every step of the way. If they are truly on top of their game that will have a positive effect on your production in countless ways both big and small.

That said, I think you'll find $10,000 to be a very tight budget. Realistic budgeting is important because you don't want to get half way through the project and then run out of money. That happens all the time on independent films for example, and it can delay the project by however long it takes to get the rest of the money together.

The best thing to do would be to figure out to the best extent possible where *every dollar* is going, before you start. I'm talking everything: engineer, studio, cartage costs, storage (i.e. hard drive or tape), what the tracking will cost, what the mixing will cost, what the mastering will cost, airfare, taxi, food, hotel, etc., etc., etc. I mean, do a full budget and then you'll have a better idea of how to proceed.

$650 a day for an engineer on a $10,000 budget doesn't sound realistic to me. If the band knows the music cold, and has been performing it regularly, then tracking wouldn't take so long because you could just go in and lay it down. So it's possible. But if tracking is going to be a "creative" process and the music hasn't been gigged much, then tracking alone could easily exceed the $10,000 budget.

You really need to get down into the nitty gritty of figuring out that budget.
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Thanks man. Some wise words there SonicAlbert. I suppose we need to find a GREAT recording engineer based in the UK that we can afford. Im thinking like $400 a day or something, which is pretty darn cheap if we want a GREAT recording engineers help.

Eck
 
warble2 said:
Do you have examples of bands that didn't record in good rooms that obtained the quality you're looking for?
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Listen to the Deftones albums, "Around the fur" and "Adrenaline".
I dont have a clue where they were recorded but anyone with half an ear for production can hear that there is very little (almost no) room sound in the drums. I can hear the snare in the OHs but I cant hear an amazing acousticly treated room in the drums.
Let us know what you think of the drums on the albums Im talking about if you get a chance to listen to any of them.

Cheers,
Eck
 
bblackwood said:
Keep in mind that marketing (videos) and even manufacturing (mastering included) are not part of the record production budget...
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Spot on. I thought mastering was part of the recording budget. Nice, this will free up some cash for more recording time.

Eck
 
ecktronic said:
Spot on. I thought mastering was part of the recording budget. Nice, this will free up some cash for more recording time.
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It still has to be paid for. Unless there's someone else going to pay for it, you might want to make sure you have it covered. I personally would make a budget that covers everything from the first tracking through the final mastering. Then you know that *no matter what* you will have a finished album if you stick to the budget.
 
Another part of the equation you may need to factor in is if the label can reject your master for whatever reason if they feel it is not "up to snuff". Review your contract with them. You may find yourself spending a LOT more than the $10k they are giving you if they reject your masters.
 
SonicAlbert said:
It still has to be paid for. Unless there's someone else going to pay for it, you might want to make sure you have it covered. I personally would make a budget that covers everything from the first tracking through the final mastering. Then you know that *no matter what* you will have a finished album if you stick to the budget.
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I read over our recording contract and the budget covers only recording costs, so I beleive that mastering is an extra expense so not part of our $10,000 budget.
Good words though.

Eck
 
Ford Van said:
Another part of the equation you may need to factor in is if the label can reject your master for whatever reason if they feel it is not "up to snuff". Review your contract with them. You may find yourself spending a LOT more than the $10k they are giving you if they reject your masters.
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Luckily our label are pretty sound with us in that way. The original album we did wasnt up to scratch (old mixes on our myspace www.myspace.com/serotoneband) so they let us re-do the whole album. They cant expect us to get top quality production for $10,000 but we can always aim for top quality production.

Eck
 
So are you remixing the old tracks or starting from scratch? The danger in either case is making the same mistakes over again.

You might be able to consolidate some of the budget by retracking only what needs to be retracked, not everything. I listened to the tracks, and what I heard seemed to tell me that you might be able to keep some of the tracks, lay down some new ones, and have a kick ass engineer make it all work.

$10,000 is very tight for a full on band production of the quality you are trying to achieve. I'm not sure you need to rerecord everything. However, I can hear the need for some of it to be rerecorded, and certainly for a new mix started fresh.
 
Eck,

Noticed you are playing the Subway Cowgate.. played their a few times, always a good laugh.

We recorded our album for a similar budget with Dave Chang (www.davechang.co.uk), he's done a billion UK metal bands and has a distinct tight sound that may suit your tunes.

Just a thought, if you really want to do it yourself then all the best

M.
 
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