Who is making money right now?

[Lynn Fuston]

Originally Posted by Claude G.

Yes. I'm making about $200K a year...oh, but wait, I'm doing that as a lawyer. Recording - I've made about $0 this year......

Great.

As I've been saying for the past two years...

"There's never been a better time to be an AMATEUR in the music business."

[Fabian M]

See all my guidance counselors in high school were wrong..... I cant believe Im making wayyyyyy more than a lawyer makes by mixing records....LOL joking, no wait i seriously do tho LOL

[Sqye]

.


see guys?...all we have to do is:

• 1. be lawyers
  
  
• 2. build compressors

...and we'll be all set!


.

[Jim Williams]

Originally Posted by Fabian M

See all my guidance counselors in high school were wrong..... I cant believe Im making wayyyyyy more than a lawyer makes by mixing records....LOL joking, no wait i seriously do tho LOL

Funny, after a semester of "guidence" I ended up with 2 job choices, this was 1966. One was mortitian, the other was recording engineer.

I'm sure mortitian is still in the book but I suspect recording engineer was scrapped years ago as a viable career choice.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[pultech]

Originally Posted by Steffmo

I have been an indie supported for years.. I've done an absurd number of indie albums that have almost always moved the artist up the food chain.

And I've never been much of a fan of majors. But you have to look at it in a balanced way or you simply can't function.

And the fact is that an absurdly small number of artists have had real impact without some form of major label money, staff or expertise. Bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Dave Mathews had major money flowing into their development even before they were overtly signed. In many cases the majors conceal their investment in artists to keep the act hip for kids who want to feel like they support the underdog band. But in many cases this is a marketing ploy like any other.

The single biggest challenge in the industry is to take an act from a standstill to even the top 200. Once you get that far its persistence and elbow grease. But its that first 5000 copies where 99.9 percent of the acts fail.

So look, I'm all for the romance of the indie thing. But eben as we speak more and more indies are being run by ex major folk, and they know you can't niy support for a band with granola.

At some point it always becomes a banker/borrower relationship, and people simple don't commit money to projects without expected return. In the music business that generally means that your master or you publishing is going to be held hostage by some entity until some money is made.

Even though I expect to see a new kind of record company emerge which acts more like a service partner to the act rather than a lien holder, the responsibility will still fall on the act to find the money needed to but the exposure needed to monetize a return on investment.

Thats the reality of it. And the world runs on reality, not romance.. As much as I love romance.

Steff,
Sorry to hear things are as rough as they are for you!
I am the guy who built Reservoir Studios for Norman and George (basically Norman, as the partnership went poof early on) over in Hamden. I ran it for about a year, but making 250 a week was not doing it, and I was doing everything there, so I was married to the place 24-7.
Built another room in a place in Manhattan (again) and worked on the audio for WebMD among others. Did a mess of rewiring and installs, engineering, playing etc.
My biggest loss, was I have such a good engineering mind, I actually could do the tech stuff right off the bat, so I never got to apprentice or assist. After about 15 years in as an engineer, I tried to get work in LA as an assistant engineer. I wanted to get all the learning you enjoy from being under the wing of someone great. Instead I learned it all on my own, and I missed a lot.
I sent my resume to all the big places, and some smaller places, and got no replies. I managed to get someone on the horn at Atlantic by accident. Their reply? "You are WAY overqualified, and there is no way we can hire you as an assistant engineer!" I would have made a great assistant engineer! I already knew how to patch a room with my eyes closed so fast my hands were a blur, as a tech, I knew how to make an engineer look good for making mistakes, I knew most of the gear out there inside and out, to the point of memorizing the jackfield on the back, so I could reach behind the unit blind and hook things in and not screw up something else,
I have great ears, understand a lot of terminology, and admit what I do not know so I can go look it up, or get the answer, and most important, I know to shut up in a session and just watch/listen to what is going on.
It could have been a lot of fun, but I really burned out from doing my thing and getting stepped on all the time while helping everyone else up along the way. My good friend Dick Hammond, a very talented engineer and tech explained it well, we have an attitude problem... We do not have big, bad attitudes. We had a good laugh, but it is kind of true. It is not easy starting near the upper end and working your way to the bottom.
After 26+ years, I kinda went, fffft
I am still trying to decide if I want to do it all over again.
I have been doing the here and there mastering or restoration project and some small playing projects where I will do a couple of overdubs on someones track for them to choose from.
So I am not making a living from this right now, and reading these boards really makes me miss it, badly.
Testing all the mics, gear, recording the stuff on adjacent tracks for A/B listening.
Like some of the mics coming out, and some of the ones I am reading about and hearing about. I really want to mess with more of them that I have been, lately, a few yes, but not like I used to, which was loads!!

[drundall]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

I had heard a rumor today that a certain famous singer who supposedly went Platinum only went Platinum because their record label bought 750,000 copies to push them over publicity wise(really for soundscan).

That is so Poison, 1986.

I heard something about Wall-Mart no longer stocking CDs, is this true? Anybody care to elaborate?