Pro commercial release cost

[ecktronic]

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.

Sorry, I think Im confusing people here.
We are currently finishing off recording and mixing of our album. We started from scratch and redid the whole album which im very glad we did.
For this album we had no budget from the label, so we had to pay for it ourselves, and the label heped out with some equipment and they are paying for the mastering. We are getting Dennis Smith to master it. (The guy who did Gary Jules "Mad World"). The album cost us very very little to make and we werent going for the top pro sound as we knew we would get it with the shitty equipment we have.

Its our next album that we are looking to go all out and get that top pro sound. I beleive we can manage it on our budget. We can record some in a nice studio with a great engineer and then record some in our own ghetto studio to cut costs. For example, we can get real nice sounding vocals in our studio, but drums we cant do as we only have 1 input! lol

Eck

 

[ecktronic]

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.

Cheers Mat. Ill take a look at his site.
We are jst trying to get back into gigging at the moment, not giged much last year and none this year!
Listened to your songs on myspace. The mixes sound nice. Guitars sound quite full at times. We only need a great recording engineer really so hope to be able to manage our album within our budget.

If you dont mind me asking, can you remember any recording techniques he used that stood out to you as a bit different?

Cheers,
Eck

 

[SonicAlbert]

Sorry, I think Im confusing people here.
We are currently finishing off recording and mixing of our album. We started from scratch and redid the whole album which im very glad we did.
For this album we had no budget from the label, so we had to pay for it ourselves, and the label heped out with some equipment and they are paying for the mastering. We are getting Dennis Smith to master it. (The guy who did Gary Jules "Mad World"). The album cost us very very little to make and we werent going for the top pro sound as we knew we would get it with the shitty equipment we have.

Its our next album that we are looking to go all out and get that top pro sound. I beleive we can manage it on our budget. We can record some in a nice studio with a great engineer and then record some in our own ghetto studio to cut costs. For example, we can get real nice sounding vocals in our studio, but drums we cant do as we only have 1 input! lol

Eck

Okay, got it. Sounds like a plan.

I think it is a great way to work to do tracks in a commercial studio that can benefit from the acoustics. But not everything has to be tracked there. If you get a good vocal sound in your own place, that's a perfect example. I use synths on a lot of stuff, so obviously there's no need to track that at a big studio.

I really like the flexibility of how we can work these days.

 

[ecktronic]

Okay, got it. Sounds like a plan.
I really like the flexibility of how we can work these days.

Yip same here. The digital age is great!
I remember years and years ago hearing about how it will soon be the norm for a studio to record something then send it via the internet to another studio then they send it on to another studio where the guitarist ist even at the studio, but still records the peice kinda thing!
I thought it was space age stuff, but its actually happpening ALL the time now.
Great!
Eck

 

[MatthewRedStars]

Cheers Mat. Ill take a look at his site.
We are jst trying to get back into gigging at the moment, not giged much last year and none this year!
Listened to your songs on myspace. The mixes sound nice. Guitars sound quite full at times. We only need a great recording engineer really so hope to be able to manage our album within our budget.

If you dont mind me asking, can you remember any recording techniques he used that stood out to you as a bit different?

Cheers,
Eck

Techniques? Nothing out of the ordinary. Lots of "do it again", "do it again", "do it again". He's not scared to tell you when its not good enough. Something to never forget!

A fair amount of drum editing.. he has a clinical approach, maybe not the best suited to us in hindsight, but if you want a tight metal sound he's very good.

 

[iqi616]

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.

A bonus is often that gunslinger will bring some of his favorite guns with him (e.g. a great mic or two and/or a portable rack of high-grade iron).

G.

I agree. It's the ears not the gear.

I agree with NL5 too. If you can't find a great sounding room for the drums on the cheap, hire one just for tracking them.

 

[ecktronic]

A fair amount of drum editing.. he has a clinical approach, maybe not the best suited to us in hindsight, but if you want a tight metal sound he's very good.

What do you mean by maybe not best suited to yous? Do you mean his style of production or his ways of working?
By drum editing did you peice together certain parts of each song with seperate takes and cut and paste in samples of better hits inplace of bad hits?

Eck

 

[MatthewRedStars]

Not suiting us in the sense that i think we are more a rocknroll and organic than tight and metal if that makes sense.

With regard to drum editing, he moved some hits around, kept it tight to the click, did some sample replacement. We have a pretty good drummer so it wasn't too execesive. It all depends what suits you, but i think it was the drum editting that gives the very modern-metal sound.

For contrast, we're recording the next album live at Foel Studios with Chris Fielding, no click, minimal overdubs.

 

[ecktronic]

Not suiting us in the sense that i think we are more a rocknroll and organic than tight and metal if that makes sense.

With regard to drum editing, he moved some hits around, kept it tight to the click, did some sample replacement. We have a pretty good drummer so it wasn't too execesive. It all depends what suits you, but i think it was the drum editting that gives the very modern-metal sound.

For contrast, we're recording the next album live at Foel Studios with Chris Fielding, no click, minimal overdubs.

Yeah totally get you. Your myspace mixes are a bit generic to that metal sound. Sorry I dont mean to diss your mixes, the songs themselves sound really good.
I agree that your sound would sound better with a less metal sound.
Our sound (prodcution) is trying to be between metal (without being too generic) and heavy rock, like say older Incubus. So heavy but not as heavy as metal kinda. I suppose our sound musically is kinda close to that also.

I hate drum editing, had to do a shit load of it for this album, but I dont plan on doing as much for the next one for sure!

Cheers,
Eck

 

[Ford Van]

Not suiting us in the sense that i think we are more a rocknroll and organic than tight and metal if that makes sense.

With regard to drum editing, he moved some hits around, kept it tight to the click, did some sample replacement. We have a pretty good drummer so it wasn't too execesive. It all depends what suits you, but i think it was the drum editting that gives the very modern-metal sound.

For contrast, we're recording the next album live at Foel Studios with Chris Fielding, no click, minimal overdubs.

I vote this post as being the perfect example of an artist not having ANY clue as to how they ACTUALLY come across to the masses.

I think you definately had the right guy doing production. More organic? More rocknroll? Fuck, your singer doesn't actually ever "sing", and you guy drop tune! I am actually disappointed that the guy left the original tom sounds in! I think that is one area where the production could improve tremendously!

About this whole "hire a gunslinger" thing. Okay, let's say he does cost $400 a day. 10 days, $4000. A good production usually is about 2-3 days per song if you are talking Deftones quality. So, for a 10 song CD, you need 20-30 days with your gunslinger. That is $8000-12,000. That is not including studio costs. From what I have heard from you already, I can tell that your gear is not up to snuff, so you will need to make investments there.

Just start getting used to the idea that you are not going to come close to something like the Deftones in production quality. You will need to AT LEAST triple that budget to even think of getting into that neighborhood. But even then, I don't think you can get it.

 

[Ironklad Audio]

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.

pffft

i've heard those albums a million times, and i'd guarantee it takes a good room to make abe's snare crack like it does

 

[MatthewRedStars]

I vote this post as being the perfect example of an artist not having ANY clue as to how they ACTUALLY come across to the masses.

I think you definately had the right guy doing production. More organic? More rocknroll? Fuck, your singer doesn't actually ever "sing", and you guy drop tune! I am actually disappointed that the guy left the original tom sounds in! I think that is one area where the production could improve tremendously!

I see you point but i don't think we sound like that live at all (i think the production with layered guitars, lacking bass, unreal drums make us sound more "metal", we were young and didn't know shit). Live we are stripped down and harsh, pretty much a punk band.

e.g. We also recorded a 7" a year later and the actual sound quality isn't as good but i think it sounds more like us.

Maybe the next record won't work out, maybe it will, maybe we have no clue what suits us but I like an adventure.

We're recording next with the guy who did our label mates www.myspace.com/theagentofthemorai, i like the style and hes done much better stuff since + we have a better drummer sssshhhhh.

 

[ecktronic]

Just start getting used to the idea that you are not going to come close to something like the Deftones in production quality. You will need to AT LEAST triple that budget to even think of getting into that neighborhood. But even then, I don't think you can get it.

Cheers Ford Van.
Our set up was:
For Drums: D112 close kick, Beta 52a far kick, C414 top snare, SM57 btm snare, C414 hats, SM58s toms, NT2s OHs.
Into focusrite preamps in Yamaha O2R96 into Pro Tools HD192 at 24bit 96k.
Thats the college studio. Now for our studio.

Guitars: Beta52a and AKG MKIII (look like sm57s but real old) into Studio Master (live) desk. Headphone out of the desk into the 1 input of Soundblaster Audigy2.

As you can see, not the best of set pus for the guitar, bass and vox really! I beleive its mostly the guitars that let down the production on this. The bass sounds not bad I suppose. The drums aint too hot, althoght the kick drum and OHs I like.

Eck

 

[ecktronic]

pffft

i've heard those albums a million times, and i'd guarantee it takes a good room to make abe's snare crack like it does

I thought it took a good cracky snare to make that sound. I know where your coming from that snares sound snappier in OHs than in the close mics though.

Eck

 

[ecktronic]

We're recording next with the guy who did our label mates www.myspace.com/theagentofthemorai, i like the style and hes done much better stuff since + we have a better drummer sssshhhhh.

I dont like the sound of the mixes on this link. Dave Changs mixes sound a hell of alot cleaner, but the guitars have a more distinct sound than Daves guitars, although they arent too clean and have too much lo mids.

Eck

 

[Ford Van]

I see you point but i don't think we sound like that live at all (i think the production with layered guitars, lacking bass, unreal drums make us sound more "metal", we were young and didn't know shit). Live we are stripped down and harsh, pretty much a punk band.

e.g. We also recorded a 7" a year later and the actual sound quality isn't as good but i think it sounds more like us.

Maybe the next record won't work out, maybe it will, maybe we have no clue what suits us but I like an adventure.

We're recording next with the guy who did our label mates www.myspace.com/theagentofthemorai, i like the style and hes done much better stuff since + we have a better drummer sssshhhhh.

So, this other band is punk? You younguns have a very warped sense of what "punk" and "metal" are. I could play either recording for 100 people (non-musicians) and 99 of them are going to say "metal".

So you guys share the same singer right?

 

[MCI2424]

Does anyone know roughly how much it costs for big bands like Deftones, A Prefect Circle, Incubus etc. to get an album produced (recorded, mixed, produced and mastered) these days?
I think Terry Date and Andy Wallace were involved in either the mixing or producing of theses bands at some point.

Im just trying to compare the price of our album getting produced to the big boys.

Cheers,
Eck

$20,000 - $50,000 depending on how big the band's sales are/have been.

Track record dictates budget.

That is why so many true legends end up on the "home shopping" network selling their new release (not available in stores!) with "more hits than the Beatles!!!!! tagged on.

Hint: If you record covers, and every single song on the album was a #1 hit, you have beaten the Beatles.

 

[MCI2424]

Why would I ever want to lower my expectations on how well I can produce my next album? I am striving to be up there with the big lads, and the only way to do that is to push myself. I have confidence that I will be able to manage it for the next album. That will give me about a year to plan out how its going to be recorded and mixed, and to get the songs ready via demo recordings so Im happy to go ahead with the recording of them.
I know I need better equipment to do this, so I either need to upgrade or hire a fekin awsome recording engineer to help out and a half decent studio. Im thinking of the 2nd option as a better one. Saves me recording the album all by myself.

Eck

Are you trying to get signed as an artist or get a job as a producer?

Big label companies don't care about the quality of the recording, they care about the quality of the music and performance (studio and more importantly live).

ANY good pro studio will do. I would go as far as to say any good home studio will do. UNLESS you are just trying to make an album you want to market by yourself.

The buying public will care (although with modern MP3 shit, this is questionable)

 

[ecktronic]

Are you trying to get signed as an artist or get a job as a producer?

Big label companies don't care about the quality of the recording, they care about the quality of the music and performance (studio and more importantly live).

ANY good pro studio will do. I would go as far as to say any good home studio will do. UNLESS you are just trying to make an album you want to market by yourself.

The buying public will care (although with modern MP3 shit, this is questionable)

We are signed already, and Im learning as much as I can about mixing at the moment so hopefully our bands 2nd album will be a cracker!

Eck

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Big label companies don't care about the quality of the recording, they care about the quality of the music and performance (studio and more importantly live).

Allow me to spin that a bit:

"Big label companies don't care about the quality of the recording or the quality of the music or the quality of the performance. They care about the miarketability of the package."

There are exceptions on all counts with some of the smaller "big labels", of course.

But the stereotypical "big label" (there is only one left anyway...just about ) would make a platinum first run printing of just the 1k - 2k slice of pink noise in mono if they thought that with enough advertising they could convince the college crowd that it was The Next Big Thing.

G.