How much should I charge for a multitrack live recording?

[_barnee]

Hello there,

I'm starting being asked to make some multitrack live recordings...
I have no ideas about what to charge for that.

• Projects could be 16 to 24 tracks, with 2 room mics. Just being plugged into FOH desk I think...using direct outs.
• 24bits/44.1Khz.
• Probably for 45 minutes, and sometimes over 1 hour.
• As for now, those live recordings could be used for radio broadcast, or records.
  
• Also, I may deliver only the tracks 'raw'....and maybe I could add a rough mix that could help people.

I've done this for years for personal purpose but seeing people interesting in my services and asking prices...why not doing it?

So, how many $/€ you would ask for that kind of task?
200€ ? 500€ ?

Let me know what you would charge for, thanks.

[c.gymer]

I'll throw in my $0.02.

Most of the work I do is for bands and artists I'll be doing FOH for anyway, so my rates are quite variable and dependent on who is paying the FOH bill, complexity of recording etc. I'll start off at £75 to set up and multitrack a simple show. I then charge £1 per minute of audio to mix and another £5 for media. A typical show comes in at around £165 to record, mix and deliver. More complicated shows I'll mix at £3 per minute of audio, but my call out charge remains the same at £75.

I have no qualms about being cheap right now. There isn't any money around to do this in my area, and there isn't any competition that I'm undercutting. I always record and mix the shows Im brought in on, and 99% of the time I'm doing FOH as well so the £75 call out ends up being at least double that. Also, I am just coming to the end of my first year of making money from this and my rates are low to reflect that.

Right now my main source of income is FOH, but I hope that will change in the next 12-18 months. As time moves on I'll re-structure my rate system. For example I don't currently charge for my gear, only my time (which works out at about £12 per hour on an average call out). This is something that will change as my gear improves. I'll most likely charge a percentage of the retail value of my gear for each call out (say 2% of the total). I'll also increase my call out rate to £15 per hour within the next 12 months, and my mixing rate to £4 per minute of audio within the same time frame. This way I will end up applying the same rates to all of my projects, regardless of whether I'm running FOH as well, or whether the show is a complicated 24 track gig, or a simple 8 track gig.

What ever you do, don't sell yourself short just to get gigs. People will pay a reasonable amount of money for our services, and we as a community shouldn't allow rates to drop too low, even in the current climate; it will only hurt our business in the long run. By all means, start at a bargain, but as your equipment (are more importantly) your skills grow, don't be afraid to raise your rates a little.


I hope that helped.

[noamraz]

Like any other business, In order to know how much you earn you will have to know how much it costs you and it is really different from one business to the other.

In general, IMO you should take in count.

1. General monthly payments (Accounting, Insurance, Bills for the storage space)
2. Your bills per show - Do you set the rig by yourself? Transportation? And equipment that you rent specifically for the session.
3. In order to keep developing you have to take in count what's your equipment wear and tear, Which kind of equipment require specific maintenance on steady basis and the precentage you will have to charge which i call "future business development" which gives you the option to advance at the pace of technology and client's requirements.

Though normally i am consulting my colleagues and fellow technicians on such matters, The best suggestions regarding "how much to charge" in most cases came from my accountant..

[Roland]

Well Christopher, I think that is totally unrealistic. Mixin at £1.00 per minute of audio, even for rough and ready. £75 for tracking a show is (IMHO) totally low balling it.

I pay £100 cash for a "grunt" to shift cabs on a show, engineers, even on low rates are £125-150, skilled engineers (i.e. those that really know what they are doing) you can start from £200 upwards.

Call a plasterer to do some work in your house. They carry little kit, just their skill and you would expect to pay around £150 - £200 a day, they don't do nights, they don't have much travel, they go home for their meals. Now factor in the cost of microphones, recording kit, software, cabling. I know that rates have been under pressure because of the credit crunch, but at £75 you could get that for shelf stacking at Tesco's.

What has to be born in mind with recording/sound work, is that you don't work a 5 day week, (unless you are really unusual), PA work you talk about often involves long days of 12-15 or more hours, you can't do that continually, 5 days a week and survive.

To the original poster, I would say that a low ball rate would be £150 (convert into your local currency) sensible rates would be about double that, good rates triple or more, but then I would expect a good kit list.

Regards



Roland

[joelpatterson]

The "ineffable" factor that comes into play, but which really can't be ignored: recording and producing audio is a tad more glorious than plastering a wall, there's a bit more grandeur attached to it. Not that lowballing is ever, ever a good idea... but the school that kids are stumbling over themselves to sign up for doesn't teach sheetrocking/taping and it isn't called Full Pail.

I'm doing some $300/day sessions for a band, discounted from $400/day because they strike me as dazzling performers with amazing songs and they play out ALOT and when it turned out they aren't planning to do my favorite song of theirs in this cycle, I volunteered to do that one for free. Because it's important-- the more attention they get, the more fans they snag with this album, the more airplay it gets, everyone wins.

Long ago I worked in construction, but I never said, "Let me paint the bathroom pro bono because it really could use it."

[_barnee]

Hi all,

Thank you very much for all your interesting posts.

I may travel a lot in my country (4-6 hours driving), so of course I have to add all costs to my "sound services" cost.
I know some labels interesting if this, so i think I'm gonna just need to get a multitrack recording + room mics, then send them all that tracks + a quick rough mix just for them to see/hear. But they will need to go in studio to get it mixed.

About skills, well... I'm interested in audio for more than 15 years now, but my interest increased 5 years ago when I got into digital and bought a load of gears. I know 'time'+'gears' don't make you the nicest engineer, I'm just trying to show you the picture of my practice in it. I got records 'out' from my recordings, I also run a small label where I'm implicated in sound.
Basically, I know how to 'plug' my elements and how to set up my levels. Mic placement, stereo techniques for room mics.
But everyday is a new day, and you always learn something. And i don't pretend to know everything.

As some of you mentioned it, there is the 'job' time on site...but I have to include the 'gear' part, to be able to invest money on new tools or replace mics... upgrading my rig.

I think I'll go for a 200-300 euros for a multitrack recording, depending on number of tracks, complexity of installations. And I will add road/drive costs + media to this.

What do you think?

[Corran]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Long ago I worked in construction, but I never said, "Let me paint the bathroom pro bono because it really could use it."

lol Joel

As an aside, I've done the same thing once or twice (offer free recording because they needed to be recorded) but usually it's just as hard to get them to show up...

[c.gymer]

Originally Posted by Roland

Well Christopher, I think that is totally unrealistic. Mixin at £1.00 per minute of audio, even for rough and ready. £75 for tracking a show is (IMHO) totally low balling it.

I pay £100 cash for a "grunt" to shift cabs on a show, engineers, even on low rates are £125-150, skilled engineers (i.e. those that really know what they are doing) you can start from £200 upwards.

Call a plasterer to do some work in your house. They carry little kit, just their skill and you would expect to pay around £150 - £200 a day, they don't do nights, they don't have much travel, they go home for their meals. Now factor in the cost of microphones, recording kit, software, cabling. I know that rates have been under pressure because of the credit crunch, but at £75 you could get that for shelf stacking at Tesco's.

What has to be born in mind with recording/sound work, is that you don't work a 5 day week, (unless you are really unusual), PA work you talk about often involves long days of 12-15 or more hours, you can't do that continually, 5 days a week and survive.

To the original poster, I would say that a low ball rate would be £150 (convert into your local currency) sensible rates would be about double that, good rates triple or more, but then I would expect a good kit list.

Regards



Roland

Well I'm guessing that I didn't make myself clear in my original post but this is (currently) a small side line to my regular work which is a lot more money (£100-£200 for live sound).

I'm not charging low rates for doing critical recordings for labels, or recording orchestral work etc but for small local bands and artists with ZERO budget who want their show recorded. I make reasonable money doing what I do, but I'm not currently trying to make a living off of recording. I don't take on bigger jobs because I can't afford separate back ups, transformer isolated splits etc. If I had that gear I wouldn't turn down those jobs (which I have done in the past because I know my gear is not up to it. And by the way, I always point those clients to people on this board). I'm serving a part of the market that can't afford to pay the kind of money your talking about, so I'm not stealing work from you or anybody else.

Because 99% of the time I'm running FOH anyway, I charge less. When I'm not running FOH my call out rate is £150 minimum + expenses.

I would love to come down and work for you if your paying a 'grunt' £100 to shift cabs, but to be totally honest, I don't understand why you would pay an unskilled person that much money? And £75 a day to stack shelves in Tesco? Do you really think Tesco pays shelf stackers over £9 an hour? I'm not being arsey, and I'm being serious about doing the work...

Engineering in the trenches n this country is a hard way to pay your bills with clubs closing left right and centre, decent studios closing and crappy pathetic project place cropping up charging £200 for a 002 and a 100sqft live room that doubles up as someone's lounge. I know a lot of guys out of work who would love to find someone who pays as well as you say you do, but realistically for a lot of us that kind of money just doesn't happen. I'm lucky to have a few people I work for that pay me that kind of money, but it's taken me years to get to the stage I'm at now where I can scrape a living at this crazy job we all love.

I'm not one for self censure so if it seems like I'm having a go, I'm really not (and no, I'm not saying that because of the new 'lets play nice or your barred' rules on the board). This board has guys like me who make rent doing this, guys like remoteness who have more gear than God, and guys who just do this for fun and a cold beer at the end of the night. The point is we all start somewhere. I started with live sound and I get paid a decent amount of money for it; location recording is a very small extra to that and until I'm happy with my gear I won't charge people a price that I don't believe reflects my gear.

All that said, I welcome a debate on what people in the UK think is a reasonable rate. We all see what our cousins over the pond charge, but there are so few of us here that to be honest, I don't know what any of you think is a reasonable rate at any end of the market. And to Roland specifically, what do you think on the subject?

[_barnee]

In my case, I won't do any FOH mixing, just get the show recorded on multitrack.
I'll be missioned by a label or a tour manager or a band...

[Don S]

This has been discussed many times before. But to reiterate my HO:
Charge as much as you are comfortable with and that your clients are willing to pay. If either of these are not met, you'll either loose a client or be miserable for working so cheaply.

[NorseHorse]

+1

And don't forget about "the market". Just because I/we/they may charge one thing doesn't mean the same thing is appropriate for your region and ideal clientele.

PS. Speaking as an artist, if all you (the soundguy) are doing is ripping the signal from the direct outs of a board to an external multitrack, I probably wouldn't be willing to pay much compared to gigs where you bring everything gear-wise and do all the mixing. Sounds like this could be a nice "add on" to a FOH gig (like Gymer seems to be doing), but I doubt it would be able to pay the rent on its own. But if people are asking you, maybe it could...

[djgizmo]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

PS. Speaking as an artist, if all you (the soundguy) are doing is ripping the signal from the direct outs of a board to an external multitrack, I probably wouldn't be willing to pay much

Depends what one considers 'much'

One person may say $5000 is much another person may say $500 is much.

IMO, its about supply and demand and what you think your're worth. If a label has been having problems finding a RELIABLE recordist & rig, then the OP would have some leverage.

OP, if this is not your full time job, charge what you get paid at your full time job + 50% per hour + travel expenses. This will make sure you're comfortable what you're asking for and also makes sure that you're paid at least somewhat fairly.

Also, your time IN starts when you would arrive on location to set up and time out would end when you're finished packing up.

[_barnee]

To me, even if it's possible for a soundguy doing FOH mixing to do multitrack recording as an extra... I think there is a value to get another person involved in the recording part.

Usually (in my country at least), people that do sound in venues are employed by the venue. Doing multitrack recording + room mics is an extra job for him/her...and he/she won't get paid for it.

By asking a second person to do the multitrack, labels and artists make sure to get what they want/need.

I have in mind a multitrack recording of an US band, indie rock, quite well-known... I was recording it as a multitrack+room mics... The sound man was doing 4-5 bands in the night, pretty busy... He recorded the show on his protools/powerbook but as a stereo feed from the board (for personal archive I guess), and a radio guy came with a DAT recorder. It was a Tascam thing, maybe a DA20..DA30...The radio wanted to record the show for broadcast/promotional purpose. The band knew me as a recordist and they had my contact information.
2 days after the show, the radio contacted me saying "our recording sucks, we can't use it... We've been told you have a multitrack recording of this...We'd like to have a mix of some songs for promotional and airplay". I did it, and everyone seemed to be happy with the result. And what a fun that 'your' mix is being aired on a 'famous' radio...

All this to say, sometimes people doing live FOH sound have no interest to make a decent multitrack job. They are paid by the venue to make the live thing and that's it.
So maybe requesting a second person to get the recording is a way to get a result, that will be useable.

I've done multitrack/room mics several times, and I can say the FOH sound man wouldn't have the time and energy to focus on it. Each times, they were focusing on getting the live sound job to be done nicely.

--

About the market in my area... Well... There is a guy doing multitrack up to 8 tracks (but probably 4 tracks only actually) on a M-Audio named as a "16bit/24bit professional high quality sound".
He is charging something like 20 euros per hour, or 100 euros per day (no VAT, no drive costs included). He doesnt seem to do live rec from direct out though. Mostly he does session/location/rehearsal recordings...(what I plan to do too by the way...).

But i think if a label/radio want something a bit more serious, they'd be willing to pay for it.

[tnjazz]

Originally Posted by _barnee

I think I'll go for a 200-300 euros for a multitrack recording, depending on number of tracks, complexity of installations. And I will add road/drive costs + media to this.

What do you think?

I think this is fine. Depending on the gig, we typically charge anywhere from $100-500 for our services, depending on the length of time required, the amount of tracks, any "brother in law" discounts we might give for close friends, etc...

The key, at least for us, is to have a pricing structure as a base reference and then be flexible when negotiating the final cost with the client.

[big country]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Long ago I worked in construction, but I never said, "Let me paint the bathroom pro bono because it really could use it."

but ultimately there needs to be some type of a team effort

I will trade you Mr. vendor 1 recording for a pre amp

and the vendor says to the manufacturer
I will trade you one recording for a pre amp

or something like that .

[c.gymer]

Originally Posted by _barnee

To me, even if it's possible for a soundguy doing FOH mixing to do multitrack recording as an extra... I think there is a value to get another person involved in the recording part...

All this to say, sometimes people doing live FOH sound have no interest to make a decent multitrack job. They are paid by the venue to make the live thing and that's it.
So maybe requesting a second person to get the recording is a way to get a result, that will be useable...

I've done multitrack/room mics several times, and I can say the FOH sound man wouldn't have the time and energy to focus on it. Each times, they were focusing on getting the live sound job to be done nicely.

I can certainly agree with that. A lot of the FOH engineers I know are just that, and the same goes for the recordists. There are seemingly very few people who cross the line between the two worlds.

[tysonviolin]

I charge a base price of $450 which includes a basic mix within a week. Additional mixing or tracking is charged per/hr studio time.

[_barnee]

Thank you all for all these information.

This leads me to ask another question:

How would you charge for basic recordings on location?
Such as rehearsal rooms, churchs, chapels... Where you have to set up all mics...in a 'live' condition. 8-10 mics max for multimics set up...

Let's consider then 2 ways of getting the job done:

1. Simple stereo recording with a pair of mics on a stand, maybe 2 more mics for audience.
2. Same as above + other mics for some sources.

Then we have also to consider if it is for a full day or just afternoon session...Or only 'just' for a live show.

• Simple stereo - concert condition : 200 euros ?
• Multi mics - concert condition : 250-600 euros ? (depending on number of mics to set up)
  
• Simple stereo - session condition (4 hours session) : 300 euros ?
• Multi mics - session condition (4hours session) : 350-800 euros ?

(those estimates do not include extra costs such as drive/road etc...)

Would you charge more? Would you charge less?

[joelpatterson]

One thing I've learned: if you give the customer the whole entire annotated range of options, you can befuddled them before you've even started-- alot of people have no idea of how it all "works," so they aren't in a position to reasonably choose among options nor appreciate the implications of this, that, or the other.

What I do is establish "tiers" that we're working at: A simple (but scintillatingly real, atmospheric and utterly true-to-life) 96/24 'archival' stereo recording of their show is $200, with a CD master delivered.

A multi-tracked/mixed later/including artwork of their program, bios, pics & whatever else of their show is $400, with a CD master delivered.

This lets them decide how "important" (translation: $) their show is, what their plans for it are, and all that.

Avoid anything that might explicitly seem like "if you pay more, it will [i]sound/i] better," because you are doing your utmost at all times and in all situations for it to sound brilliant, it's just that... well... uh, you know.