Customer not paying after approving masters

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Rappinghood

Yeah...a few people I've spoken to at majors recently hate the fact that their accounts are now outsourced

I don't want to get into details, but as far as I can tell, it's just not very efficient. Very simple things seem to be quite hard to accomplish...

[mercurydime]

i charge a deposit on 99% of the work that i do...even for friends. i do not release any audio (1 minute clips sometimes, as needs dicatate) unless the client is current. no completed mixes or masters are released unless clients pay in full.

for absoutely new business i almost invariably have clients sign a contract which outlines my responsibilities and theirs.

i have yet to lose any business because i asked clients to do this.

friends are friends and business is business. sure, they can meet, but true friends understand your need to do things 'by the book', because they understand the benfits of it for them, too.

i've yet to have anyone wind up owing me money on services rendered.

[Rappinghood]

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

I don't want to get into details, but as far as I can tell, it's just not very efficient. Very simple things seem to be quite hard to accomplish...

Well the problem is it's no longer a simple thing. For example, with one company's accounts dept you have to give the name and contact details of the person who booked the job, a PO number (if you're lucky enough to have got one - rare as hen's teeth as they say!) and the payment you're chasing becomes just another number in a list, all personal contact and job specific knowledge removed.

So the guy in the call centre then has to check with the record company that the job is legitimate, has to confirm the PO and the supplier (us) are legitimate, then eventually puts that job in a pending tray and it eventually gets paid. It's supposed to take work off the A&R/Product Manager, but it doesn't seem to have achieved that. I'm yet to find out whether it's any quicker or slower to get paid than it used to be, but it's definitely more complex!

[ONDRAY]

Originally Posted by DSD_Mastering

It's never happened to us because I always send only a minute or so of the tracks. If they want the rest, they pay up!

I do a similar thing with a long fade. They get the final's when they pay.

[Plush]

Gotta have the balls to ask to be paid. Here, the customer does not get the music if they do not pay. Let them collect from the record company.

I repeat, you have to ask, face to face to be paid now. Then watch the face and watch the reaction when you refuse all entreaties to have you bypass getting paid on the spot.

"Well, we need to be paid today for you to have your masters."

[top]"oh really?--why's that?"

=====> "Well, because that's the only way you're going to get your music."

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by Plush

Gotta have the balls to ask to be paid. Here, the customer does not get the music if they do not pay. Let them collect from the record company.

I repeat, you have to ask, face to face to be paid now. Then watch the face and watch the reaction when you refuse all entreaties to have you bypass getting paid on the spot.

"Well, we need to be paid today for you to have your masters."

[top]"oh really?--why's that?"

=====> "Well, because that's the only way you're going to get your music."

yup.

[Alécio Costa]

In 2002 I was finisinhing a samba-partido alto with a very known group in the south of Brazil.

They were very fine poeple and most of them I still find at the supermarket and have nice relationship.
It was the last step of the production: master 12 songs, burn a few CDRs and some minor mixing tasks.

Guess what: their manager did not pay me untill today and he promised to pay me in 1 year, which would be late 2003.

He lost some of the best musicians/members in there because they were just getting burned and getting a bad reputation.

However, the guy still owe me U$2000.

In 1997, it was a nastier one... One of the band members of a very known Pop Group in the south of Brazil asked for a copy of the pre-mixes so he could listen at his car. It was a crappy MD Audio. SO I was not worried at all.
They also owed me the last payment.

Then, one month later, a major company released a Hits album and the crappy mix was transferred from the MD!!.

I was so embarrased when I heard it play on a giant PA. Middish, unbalanced, non-final mixes, poorly mastered.

These guys never grew up as a group, although they are very talented and had had 2 major label contracts.

Seems the "Universe" takes care of some stuff to us.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

There is software that is available here Voxengo will allow you to put in beeps every so often if you are doing a test pressing for a client and you are afraid they will not pay up. They cannot release what you have given them but they can comment on the quality of the mastering and give you a list of problems that have to be worked on. I don't use this too often but when I have I am always glad I did.

One client wanted me to do a "test pressing" of a CD so he could show it off to his "buds" but he had not yet paid me and it was looking more and more like he was not going to pay up due to a lack of funds so I used the plug in and he calls me up and says that he sent the "test pressing" off to get it replicated and there was something wrong with it - then he has the gall to ask me to make another one for him so he can get it replicated so I told him "sure I will be happy to do that when you pay me in full" I think he got the message since he came by with the cash in hand and I burned him the correct Master CD without the beeps.

YMMV

[Tarekith]

Wish Beeper was available for AU...