starting up a studio

[Pony!]

Hi,

I'm a college student who's been amassing gear since high school. I rent and have been trying to convert the basement into a workable area for a studio for my band. I've been thinking about starting to make some of the money I've spent on recording gear back and maybe opening a small studio for local college acts and high-school bands or recording bar bands live at the bar. Nothing too serious or big. Just a single live room, my gear, a computer, and the musicians.

I've got a mackie onyx w. the firewire card and an echo layla 24/96. As well as a fairly decent compliment of microphones and other doohickeys and doodads. I'm going through my computer getting rid of pirated recording software and purchasing the ones I actually made use of (or at least the academic versions of them).

I've started treating the room to make it sound better and have even talked to a few artists who are interested in coming into my studio when its done.

My question is: Where do I go from here? I haven't thought of a name for my business, hell I wouldn't even know how to go about starting up an actual business. Should I take out another bank account in the business' name? Should it be entirely under the table right now? I haven't talked to my landlord about running a business out of his basement. (though I'm sure he wouldn't mind. I've done a lot of work and put a lot of money into fixing up the house and never asked for a penny from him to do it. Also, he's quite lackadaisical).

 

[Massive Master]

I'd retain and consult a local business attorney before doing anything else. There's plenty of 'shortcuts' you can take on your own (which you should tell him you're willing to do) such as obtaining a DBA and whatever licenses you'll need from the local municipality, but even if your landlord "doesn't mind" you don't want to put him in any danger of losing the building. Insurance (liability - LOTS of it, perhaps an umbrella policy that covers the landlord), code enforcement is going to be an issue no matter where you are... You're far better off throwing a couple $k at an attorney now than being fined a bunch of $k later.

 

[mikeh]

A lot of different questions. It is always a good idea to have a seperate bank account to keep business transactions seperate from personal finances.

How to start???? A good first step is to find out who your competition is, how much they charge, how their gear compares to you, etc. etc.

Do you think you can generate a good enough product to charge? Keep in mind, word of mouth travels fast. If you produce good work, people will be happy to pass your name along. However, if they are not satisfied, they will quickly thrash your name (in particular, if you charged money and they were not satisfied). As a side note: High school bands, basement bands, whatever you call them......almost never are satisfied. They always think that their $10 an hour demo should sound as good as the new major lable CD from .......name an artist.

Also, keep in mind, tracking, mixing and mastering can take a lot of time (I normally budget 10 hours per song)....unless the band is really tight (in which case maybe 6 hours a song). I can almost guarentee your "clients" will expect to finish a song in one or two hours......and if you try to charge more, they'll think your ripping them off.

Regarding name..........this early in the process, that is the least of your problems. One of the more repsected studios in my region is called Joe's Garage (no one names Joe is involved).

 

[Erockrazor]

You ask "where do you go from here?"

Well, I don't know but I do want to wish you luck.

I'm in a similar time period in which I'd like to make some money back and think I can offer something worth listening to on laptop speakers. I will end up staying under the table for some time but don't take that advice, I'm not making any money.