Quote:
Originally posted by Jay Kahrs
But when is it better to throw in the towel and work for less bread? You can only wait it out for so long before your yesterdays news. I usually look at the drought as a relief if I just came off a long project. But OTOH, you don't want to suffer from dehydration either.
On the working for free bit, I always to get something out of a project. Everytime I've worked for free it's been to help out a friend and I end up getting screwed in the process. Like the time I offered to track a project and spent three days on it in a ****hole studio and they didn't bother to pay for the tape which was the only thing I billed them for, because "nothing good came out of the sessions". **** that. Reduced rate is one thing, getting nothing is another.
The price of free is hassle.
I love engineering. I'm not implying you don't, but if everyone thought I sucked and I didn't have commercially successful records, or at least ones that my clients liked, I'd still be plugging away in my place with whatever gear I could scrounge up trying to make the best records possible. I budget myself well enough where I can take 6 months off and not even begin to worry about money. If you aren't quite "big time", then you might not be getting paid enough for it to matter anyway. Also, if a big-dog DOES call while I'm in the middle of one of these projects, they understand that they are low priority. Actually, if I feel like watching the Superbowl, they are low priority. BUT, if you are doing this to try to become big time, DO NOT WORK WITH A SUCKEY ACT. It's pretty much a waste of time. Be careful not to let your paying gigs know about these deals. If you have to, lie and say the band you are working with is giving you 50 points for life and will help you clean out your septic tank if it backs up. Don't let people take advantage of your generosity.
(sidenote: some engineers do these sessions and write them off as loses on their taxes. I'm not sure how legal it is, but it doesn't seem ethical to me)
I do give them a set of rules such as, you must master at this facility, you must give me 100 copies of the project, you must have a budget for duplication, etc... If they respond "We have nothing", I
try to work with them, but imagine this for a second:
You goto Ventura Car Wash (yeah, Mr Forat's brother) and ask Ben to totally detail your ride. Wash it, Wax it, Amorall the tires, gimme that new car scent, don't steal the pennies in the ashtray, etc... Ben says "Sure thing, that'll be $100 (or whatever the hell they charge)".
-here's the imagination part- Now imagine saying "I don't have the budget for that, but I still want it done like it's gonna be in a car show"...
They'd laugh in your face. No situation is the same, but once you start these probono sessions, you can usually tell if there's gonna be a problem early on. And that's my cue to bow out.