How much are you making?

[basskater87]

OK, I just want to know where i stand, and where i could be heading in the future.

Right now i'm an assistant engineer

So i want to find out what some assitant engineers make,

also, how much full time engineers make.

I've checked out the govt. sites, but i want to see what YOU guys say.

Thanks, and maybe this will be some eye openers for some people!

[drBill]

This is pretty much covered in two other threads that are currently running right now. General consensus is that money and opportunites are down over the last decade and expenses are way up for those in the major recording centers. (LA, NY, etc) If you're going into it for the money, you should re-think your options. If you can't possibly imagine life without it, keep going, but resign yourself to making less than your peers that went into real estate, banking, mechanical engineering, etc.

Or, marry rich....

[John Suitcase]

Yeah, it really ranges.

Top-shelf guys make good money, maybe $1000/day, sometimes more, but usually as producers, not engineers.

Engineers, even at pretty nice high-end studios aren't making much more than $20-$25/hour, assistants, maybe half that.

Of course, there are exceptions at both ends of that scale. It seems in towns like where I live, there aren't assistant gigs, those slots go to interns, who work for free.

Studio owners get more per hour, but they have the overhead, so in the end, they may make less than a freelancer, in terms of cash flow, hour by hour.

If you love it, do it, but if you're in it for the money, you may be disappointed. Unless you're willing to work some commercial niche, outside of the rock-n-roll world.

It's like anything. Supply and demand. Lots of guys want to be engineers, and there isn't that much money out there to pay them.

If you can specialize in something, find a lucrative niche, then you have a better chance to make good money, I think.

[radu.ionescu]

some big boys mixing engineers do get paid some 3-4000$ for a mix. considering that they do about 200-250 mixes a year, that's some good serious cash, but then again they are very few...

[briefcasemanx]

I think I made like -5k last year charging 50 dollars a song. I plan on marrying rich.

[daveseviltwin]

I've projected that I'll make around 40-50k this year but that includes a ton of live sound projects that I do. The recording side ends up costing me some times.

[Jonboy79]

Originally Posted by briefcasemanx

I think I made like -5k last year charging 50 dollars a song. I plan on marrying rich.

Seriously dude, with your equipment(mics alone)you should be able to charge at least 4x's that.

[basskater87]

yea thats what i figured. haha trust me though, if i were just in it for the money, i wouldn't even have considered this job. It's a love though. I just wanted to know what the general pay is like. I know it will vary place to place, but i don't care. i love my job assisting and when i start mixing i'll love it even more!

[dbbubba]

There are few if any "big boys" that mix 200 to 250 songs per year for $3K to 4K per mix.
Do the math on the conservative numbers and you have 200 songs at $3K each.
That is $600K per year.
The high numbers of 250 mixes at $4K per mix equals ONE MILLION DOLLARS per year.

Do you think that any mixers make $600K per year?
One million?
(hint: the answer has two letters and not three... one letter is an "N")
If you don't KNOW the answer then you are very naieve.

If you are a freelancer and can cut it as an A1 you can pull as much a $60K per year at corporate gigs. The average is in the $40K range.
A good A2 can do about $30K to $35K, but on average it might be a bit lower.
Corporate AV is the highest consistent money there is.
The average tradeshow or corporate gig spends more money than the total production cost of most major label records in one week.

When I worked at one of the biggest radio/TV production studio facilties in the US the average engineer was making about $30K.
The insurance plan alone made it worth $5K more and when my daughter was born it was worth twice that.
I still had side money coming in from writing/playing/producing roduction music.
That was maybe as high as $8K per year and as low as $3K per year.

I'll be honest.
You can survive if you are good and know how to hustle work.
You won't get rich and you certianly will not make $600K to one million dollars per year!
It helps to have family money (almost every studio I have ever seen that was large had family money greasing the wheels in one way or another.)
Make sure that you girlfriend and or wife has a good job!
If her family is wealthy it is even better because if you get married and have a kid they'll probebly buy a house and car FOR HER.You can ride along and dream your dream as long as you are a nice guy.

All of this is why I don't have a commercial facility!
I have a lot of gear and even more that is immedeately available.
Still, it is at and will remain at my house.
I have even had enough cash to build another facilty, but I chose not to invest it there.

The biz has been over-run with "hopefulls" for years.

Don't get me started on the subject of owning a commercial studio.
My place was VERY "successful" and I have also worked at other "successful" studios as well.
It is hard to make good money.
From the outside they all lookied like we were in high cotton!
At least the radio/TV facilty fed about twenty people and their families.
No one got rich.

[lpkyer]

Personnaly I make not much more than 10k a year. Though if all my weekends were book i could easily make 30k+.
For the moment I just buy gear with the income. Still a sideline. Though I'm still in school (electrical engineering....much much $$$ than audio engineering lol)

[RCM - Ronan]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

T
Do you think that any mixers make $600K per year?
One million?
(hint: the answer has two letters and not three... one letter is an "N")
If you don't KNOW the answer then you are very naieve.

The Answers probably have three letters:

TLA
CLA
JJP

.......oh yeah and Andy Wallace..... if only RCM was on that list

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by rcm

The Answers probably have three letters:

TLA
CLA
JJP

.......oh yeah and Andy Wallace.....

Actually they pull in closer to $7k-$9k per mix plus points.

Originally Posted by rcm

if only RCM was on that list

Sorry dude it only works if you are New Yawker.

[MX582]

tom, chris, whos jjp?

[brendondp]

Originally Posted by MX582

tom, chris, whos jjp?

Jack Joseph Puig.

Cheers,

bdp

[Robert Sands]

dbbubba's answer, although a rather bleak assessment of things is, by my experience, right on the money. The only reason I've been able to stay in this business as a fulltime pro as long as I have - over 25 years - is because I am a composer\keyboard player and I do score to pic, jingles and only the occassional song production out of my home studio and so don't depend solely on outside people coming in to record. My studio is mainly used to realize my own projects as a composer. My wife also brings in decent money with her graphic design business. We're living well but not wealthy and it is a very tough road. I wouldn't trade it for the world but I wouldn't go into it for money and I certainly wouldn't start a recording studio hoping to record artists/bands either looking for a recording contract or that have been signed (who's being signed to a contract with any kind of budget nowadays?) The money that has to be poured into a facility is enormous and the hourly rate you can get is so low. It's like buying a really expensive car and driving it off the lot and it's instantly worth $10,000 less than what you paid for it. You better really love driving that car because as an investment it couldn't be stupider.
I guess this thread didn't begin as - "should I start my own studio?" but I suppose we've (or I've) drifted abit. Sorry.

[BJohnston]

Originally Posted by Jonboy79

Seriously dude, with your equipment(mics alone)you should be able to charge at least 4x's that.

Definitely...you've got a good set up. If you're good at what you do you should definitely charge more. I've got a project studio of my own. I'm charging $250/song and I'm going to raise my rates and hopefully bring in a second engineer in the future to keep the studio operating on a more 24/7 basis. I'm considering doubling my rate. There is still absolutely no money in it for me though even if I double my rate. Everything I make goes right back into the studio. I started out 2 years ago offering a really reasonable rate because I wanted to build a client base. It's worked out really well, but it's time to make the next move and start getting a bit more for what my time is worth. If I put a pen and paper to it I'd probably be horrified by the amount I'm actually making...so I don't. I don't do it for the money that's for sure.


B

[midnightsun]

In Fairbanks, Alaska what I have to pay--
Plumber-- 75 to 125 dollars per hour.
Carpenter-- 50 to 75 dollars per hour
Electrician-- 125 dollars per hour
Dentist-- Crown 2 to 3K
Accountant-- 125 to 225 dollars per hour
Lawyer--150 to 400 dollars per hour

I love music

[Spyrow]

Originally Posted by midnightsun

In Fairbanks, Alaska what I have to pay--
Plumber-- 75 to 125 dollars per hour.
Carpenter-- 50 to 75 dollars per hour
Electrician-- 125 dollars per hour
Dentist-- Crown 2 to 3K
Accountant-- 125 to 225 dollars per hour
Lawyer--150 to 400 dollars per hour

I love music

[nandoanalog]

10.000$ a mix here....

I usually mix 0 songs per year... So, I make about nothing....

[jeremy.c.]

Originally Posted by Jonboy79

Seriously dude, with your equipment(mics alone)you should be able to charge at least 4x's that.

Let's see, I was an English major, hated math, but here's my crack at it:

4 x -$5k = -$20,000

ahahahahahaha! yup, sounds about right...

[doulos]

am I the only one who has realized how to use my studio to produce residual income? when I'm not mixing I sell beat cds sample collections sound fx cds
I free lance and produce as well but at 10 to 20 dollars a cd I have about 20 products I sell each weak. products Ican sell unlimited copies of each week takes me about 15 mins a week to set up and thats over 1/2 of my yearly income sittin home collecting money and mailing cds gives me more time to buy gear and play
with toys

[ArcCirDude]

Originally Posted by midnightsun

In Fairbanks, Alaska what I have to pay--
Plumber-- 75 to 125 dollars per hour.
Carpenter-- 50 to 75 dollars per hour
Electrician-- 125 dollars per hour
Dentist-- Crown 2 to 3K
Accountant-- 125 to 225 dollars per hour
Lawyer--150 to 400 dollars per hour

I love music

Haha! Same here.. even worse, actually.

Except for the last two..... Very reasonable over here.

[Stitch333]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

plus points.

the magic words.

In my experience:
Engineering? crap money
Producing? eh, not so bad

[colinmiller]

You can make money at this??

[brendondp]

Originally Posted by drBill

This is pretty much covered in two other threads that are currently running right now. General consensus is that money and opportunites are down over the last decade and expenses are way up for those in the major recording centers. (LA, NY, etc) If you're going into it for the money, you should re-think your options. If you can't possibly imagine life without it, keep going, but resign yourself to making less than your peers that went into real estate, banking, mechanical engineering, etc.

From a recent article on Steve Albini:

Electrical Audio, like most full-service studios, has suffered as digital recording has gotten cheaper and more accessible. But because it's still primarily an analog facility, it continues to attract musicians who don't see the two methods as interchangeable. (Albini's rep doesn't hurt either, and even people who don't care what kind of tape they use agree that the rooms sound great.) The studio hosts digital sessions for outside engineers, but Albini has never used Pro Tools himself. "I wouldn't even know how to turn it on," he admits. "It would be like asking me to translate a Chinese poem." He claims he's never encountered a situation where the use of analog tape was the problem, and he's not about to fix what isn't broken. "Many of our peer studios that have slavishly followed the fashions in recording have either gone broke or run themselves into the ground," he says. "So I don't see any indication that we're doing things wrong."

Electrical is far from broke, but over the past few years it's lowered its fees repeatedly to stay competitive as the demand for pro recording declines. Albini says that when he arrived in Chicago in 1980, the average daily rate for a comparable studio was between $1,000 and $2,000; at Electrical the top room rate is currently $600 a day, down from a peak of $850. "To survive under those conditions requires a different mind-set," he says. "You can't treat a studio as a pure business venture. You have to treat it as something you're doing for its own sake. The same is true for indie labels: they're a viable business, but only just. So having a punk-rock mentality -- doing as much as you can yourself and keeping things as cheap as possible so it doesn't have to be expensive for the bands -- is the approach we take."

There ya go...

Cheers,

bdp

[FFTT]

I spend $5-10K per year on gear

[The Byre]

Originally Posted by midnightsun

In Fairbanks, Alaska what I have to pay--
Plumber-- 75 to 125 dollars per hour.
Carpenter-- 50 to 75 dollars per hour
Electrician-- 125 dollars per hour
Dentist-- Crown 2 to 3K
Accountant-- 125 to 225 dollars per hour
Lawyer--150 to 400 dollars per hour

I love music

About the same here in Scotland. Plumber is £50, auto-mechanic a bit less.

Audio engineers? Well, let's see . . . The really good ones start at £150 A DAY (though I know that they will take £100, but I insist that they work for more when they are here).

Someone with really impressive and current credits gets maybe £250 a day.

A top of the line guy with his own agent and credits to make you blink, well, £500 plus.

[warmer]

Just read through those post and then realized everyone was talking in dollars! its not a pretty wage packet for sure! I think the only way is to do many things from the studio, selling gear, websites, gigs (or rehersal space) we are about to do something so the assitant can get a decent wage because he is doing two part time jobs at the studio 1 boring (my side!) and the other recording, the actual recording side of things ain't the well paid one though! minimum rage works out at around $11 p/h (£5.85) that is what you'll get over here, in London that means your living off beans and toast!

Still money in post though.

[Jules]

I think from posts on Gearslutz you can see two groups of people.

One group are keen to only do pure music studio engineering & producing

The other group, have additional money generating sidelines - like live sound. conference / corporate audio work, forensic audio, CD duplication, tuition etc.

The pure music recording route has ALWAYS been regarded as a very tough road to travel down and what you would find is that quite a lot of folks that DID made it to full engineer status at big studios, would often reach a late 20's / 30 something "hmmmmm I dont think this is for me after all" stage, quit and leave the profession - I saw that all the time at the studio facility I worked at (one guy went into landscape gardening, another went to work for Dolby etc etc and these were engineers that I assisted, I never thought they would quit - but there you go - the music studio business isnt for everyone.. (not to mention the zillions of gophers / teaboys & runners that didn't get hired / didnt make the grade and there was about an 85% strike out rate with them) It hasn't gotten any easier either. There may have been a boom time in the 1980's (when it seemed that there were a lot of studios open and a lot of assistant engineering jobs), but that seems to have faded long ago, studios that had 4 or 5 young in-house assistants running around back then, now perhaps have one or two senior in house assistants and a few freelancers they can call if they need them. Engineering has also mutated into a 'one man job'. The culture of making use of an assistant is dying out. Ask folks on here.... many would say when asked "would you like to work with an assistant "?.. - "Nah..I would rather do it all myself"

It's slim pickings out there...

I admire people that wear many audio hats to earn a living.

[dagg]

by being long-term music addictive and enthusiast in the past (and changed occupation) I wonder a few things.

First, it is obvious hard to earn decent living by being part of this business. So I wonder why many of those personas here decided to stay (or even entered business) despite of obstacles. I mean, enthusiasm apart, we are grown persons, there is life to acomplish, marriage, children, career, money for retirement. How do they think they will acomplish all this if they work something that they like very much, but it is obviously on the sideline businesswise. In the past there were many jobs that almost dissapeared, not because people didn't liked them but because those jobs didn't bring food on table anymore. You can do those jobs only as an hobby, everything other is futile.

How do you explain to yourself, your wife, your children and friends, colleagues that you work hard and still have no money nor great perspective. Is music such a great motivator that career and money aren't that important?

In the past I have had many arguments with my wife, relatives etc. because of that status of mine in the past. All earned cash we invested in new equipment. One day we decided to sell it all and we received fraction of what we invested. Money-wise those years were lost. All that (especially arguments) frustrated me pretty much. Something like 'You will never grow up and become responsible'. It may sound cute but it isn't actually if you are over 30

On the other side, most 'musical' colleagues of mine are more enthusiastic toward life, certainly more than those in the corporate world. Looks like music is great life enhancer. How to convert it to good/sound financial career also?

thank you

P.S. I am still music enthusiast but I do not work anymore in it