$8/hr Engineering!

[Bassmankr]

Engineer needed

Now you can make less money engineering than flipping fast food burgers LOL

[noizemakerz]

its better than interning for free! for somebody who is just starting out, thats a good opportunity.

[nukmusic]

Originally Posted by Bassmankr

Engineer needed

Now you can make less money engineering than flipping fast food burgers LOL

well, it depends on how you look at it. At the end of each month they both might make the same amount.

hours worked

[Audionaut]

Wonder what the gear list looks like, or what he's charging clients per hour???
Maybe the 401K, profit sharing and benefits package there rock.

Don't sleep on it!

On the flipside, I used to make $75 an hour to "engineer" pay per view movies, order food and wait for rappers to NOT show up for their major label sessions in NYC ...That didn't work out in the long run either.

[Jim Williams]

Sign twirlers here in Carlsbad make up to $18 per hour to stand on a corner and twist real estate signs while listening and dancing to their Ipods. Even the fast food workers start at $8.50 per hour as Kalifornia has the highest minimum wages in the country.

So I guess you can be in Chicago slaving away in a studio or you can get a nice tan and some exersize here and double your income.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[Nu-tra]

Those sign twister get on my nerves and to know they make that much makes me ill lol

[FossilTooth]

Originally Posted by noizemakerz

its better than interning for free! for somebody who is just starting out, thats a good opportunity.

Maybe...

But who would you be learning from?

If you're just sitting around using your $8/hr skills with crap artists, progress would surely be slow.

[Dan]

It's seems like it would be ok for the right person. I would be worried about working for someone that has that loose of a grasp on the english language. Also, I wouldn't want to work in a studio that has, you know, skateboards,... the works!

[theblue1]

In 1983, when I was still studying recording in school, one of the free lance gigs I picked up was engineering and co-producing a punk compilation for a small Orange County label (I won't mention who but their name was the same as one of the better known US toilet manufacturers -- you know who you are, Ron).

It meant a slug of quick setups and tear downs as we recorded 3 or 4 songs apiece by a bunch of bands, sometimes 4or 5 a night, at a little joint with a funky little TASCAM 8 track (at least it was 1/2" tape instead of the 1/4" 8 track that was just starting to show up). I think the studio was getting $8 an hour for the facility.

This involved recording a range of bands from very tight speed-punk (Plain Wrap) to barely-out-of-jail gutter punks (Pig Children). In fact, at one point, I had to stand between the leader of Pig Children and the label head -- my "co-producer" when it looked like he was likely to get his upper middle class white ass seriously whupped. (Thank heaven, Pig Children seemed to like me.)

By prior arrangement, I'd agreed to take $5 an hour "up front" as engineer/producer (minimum wage was $3.68, if I recall correctly -- I ended up at a Music Plus the following Christmas, and the amount is burned in my head -- since with my Music Plus management trainee extra pay I was making a whopping $3.72 an hour) -- but supposedly with more compensation later when it started recouping. All this was handshake deals -- as was common in the then relatively small OC punk scene.

The "up front" money somehow never got disbursed to me... I kept working and waiting and I hadn't seen a dime by the time we finished -- so I kept the master mixes. (At least they paid for the friggin' tape.)

For whatever reasons, the album was slow to come out.

And I was still waiting for my up front money.

And waiting.

Every time I contacted the label head -- my co-producer -- he said money was tight, the album was delayed, blah blah blah. I'll pay you soon. I drove down to Newport Beach a few times to catch him on his way out of his house -- since he'd stopped returning my calls. My early training as a process server and skip tracer came in handy (it was hard for a longhair to get a regular gig back in 1971). But I couldn't quite muster the bluster of Pig Children and my pleading and finally threats went nowhere. I had the master mixes. All he had were crappy cassette copies. I figured if he wanted them, he'd have to pay.


In time I let it go.

Flash forward to maybe 1986-87 or so...

I get a call. It's one of the guys from one of the bands. He now worked for the label and was asking if it was possible to get the master mixes for his band.

I liked the guy so I explained his boss had owed me $300 for a few years now -- my supposed up front money -- and inflation -- which was nuts under Reagan because of all his spend-and-borrow budget busting [he tripled the national debt] -- had probably dropped the value of the money about 15 or 20% a year, which mean that the $300 was now quite seriously chicken feed.

I said, if you can get me my "up front" money, I'll get the masters to the company and you're good to go.

But -- because I liked the guy I said, but look -- if you can't get him to pay me, call me and maybe you and I can work something out. I don't mean you have to pay me -- but, well, just call me. I don't want to make you suffer for your new boss/my old boss's deadbeat policies. (Meanwhile the boss had moved to the Newport Peninsula -- very, very pricey turf.)

I hear nothing. I forget.

Another year or so goes by and I'm in a record store in OC with a big selection of OC punk and I see an album by this particular band (Love Canal), a 12" LP. I think, ah... well he must have given up and recorded everything new.

I'm looking at the credits to see what studio he used and I see... my name listed as engineerng and producing 5 songs.

And I think to myself -- this is interesting. I have the masters... WTF is going on?

I buy the album (another $8 out the window) and bring it home. I put it on. All the new stuff is up front and it's clean, it was done in a decent 24 track studio (and clearly the band had found a better drum kit than the funky crap trap I had to mic up). And then "my" five tracks come on.

I already know in my gut that it's from cassette copies of the two 'finished' mixes and the rest quick mix cassettes from the night of their session and sure enough... it is. And the quicks especially sound about like you'd expect from something mixed hurriedly while the band was packing at the end of a long night (honest, I think it might have been the same night I had to stop the brewing fistfight).

Next to the new 24 track proper mixes it sounds... well... you know... (We had one crappy compressor and a spring reverb for the quicks.)


A while later I bumped into the guy from Love Canal. "Why didn't you call me? I would have got you the real mixes for your band."

"I know," he said. "But, well, I thought you suffered enough. But I wanted to make sure you at least got the album credit!"


Thanks, man.



The one time they spell my name right... [sigh]


____________

I notice the studio that's looking for this $8 an hour guy is a multi-purpose kind of outfit -- they also "career ubarn clothing"...

Nice.

[noizemakerz]

Originally Posted by FossilTooth

Maybe...

But who would you be learning from?

If you're just sitting around using your $8/hr skills with crap artists, progress would surely be slow.

probably.. but everybody knows that you get what you pay for, soo maybe everybodies caliber in that studio is in that 8/hr range. So if your in that element you might learn from some of them.. Some ppl need to read Electronic Musician before stepping into MIX.. (just an analogy)..

soo Fossiltooth (love the name), lets just be lucky we arent in that category!..lol

[logicll]

Ha,

$8.00 an hour would be nice!

I try to charge $300.00 a song..start to finish.
Average time for one song 30 hours...do the math

30/300 - $10 an hour before room rental at $10+ an hour!

Wait that's why I don't make any money !!

I usually do mix tweaks for free and throw in free Mastering....


I have stopped this, but now I hardly have clients...lol

[rkwyent]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

Sign twirlers here in Carlsbad make up to $18 per hour to stand on a corner and twist real estate signs while listening and dancing to their Ipods. Even the fast food workers start at $8.50 per hour as Kalifornia has the highest minimum wages in the country.

So I guess you can be in Chicago slaving away in a studio or you can get a nice tan and some exersize here and double your income.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

Then again the cost of living in Cali is high.

I live in Miami and used to pay my engineer $10/hour.

I taught him what he needed to know about Tracking properly and did all the mix work myself.

That was the only way I could maintain my studio, make a profit and be able to cater to the local talent (or lack there of).

[SighBorg]

So I guess you can be in Chicago slaving away in a studio or you can get a nice tan and some exersize here and double your income.

With what I've been hearing about the current state of the industry in LA I didn't think it was possible... but you just put stars in my eyes

[rkwyent]

Originally Posted by noizemakerz

probably.. but everybody knows that you get what you pay for, soo maybe everybodies caliber in that studio is in that 8/hr range. So if your in that element you might learn from some of them.. Some ppl need to read Electronic Musician before stepping into MIX.. (just an analogy)..

soo Fossiltooth (love the name), lets just be lucky we arent in that category!..lol

I think in many ways learning to be an engineer is kinda like business school.

What i mean is that only learning how to handle things with an ideal situation is fine and needed BUT when you dont have all the tools and other limitations that is what seperates the men from the boys.

When you record a vocal on a $99 mic thru Mackie preamps to M-Audio converters and a top level mix enginerr pulls up the sessionto start mixin and says " the vocals sound amazing" thats when you know those limitations forced you to learn proper gain staging.

By the way true story. I lied and told the Engineer the Mic was a U47 he belived me too. It was actually a Behringhr B1 but it fit the artists voice perfectly.

[waxx]

wel, i worked a lot for free by sneaking in session, and take any oportunity i could get, and that's how i learned the skills. Now people know i'm rather good, even without a degree, and start paying me decent. If i didn't work for free, i may not have had the oppportunity to learn what i know now, cause i don't have rich parents who can pay SAE or an other school who can learn me what i know now. I would still be the wannabee bad skilled amateur engineer. I can also use those skills on my own low end systems to make my own productions and take as much out of my system as is possible.

If they pay you by knowledge, it's good, but if it's a little low end studio i wouldn't do it neighter.

[joeq]

"can I have a little more vocal in the cans?"

"sure. you want fries with that?"