This week: How much is this gonna cost me? Cost is vastly variable, but this should give you some idea of the hours it takes to record, edit and mix. Every studio is different. Some have hidden charges and some don't. Most don't I suspect. I've heard of some that charge to export your tracks for mixing at other studios beyond the hourly rate, and some seem to think if you tracked it there they own them and won't give them up. It only takes maybe an hour to export to an external hard drive if you have a full CD of material to export. It could take longer if they haven't been naming the tracks properly or they have to do some housekeeping such as comping tracks before export. I've had tracks from other studios that took hours to organize because the previous studio didn't name the tracks or export them properly. Or more often the client did the tracking at home and sent unused or unnamed tracks, or failed scratch tracks. I've also heard of studios that charge for every CD burned, and everything else from coffee to consultation. I sorta get some of it, time is money and all that. Most studios don't try for the hidden costs, but some of this stuff might be worth some investigation when you visit. I have a buddy recording at a local studio who couldn't get an mp3 of their progress because they owed them 100$. They'd spent many hundreds there already. It wasn't mixed or anything he just wanted a copy to figure out if his vocal was a keeper or if he wanted to have another whack at it. The money dude was in the hospital and that's why he was late getting the last few dollars in. You guys know who you are. Lighten up already. Something you writers and players of music need to be aware of: Studios have to make money. As much as I love recording and mixing all types of music, if I don't make rent out of it I have to get a real job doing something else. I try to make as little as possible off you because I like you and think your music is wonderful. That last sentence may seem a tad rubber goosh wtf, but it's true. My challenge is to find the gold in every tune I tackle. I actually do like most people. I feel guilty charging money to be a part of musical creation. Now before we go all mushy I'll point out that all studios like you and think your music is wonderful. Truth be told there are many ego headed pretentious dweebs who I don't like at all. You're not one of them tho. And I have no idea what rubber goosh wtf actually means. Anyways... There are a few different ways to pay for recording, all invented to make you think you're getting some sort of deal. One way is recording for a flat fee by the song. The only guarantee you get with the per song deal is somebody's not gonna be happy. You or the studio. Usually you. The reason this never works is there are just too many variables involved. Either the studio spends more hours than they're getting paid for, or the client gets a quicky track and mix that sounds like goat farts. If you have a good engineer and good players that can nail it in one or two passes you can maybe estimate how long it should take, but if you run across any problems or sudden inspirations you'll be hooped. And I might add, you WILL run into problems. Somebody didn't practice their part enough. Somebody thought something would work and it didn't. Old strings. Whatever. There's always something. The music is what suffers, rarely the studio. For some reason the flat fee is often 300$ per tune. Which funnily enough is about what it costs when you do it straight hourly. Paying by the day or block of time is okay just don't try to jam it all in thinking you'll save a few dollars. Many studios big and small will often offer the Big Deal Of The Day offering you this much time for this much money. Sometimes doing the midnight to 8 A.M. shift. Many bands or writers will figure they can jam it all into that much time for that much money. It does work out occasionally, but what you're doing is a hasty recording, and the studio is likely giving it a hasty mix. Hasty recording and hasty mixing leads to hasty music. I just noticed if you say hasty a lot it starts to sound really weird. Hasty. Hasty hasty hasty. Try it. Anyways... In my most humble opinion, music needs to flow, and recording needs to be relaxed to allow that flow. Style or genre makes no difference. Whether being as one with the universe and reaching gently towards the muse or digging in to a death metal rhythm and sticking your head right up that little musey fucker's ass and chewing on his his tiny colon, spending the time to carefully craft your recording results in better music. The good news is if the studio is efficient, if the band or individual has a solid map of all the songs, if the preproduction is sorted, hourly winds up costing the same or less as "the deal". Ask your doctor if hourly is right for you. Individuals using the studio talent to help build tunes from scratch usually wind up paying slightly more to pull in players for the tracking. Most players will come in for a 5-6 hour stint for 100$, or sometimes buddies will do it for free. If you know who to call you can get world class studio players for around 100$ per song. I just finished a tune for a guy using the in house studio talent and a hired gun type. It's the ALS Song at my reverbnation page; http://www.reverbnation.com/cosmicpig. Marv had the basic chords, melody and lyrics, then we recorded the tune here in The Room Of Pain. I built a midi track for the drums and used samples, then Cosmic Wifey did bass and backup vocals. We hired out the guitar work, because acoustic was the best fit for the tune, and I suck at acoustic. Unt vwala, tune is done. Cost the guy about 375$ total. It turned out great. It could potentially have cost a few more dollars if we would have added keyboards and various other things, but we kept it simple. AT any rate, here's a breakdown of averages in a multitrack situation. If a band wants a full ten or 12 tunes for a CD you might do it three or four tunes at a time. If you have all the tunes down cold backwards and forwards you might do all of them in one chunk. Like do all the drums for all the tunes first then bass etc. You can do that if you've done the preproduction and know exactly what goes where. Tragically, I have yet to see that work. Every time there's something missed and we're setting up mic's to do 3 seconds of a part. If you're an individual building the tunes as you go somewhat, you might even do the songs one at a time. Each instrument will take around 3-6 hours to do 3-4 tunes. Way approximately around-ish sorta maybe I doubt it. If you're a good player and do all the tracks in one or two takes you can do it in half the time or less. If you're an average pro level player it's possible you'll need 2-4 takes for rhythms, and as many as 10 or 20 takes for solos, or much less if you've done your homework and figured out a solo for it. Then of course the engineer has to comp them, which also takes time. Comping is where you edit the best parts of each track into one good track. Comping takes anywhere from 2 minutes to an hour per track. Homework done equals less takes equals less comping. If you change the sounds, amps or guitars etc. that takes time. Switching from tracking drums or whatever to a different instrument takes time. Mix takes 6 to 12 hours per tune depending on the amount of editing, or depending on the guy who's mixing. A dense mix, as in many instruments, takes longer-ish depending on production. Much of production is in letting instruments work together and allowing them space to breathe. A small rock trio for instance is a fairly easy mix because all the instruments have their own sonic space. As you can see time adds up fast and recording has so many variables that trying to stuff everything into a certain amount of time or paying per song is not a great way to go. The best, and usually cheapest way to record your tunes is to plan it out well, then do it hourly. If you need to suck back and reload either the muse or the wallet you can do that. As mentioned in previous bloggage, recording is a labor of details. Time constraints are details missed. I suspect this week's drivel has enlightened nobody at all. Perhaps a general malaise on the issue is warranted. Hey... checked out the samples at Alchemy Sound Studios who also advertise here on Craigslist, and I gotta say, they're the first studio in here that I thought does really good work. Nice mixes and sounds. Nice setup. Don't go there, come here, but just thought I'd mention it. Probably shouldn't. Okay so fuck all that. Watch this and tell me there's no God: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE
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