OPENING A RECORDING STUDIO: HOW TO PRICE YOURSELF AND GET YOUR CLIENT TO PAY!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ธ.ค. 2020
- Want to work with me? Mixing, Mastering, Consulting.
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Want to work with me? Mixing, Mastering, Consulting.
www.recordingstudioloser.com
Buy my stuff yo. www.recordingstudioloser.com/...
Follow me:
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Facebook: / recordingstudioloser
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Check out the other videos th-cam.com/video/umk2J0XEJtc/w-d-xo.html and th-cam.com/video/QtQyKdUjCds/w-d-xo.html in the series!
Which ssd’s do you recommend for sample libraries? I’m running a mid 2017 MacBook Pro. I currently have time machine backing up onto a 5tb hdd but it keeps connecting and disconnecting randomly and has me concerned.
I noticed you have a SanDisk Extreme or Extreme Pro, either old or new gen, but is the 1,050mbs old gen Extreme Pro fast enough for orchestral libraries?
Thanks,
Jesse
You’ll have 1M subscribers in no time. I’ve seen all the channels on here. You’re cream of the crop.
whoa.... I can't even imagine. but thank you!
I've been the discount store audio engineer and yep, it sucks. If you charge so low, the project won't even be finished before you spend that money. And yes, people don't respect you that much because it was so cheap that they don't care to even finish the project cause it isn't a great loss for them 🙃. so yeah, great advice right there, I'll be following your advices and let's see what happens!
Outstanding series. Everything has changed since I was kid in the 70s. Audio engineer jobs weren't exactly plentiful even then. But it's still there. The trick is to figure out that change and placing yourself within it. Thank you, sir.
I charge 50/hr with a minimum 3 hour block for a new client (if it’s a client I know works fast I’ll let them book single hours) and a flat rate fee for mixing and mastering. I also never quote a fee for the mix and master until I can see the multi track session. I found personally that by splitting the two up it makes it much easier, especially for clients who just want me to track but want to mix themselves or have another studio mix or vice versa.
yeah keeping the services split up makes everything so much easier.
You’re the best dude! Thx for the valuable info, keep it up! 🔥🔥
Thanks Jeremy. Appreciate the good content. Also happy that the channel is growing! Pls keep releasing informative vids :)
Love this guy
This is such a valuable video! Thank you so much 😊
These videos are great. I love the tough love you dish out. It did open my eyes a bit to the fact that I'm gonna struggle and yet it makes me even more excited for this journey. Keep it up!
Great content. Thank you for posting this.
Love it man! Yes l hate being ghosted myself😄
Many thanks for producing this fantastic video, Jeremy! It contains so much useful information, and best of all, it's refreshing to see someone who speaks from their heart and is frank about not just their successes, but failures as well. Am about to subscribe. Cheers!
You're awesome dude... Thanks for these🔥 much love from SA 🇿🇦
Great info….love what your doing!
Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!! May this year be successful, prosperous, and full of health, happiness and blessings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This video is great! Even if you don’t agree with everything, it’s a great way to start thinking about these issues. Thanks!
This is exactly how I did it in my city. A few years back, I jumped from 250 per 6hr session to 400. (I hate hourly) It was amazing the quality of client upgrade that I got. Less picky, more professional, pays upfront, etc.. I was worried about turning other people down that couldn’t pay that. It was a revelation when I realized that to make the same amount I could work less. Now I’m super busy at my current rate and turning people down every day that I don’t have time for and I’m booked usually 2 months in advance. So anyone reading my comment, he’s correct in this video. It has worked for me.
Nice! I’m trying to get up and running as a mix engineer, not had any paying customers yet but always hopeful it will happen. Pricing is hard at the start and don’t wanna be too low but can’t warrant going too high whatever that is that people think I’m too expensive for someone who’s not ‘established’! Come across your videos and they are great man! Keep up the great, helpful content!
This is so helpful! I can't believe this is free content.
Very very good advice!! Already shared it
Thanks so much!
Great insights here. Starting to charge for my services now that I'm feeling all the more close to mastery of my craft and after graduating recording school.
You got this!
Great stuff!
Great video. Much needed conversation ;)
What a great series! Building a studio on the West Coast next spring / summer and revisiting thoughts and ideas. Thank you for these.
I would love to live on the west coast.
Right! Right. Thats correct. That's true. Yesss!! You're right. Everything you said is dead on the nail. I'm subscribing to you.
happy to have you!
this is gold
Thank you man I took lots of note
I just want to open my mastering studio, this info it's super valuable.
Glad it was helpful!
Great advice here. Not sure if you put the following information into a video yet or not, but certainly things that a person should consider:
* how much is a buildout going to be to prepare the space that you’re going to be using?
*Best to have a diversified area of ground you can cover. I.e. not only recording music, but also doing live sound, doing video shoots for bands, radio jingles, post production, there’s so many things that you can do to fill in gaps when you’re not booked at your studio.
* How long should a person expect before they can get to a point to where they’ve got a regularly booked studio.
*Miscellaneous cost associated with operating a studio. Heating/AC/Insurance/space rental, etc.
* cost of maintaining gear.
* setting money aside for future gear purchases.
There is so much to consider.
Very pertinent info for me, it's greatly appreciated. Do you have advice for talking about payment with a prospective client who is trying to lowball you, if you are interested in working with them so you don't want to just tell them you can't?
Thank you again😍🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
No problem 😊
Thanks Jeremy, would love a video on how to build your client base!
I was listening to a podcast the other day and they said to not actually put your prices on your website so you can offer flexible pricing to accommodate different budgets, would you recommend against that starting off and just putting your prices on your site? Thanks!
Thank you for such an informative video.
Glad it was helpful!
....I'll leave the studios to others, but I want to USE one for my songs and have no idea how to go about it...so this video is hitting the mark...
Dude! You look like a long lost brother! Cool video! Subscribed!
...you’re one handsome fella.
Deposits and payment up front are huge. The only times I have not gotten the money for my work is extending terms to the artist or business. Once they have skin in the game they are usually more reliable.
agreed!
A friend who built and operated a commercial studio told me he won't release anything to anybody unless he's paid first. That included rough mixes for bands, record labels, publishing companies -- everybody. He requires payment at the end of a session; after all bands expect to be paid at the end of a gig, don't they? BTW, that studio is still operational, has Neve desks, a studio that can handle a 40+ seat orchestra, engineering staff and makes payroll and bills every time.
Super good info, thanks for sharing your thoughts :)
But there are 2 things I wouldn't include here. One: The gear some other studios have, doesn't matter for the price. It's the mix that matters. Perhaps, for recording purposes the gear would matter, for some clients wanting a "special" sound/microphone/amp/acoustics...but this alone, again cannot be a price starting point.
And second, putting the price right on the website/Facebook page is counterproductive. Even big studios don't have prices listed. Just an info "contact us to see how we'll price your project". Maybe...to put a price/hour for just recording, that's okay, but other than that, no.
I have a more hip hop oriented studio and charge $100 an hour which includes the recording mixing and mastering. Another thing that gets me good sales is a beat + vocal session for $250. This has been working out for me but took me about 1 year or so to get to where I'm at now I'm thinking of upping the $250 beat + recording to possibly $350-400 but I'm on that same boat of thinking ima lose those clients but I will take that advice and try it to get some more clients 🙏
Yes more specific lol.
I charge around 50$ -60$ an hour give or take and Im very specialized.
Good equipment 5 years deep and don’t charge extra rates for tracking on albums for people
30$ an hour for pre production
good tips mate
Bro,thanks alot for the advice,I really got alot.i love music production,and I don't know anything to do with music theory,should that be a problem ,coz I have brought some studio recording equipment,should I go on,new subscriber from Nairobi Kenya
thanks.. good video! yes I am in the process of raising my price, and yes I was that Walmart guy! lol
Hey, we all started there.
That noise during your screen text keeps starting me. I must be on edge or something. Great video. Wonderful info!
haha. my bad!
@@RecordingStudioLoser glad you saw the humor in that. Sometimes it’s hard to make jokes via text! I truly dig your channel and would totally have you master my album if you weren’t such a gold digger... see what I did there?
I missed that one. But I’d love to master your record! Haha
Interesting.
Does anyone know the title of the song at the end ? Many thanks
Believe or not I was in a studio where:
1. The pair of Abyssinian cat worth much more than the studio monitors
2. The mixer worth is something like a decent Neumann mic
Studios are sometimes a hell of places nowadays
When you send them mixes do you just send MP3’s and just hold the WAV’s?
Great info as always! Would love to know who's song was at the end of your vid.
Uh. It sure it’s form epidemic sound. I can check on it.
@@RecordingStudioLoser Haha Ok. No worries.
On the "paying upfront" thing: I work as an assistant in a big local studio, I'd say top 5 in my city. We almost never charge upfront. It's a way to build trust with our clients and it's also more adaptive to changes of schedules if needed. Then of course if they don't show up we charge a fee, but if they disappear completely it's still fine, that's not the type of client I want to work with.
That's unfortunately only really possible when you're in one of the top 5 of the city. When you're living project to project you need to get paid every time.
@@jasonsavory9748 So True
So, how do you combat the issue of an existing client that paid less for previous projects not understanding the price increase when you move up to that next level. I feel that can be a touchy situation, and I don’t want to be “if you don’t like the price, go somewhere else” I know that’s what it comes down to, but do you have advice on how you’ve handled this situation.
Yeah that’s tough. In that situation currently as it were. I’m lucky to have a good amount of return clients. So I try to accommodate best I can.
Take into account how/if those individuals will evangelize for you and your business. Mitigate expectations of the project if it vastly lower than your rate.
Sometimes artists outgrow you as an engineer. They move on to bigger and better producers and mixers. Sometimes you outgrow an artist…
Before the pandemic I lived in a bigger town and had a huge room, so I priced myself accordingly... a bit lower than the big studios but 'twas alright. Now despite having better gear instruments etc I'm in a smaller room + a region where folks charge way cheaper than the former... sometimes cheaper than me even, though they're years more experienced.
If I had to lower my prices that low, it's not worth my time (even though my agenda is well in the sparse side), OTOH there's the pandemic and bad financial scenario esp. for bands that have no gigs to play. At the same time I'm done being the "debut album" studio, the folks I used to play with virtually forgot about me. So what gives?
✊🎹❤️
I just wanna drink whiskey and trade stories with you homie hahah
I also ran sound for the manhattan kansas venue and... oh man.. ive got stories haha
here is a taste
A band stopped their show and the singer looked at me running sound and lights and said "can we have a smoke break?" I looked around and said... "uhhh its your set time, i dont care what you do with it" (like 15 folks in the audience) and so everyone in the venue and the band took a quick smoke break outside. The band came back with their fans and they played 2 more songs (like 5 ish minutes of material)
...why! lololol
I’m always down for whiskey
So would I be wrong if I sent those files as stems? If they haven't paid for the mix. Usually, depending on project size, I would mix the project roughly throughout recording process. I would recommend providing the rough mix, but I also wouldn't want that to represent me as an engineer. Therefore, track stems???
Personally, I don't really send anything if it wasn't paid for.
May I add an advice?
Do not put the price list on the web. This is independent of what service driven business you run and not expected by any means. You give the price, transparently, when asked for a quote.
If you still want to, sure why not. But don't feel it's expected from you to do.
And one more:
If the client comes back several times asking if there's room to lower the price you probably are dealing with someone that talks to at least one or two other companies trying to make them out bid each other.
Does equipment helps to attack clients?
Hi Jeremy.. When you charge people,.do you charge them all a the same rate? Or do you maybe make contracts with some for a set rate? I mean the base price.. obviously the extras for each client will vary as you said. Just curious :oi)
Same rate. It just makes things easier.
Thanks for the insight! I'm currently working out of a small home studio and I only record vocals 1 person at a time. Not charging very much at this point and the cost of mixing is included with the booking cost. Do you think it's better to charge seperately for the mix or is it ok to have a flat hourly rate in the beginning?
Just my recommendation… I don’t like charging hourly for a mix. To me it never made sense.
It doesn’t reward your for working well quickly.
If you can separate yourself from that as soon as your comfortable
@@RecordingStudioLoser oh ok, so per song is to be preferred. So how do you determine how long to let an artist(s) record? Some people will obviously record faster while others take longer.(I’m very new to this)
@@cpthegenius to clarify. I apply this to mixing. Not to recording. Yes people take different amounts of time to record. And for that hourly or day rates apply
@@RecordingStudioLoser that makes perfect sense. Thank you for the advice 😊
How do you justify charging a flat rate per song for mixing? One song may only be 2 tracks, another may be 120. Doesn’t it make more sense to charge by the track-count per song? For instance, start at $200 for 2 tracks, and add $10 per additional track after that. So, a song with 16 tracks would be $340.
Why not? Sometime the hardest things to mix are the ones with the least amount of tracks. For instance string quartets, or babrshop quartets... vocal trios.... crazy hard. Because you have so few things to work with.
Soo l should look at local rates within my country and charge relatively??
If your going for a local market. Yes. If your going global your research will be a little more involved but the same applies
@@RecordingStudioLoser thanks man. So l may end up having two different rates. A global and local since we don't buy/sell with $US
I would not have different local and global rates... sorry I misunderstood.
@@RecordingStudioLoser Np man. Thanks
how do you follow up with people that havent paid for a session/track?
Well... for me. They don't get on the calendar to record without paying. I'll just fill that slot. Because Ive normally got plenty of runway to book. In other situations obviously keeping the files until they are paid for. Other things would be using a CRM software to keep track of all potential and current clients and set a regular schedule of contact until its either paid for or lost.
So I have a question. I'm interested in starting a studio but without an engineer. Just renting out the room and equipment, do I base the price on equipment alone then? Also any idea how 😅
That’s A tough one. Lot of liability and breakage to think about. You either have to go very budget or very expensive and provide an experience or destination. Each has its hurdles. Not sure that helps. Lol
@@RecordingStudioLoser it does, thank you. It's in my house and I was thinking of getting public liability insurance and contents insurance. Overall value of the studio will be approximately $32,000 AUS. Not sure if I'm on the right track ..
@@RecordingStudioLoser I know you're probably busy but I just wanna know. My thought was $100 an hour or $950 for 12 hour session. All in Australian currency.
typo in the title, it's : Get youR client to pay
not all heroes wear capes...
Where's the studio located?
Kokomo Indiana
I was gonna check out your website and book a session with you, but I don't want to be a "stalker". So nevermind
Why would you be a stalker?
Love your videos, always great info. I would like to talk to you about a consultation if you have an opening. Please PM me if possible. Thanks and keep up the great work
No way to pm on TH-cam. But you can reach out on the website and fill out the contact form.
@@RecordingStudioLoser Thank you. Will do.
Just filled out the contact form. Looking forward to speaking with you.
What do you mean “100 a day”
Charging $100/day.
Ok but why are you saying resident looser?
haha Thats just been what I've said from day one
The guys that want it all for 100 dollars will call you up in the middle of the night trying to get more out of you or something to that effect…
I was warned and then it happened 😅😅😅
I hate when such channels have
subs in Ks and not Ms
I’m pumped to see the k! Lol