Ehhh. I've got a few friends in this local punk band, and theres this guy, Chris, from the "bigtime" local punk band around here. He says his main goal is to support all of the local music and stuff, so it really gets to me how he's charging my friends to record. Well, of course, you expect to pay to cut a demo, but this guy's equipment consits of some Nady drum mics, a MXL vocal mic, a Behringer mixer, some other random stuff and a computer. I guess its done in his house, possibly an apartment. He's charging $100 for it, i'm not sure how many songs, but still that just seems like busting heads to me. Maybe it's just my attitude, but if I had gear like that and recording in an apartment, I don't really think i'd be worried about making money, but thats just me.
I was going to do something for them for free but the kid who's equipment I was borrowing (8 track hard disk recorder, Yamaha mixer, bunch of drum mics) took it all back haha. I'm currently saving up for gear of my own to try and get things going but i'm really starting to get more interested in live sound, so i'm not sure what i'm going to empty my wallet on.
Comments
Yeah I can agree with you guys, it just got to me for some reaso
Yeah I can agree with you guys, it just got to me for some reason I'm not sure, maybe it's just how this guy talks about supporting local music and stuff. I guess he's making the cd covers and duplications himself too so I assume thats where the money's going to, so thats cool.
Man, $100 is CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEP I still say the easiest way for a
Man, $100 is CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
I still say the easiest way for a band to get the cheapest and fastest recording is when you do a show, mic everything up, and record off the mixer. You'd be surprised how "not so bad" it can sound, even on a tape player.
Now THAT'S budget. 8-) :D
yea $100 bucks isnt bad, depending on what your getting. who kno
yea $100 bucks isnt bad, depending on what your getting. who knows he could be some genuis who just uses the cases to all this stuff and every thing inside is highly modifided. but i doubt that is the case. ive delt with many a "old wise punks" and people out just to help the sean, take them for what there worth, but take them no farther.
but then agien keep your ear open, it might just sound good.
i'm sorry, but this dude has the right to charge whatever he wan
i'm sorry, but this dude has the right to charge whatever he wants. especially $100 dollars!!!!
i have friends in the business who wouldn't do anything short of 4 figures.
heck, i just recorded a 4 song demo for a blues duo (acoustic guitar, harmonica, and vocals) for a measly $20/h. the final bill came to $250. i felt like i lost cuz, although they were good performers, they've never been recorded b4 and the session took waaay to long for a 4 song demo. i basically waved the fee for mixing.
a good chunk of my time went to these guys.
and in my opinion recording somebody for $100 is helping them out.
for a modest setup, $100 / song is a STEAL. i have about 10k in
for a modest setup, $100 / song is a STEAL.
i have about 10k in equipment, and i usually charge about $20/hr for FRIENDS. 1 song can take up to 10 hours for tracking mixing and mastering depending on the arrangement.
then again, i did a favor for trade for some friends, recorded drums, bass, guitars live for 5 hours and got 10 songs tracked, but these guys were on their game musically, and had the best sounding equipment (tuned drums, 64 vox ac30, fender bassman, vintage ampeg svt)
sounded amazing for 5 hours of work. and they got each song done in 3 takes or less.
steve
I usually charge a little over 100$ per song. And my equipment i
I usually charge a little over 100$ per song. And my equipment is below humble. I record drums using a 4mic setup (max i have) behringer pres, a NT1 for vocals, a pair of 012's and the Beta57a and Beta58a. I generally give a better end product than what proper/much more expensive studios deliver (not stating that its excellent). So no one is complaining (the initial responce might at times be less than enthusiastic). I have a two room annexe. where i live and record.
the way i look at it. If i were not to be charging even a 100USD per song.. dude, id be living here, working on this equipment forever.
100USD is CHEAP! And if you are a little skilled (in my case, a big reason for which being you guyz) a reasonable product can be delivered with low end equipment.
And yes, i do charge this ammount because often it's the best that bands here can afford. If they can afford more, ill charge more.
Sidhu
I think it all comes down to one question: "how serious are they
I think it all comes down to one question: "how serious are they about their music?" I mean if this music and these songs are your passion and your pride and joy I think they deserve a little more than $100 bucks. Yes $100 dollars for a 3 song demo is a steal BUT you have to ask yourself if this is really the best you can do for these songs and later on down the road will you ever want to re-record them and make them better quality. Ask this guy for some of his previous work and listen to it. See how it stacks up to other places that charge a more "professional" rate and have more professional gear and a more professional atmosphere. Another question to ask is "will this demo REALLY be what you want to market yourself with?". A crappy recording can make even the best musicians sound like poop. I have seen/heard it first hand.
Hmm..I might be stupid not charging anything for recording.:? .A
Hmm..I might be stupid not charging anything for recording.:? .And the gear I use is nicer (neve mixer, Neumann/dpa mics, ureis, the lot)
But I figure as I'm still learning, I help the band out, the band helps me out, you know..
I only record good musicians though, otherwise it's useless for me..
And also...having crappy gear doesnt neccesarily equal crappy end product..I bet It's perfectly possible to make a cool punk recording with crappy mics, a behringer (aaargh!!) mixer and a computer (with some nice plugins)..
I could do it I'm sure..
inLoco wrote: totally ripped!!! here in Portugal you have so man
inLoco wrote: totally ripped!!! here in Portugal you have so many studios like that and then people don't realize why their demos sound so bad!
Everyone can achieve that kind of sound for much less!
i guess that would all depend on how far a greenback goes in portugal :D
huub wrote: Hmm..I might be stupid not charging anything for rec
huub wrote: Hmm..I might be stupid not charging anything for recording.:? .And the gear I use is nicer (neve mixer, Neumann/dpa mics, ureis, the lot)
But I figure as I'm still learning, I help the band out, the band helps me out, you know..
I only record good musicians though, otherwise it's useless for me..And also...having crappy gear doesnt neccesarily equal crappy end product..I bet It's perfectly possible to make a cool punk recording with crappy mics, a behringer (aaargh!!) mixer and a computer (with some nice plugins)..
I could do it I'm sure..
You are either a little stupid (no offense) or a bit rich. How do you own a Neve mixer and Neumann mics just to learn on? Did you inherit a studio from a dead uncle, or are these things just floating around really cheap for beginners to buy over there? If not, you should charge a lot of money or your gear will never pay for itself.
http://www.purevolume.com/peacefulriotrecordings There they are
http://www.purevolume.com/peacefulriotrecordings
There they are. I mean the stuff isn't TERRIBLE but you know ehhh. "My Son Cid" is the big local punk band around here, and I heard one recording of them that they did that sounded absolutely amazing. They definitely had sent it out to get professionally mastered because there was no way he could cut a mix like that in his living room. They don't have that song up online anymore which seems dumb. I heard another version of it which is definitely the version he mixed also, really thin guitar, no punchy bass, couldn't hear the drums too good. Man the other version I heard of it though was ace, so I assume it was mastered.
I don't doubt this guy doesn't know what he's doing though. I was talking to my friends yesterday before they went to go record but I haven't heard a report from them about it yet. They were discussing how they wanted to do it and they were talking about laying guitar down first because their drummer isn't the most solid with staying on time....I just chuckled and told them that probably isn't going to work out too great.
Canton, Ohio... Yeah a click track with rhytm guitar to start o
Canton, Ohio...
Yeah a click track with rhytm guitar to start off would be fine but they weren't planning on doing a click track. They just had the idea that Kevin, the drummer could follow guitar by itself, and maybe a super great drummer that can keep time like a watch could, but not many drummers can. It's very difficult for a lot of drummers to play to a metronome, simple beats, sure, but all out fills and stuff whew it gets rough. Thats something I've been trying to work on with my drumming.
audiofreqs wrote: slap some headphones on the drummer. get a r
audiofreqs wrote: slap some headphones on the drummer.
get a rhythm guitar to play alongside him (or her) live in the monitor mix, possibly with their own headphones as well. (either with a mic'd amp somewhere else or DI)
just record the drums.
Right. I'm sure thats how they ended up doing it, thats standard procedure.
My setup is small, under $15k, and built in two bedrooms of my h
My setup is small, under $15k, and built in two bedrooms of my home. The sound quality doesn't suck, but isn't anything to kick and scream over. My mixes are ok, I know I can do better, but will come with time. This being said I've charged as little as 10/hr and as much as 25/hr. Now my rate is about 20/hr for projects more than a day and 25/hr for one day.
Are people getting ripped off by me? Hell no! I tell each band that if they don't like the way things are going within the first 4 hours they can leave without obligation to pay. I make sure each band meets me at my place before booking time, they listen to samples of my work, and I run through exactly what they should do before a recording session (change drums head, set up guitars..etc).
Every band knows exactly what to expect out of me, and so far all but 1 band have been repeat clients.
So there ya go....
therecordingart wrote: My setup is small, under $15k, and built
therecordingart wrote: My setup is small, under $15k, and built in two bedrooms of my home. The sound quality doesn't suck, but isn't anything to kick and scream over. My mixes are ok, I know I can do better, but will come with time. This being said I've charged as little as 10/hr and as much as 25/hr. Now my rate is about 20/hr for projects more than a day and 25/hr for one day.
Are people getting ripped off by me? Hell no! I tell each band that if they don't like the way things are going within the first 4 hours they can leave without obligation to pay. I make sure each band meets me at my place before booking time, they listen to samples of my work, and I run through exactly what they should do before a recording session (change drums head, set up guitars..etc).
Every band knows exactly what to expect out of me, and so far all but 1 band have been repeat clients.So there ya go....
almost exactly what I do too.. Call them over before booking time. Then they know well what to expect. And it takes care of the "this does not look like a studio.." thingi too. They usually like my work and come back. I however, dont work on an hourly basis. Usually give give as much time to the song as needed (within reason). And i tell the bands that they will not come and rehearse here. Works well.
Now if we only had enough bands around here... :roll:
Sidhu
Reggie wrote: You are either a little stupid (no offense) or a
Reggie wrote:
You are either a little stupid (no offense) or a bit rich. How do you own a Neve mixer and Neumann mics just to learn on? Did you inherit a studio from a dead uncle, or are these things just floating around really cheap for beginners to buy over there? If not, you should charge a lot of money or your gear will never pay for itself.
oh, no...it's not my stuff...It's the stuff I work with (I 'm a tv broadcasting audio engineer), and my company lets me use this stuff to record my own stuff..
And I don't mean learning in the beginners sense..more learning how to win a grammy :wink:
In the end, its not *always* the gear (other than mics!) or the
In the end, its not *always* the gear (other than mics!) or the pretty building with the
big overhead, it's mostly the experience of the engineers!
A good engineer will always pull off a good recording!
Mixing and mastering... is something else to consider.
You might want to shop around for that too.
So how do you choose your studio, Mixing engineer, etc...?
GET REFERENCES!!
About 5 should do it...
(the more the better!)
Listen to the recordings and the final product.
Any worthwhile studio will provide contact names to you.
Also, for example, if they have primarily a jazz experience and
haven't recorded punk before, don't go there, you'll probably not
be happy with the result.... Find a Mixing engineer or company that
has experience in your genre as well!
KJ
-----------------
KYRO Studios
Because I had nothing else available, I recorded a demo for a ba
Because I had nothing else available, I recorded a demo for a band with crappy mixer and mics, oh, and crappy converters..
(also for free by the way)..
It's not great, but an acceptable demo I think..
Worth 100 bucks I guess(?)
(the drums are meant to sound trashy)
http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&fri
Well, finally there is one of the songs they recorded. They couldn't figure out how to get it on myspace at first because they ripped them in WMA format from the CD, so he sent me the file to encode to MP3. After listening to it, it's really not the worst thing I've heard, but you could tell the guy mixed it in an apartment. The low end is real muddy. I tried to do what I could to clean it up. I took a parametric EQ and tried to make the bass drum pop out because you couldn't even hear it before (not like you can now), and I raised some highs because whatever he uses to monitor definitely has no highs, it was all mids.
I'd really like to get a hold of the original tracks because I could definitely make the mix 20x better.
price of recording time I personally made the decision to never
price of recording time
I personally made the decision to never ever offer services for free unless these go to a small group (one or two) of people with whom I'm friends. The reason?
I simply will not continue to be treated like I'm worthless just because I do not charge any money. Am I worthless? Perhaps. But people do treat me differently if and when I'm charging money, and usually it depends on how much.
Back when I did IT consulting services for this small but great company, it was a standard that we took business class flights even on domestic trips (which is basically a huge waste of money), which got billed to the customer. The reason for this? Once a customer told us that their purchasing department had mentioned that we were too expensive compared to competitors, because "someone who flies economy class cannot be worth €2500 a day".
There is an extreme difference in how people treat you and how they organize their time if you charge money (especially if you charge per hour). There's also a difference how they will treat your gear depending on if you charge them for it. It's the difference between being yelled at, critizised and harassed, having to ride to the location yourself, having to schlepp your gear as well as help them schlepp theirs and having to attend while they have their usual in-band-hassels, compared to being treated with respect and great support, being picked up at your place and have other people schlepp and setup your gear following your command, and people even asking you "is it ok if we take a five minutes break now?" or "Is it ok for you if we smoke in our own rooms?". The only difference - charging money in the second case...
From a financial standpoint, charging less than $70/h (plus VAT)would not make sense for me from a "to make money" standpoint. This does not count in the equipment. So I always lose money when I do audio engineering, because for me other things simply pay better...
Back to the initial topic: $100 will buy you a lot of experience, unless you already have this experience as individuals and as a band. And if you're lucky, you even get a half-decent recording as aside.
I wouldn't wanna pay that kinda money for that low quality gear
I wouldn't wanna pay that kinda money for that low quality gear used.Even if you put that $100 into just one song at better facilty it would be more worth the money.