The cost of your services really is dependent upon your facility, capabilities, background, experience and what kind of market you are dealing with. I run the gamut. For local musicians & friends think you have me for as little as $250 per evening of recording. Acts elsewhere in town will generally find me available from $500 & up depending upon their requirements for an evening of recording. Studio packages are also available for longer-term projects. Because of my facility in the way in which I work, I frequently only charge a single daily rate. When people come to me for mixing & postproduction my rates will vary from $25 per hour to $80 per hour. In light of the fact it requires $80 per hour or more to have your car repaired by a highly impaired and idiot grease monkey from $80-$100 per hour, compared to my 40+ years of experience, I'm a bargain! At least I don't charge as much as my shrink per hour, OMG! Yet we still have to deal with people as if we were shrinks. LMAO! So we have to give people positive reinforcement, complements, help to build their self-esteem & other helpful suggestions. So I should be getting $175 per hour just like my shrink. That might be doable in NYC but not necessarily Toledo? Where I think you're best known for tyers or is that tires? I think that's dependent upon whether you are across the Erie or Ontario pond?

Could I interest you in a new Delco Car radio from Detroit? I forgot... Delco Remy is gone. No matter...
Mx. Remy Ann David

Oh my goodness Remy you can write a mile!

Ok now this is a side discussion but how do you determine what your going to charge people. And how do they not know what you already charge and have that {always cheapest} price in mind. I charge a flat rate and ive found all kinds that will pay it. Im in a basement that I started from scratch and built a studio in. Its kinda small and the ceilings are to low but its tuned so it doesnt sound or look like a basement anymore. The problem I have is lack of long term projects that are willing to come in and do a record. Im gonna build a new studio but I need to try to figure this selling the customer thing before i do or else. What say yall?Toledo is known for Glass, Jeeps, The Mud Hens, Tony Packos.....Oh and my personal favorite. Walleye fishing.

I learned to stay away from Lake Erie as a child. It was already dead before my grandparents, with their cottage on the lake also died. I had a biology teacher that was walleyed and morbidly obese. It was really funny when I brought my 9 V battery in with the socket and leads to DEFRIB the previous days, dissected frogs. My dead frog leapt out of the dish and smacked her in the chest. She screamed and fell backwards. Then there was riotous laughter. Then everybody wanted to DEFRIB their frogs. Now I'm hungry for frog legs...

My rates are hugely variable depending upon the clientele. Major acts & major FM & TV broadcasts pay a premium rate. Local bands get an average local rates & package deals, comparable to my other local studio competition. Friends get me to help them out with cash and prizes. My rates as a freelance engineer follow closely with my rates as a union broadcast engineer. I'm not out to kill the competition but I am up to compete with them. So it varies by vicinity & area. Toledo might bring you $15 per hour in a recording studio? Whereas the same studio, not even as nicely equipped in the suburbs of NYC may command upwards of $55 per hour. So you have to determine your own value and what the market can offer. There is no hard or fast rules. I know that Toledo is not an entertainment nor performing mecca. Detroit used to be. Chicago used to be. NYC used to be. So what is your time worth and investment worth if your market area can't support that? Brain-dead auto mechanics make more money than us, on the order of $80 per hour to tune your car. Imagine charging someone to tune their guitar for $80? That's what you're doing isn't it? And can you command $80 per hour in your studio? Maybe you should put a hydraulic lift in? You can tell them it was specially designed for tuning guitars and no other studio has it. When you're not busy recording, you could be swapping audio engines? That lift would certainly make light work of that. And then when somebody's music doesn't sound right, you can tell them their carburetor needs loading.

Now I've got grass in my carburetor!
Mx. Remy Ann David

RemyRAD, post: 381982 wrote: Brain-dead auto mechanics make more money than us, on the order of $80 per hour to tune your car. Imagine charging someone to tune their guitar for $80? That's what you're doing isn't it? And can you command $80 per hour in your studio? Maybe you should put a hydraulic lift in? You can tell them it was specially designed for tuning guitars and no other studio has it. When you're not busy recording, you could be swapping audio engines? That lift would certainly make light work of that. And then when somebody's music doesn't sound right, you can tell them their carburetor needs loading.
Mx. Remy Ann David

Isn't that the truth.

Wow good wisdom! Ok Remy here is the big one! How do i get into freelance engineering? I feel that I could easily do this having worked on big and small setups and with different boards and gear. How do I get my foot in that door? Ive worked at a couple studios around here and they are one man shows. Kinda like i am. Also should I consider offering my studio to other engineers? My dad is a bus mechanic. He still cant understand why I hate working on cars. Notice I didnt say that I dont work on cars. I would much rather change a mic clip than a spark plug. I dont do much fishing in the lake yet, I stand in the river when they run up it. $17.50 a pound for walleye here. And the wife hates fish so I get to eat it all.:tongue:

Yeah, that's a good question. Most all audio engineering today is freelance. Very few full-time jobs available doing this other than for yourself. So as you already know, the studios scene in Toledo is obviously already quite depressed. This leaves you the option of trying to get work at your local live music nightclubs. Theatrical centers. Churches. Sporadic rock band PA work. Also try your local TV & radio stations. Public radio can be a good place to start. One thing will then lead to another. Very few people here walked into studios and got work right off the bat. I was lucky at 17 but that was 39 years ago and times have changed. I did pursue the recording studios & radio stations. I got work at the radio stations also. Everything from maintenance engineering to on-air operations to the overnight disc jockey on the number one rock station in Baltimore by the time I was 19. My first actual professional job as an audio guy was being in charge of the performance audio for the Miss Detroit Pageant when I was actually just 14. I wasn't using butting heads with the Masonic Theatre Union stagehands. I had to edit musical performance tapes down, musically correctly for the girls. I also had to play back things on cue. This came from a referral from one of my mothers singing students. I don't think anybody quite got over that a 14-year-old was doing this. At 15 I became a volunteer engineer for the community college of Baltimore 91.5 FM, 50,000 W radio station. There was no money in that but I would say it was quite prestigious to have a Thursday night Opera show and a Saturday afternoon jazz show without even being a decent student in high school. So you have to have the passion with reckless abandon. And never let somebody try to set you straight because misery loves company. So also contacting your local PA rental companies may also be a good start. Mostly your work will come from referrals. So sometimes paying your dues may mean just making some live recordings for bans, gratis? You've got to get your name around. Don't forget however that something for nothing is frequently worth nothing. The question you have to answer is, what is it worth to you? Recording schools & universities are expensive for this crap. So the best way to get your chops down & experiment would be simply acting like a barnstormer. You choose the bands to record. They won't be paying you anything so you can screw up all you want. And that kind of education is priceless (no this is not a MasterCard commercial). Doing benefit concerts for nonprofit fundraising purposes can be a very gratifying thing to do. People will get to know what you do. Then when someone asks you to do it, you give them your price. There's always room for negotiation with that. But that's the foot in the door and it ain't pretty. Later, you might find yourself doing crappy talking head audio for the 11 o'clock news on your local TV station? I consider myself a music engineer but spent 20 years with NBC-TV, DC, engineering audio for talking head shows and a few live FM music broadcasts for them and other local DC radio stations. None of which actually paid the bills. The bills were paid with my full-time job at NBC-TV doing boring sounding audio for 20 years. Now 56, I'm trying to get back into the music industry myself in a bigger way. So I have to come up with some kind of business strategies to get work for my Remote Truck CROWmobile.com again because that business, across the country, has virtually died. That fact was actually printed in Live Sound International magazine when they actually named my highest esteemed professional colleagues, who all have the highest awards & Gold & platinum records, OUT OF BUSINESS, NO LONGER NEEDED. OMG! I thought that was extremely unprofessional of the magazine and rather cruel to these friends of mine who have done this far longer than myself and have well over $300,000 invested in their businesses. So how am I supposed to compete with that? Well, I have a plan but I'm not sure it's really going to work yet? I'd love to hire somebody as enthusiastic as you. But like your local guys, we are one-man shops because most of the work just doesn't exist anymore. I refuse to believe that. Life is what you make it. If I have to go back to my roots in radio, I will. If I have to do talking head news and political shows again, oy vey not again... I will. But I'll never get full time work again with any television network, not at 56. Daily hire is probably the most I can hope for. So what your passion tells you to do doesn't necessarily mean it will happen and if it does happen, it won't necessarily mean you can make a living at it. So as a natural course, I've also become quite proficient in all aspects of video production. I've been a technical director a few times over already. While that's really cool, my heart is in music production. And I don't mean computer music. I don't do that. I won't do that. I have to work with talented professional musicians because nothing less is acceptable. OK, so I record my friends with their garage bands. I teach my friends how to make better recordings in their home studios by showing them how to do so in their home studios. What money do I make from that? What do you think I make? I make friends. So things have not been financially great for the past 10 years. Though it's not going to stop me. You don't just stop doing something once you've been doing it for 40+ years just because times are bad. Although other sources of income are necessary. While I could go into professional audio sales and have had those offers, I'd rather become a bartender. Why? Because if I can't mix music, I'd rather mix drinks. With Grammy, Emmy & Soul Train Music Awards nominations, they won't be able to get a better bartender than that. But I really only want to tend bar at one of the resort beaches on the ocean. Thankfully, Florida has lots of ocean coastline. And I might be shutting down my business to go down and pursue that? Even K00STER McAllister from Record Plant Remote told me he would sell me his gorgeous API truck for $134,000! The API console alone is worth at least half that. So this is a tough game. There might not be any winners? It's the musical lottery that's why.

I only purchase lottery tickets when I know I'm going to win. So, one day I'll purchase one.
Mx. Remy Ann David

Nice, I think that was 2 miles. The lottery is a tax for people who dont know how to do math. Where did you get your neve?

The Neve console I currently have installed is 1 of 2, serial number 3869. I started the truck with a couple of AudiTronics 501's. But those quickly ended up in my basement studio. I had the opportunity to acquire a Sphere Eclipse C. It was a glorious console but it actually didn't travel well. Back in 1996, NBC-TV, DC (where I was still working) wanted to decommission this 36 input Neve I had been using since 1984. I bid on it and got it. In 2004, I acquired the matching console, serial number 3868. 8 of those modules (3115's) I have already sold to Paul Reed Smith. I gave 2 of them to a colleague/friend that had thrown me a bunch of work over the years. So while I still have all 36 I/O modules, I only have 14 of the 24 3115's left to that desk. So I was just freaking lucky. This custom-built NBC-TV Neve is also not built like any recording consoles similar to it. These desks were built like tanks. Much heavier duty than any recording console. It's also incredibly simple in its operation. The Sphere was more like an American designed and built SSL from Chatsworth California. The Neve is about as simple in operation as a Mackie. Yup, super simple and nothing much to go wrong. What makes it so versatile is that at every stage there are transformer isolated output & input patch points. With 48 passwords, I can configure this desk as an in-line console looping back from the 24 track digital machine. Or I can use an outboard monitor mixer. I can patch into the summing buses with sidecar mixers when I need more inputs. That's where my API's also come into play which I have 20 of. I muse over all of these boutique preamps out there. They are all trying to create something better than these old school design. But what would you rather have? A brand-new Toyota or a fully restored Duesenberg? How about a fully restored vintage Rolls-Royce, Bentley? So I'm quite happy with this old crud. What I'm most happy about is their fabulous head room. Not even most reasonable consoles have this kind of head room. So this Neve is quite a bit like having 1073's completely stuffed in it albeit, class A/B output drive. Otherwise my 3115's are configured identically to 1073's. And this is probably why I'm such a snob? I've heard and played with virtually everything from the lowest entry-level crap to state-of-the-art digital SSL desks. While I love the features on some of the more modern consoles, I have no problem dealing with this consoles physical limitations. The Sphere had automation & VCA subgrouping. Very handy. This Neve doesn't have any of that stuff which can actually make things a little more challenging. So it keeps me on my feet, yeah out on my feet, looking for more work. But nothing much is happening in the DC area here anymore and so I think I'm going to have to relocate to somewhere else in the country. It's OK really. Even though I'm not really happy about the collapse of business. I believe there is income to be made elsewhere. So in spite of being married for 10 years and in a relationship now for 18, I've never had any children and therefore am much more footloose and fancy free. My responsibilities are nil and since my divorce in 1993, I no longer own a house nor basement studio. I have an RV mobile home that's also as large as my Remote Truck and they're both parked in an industrial complex with all of these defense contractors near Dulles international Airport in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, along with my Chevy van and antique motorcycle. Crowmobile.com So I feel a bit like a gypsy these days maybe a circus clown? I think clown would be more apt if you've read my posts here over the past six years since my brain surgery. Yeah, real serious brain surgery. So essentially, after a couple of years of being completely physically handicapped & mostly blind, I was given a new life weeks before my 50th birth day. Just so I could suffer through this lack of income, collapse of the broadcast industry, collapse of the record industry. Plus I really got burnt out doing talking head news & politics as those are two of my least favorite subjects. So when you have to go into work every day for eight hours of bad news, corrupt politicians & war, it takes its toll on you. I'm a creative musically oriented entertainment person and that really doesn't exist much here in the DC area. Nightclubs don't even want to pay for bands anymore so they have DJs drying up further income possibilities. So I think, I'm going to have to pay a visit to Nashville as I've never been there before? Or Austin Texas? Personally I love Ft. Lauderdale/Miami. But even there, it's not what it used to be as I've worked in Fort Lauderdale now twice since 1978. The only were predominately keeping me a float in recent years it is all of these analog to digital transfers since I still have quite a collection of analog recorders, Scully's, Ampex', TEAC's, Nakamichi's. Oh yeah and disc/phonograph players with API & Neve RIAA preamps along with a SHURE tube preamp. So lots of quality colors that really sound like something. But recording music of truly professional musical acts is my ultimate passion. So I'm working on a business plan that should do well in a more entertainment oriented area of the country. Yes, I have tested that out here in the Baltimore-Washington area but you cannot fix a huge collective of stupid. Interestingly enough, my biggest obstacle here is that most people don't feel worthy of making any live recordings. Or so most have indicated. I also don't work well with rank amateurs so I need to pursue only the crème de la crème and they ain't here. Even the number one local rock 'n roll station that served both Baltimore & Washington has faded away into a Latino station. Not even the contemporary jazz station exists any more here. Radio has become so highly automated that none of them are doing any live broadcasts anymore. And the public radio stations which specialize in more classical oriented music doesn't need a remote truck anymore either. So in a sense, one of the reasons why I have time to spend here is my lack of time spent in the control room, on projects & on location. After all, any bands here that are working just bring their ALESIS HD 24's and plug it into their local PA boards. And they think that's good enough. Like I said, collective stupid. It might be different in Nashville? Then again, it may not be? If that turns out to be true, I'll sell everything off and get out. After all, I've had a good run of 40+ years at this. Unfortunately, being so broadcast oriented in my work, I may have major award nominations but I received no royalties from anything I've done. And that's basically because I've never had personal management of my own. So it doesn't matter if you are as good as I am when there isn't enough work to support it or me. So I'm here trying to help others make the best recordings they can, freely providing my knowledge & experience. People ask me why I don't teach at the University? That's because I've never been to any college. I can work as an adjunct professor but so far that hasn't panned out either... he he, I said panned out à la panoramic potentiometer. So I have a great panorama here looking at all of the non-work in front of me. But the Neve still looks sweet (kiss kiss).

Now everybody knows I'm kinky.
Mx. Remy Ann David

We are in a similar spot. I had MTV call me yesterday and I had to turn down the work because I cant afford the monthly bill for a patch in line. The problem is that I cant attract any bigger album projects in this little basement so I cant afford the 150 monthly for the patch in so I cant work with MTV(not that that is a great achievement). I had the discovery network book a session for an entire day. They got here and walked right back out because it was to small for the video shoot. NPR called me in the last month or so and I had to turn them down too. So I am trying right now to sell this house/studio and move just outside the city and build a studio that will be taken more seriously so I can take these bigger named little sessions and afford "The Patch In". Its a gamble but not really. I built this place [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.studio33…"]studio33recording[/]="http://www.studio33…"]studio33recording[/] from the ground up and can do a bigger one. Ive done a bunch of classical work out here and want to have a place to fit them in. I cant wait to design the place.

I love reading the posts about your gear! I learned on a NEVE VR with the flying faders in school from Jeff Harris who used to be at The Village in LA. Loved it! The room sounded like crap though(it was too shallow). So what did I do? I grabbed chairs from every room on campus and piled them up behind me when I was mixing to break up the sound in the room. It totally worked. Every instructor that heard the room when it was like that agreed that its gave the room a way better sound. I was able to work in there way longer than the other students because my ears werent getting boxed by bad modes. That board had its issues but we had a good tech and it sounded amazing.

What is a patch in line?

Sorry ISDN line.