What would you pay me to mixdown your music?

[voorhee]

Got any examples of your work?

[Dirty Halo]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Edit

What would you pay me to mixdown your tunes?

I want to make some money doing mixdowns. What should I charge?

Very much depends on your skills/resumevand your studio.

What do bring to the project?


-a

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Edit

What would you pay me to mixdown your tunes?

I want to make some money doing mixdowns. What should I charge?

it depends on your set up and experience.

i charge £120 per day, which also includes replacing ITB or not-quite-nice-enough-sounding synths with analogue synth parts. (jupiter8 system100 pro5 pro1 ms20 SH09). i'm in a treated room with good monitors (blue skys), have a nice selection of outboard processors including vintage eventide FX and drawmer compressors, lynx AD, a modified soundcraft desk and a UAD2 QUAD installed. I also operate a 'no win no fee' payment policy: you get an mp3 for free and if you like it you pay for the wav. so if you dont like my mix, you dont pay. i do all this over the net from stems (and midi parts if you want the synth sounds re-done with the jupiter8 etc). a typical mix takes me 2 days. so £240

i dont do mastering

check out my gear pics here,

Gear Porn thread - pics of your slutty setups

i don't know anyone who gives as good a deal as that so i would say as a guide, if you want to charge for mixes and you don't have my gear (and 15 years experience of working in electronic recording studios), you should charge considerably less than £120 per day. if you're working purely ITB, i would say £40 ($60) PER MIXDOWN - not day - would be a reasonable price to start with, and i assume you are just starting out. also you should offer the same free service i do.. if you want a more accurate market value for your time i suggest telling us a little about your equipment and how much experience you have.

incidentally, any GS members want to try me out, please send me a PM, as i said, you get the resultant MP3 for free. if you don't like the result (and not everyone does) it's totally cool, absolutely no hard feelings, i like to keep things simple and stress-free.

[ozy]

...er...

since yesterday we were discussing with this guy

I pay you money if you tell me how create sound,

and you are asking for money,

I have one question:

may I broker the biz between you two?

And how much money would I get paid?

[Yann Leon]

A lot of folks I know charge 100$ per song. These guys are well geared, and have somehow a lot of experiences.

[ilovesound]

I think it all depends on your experience and resume. Someone that has mixed #1 records with killer sound is priceless to me. I see it as an investment into making the best project possible.

Someone with no experience etc ... isn't worth $1. When all is said and done, if you can't use the results, no amount of money is worth it.

I do chuckle at people that ask $100 per mix. For that price, you would make better money working at McDonalds etc ... Anyone with vast experience, and gear can't afford to run their setup for those prices. At that rate, you will never pay off the gear let alone pay yourself.

I do a lot of vocal recording when I am not working on my own projects for many EDM artists. I have learnt after 20 years in the business, you get what you pay for. I have invested a lot of time and money into gear, and very proud of the results I get. I never have someone question my prices as the results justify the cost.

That being said, gear isn't everything. There are many people with lots of gear that can't use it, and there are people with a laptop doing killer mixes.

At the end of the day, charge what people are willing to pay you. For every guy charging $100, I can name another guy getting $1000 per day.

[Synthpark]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Edit

What would you pay me to mixdown your tunes?

I want to make some money doing mixdowns. What should I charge?

Strange, today I asked myself the same question when talking to a client.

By the way, gear isn't everyhting, so true. Experience and skills.

[TonyR]

100$ per song.......not enough

£120 per day......not enough

imho

Of course you can start low but later you should raise.

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by TonyR

100$ per song.......not enough

£120 per day......not enough

imho

Of course you can start low but later you should raise.

£120 a day = £30K a year. not too bad. i agree that i'm under-valuing myself though... it's the bare minimum i can charge, any less than that.. i wouldn't bother. too much for too little.. and i dont do that full time btw!. .. if i could get that much work i would up the price

[Ged]

i'm £60 per track - but have not had any time due to my EP -
I use SSL Duende / UAD / Powercore

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by golden beers

£120 a day = £30K a year.

seems like you wont have any day off :o

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9000 mit Tapatalk

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by Ged

i'm £60 per track - but have not had any time due to my EP -
I use SSL Duende / UAD / Powercore

you mean per song,right?

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9000 mit Tapatalk

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by golden beers

£120 a day = £30K a year. not too bad. i agree that i'm under-valuing myself though... it's the bare minimum i can charge, any less than that.. i wouldn't bother. too much for too little.. and i dont do that full time btw!. .. if i could get that much work i would up the price

I'm not a professional mixer, so maybe you are right.
Once someone ask me if I could do some vocal recording and editing and I thought what should I take, I want to go home and be happy.

So I took 300€ per day + 19%VAT.

Of course I brought the gear, but honestly it's not always about the gear it's about "you", so if £120 is good for you than it's good.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by golden beers

£120 a day

I bet you were more than that a decade ago.......without a studio.

[Ged]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

you mean per song,right?

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9000 mit Tapatalk

oops yes, per song

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

seems like you wont have any day off :o

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9000 mit Tapatalk

5 working days a week times 52 weeks in the year is 31,200. So you'd get 2 weeks holiday a year and 30k

Or you could have 6 weeks off for 27,600 .

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

I bet you were more than that a decade ago.......without a studio.

Lol funny you should say that as I have always been 120 per day. (for studio hire + engineer)

We had to charge low rates to get custom. There was another studio in the building charging £99 for 8 hours and they were offering a futuristic COMPACT DISK burning with that! We only had a puny DAT!.

But my day was 8 hours when I started doing that.

Now my 120 represents 5 hours a day .. Maybe 6 hours if I like the project I only do it on the side now.

[rolo]

I charge anywhere from $250 to $600 to mix a song and $50 per song to master.

Just depends on where the $$$ is coming from, i mix for a few labels on occasion so suddenly my rate is up, for locals... in between, for locals who are totally talented but have no $$$ i do the lower rate. and all of this depends on who tracked it, how it was tracked and how many tracks in a session. i've never had a printed rate, and in close to two decades, never needed it.

I also have been known to do discounts on 10+ song projects.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by golden beers

Now my 120 represents 5 hours a day .. Maybe 6 hours if I like the project I only do it on the side now.

That sounds agreeable these days I'd say. The days of all night sessions are over for me too, but if I should get into doing a few mixes on the side myself it would likely still get into more than 5 hours a day, so a bit trickier to price.....too obsessive for my own good.....

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

That sounds agreeable these days I'd say. The days of all night sessions are over for me too, but if I should get into doing a few mixes on the side myself it would likely still get into more than 5 hours a day, so a bit trickier to price.....too obsessive for my own good.....

like i said though a mix typically takes me 2 days so £240..

.. best clients i had were a bunch of lads doing drum and bass.. one time they came into the studio. handed me the cash and then said they couldn't be bothered to be stuck inside a dark studio on such a nice sunny saturday, so they took me down the pub and bought me drinks all day !..

... but oh man some clients were nightmares. another story.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by golden beers

... but oh man some clients were nightmares. another story.

[ScoobyDoo555]

Originally Posted by golden beers

5 working days a week times 52 weeks in the year is 31,200. So you'd get 2 weeks holiday a year and 30k

Or you could have 6 weeks off for 27,600 .

With all due respect, (and by NO means, any offense intended) that's WAY too low - after tax, you're looking at circa £23k take-home.
(UK PAYE Wage Salary Income Tax Calculator 2012 | How Much Tax Will I Pay?)

Your skills are worth more than that.

I charge a LOT more than that, and granted, I don't need to do it 24/7 anymore.
And in all fairness, my time, skills and discography afford me that luxury of being able to pick and choose what I do, and I do do stuff for free (I don't do stuff cheap - it's either/or)
The same applies to my session playing.
The free stuff is done on projects that I feel have a bigger picture, or are just entertaining, or I really get on with the client

But the nitty/gritty stuff, the client pays. For 1 mix. If they want more, they pay a "top-up" fee (they would have been present when the final mix was played - that's their confirmation that the mix is fine).
Harsh but fair imho - that's how a commercial studio works

[offki]

Originally Posted by golden beers

.. best clients i had were a bunch of lads doing drum and bass.. one time they came into the studio. handed me the cash and then said they couldn't be bothered to be stuck inside a dark studio on such a nice sunny saturday, so they took me down the pub and bought me drinks all day !..

Bet that was the guys from Carbon in Brighton?

To start, just charge whatever people will pay, you may be underselling yourself, but you will eventually be able to charge more and actually have a chance to make some kind of reputation for yourself. A fair few years back I started a Design company, started off charging less than £100 for a simple website (2 LONG days) and ended up charging £500+ for the same service 2 years later + more. I'm amazed people pay for mixing, it's like paying someone to have sex with your girlfriend.

Anyway, if you love doing it, the money is secondary, any money I make from music is a bonus to me still, people think they're shafting me by paying me £75 for a 1 hour dj set, when I still can't believe people pay me to do it. lol

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by ScoobyDoo555

With all due respect, (and by NO means, any offense intended) that's WAY too low - after tax, you're looking at circa £23k take-home.
(UK PAYE Wage Salary Income Tax Calculator 2012 | How Much Tax Will I Pay?)

Your skills are worth more than that.

Very true, I already made the point that I'm under valuing myself. I don't make a living doing this. I don't advertise, I don't have clients in the studio with me, I do it on the side here and there and I charge what I feel is a reasonable amount, £240 sometmes more per mix is good money in my book.

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by offki

Bet that was the guys from Carbon in Brighton?

To start, just charge whatever people will pay, you may be underselling yourself, but you will eventually be able to charge more and actually have a chance to make some kind of reputation for yourself. A fair few years back I started a Design company, started off charging less than £100 for a simple website (2 LONG days) and ended up charging £500+ for the same service 2 years later + more. I'm amazed people pay for mixing, it's like paying someone to have sex with your girlfriend.

Yea this the reason for low prices: guys nowadays, at my level, usually mix down themselves.

Ps no it wasn't my mates from carbon, I only knew them through engineering for them. We used to get our clients from advertising in mix-mag

[Ninja_Edit]

Thanks everyone.

I have a Certificate IV in Music with some experience mixing sound. The results will be usable.

I'll be working in the box. In the short-term future I will bounce some things hot to cassette tape for its analogue sound. Longer-term I'd like to incorporate some analogue gear like rack EQ/compression and/or mixer.

I'm going to do a mixing job for someone, and then I will have an example to show you.

I think I will charge a minimum of $40/song to begin with and eventually increase the price.

[ScoobyDoo555]

Fair play
"mucho respecto"
The key thing is that you enjoy it

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by offki

I'm amazed people pay for mixing, it's like paying someone to have sex with your girlfriend.

Well, a girlfriend deserves to come every now and again, and if you can't make it so......... ;-)

Sent from my GT-I5800 using Gearslutz App

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

Well, a girlfriend deserves to come every now and again, and if you can't make it so......... ;-)

Sent from my GT-I5800 using Gearslutz App

LOLWAT?!?!!