charge my hourly rate or take what i can get

[dungeonsound615]

So here is my situation, this morning a band sent me an email saying they would like to record one song with me for a compilation. Here is my question they seem a little low on cash, I told him i charge 20 bucks an hour and have a place i go to for mastering which i suggest they do unless the people making the comp are paying to get everything mastered at once. Should i hold to my guns and charge 20 bucks an hour or take what i can get for doing this one song, that many people may hear on the comp and be happy with it.
Mike

[Meriphew]

$20 is pretty cheap so long as you're a decent engineer w/decent gear & room.

[@?,*???&?]

For a professional, this sliding scale thing has to stop.

With many, many people charging less and making awful sounding recordings, I want to remain on the top end of the spectrum. Working with me is a $400-$1200 per day. You either want a professional sounding result or you don't.

I wouldn't pander to crap budget. Crap budgets imply a lack of seriousness and reality on everyone's part and I won't be included in that. Honestly, if they won't spend the money to make a great recording, then they have no clue how to make money at this business anyway. They probably don't gig, they probably don't have distribution, they probably don't know how to service college radio and tour and they probably fight amongst themselves when they write songs as well. Sounds like too much of a headache with little or no future to me.

[JES]

or they might be broke.

[Scodiddly]

If they can't swing $20/hr they're probably not sufficiently serious (well-prepared and rehearsed) anyway.

[Mark Alan Miller]

Stick to your hourly rate - once you set a precedent of your rate not being really your rate ("he'll do it for less if you cry poor") you'll have a bitch of a time ever getting a consistent rate. If word gets around that a studio does this, they're kinda in a tough spot. It's hard to go back. Besides - $20/hour is cheap. If you're relatively good, it's cheap, cheap,cheap... if they can't afford it, they're not really being serious. (If they want to save time in the studio, tell tehm they should double their rehearsal schedule for a while and really polish the song so they can be effecient in the when paying for time!)

I don't even do "block discounts" on time, 'cause that implys a mark-up that can be marked back down. If you give the impression that you can really afford to do a day for less at a block rate, then surely you can afford to do half a day at the same rate, people often assume. (If you're $20/hour - your 10-hour block is $200. Period.)

I set my studio's rate based on the lowest I believe I can afford to charge when I've got an average month's bookings on the schedule. This includes not only paying the bills, but allowing for steady (not greedy, but slow) upgrades to the gear, etc...

Sometimes, I don't make quite enough in a month to get any new gear at all, or afford the rainy day funky gear repairs, and other months it's a new mic or some tech work to upgrade something.

But I'm always quoting the same hourly rate. Just how I feel it works best. No hidden charges, no special deals. Honesty in billing.

Just some thoughts.

[mfedderman]

For only one song, stick to your guns and charge them your going rate of $20/hr. If they can't afford $20 an hour to record one song, they are probably lying to you! I mean lets break it down.

The band has three to four guys. Now chances are, since they are low on cash, they'll want to record the all insturments live, and overdub vocals.

So, let's say set-up takes you 1 hour no, lets be on the safe side and say 1.5 hours for set-up.

Take a three minute song, times three takes of the song. They probably spend 30 minutes tracking one song.

Mixing, now remember they'll be hanging on your every move and want to cut corners because they are on a budget. Lets say you spend 2 hours mixing that one song.

Let add that up:

1 hour and 30 mintues - set-up/micing
30 minutes - tracking one song
2 hours - Mixing

=4 hours times $20 per hour = $80

Divide $80 by 4 guys = $20 per freakin man!

I don't know ANYONE who can't scrape together or barrow $20!

Stick to your guns! Don't devalue your service! If they were coming in with a whole album, that is a different story. But, for ONE song?

Just my opinion!

-Matt

[dungeonsound615]

Point taken and thats what ive figured i have been sticking to my guns, and now that i think about it breaking it down its dirt freaken cheap for them. 20 an hour it is
thanks

[Rigsby]

Point taken and thats what ive figured i have been sticking to my guns, and now that i think about it breaking it down its dirt freaken cheap for them. 20 an hour it is
thanks

Just another post to back you up, seems more than fair to me.

[asylumdigital]

$20 is DIRT cheap!!!!

WTF do they expect to pay?

[Dingo]

They expect to pay nothing.

[theposterkid]

Thanks guys. I needed to read this today!

[moogrocker]

Being in the same market as Dungeonsound it is astonishing to me how cheap a lot of the bands around here are. I don't know if its just because of all the young kids were brought up recording on their friends digital multitracks in the basement for free and don't understand that its tough to get a really good sounding recording for cheap, or if they just can't tell the difference in quality, or if they are smarter than I think and know the market is crowded and could get a lot more for their money if they play hardball.

What makes it even more annoying is that a large portion of Chicago and the Burbs are pretty wealthy, and if the band is playing regularly they definatly will have enough cash to dish out $20 an hour or even twice that. Last month my studio ran an ad with a caption "rates anyone could afford." So a couple weeks ago a field a call from a kid who tracked all his stuff on a friends home PT set up and was looking to get a professional mix. After BSing with him a while he seemed like a nice guy so I gave him a quote of $40/hour for the job. Then he goes off saying "your ad said you were affordable, that's way expensive!" So I try to explain to him that you get what you pay for and our studio is top quality but he's not buying any of it.

I most discouraging thing about this is this is far from the first time I've been in a situation like this. This is the reason a lot of pro engineers still need their day jobs. And its not just the bands that are starting to get cheaper, its also the indie labels. One of my regular clients signed to an indie label at the start of the year and they wanted to come back to me to do their record. So again I gave their label a super cheap rate of $300 a day because I liked the idea the album getting distro. So we book all the time and I give the label a call about a week before and they tell me they found a studio who would do it for $100 a day and decided to go with them instead. If I hadn't called they would probly have never told me about the cancelation.

Sorry this turned into a rant....Anyway, Dungeon, stick with your rates so this trend of taking whatever you can get doesn't continue, in the end it will benifit all of us.

John

[asylumdigital]

well said, moogrocker.
However, I found that when I RAISED my rates to $50 per hour, I stopped getting "nickel & dimed". I stopped getting all the "can I look at your studio" calls & have I been booked pretty solid with clients that value my services.
I think people equate the cheapest as being the cheapest & not having any real value.

peace!
Scott

[Rigsby]

I think people equate the cheapest as being the cheapest & not having any real value.

Yeah, i think that could well be true, and people probably want to look round the studio to see if it's just some piece of shit operation due to the low prices. It's definately true that low prices can come across as being a bit desperate for business sometimes.