Charging deposits?

[justinf]

Do you guys make a practice of charging a deposit in advance on sessions booked? If so, how far in advance do you collect and what percentage of the estimated time do you charge upfront?

This is a great help to me in advance; I opened a small studio space a few months ago and am already pretty much booked to capacity as of a month out. This is allowing me to move away from my other income stream (read: day job) which is great, but I obviously want to minimize flakiness.

Feel free to pm me if you don't want to flaunt your terms, and thanks again.

[scarygroover]

50 percent a month in advance is always good.

[justinf]

That's about what I'm after, then payment plans after that. I've been getting what I estimate to be 50%, which turns out to be 30% usually. I'm cool with that.

[kcrusher]

50 percent up front, paid at least 7 days prior to the first session (this is so that, if they flake, you have some time to rebook that time..).

[cgarges]

50% at time of booking to ensure the session will happen. If that's five minutes before the session or three months before, that's cool, but I need it to work. It tells me you'll be there and it tells you I won't book anything else. A "deposit" is generally non-refundable, but time can be rescheduled as long as there's 48 hours notice.

Nothing and I mean NOTHING leaves the studio until the balance is paid.

This has been the policy in most of the studios where I've worked and it's served me pretty well.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[@?,*???&?]

If they book below rate, get a deposit 2 weeks in advance.

If they are paying rate, get half up front (the day they start is typical) and then don't deliver any replicatable masters until the balance is paid.

[twitchmonitor]

Jeff, Chris:

do you guys give the band roughs to listen to before their paid in full? What if they need to decide between alternate takes before their mixing date? Chris, I see that you said you don't let ANYTHING leave the studio....are you serious?

thanks, guys

[cgarges]

Rough mixes are a tough thing. I usually lighten up and start giving references out to a band, then they turn up on some freaking radio station or the band plays the roughs for a friend who tells them that they don't sound "BIG" or some bullshit that always ends up a real pain in the ass to deal with. I also recently had a client who split without paying his bill. This was the first time in YEARS that I let masters out and I certainly learned my lesson. People like that fuck things up for everybody.

I have to develop a pretty cool relationship with a band before anything goes out, so my policy in print is that nothing leaves until the bill is current. I have had NO problems at all the way this policy works. I can't say that about any other method of working.

Chris

[cgarges]

By the way, there's a difference between a project being "paid in full" and the band's account being current.

Chris

[rainsinvelvet]

50% at time of booking to ensure the session will happen. If that's five minutes before the session or three months before, that's cool, but I need it to work. It tells me you'll be there and it tells you I won't book anything else. A "deposit" is generally non-refundable, but time can be rescheduled as long as there's 48 hours notice.

Nothing and I mean NOTHING leaves the studio until the balance is paid.

This has been the policy in most of the studios where I've worked and it's served me pretty well.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Yep, what he said

This is what we do at our place. works like a charm.

PS. off topic ,but I forgot how awsome MBV "glider" sounded. I'm listening to it as I type.


ERic

[@?,*???&?]

I have to put a condition on this-

If you're doing tracking and the band is taking the tracks with them to overdub, you really have no business holding up their show. I got stuck in studio fuck situation once as an engineer on a Dave Davies record. Koch, who owned Velvel didn't pay the studio for 4 months and the only bit of work we had done was transfer DA88 tapes to 24-track 2". Work stopped the record until Corporate could get it together. The A & R guy tried and did what he could, but the fact was corporate was going to pay at their leisure. Dave was livid, I was livid and we ended up not crediting the studio when the disc came out. So you'll have to make that your judgment call when the time arrives.

If it's a band situation and not corporate billing, I'd hang onto things until they pay in full. With corporate, what else can you do? I've actually taken to issuing late charge clauses at the time of the first invoice so that if the bill is not taken care of in a timely manner, the bill goes up bi-weekly. That kind of thing usually gets their attention and I've had good luck doing so.

[cgarges]

I've actually taken to issuing late charge clauses at the time of the first invoice so that if the bill is not taken care of in a timely manner, the bill goes up bi-weekly. That kind of thing usually gets their attention and I've had good luck doing so.

Yeah, something like NET-"15 minutes" works well.

CG

[soundguy]

I think you need, or at least I break down clients into two groups: those which are small time guys who need to pay in full to get their masters and those whom are giant corporations with accounting departments who are used to being billed and who more than likely can cover the bill anyway.

For the first group, you pretty much need to get the money before you release anything as there is very little you can do to get your dough once you release the tapes and without sounding like an arrogant ass, it is this level of client who isnt gonna really bring any kind of spotlight to the studio if his record gets released on an indie or not. Take that for what you will.

With a bigger company, you can bill them and sometimes feel comfortable doing so as they have accounting departments that pay bills. The one advantage of releasing material for this kind of client is that they are usually pretty highbrow with what they bring in, so if they screw you and dont pay, at least what they owe you could be looked at as advertising for the studio once the record or whatever comes out. thats at least one way to justify it while you are licking your wounds...

If you are planning on releasing masters on a billing basis and suspect this before hand, put in the booking contract that payment is due in full within 10 business days of the release of masters and is subject to a %20 late fee every few days after. That usually will get big companies to pay, having this clause in there is the one thing that consistently gets me paid immediately from bigger media giants, many of which are used to paying on a 90 day (thats three months) cycle.

you can put whatever you want in a contract, my REAL advice would be to check around with what the other studios in the area do and try to mirror what the market will bear which addresses your needs as close as possible. If you have a good thing going you dont want a left field booking requirement to be the screw in the works which causes hesitation if that client can go around the corner and book under terms which he feels more comfortable with. That said, %50 deposit with balance due upon delivery is a totally reasonable and somewhat standard thing from my experience. If you have someone booking months at a time you can work out a weekly payment thing, etc.

dave

[twitchmonitor]

Sounds like some of you have clients sigh a contract. Anybody care to post a sample contract? I, personally, have not heard of these kinds of contracts and would be interested in actually reading one. Or is it a verbal contract?

[JGriffin]

I think you need, or at least I break down clients into two groups: those which are small time guys who need to pay in full to get their masters and those whom are giant corporations with accounting departments who are used to being billed and who more than likely can cover the bill anyway.

Agreed. With the smaller clients, the prevailing wisdom I've seen applied is "if they don't have 50% now, they likely won't have 100% later." And with big companies, they're used to Net 15 or Net 30 terms with most of their vendors, and they'll likely look at you the same way. You'll still have to chase them down, though: several large companies I know of make it a point to wait until after the end of a fiscal quarter to pay bills, so when quarterly earnings reports come in their numbers look really good. I've worked for companies that do this, and been shut out by pissed-off vendors who want their money.