How to calculate Mixng Jobs???

[Mr.HOLMES]

Hi,

I would like to know how professionals make offers to the customers inquiry.

Lets say a Band calls you and asks for mixing their practice room recordings. For me this word "practice room recoding" rings all bells because recordings like these I have to tidy up make some triggering, clean them up from crosstalk.....etc.

I have a little Setup here not much Outboard but I have invested about 15-20k in Euros and about 5 K in room treatment.

My main Problem is that musicians do not have any vision in their minds that it is not done with buying the stuff.... the worst part of it was for me the training to make a mix sound good.

We are not talking about the big studios I have a set up that suits my needs as a musician and I get asked from colleagues to help them with their CD Or local Bands like in the above example ask me.

Any way;- how much time would spend a long experienced professional to do such a job mixing ITB?

And how much can I calculate with my 4 years of experience.
It still takes me a long time to make a track rock. 12-15 Hours....

Or do have professionals like MR. CLA an hourly rate?

What should I say waht pricing can I tell them....

[Joram]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

It still takes me a long time to make a track rock. 12-15 Hours....

That is too long and you can't sell that to your clients. Let's say you ask €25 an hour (a reasonable minimum hour price when your a fulltime freelance engineer and you need to live from it). That's €300 per song, appr. €3500 for an album. Depending on the studio you work, you also have to count a couple of bucks for paying off the costs, saving for new investments or renting.
Spend time to be more efficient when mixing: read, watch, learn, ask for help, discuss etc. Bring your hours back to half a day per song.
If you're able to do that, it's easy to calculate a good price.

[Mr.HOLMES]

Joram,

you understand my question a little wrong.
I know that I am not the fastest man in th world.
I never was and I never will be.

The Question is my mixes are not sounding bad o worse like the first 8 mixes I made. I do this training since 4 years by now: I think I did 2-4 Mixes a month.

So the Question is what is a reasonable price for an Album if a high armed professional like CLA is mixing it.

From this out i would cut of 50%-60% this would be my pricing.

[carbodisco]

hi, its a difficult one. At this level you're always going to work more than you get paid - but at the same time you want to give a good representation of yourself. It means you have to do a lot of editing and probably adding a few bits because a lot of these bands don't have the vision let alone a producer! I wouldn't work by the hour, I'm a slow worker too but I don't mind - I'm used to doing it like that. Flat rate is better - maybe with bonuses for xtra editing or any add. prod.

[carbodisco]

btw - alot of top mixers usually spend a day on a mix and come back the next day a make few changes then print. most say its important to "sleep on a mix"

[Mr.HOLMES]

So would you say for one Track 80,- Euros about 116$ would be OK?
Maybe a whole Album (10 Tracks) with a little reduction of 10%=
720 Euros its about 500,- $

Would this be OK???

[daniel c]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

So the Question is what is a reasonable price for an Album if a high armed professional like CLA is mixing it.

About US$2,000-$10,000 per track depending on how many points they are being offered, how many songs they are mixing, how well you know their manager and how busy they are. CLA is around $4k per track from memory, and he pumps out 2-3 mixes a day. Comes in at 10am, leaves at 6pm.

But in your case I would find out what other people with similar facilities are charging in your area, and use that as a guide. You don't want to be too cheap, but you don't want to price youself out of the market.

[Mr.HOLMES]

About US$2,000-$10,000 per track depending on how many points they are being offered, how many songs they are mixing, how well you know their manager and how busy they are. CLA is around $4k per track from memory, and he pumps out 2-3 mixes a day. Comes in at 10am, leaves at 6pm

.

Oh my God .... is that true????
10 000 dollar per TRACK????? I can not believe this....
Who is going to pay this????

A whole Album would cost 100.000 Dollars.
I can not imagine that producers are paying so much for the mixing. In Germany they say to big Studios that the whole recording process inclusive mixing just have to cost about 45.000 Euros. I know it because a friend of mine was the owner of a big studio....and he sold it because it was not working any more.

He told me that the prices a dumped down in this biz.

A main reason why I am not sure what can I take for mixing.

[daniel c]

Well that's America for you. Don't get me wrong, there aren't many guys at all who can charge $10k per track, but it happens. If you get the big American guys to produce/record/mix your songs in the big American studios, then it will cost a lot of money. And when you are hot, everyone wants you. It's not uncommon for an act to spend around US$50k just on mixing

Do your local research and find out how you can fit yourself into you local market.

[Mr.HOLMES]

Originally Posted by daniel c

Well that's America for you. Don't get me wrong, there aren't many guys at all who can charge $10k per track, but it happens. If you get the big American guys to produce/record/mix your songs in the big American studios, then it will cost a lot of money. And when you are hot, everyone wants you. It's not uncommon for an act to spend around US$50k just on mixing

Do your local research and find out how you can fit yourself into you local market.

Yes this would be the best to check out local rates.
I could not imagine that people like CLA can charge so much money.
I thought if they get 3000 per track it would be a lot.

[Joram]

Holmes, I did understand your question.
Of course you can check out local rates, but don't sell yourself too cheap. After a while you get frustrated about making so much hours for a few bucks. You'll be exhausted as well.

On the other hand: nobody has to know that you work 12-15 hours on a mix. If the client is happy, it's ok. I think it's reasonable to do appr. two mixes a day. That's an album in a week. So what do you need to earn in a day or a week? That's your rate!

[Mr.HOLMES]

Originally Posted by Joram

Holmes, I did understand your question.
Of course you can check out local rates, but don't sell yourself too cheap. After a while you get frustrated about making so much hours for a few bucks. You'll be exhausted as well.

On the other hand: nobody has to know that you work 12-15 hours on a mix. If the client is happy, it's ok. I think it's reasonable to do appr. two mixes a day. That's an album in a week. So what do you need to earn in a day or a week? That's your rate!

I am a little frustrated if I read that someone is making 3 mixes a day.
Puh

Yes 12-15 hours that is not only mixing time I do not have two assistances which are cooking up for me the rear files.

I mean it takes me 12-15 hours with cleaning up material bringing it all to the arrange window that it makes any sense. Configuration of my mixing desk. This work takes alone 5 hours because the most of the material people give me is worst case scenarios recording stuff.

Triggering Drums or Congas is time consuming too.

100 Euros per Track would be good for the start.
If more musicians are asking me to do thier mix I can go on with the pricing.

[rcm]

Originally Posted by Mr.HOLMES

I do this training since 4 years by now: I think I did 2-4 Mixes a month.

So the Question is what is a reasonable price for an Album if a high armed professional like CLA is mixing it.

From this out i would cut of 50%-60% this would be my pricing.

Using this formula your rates should be about $4-5000USD per song (about $3000 Euros)

[staudio]

8 hours for a rock/pop mix is typical. Don't undervalue the work that you do.

"Double your rate, lose half the customers, make the same amount of money."

[Mr.HOLMES]

Using this formula your rates should be about $4-5000USD per song (about $3000 Euros)

did you read the whole thing?
i could not imagine that these guys are earning so much money.

even i do not like to compare my self with such a genius like cla.
3 mixes a day WOW.....

i just wanted to know how to handle customers in a professional way.
so fixed rates would be best... so i will do this.

double the rate??
200 Euros per Song???

maybe you are right even if it seems to cheap i have made the experience with my main business as a musician that people think that its nothing worth.

[Joram]

Perhaps you can count two different rates: 1 for editing and 1 for mixing a song. The good thing about it is that you are being paid for cleaning up other people's mess, which is reasonable. On the other hand it can save you painstaking hours, when your clients prepare their material in appropriate form.

For example: ask for mixing €200/song and for editing €35/hour.
When you're asked to clean up the material and it takes you 5 hours, you get €185. Including mixing you earn €375/song. Divide that through 15 hours and you earn €25/hour.
And now the other way around:
You want to earn €20/hour. That's €300 euro for 15 hours. Editing takes 5 hours? That's again €200/song for mixing.

Of course you can ask a special rate for an EP or album.

You might be able to earn some extra money when people want to mix in larger facility but want to save money on editing. If you do your work right it opens doors as well.

[Mr.HOLMES]

Thanks for all the good advises.

The whole story behind it is.
This friend came to me presenting the bands garge recording which they have done with cubase and different microphones.

So i told him that the mix is sounding awful like a pain in the as,and that even the huge crosstalk on the tracks is smearing trough the whole mix.

So he claimed that it was mastered by an professional and i told him that 90% of Sound is the mixing what they have ruined.

I advised him to overdub some tracks like the lead vox and to let me remix one song.
It was not planed that I mix anything of this band; one day he stood in front of my door with the Tracks in hands:

"Show us that it can sound better, we do not believe what you told me!"

So now that the band heard how they can sound on a CD they want me to mix the whole Album.

And I was sitting here not knowing what to charge for the work.
THANK YOU

[Igotsoul4u]

I figure out my pricing based off of how much i like the material, how well it was recorded, and how much I like the band. If I really dig the band and their material its gonna cost them less, because I want them to call me for the next album. If I hate the material and band i need to be paid for pain and suffering!!!! Pick a price that will leave you satisfied in the end.

[bitman]

I mix by the song - flat rate per tune.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by daniel c

A CLA is around $4k per track from memory, and he pumps out 2-3 mixes a day. Comes in at 10am, leaves at 6pm.

I think that's a bit of an underestimation actually. For a real "name mixer" (ie who might be regarded as the biggest names in the States, plus one or two from other parts of the world - Spike Stent for example) you're looking at closer to 10k per mix I think. Plus points. Although that would include studio time, and probably a reasonable amount of recalls.

And CLA doing 2-3 mixes per day? I don't think so...unless you've got it on 1st hand experience. From interviews, there's a whole bunch of Pro-Tools submixing prep to his 3348 (eg a whole orchestra to 2-track for My Chemical Romance) which is going to take time. Plus printing stems etc - this can take a couple of hours at least! I'd say a day and a half would be more reasonable.

Now some mixers (eg Spike Stent) don't print stems at the time, but their assistants (often very competent engineers in their own right) will recall and print stems at a later date.

[daniel c]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

And CLA doing 2-3 mixes per day? I don't think so...unless you've got it on 1st hand experience.

Yes I do have it from first hand experience Generally two mixes a day if everything has been prepped beforehand to fit on the 3348, and that's what we did. Though he did mix 3 songs a day for a rock act that had very similar arrangments for each song.

I think that's a bit of an underestimation actually......Although that would include studio time, and probably a reasonable amount of recalls.

Granted, though I was only referring to his fee in a very specific situation, not the studio costs You are quite right, after costs the top guys are more like 10K/song.

[BevvyB]

If you have a team you work with all the time and trust ie engineer/pro tools editor/etc then you have some other ears at your disposal. Sounds good doesn't it chaps? Ok lets print it.

Which is different to walking in cold to a place and not having any other judgement partners around. Then you definitely need to come in next morning just to make sure it was as good as you thought it was.

If your pro tools guy is looking at you like your drums suck, and you always work together, then they do suck. So you can fix it. These guys do not work in a vacuum, and the other guys they work with are shit hot and could probably do a damn good mix themselves!