Unfair Studio Prices

[mshilarious]

You know I've thought of this but I'm never gonna do it, so I'll throw it out there: what about advertising at local music/dance schools for parents to pay to have professional recordings of their kids? Video production companies make big bucks selling DVDs of recitals (mostly from me), but the sound quality is far less than studio. At the recitals there is usually a program with advertising, might be a good way to drum up some business.

 

[stonepiano]

You know I've thought of this but I'm never gonna do it, so I'll throw it out there: what about advertising at local music/dance schools for parents to pay to have professional recordings of their kids? Video production companies make big bucks selling DVDs of recitals (mostly from me), but the sound quality is far less than studio. At the recitals there is usually a program with advertising, might be a good way to drum up some business.

A great idea. The continuing thread throughout most of these suggestions is pitch your services to people other than poor musicians. Companies, small businesses, parents, schools, etc.

To my mind, I see that as a huge step in the right direction.




And, as for pissing someone off, I'm sure someone will feel insulted by the end of it....

 

[Massive Master]

You know I've thought of this but I'm never gonna do it, so I'll throw it out there: what about advertising at local music/dance schools for parents to pay to have professional recordings of their kids? Video production companies make big bucks selling DVDs of recitals (mostly from me), but the sound quality is far less than studio. At the recitals there is usually a program with advertising, might be a good way to drum up some business.

That's what those program books are for. A quick and easy way to reach ALL of the parents.

 

[distortedrumble]

this is the best place to piss someone off...we argue and then its over...we dont sue each other for pain and suffering and aggravation.

 

[giles117]

Well, now that you mention it . . .

I do some audio post-production for film and that sort of thing. Sound design, foley, ADR, the works. And I love it. Every bit as much as recording a good musician or band, in fact. I'm still working on getting in to some doors and networking for that, but it's extremely tough. You can check some examples here: http://www.audioforvideo.net/moonunitpagedesign_examples.html

The other stuff you mention I'm not entirely sure how to go about advertising those services, but I'm open to the idea.

Dug the nike and the BMW Commercial

 

[jonhall5446]

The happiest place on earth

And, as for pissing someone off, I'm sure someone will feel insulted by the end of it....

Just havin fun.... I love it here

 

[RD423]

You're no longer a musician or songwriter. You're an engineer.

That's true because I started out rapping and then starting recording myself and then all of my friends were like let me record over your house and then you have no time to be an artist because everyone wants you to record them and then you just get better and better at it and you lose the ability to be a good artist

 

[pashop]

Hi all,

I have a bit of complaint and a question: Do you guys also suffer from studios that have ridiculous low prices?

I hear some of you say 'what's the problem?'. Unfair competition, that's the problem!!ç I am just investing in a new setup with a Digi 002 rack, extra Adat pre-amps, and a lot of other equipment to buy myself a decent home studio. It was my plan do some work for demos and local bands. But how can I compete to a larger studio that asks 150€ a day with a technician (some promo of another studio I read)?

The studio has a better setup than me, but if I go under that price I am practically working for free! Over here, about 40% of the money goes to taxes (I can live with that tough, we have a great social security system over here and it has to be paid), so when asking 150€ I keep about 80 or 90 for workin g10 hours, which leaves me with a low wages, and it doesn't even give any options for investing and repaying equipment.

The only thing I can do is to prove with my first projects in my new studio that I have goood mixing/recording qualities, so that maybe potential customers see that the money is also invested in 'knowledge'.

Sorry about my complaining, but I had to get this out


Any similar experiences with you guys?

This is the world market. The day you open you are not only competing with the guy who owns the HD3 system but you are also competing with the guy who has the Roland BR1600CD. What this means providing you have the patience and skill to do this you have to be creative and aggressive in getting work. Offering cash deals, terms, flexible hrs , credit card payments, paypal etc. Next you might have to go out and get the work. I had a friend years ago who decided he didn’t want to play on the road any more so one day while listening to the radio he said “ these commercials are crap I can do better in my sleep “ so he wrote down all the names of the companies who had ads and made up new commercials. For the next week he went to all these companies and played them what he had done. Within two months he had a client base of 16 companies and with word of mouth this was growing weekly. He retired last year and spends most of his time at the cottage. As well bands who work!!!!! Here is the deal you make a deal with the bands to split the costs of recording a CD providing they are out selling as much as possible. You cover the producing , engineering and studio costs they cover playing and manufacturing costs. This could make you $5.00 per CD sold. I know a Portuguese wedding band who did this and is on the third pressing of 1000 pc. They make money so do you.
These are a few examples I hope they help
PS I’m from Gent originally and will always miss the kermis ( spelled wrong I’m sure ) and the frit wagons.

 

[bleyrad]

How would you make that per-cd-sold funding thing work? Wouldn't it be too easy for the band to lie about how many they've sold?

 

[pashop]

How would you make that per-cd-sold funding thing work? Wouldn't it be too easy for the band to lie about how many they've sold?

You keep the CD's in the studio and the band members sign for them. Make the numbers always the same and easy for everyone. Eg 50pc or 100 pc at a time. Keep everything on paper and let everyone know whats going on up front and its easy. The key is to get bands that work allot and explain that every gig they are now playing without CD's available to sell ...they are loosing money.

 

[bleyrad]

The problem is that a lot of bands these days prefer to make CD-R copies.

They could easily just make copies on their home computers and sell them without any royalties. You can even make pretty decent covers with a colour inkjet nowadays, too.

 

[pashop]

The problem is that a lot of bands these days prefer to make CD-R copies.

They could easily just make copies on their home computers and sell them without any royalties. You can even make pretty decent covers with a colour inkjet nowadays, too.

Again ...you put everything on paper so everyone knows where things stand. Get a lawyer to draft something simple to cover yourself. As well your always going to find crooks and people who just don't get it. To be honest this kind of project would be better suited to the top 40 band, wedding band, solo artist people who are maybe older and know the value of building a good relationship is. Fly by the seat of your pants bands have always been easy to spot and generally have a history of being flaking with everything they do.
Your going to have to be selective ,spread these out and don’t ever put all your eggs in one basket.

 

[pashop]

Club promotional CD’s work as well. Find a blues /rock club in the area suggest to the owner that he can be the executive producer of a promotional CD for the club. You will need 5 bands each to submit two songs . The bands get paid with 40 CD’s each that they can sell to pay themselves ( 40 x $15 = $600.00 )
This leaves the bar with 800 units ..give away 50 to Radio , TV, Press. Give $3 from each remaining CD to a good charity which will pay off ten fold in press . Have a CD release party with all 5 bands playing and the charity can make another few bucks off of a small cover . Charge $3,500.00 for recording and a computer based mastering job. Cost of manufacturing say will be $995 @ DiscMakers.
Night club will make $4.525.00 for funding the project and come off with great advertising and a good community spirit. The better news is if there is a second run of say 500pc the bar will make another $5,500. Club also gets to put promotional material all over the cover and possibly can get money from a beer company who might want to be involved as a sponsor.
I have done this three times twice with clubs and once with this group of lawyers who wanted to raise money for the homeless so they went out and found all these lawyer musicians to play for free.
Well I’m off to Detroit airport for a 5 am flight so if I missed anything its because I’m burned out …will check it all Wed

 

[stonepiano]

Club promotional CDs work as well.

PAshop. This is an awesome idea! After I read your post, I sat here wishing I had thought of it.

Anyway, I broke down your idea a little further with simple bullet points. I'm also attaching a pic of a spreadsheet on how I would pitch it to the bar.

Again, kick ass idea, PAshop.

Club Promotional CDs

-Find a blues/rock club in the area.

-Suggest a promotional CD for the club to the owner.

-The run of CDs would be 1000 units (to be sold at $15 each).

-5 bands submit two songs each.

-The bands get paid 40 CDs each (200 units gone, 800 remain).

-Bands sell CDs to pay themselves (40 x $15 = $600.00).

-This leaves the bar with 800 units.

-Give away 50 to Radio, TV, Press (750 remain).

-Charge $3,500.00 for recording and a computer based mastering job.

-Cost of manufacturing say will be $995 @ Disc Makers.

-(Now, look at attached spreadsheet on cost breakdown for bar, charity and how studio gets paid)

-Night club will make $4,505.00 for funding the project.

-Besides the dough, they come off with great advertising and good community spirit.

Extra Thoughts:

-Club possibly can raise capital from sponsors.

-Showcase of 5 bands could lead to extra dough.

-Give $3 from each Bar CD to a good charity which will pay off ten fold in press.

 

[pashop]

Nice work

Ya sorry that was a tad scatterbrained. Long day yesterday with no sleep.

 

[RD423]

But you know what I have never looked down on anyone doing it in there house because I have been recording in my house for about 6 yrs. now and I am at the point where I can say that I am a good engineer and what I have taught myself has gotten me to where I am today I have 2 different big name studios in my area now that calls me to engineer for them with there artist.

 

[pashop]

Band Warz

Yes its stupid for bands to compete against on another for the same reason its stupid to have awards shows. Lets get that out of the way for all the purists in the room.
Go to a club and suggest putting on a band Warz contest with the prize being 6 hrs of studio time that you donate…….did he say donate?
First off you need to get the hip radio station on board to do the “presents” . They will supply the judges and not only advertise the club the event but the grand prize which is supplied by ( wanky name ). This is great advertising that goes right out to the people you want in your studio. You gave away six hrs ……..now we know your not going to get much done in six hrs so 95% of the time the winning band ends up purchasing more time to edit, mix, master or add other songs . You can’t loose.
As well you make a deal with the club to hang a big banner at the back of the stage
You take a stereo line out of the FOH mixer and record the event to DAT and give everyone a CDR copy that they have to pick up at the studio which gets them in your door
You can give away a second prize of 4 hrs which has the same results for you as the winner.
As well you come off looking like a great ,one of the boys kinda guy ……unlike those other big studio snobs

 

[shAkEz_gk]

The producer I work with, charges $25.00 per track, and I am ALWAYS very satisfied with his work.

 

[earworm]

hehe... perfect thread;...
i've been frustrating myself many times thinking about all this,

the past 12 monhts it seemed like ALL the local bands wanted to record their stuff themselves... i'm the only one with a home studio in the area, so they all came to me to ask for help,
after a while i got SO fed up with it that i told everyone to Piss Off...
some of them bands did waste, and imean WASTE shedloads of money
on stupid big mixers to then realize that you also need mics, a soundcard, cables.......and blabla;..AND SOMEONE TO HOOK IT UP !

so it majorly pissed me off, everyone wanted to do it themselves,
and i mean=: EVERY single band i talked to the last year !!! its a desease

but but but, here comes the good part:
after months of silence i met a few of those artists i told to piss off,
their story:
"dude, we're all totally broke and depressed, we can't record ourselves, it sounds like whoreshit, so we went over to another little studio, payed like $300 for a 4-track demo cd and it sounded as terrible as our stuff, but it just was louder"

this makes me smile, the frustrations are slowly getting over because i'm getting better and better every month.

its been said before in this thread: if you know you're good, TELL people you're good .... now i dare to say to bands:
"oh, you think i'm expensive ? i give you a few weeks to look around for a few other little studios, they ALL have about the same price and i bought a bunch of their demo-cds and they SUCK"

so thats what i do, doing it a bit "agressive", i do buy lots of Demo cds recorded in small belgian studios, and i let my bands hear that crap, and i mean: C R A P
i'm not an engineer yet, i want to, working hard to become,
but people don't know that;.. you gotto show them the difference between your sound and the other studio'ss sound

there's this one Blues-band that recorded One song for free,
only the sax sounded nice (yeah, it was some sort of blues with a sax;..hehe) ...they put that song online as a promo but couldn't sell it cause it sounded too shitty

now they're gonna come over to do a better recording that they can sell on cd;.. they hate to give me money for it, i'm doing it rediculously cheap, but they finally know it:

THERE is a big difference in sound between EVERY engineer or wanna-be

bands are playing it agressive, they don't wanna spend one $ too much,
so we gotto play it even more agressive, since we're the ones that spent SO much time and efforts in our hobby or our job,
i'm not even talking about the equipment,

i used to have a little WOW factor when people walked in my room,
it was STUFFED with equipment ! but i got rid of all the junk,
now i got alot more room, and a much better sound cause i got less but better stuff.... so i kinda lost my WOW factor,
now i'm doing it by playing a cd with tunes i recorded and tunes someone else recorded

you can even cheat, make a 8 bit Wave file of the records recorded in another studio and tell the band you wanna record that "AT LEAST I HAVE A DECENT SOUND CARD !"

haha, but thats just plain evil, istn't it ?

 

[BrettB]

this thread has really become gigantic.. a lot of ppl seem to have the same experiences

Right now I'm doing my first recording job with my new equipment: some metal band. Their gutiarist who plays in their band once recorded with another metal band a demo in an expensive studio that completely and utterly sucks.. I knwo when I will do this job it will sound way better than that lousy recording, so I won't be afraid to point that out to future, potential customers.

As others on this board claim (and their right) I really am going to focus on my engineering and producing skills. Like you said, wanted to record yourself is a stage evry band nowadays go through. They end up frustrated and paying lots of money to some demo studio, or (in maybe 5% of the cases)one of the members is infected with the audio virus and starts to study eand experiment until they can get a decent recording.