Studio Policy/Business Question

[Gregg Juke]

Hi,

I have a question for you all. If you are running any kind of "pro" studio ("commercial" site or home/"project" studio that charges money to record and produce on some kind of regular basis):

What policy or policies do you have regarding instruments and gear and its use by clients. Of course, the draw of many studios are the special instruments and vintage amps that go with the room, but are there any agreements made before-hand? And if so, are they signed/contracted agreements, or verbal?

What I'm getting at is where do you draw the line in charging clients for damages done to your guitars, basses, drums, or amps? Do you charge for broken drumheads? Ever? Drumheads are certainly standard replacement supplies, but they are not supplies like cassette tapes, CD's, data discs, picks, or pens and paper. If the heads are working fine for weeks/months, then a blistering metal guy comes in and pits everything with parade sticks, do you throw the new heads on the bill?

What about guitars (scratches)? Amps (blown-up)? Rare percussion instruments (broken)? Keyboards (dropped off of stand and chipped)? Expensive microphones (battered)?? Etc., etc., etc.

Give me an idea of how you all feel about this stuff, and how you handle it. The gear is there to enhance the studio and the client's experience in it, of course, but what about those abusers out there?

GJ

[junomat]

I take it on a case by case basis. But generally, if it's in the studio it should be up for grabs.

That said, if you are worried about people abusing something, leave it at home.

[djimbe]

Yeah, case by case, but usually studio. Our place is small and we don't do lots of business. We have lots of stuff that the studio doesn't OWN, but is on indefinite loan from old friends/clients for storage and for use by others. Generally, if it's on the floor and set up, it can be used. I understand that, and the people donating the gear understand it. In a case in a corner? We explain that it's road gear and NOT to be played. Often we try to relocate it after saying "can't play that" just to drive home the point. You make it clear to your clients what is really available. So far no trouble on that front.

Damage for the stuff on the floor is the responsibility of the studio. It's our shit, or it's in our care. It's there to use as part of the studio fee. We break it sometimes too. The engineer on the session has a responsibility to mind the gear under his/her control during the session. People who bring in work that causes trouble (read: undue expense) don't get to use the room again.

This is technically year 13 of a place that I helped build and now own. We've had very few problems with willful damage, theft, abusive behavior, etc. I think that's testament to the quality of the engineers that have worked the room and the clients they have brought in. People seem to respect the options that they are afforded, and realize those options are available because everyone is cool and takes care of them. You spend some time in communication (success in this trade always comes back to that, don't it?) and your clients see your passion and committment and maybe it strikes a chord with what they feel is their passion and committment as music makers and you all find a way to work out mundane shit like "dude...I'm really sorry but I just stepped on thes cans and totally busted them."

[cgarges]

It's totally a case by case situation for me, but I don't have any specific agreements drwan up or anything. My rate is partially justified by the massive amount of equipment that's available to our clients free of charge. Because some of it is owned by myself or the studio owner or whatever, I make sure to tell people that if they KNOW they want to use something specific on their session, they need to let me know so that I can be 100% sure it's there.

Drumheads are hit or miss. If someone wants to use one of the drumkits we have available, they either have to buy new heads or deal with what's on there. Because most of the kits are mine, no one gets to play on breand new heads unless they pay for them, because when the heads need to be changed, I do it right before I've got a tour or something where I want to have new heads on the kit.

We have our guitars set up a few times a year, when the intonation or action on a few of them justifies a trip from our luthier. (He comes to the studio and works on all the instruments there.) If I have a big, multi-day tracking project, I might wait until just before then to have the guitars worked on unless someone requests something specific and wants to pay for new strings.

If something gets broken, I pretty much have to look at the situation before I decide if I'm going to charge the band for it. Like, if I go out to the studio and someone has every channel of the Furman boxes cranked, I might ask them to back it down a bit. If they don't and that set of heaphones goes, then we have to have a talk. Unless it's abuse or negligence, I'm not usually going to charge the band. A broken drumhead, well, I might, just because I've only ever broken like three drumheads in my entire life. Then again, if the head's been on the kit for a while (which doesn't happen pften with me), maybe it was time, you know? Otherwise, when you've got that much stuff, something is bound to break occasionally. That's the price of doing business. If you're not covering your nut with that stuff, it's time to raise your rates.

By the way, the topic of contracts pops up here quite a bit, but I have to say that in almost twenty three years of recording music in professional studios, I can't ever think of one instance where I had to sign a contract to work in a studio where I was paying for studio time. I've paid deposits and I've signed releases for stuff I engineered or played on, but I've never had any kind of "session prenup" handed to me from a studio manager and I've worked in a lot of cool studios.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[@?,*???&?]

There's been a lot of discussion on this board about this topic. Resoundingly no one is willing to pay for instrument rentals and frowns upon studios trying to charge for them. The Musician Studio Needs survey shows that musicians seem to expect the studio to provide the equipment to record with however:

http://www.myspace.com/musicianengineer ... 4560549%7D

Here's what they think about charging for them:

http://www.myspace.com/musicianengineer ... 4560548%7D

Elsewhere is that survey, most bands think $1000 is all an album recording should cost.

Is this realistic?

An easier, more direct way to look at it and justify NOT having instruments on-hand is this: If it's a 'recording studio' then you need 'recording gear' NOT instruments. The band have written their songs with the array of instruments they have, let them use those.

If you're producing a record and you know their instruments suck and you have better instruments, then let them know up front what you have and what it will cost for them to use those.

That's a simple rule to adhere to.

[@?,*???&?]

Drumheads are hit or miss. If someone wants to use one of the drumkits we have available, they either have to buy new heads or deal with what's on there.

*NOTE* this is NOT the way to produce an excellent quality record, but if the engineer doesn't give shit about the quality of the equipment, why should the band? Shitty source = shitty sound, nearly always.

Hopefully, the producer WILL care and discuss with the band why they should always buy new heads for a recording session and have at least 4 snare drum heads available for tracking a full-length album.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

uh...are you telling chris he doesn't know how to produce excellent quality records? i've mastered loads of them and i will say you are utterly and completely full of shit.

[cgarges]

According to you, there's no way a quality record can be made for $1000, so why are you even bringing this up?

By the way, at what point does a drum head become useless? After the first day? The first take? The first verse?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i change snare heads after every HIT. time consuming, but MAN what a sound!

[ashcat_lt]

Don't own a commercial studio, but I'm curious. Surely you've got the studio, and possibly he more expensive individual pieces insured, no? Do these policies typically cover this kind of thing? If a client dumps a beer in the console or drops a vintage guitar, can't you just call up your "good neighbor"?

[Gregg Juke]

I _do_ have insurance, ashcat, but maybe not enough, even for our modest little space (about 25 grand worth). Plus, I'm not sure what it covers (I should read the 30-page doc they just sent me with my renewal, but then I think, "not"). Anyway, I got it to cover theft, fire, water damage, etc.; I'm not sure what it says about simple accidents and abuse (if these are exclusions or not).

I also know that the more you tap into insurance, the more expensive it gets, so you want to do that sparingly and only when necessary-- especially when eventually they'll just drop you if they think you're too big of a liability.

In any event, I don't necessarily want to just "write off" all of my hard-earned gear, and open it up to all manner of abuse under the banner of "good-neighbor-callism." Some of this stuff I've been collecting and stashing for a studio opening for _20 years_. I think there is definitely a major amount of responsibility/liability on the client/user/renter. I was just wondering what some of your experiences have been, because I've been an independent producer for years; this will be my first time dealing with this stuff as a studio _owner_, which is a different ball of wax. We are still going to be very picky-and-choosey with clientele, but I'm struggling with this a bit...

Chris Garges mentioned that he's never signed a "session pre-nup," yet those documents were common throughout the last 20-25 years on the sessions that I've been involved in. It's funny, but I think that's an indication of the different circles we move in-- I've been in the indie/low-budget/no-budget scene for, well, for the whole time, which is certainly different than the major-label budgeted project scene (where I'll bet a lot of this is covered by deals and insurance behind the scenes, musicians union, etc., etc.), and that's certainly different from the advertising world (where you don't have a lot of no account rockheads coming in off the street).

Interesting to note, I posed this question at another forum and the responses have been quite different from those here at TapeOp (most in favor of "you break, you buy" policies). Also, I Googled "Recording Studio Policies" last night, and something like the first 10 hits in a row all had verbage in their contracts re: equipment/instrument damage, so I've got a pretty good idea of what I think I'm going to do.

I only broke some gear (by accident, of course) once, at the home studio of the guy who is now my partner. The short version-- we were rehearsing and the bass-player made me laugh so hard, I actually passed-out, and crashed into the DrumKat, busting off a couple of plastic jacks and loosening some connections in the back of the unit. It cost him $75 to repair, which I reimbursed, which makes that the costliest laugh I ever remember having...

GJ

[Gregg Juke]

MoreSpace--

Do you use a drill? Do you have a pit crew to help, or are you as fast as Steve Martin between each snare hit all on your own?

GJ

PS-- I KNOW! You use those old Remo "pre-tuned" heads! Those didn't even need to be locked down.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

well, actually i was sort of lying before. stopping after each hit to change heads, while sounding great, made it a bit tough for the drummers to really get into the pocket. as you might imagine.

so in reality, i have a team of highly skilled dwarves who swap out the entire snare between every hit. you should see them go. especially on death metal sessions!

i keep a couple hundred acrolites here, and that'll get us through a typical 3 minute pop song with a few left to spare.

[Gregg Juke]

A couple hundred? You must have magic drums too. I would need thousands to keep up with backbeats on a No Doubt type number, let alone a speed metal joint.

I have heard that NASA is experimenting with drum-changing nanobots, though... They can re-constitute the molecular structure of any given snare drum, and change it into any other snare drum, head, and snare combination on the fly. Imagine not having to use ProTools to substitute sounds anymore-- you could do it right at the source! I can't wait to see what they'll do with vocalists...

GJ

[MoreSpaceEcho]

nanobots....i can't even imagine. so long as i have my rocket car and my gold house i'm happy.

on topic: i only do a few tracking sessions a year, usually with people i at least sort of know, and they're usually older (30s-40s) folks. so my opinion's not really worth much here. but, i really don't think you need to worry all that much about 'abusers'. maybe if you're continually recording snotty teenagers paying for the sessions with dad's money, it'd be a problem. but most normal people are likely going to be perfectly respectful of your stuff. i think folks are generally MORE respectful of other people's gear than they are of their own.

if you're charging a healthy enough hourly/day rate for you/the studio to survive on, that ought to be enough to weed out most of the no account rockheads, no?