How Much Does it Cost to Produce a Recording? 820
An anonymous reader writes "How much does the average new album cost to produce? I have seen this cost estimated between $500,000 and $1,000,000, but some quick figuring does not support a cost this high. According to various sources (Ok, Slashdot stories...), somewhere around 27,000 albums are produced each year and 906.6 million albums are shipped. I would guess that the album retail (about $15 per album) is based on a 100% markup, so that these 906.6 million albums are sold at wholesale for about $7.50 apiece, which means that the revenue from wholesale sales is about $6.8 billion. This means that the actual production cost has to be less than $250,000 per album, otherwise the record industry is losing money. I have left out the cost of actually printing and copying the albums as I think that the average cost is probably less than $0.25 per copy."
100% (Score:5, Interesting)
i would guess that the markup is higher than that. it has to be higher than that. most of the cd's i have recently bought were more that $15. it has to be somewhere in the range of 150-250%, especially becuase im sure it ain't getting more expensive to make a cd these days.
xao
Re:100% (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a guess (Score:5, Informative)
But still, just looking where I live (Austin, TX) people are able to churn out decent CDs without a huge effort or much money, so when you get right down to it, outside of paying your "talent" we are talking a relatively small figure.
RonB
Re:Just a guess (Score:5, Informative)
Studio time, at a decent studio runs between $300 - $400 an hour (NYC/LA). Some bands tend to keep within the 60 - 120 hours, so your taling about $50K for a marquee studio.
The producer is the killer. If your a "hot item" new band, typically a record company will bring in a "big name producer" to direct traffic and guide the band. If your a veteran band, say like Aerosmith, you can call your own shots and require that the record company get who you want, regardless of the price. Now heres the kicker. Most producers take some upfront money, and depending on the band, will take some money on the "back end". Much like an actor or director, the record producer makes a point or 2 on sales. This of course is all guided by the record company and basically is very broad in terms, both legal and fiscal.
Remember, Elvis Costello recorded My Aim is True for under $5,000. But then spent (estimated) over a million dollards on Imperial Bedroom, which was far less of a seller... Nirvana recorded their first album for $800 and it sounded like, Nevermind was MUCH more money as they had a bigtime producer twisting the knobs. So its all relative, and recording costs mean shit.
Its not the cost its the quality.
Another good example: Boston's first record (which I still think is one of the best recorded albums) was recorded in Tom Scholtz's basement, he did a few overdubs at a big studio, but for the most part the recording was free! So there ya go.
Re:Just a guess (Score:4, Interesting)
The producer is not a cost in the same way fancy caterers are, rather the money spent on the producer is an investment. For example, you can pretty much guarantee that if Timbaland or the Neptunes or Dre produce, then the CD is going to do well. The producer can make or break an album, the same is not true for many of the other people (costs) involved.
Re:Just a guess (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not talking about pure geek technical excellence at slider positioning. The subject is quality of album.
You ever hear "Frampton Comes Alive"?... No studio at all. While I'll be the first to admit that a good enough producer can almost single-handedly create a killer album (if he can choose his own studio musicians... Think "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"), the main thing you need to make a good album is good music played well. If you don't have that, you have........ well, you have what we seem to have now. Rap, "boy bands", Brittany Spears (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong. I sure hope so, anyway.), or whatever overproduced, corporate-manufactured non-music they're trying to sell now. If the RIAA wants to see big sales, get Nick Mason to wake up Pete and Dave, and let's have another Pink Floyd album. Better yet, let's have somebody else start making music that good, as they need their sleep. The problem is that there was a huge rise in the importance of recorded, recognizable, repeatable music, which created a business model which brought in enormous profits. As other forms of entertainment reduced the demand for pure audio, the record companies who sprung up in that rich compost began trying harder and harder at the part of that business process that they can influence. It's a lot like the situation where your car starts to overheat, and loses power. As it happens, you can maintain speed by pushing the throttle pedal farther down. This, however, aggravates the overheating condition. We've got the same thing going on now. There are damn few new artists that command respect. Only the mindless ones want to be like "in sink" or Tiffany. It's not attracting real, intelligent, talented people any more, so all the record companies can do is crank harder on the publicity machine, and seek new income through fees on data storage media.
I'm sure that prior to the wide availibility of the automobile, there were some really incredible buggy whip companies, producing superlative whips, which could touch the horse in just the right way, making it excited to run, without causing it a trace of pain. I'll also bet that they did everything they could to survive after they were no longer needed. They're still gone, and we don't need them to come back. Back when producing and distributing an accurate copy of a piece of audio took a big business, the record companies served a very important purpose. Now, they are as important to music as buggy whips are to transportation. I really don't see why this is difficult for them to understand. I'm really sorry for the people who are no longer needed in their jobs, but there are still a few really excellent telegraphers out there (really... I've met one), who had to find something else to do. Sadly enough, I'm beginning to think that that fate is already coming around for unix system administrators. Anybody need a really good one?
Re:Just a guess (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I used to have the same problem. For about eight years, I mourned the death of Classic Rock. New music was crap, and I wouldn't listen to it. When Cobain killed himself, I was glad I could add Nirvana to my Classic Rock staples (Foo Fighters still suck). I eagerly anticipated Rage's breakup so that I could put them in my collection, too.
If I could quote a sage who once remarked to me,
The reason, I think, for the suckage of new pop-consumption music is that it is without soul. And I think 'consumption' is a good name, because it wasn't written for the intrinsic joy that creating music brings artists - it was written for popular consumption to bring studios money. If you want soul, you have to find out what the kids are doing, and the kids are, and always have been, on the dance floor. In the sixties it was rock and roll, in the seventies it was disco and funk, the eighties was european techno (read: eighties disco), the nineties were electronica (read: nineties disco), and it's still going strong. The new music that I like these days, I hear from DJs on the dance floor, and that would blow the mind of someone who hasn't seen me since I was exclusively a Classic Rock bigot.
Find the kids, and you'll find the music with soul. (If you're hearing Britney Spears, you've traveled back in time to a 1999 Rec dance full of teenyboppers. Try again. =)
Oh, and OT in my own post, an interesting thing to chart is the correspondence between different drug use and different music. In a completely unscientific way, I associate disco with cocaine, classic rock with heroin, and electronica with everything else. =) (Everyone's drinking and smoking, so I don't include that.) So the question is, does the music dictate the drugs, or do the drugs dictate the music?
Here's what $8000 in studio time sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
Totally off.. (Score:4, Interesting)
A guy I know, that worked with SEVERAL multiplantum bands as a producer or engineer, gets paid upwards of 1000/day at times. Even I as a producer am like 200-300/day.
That's just for the recording side of it. Many rock albums take weeks, months, or even years to make. The costs aren't that trivial- otherwise I wouldn't be going into it as a profession if all I got was a few grand after working a month on something at all times...
Re:And he probably got what he paid for. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And he probably got what he paid for. (Score:4, Informative)
So, add that cost (the studio time) to the cost paying the producer, to the cost of paying the band plus any studio musicians you need to providing catering and a top notch band could easily cost the record lable a bundle.
An unknown band probably costs at least an order of magnitude less than $500k to $1.5 million, but then, they don't get the top notch stuff. Sometimes, they'll come up with something phenomenal with midrange equipment. Sometimes they won't. But the ones who come up with the really good stuff are going to want the high end equipment next time around
Original poster forget all the OTHER costs. (Score:5, Informative)
WRONG.
Three is also the costs of running the business, i.e. building rental, employees, taxes, operating costs, etc. Only a naive fool would think that the mere cost of recording and pressing a CD is all a label has to worry about. And that $18 that one pays for the product, well not all of it goes to the label.
Starting a music label is not a licence to print money.
You're talking to a recording engineer here... (Score:5, Informative)
Recording costs can run anywhere from a mere $200 to the sky's the limit. Recording house rates are not state secrets, every studio will quote you with no problem. In fact, you probably will pay less if you haggle, only the superstar studios will get what they ask for. But you will get what you paid for in a producer. Recording sound is an art, and to get a final recording that has the subjectivelly and normally accepted level of quality, you will need a good producer. All the state of the art equipment in the world will not guarantee a quality recording, if so studio would have monkeys as engineers and producers. A quality producer can get a great recording with almost any equipment (within reason for the selected output), BUT he will want money for it.
That's not to say one must always use and pay a producer. There are occasionally musicians and engineers who have a natural facility for this.
But to get to the original reply of producing an album, well you are confusing promotion (payola, advertising, etc) with production. The music business is like every other business in the world. The actal physical production of the product is just one aspect of it.
As a side note to everyone, payola is legal. anybody can pay to have their record played on the radio (provided the station did want to do it). However this payment must be mentioned.
my band's costs for our album: (Score:5, Informative)
so to sum up. we're totally independent, with completely non-bulk numbers, we put out a 30 song CD with nice packaging for $5, and we're making a killing profit-wise. tell me again why Eminem needs to sell his millions of CD's at $18 apeice to make a profit?
hell, we even have every one of our songs available for download on our website, and we still do fine with CD sales! take that, RIAA. maybe some people can still tell whether an artist is genuine or not.
that's easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
To pay for the use of the global marketing and distribution infrastructure which allows him to sell millions of CDs at $18 apiece.
Re:my band's costs for our album: (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is, if the poster had a job at McDonalds, he probably still would have spent years practicing and writing songs. In fact, some people who already have good jobs still spend time learning to play music. Believe it or not, for many people (we often call them "musicians"), music is more than just a way out of minimum wage.
Re:100% (Score:4, Funny)
Production costs at Pachederm studios were allegedly one grand per day.
interestingly enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
My uncle was in a band who self produced 500 CDs. Not much but all accounts, but even that was only 2 bucks a CD and that included studio time, equipement rental, editing, and album cover printing. And, of course, in more bulk the price goes down.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what a lot of artists do. One example is Sarah Slean [sarahslean.com]. SHe released her first 2 cd's independently. After starting out small in touring, she's made a name for herself in the NE, getting her music into Dawson's Creek and FOX's Murder in Smalltown X. Now she's signed with Atlantic records, has released an EP, and an album last year.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mass producing them would take a bit more, of course, but if you're making a million copies, there's no way it should cost you even $1 per CD.
Marketing is something else. If you want to get to the traditional outlets, you have to sell to the marketing oligopoly, or nobody will ever hear you. And, as we well know, this is where they get you.
But if you're not aiming at the mass pop market, we are reaching the point where you're much better off just ignoring the oligopoly, and doing your own marketing online. A small commercial web site only takes a few thousand bucks for the hardware, and $50-$100 per month for the connection. And some of your time packaging all those CDs and taking them to the PO or UPS or FedEx or wherever.
Music distribution is turning into a cottage industry. This will have two results. First, the musicians themselves will get most of the money. And second, the marketing and distribution oligarchy will die of starvation.
They killed the music business half a century ago, so that only a handful of musicians can now make a living at the job. It's time they died, too.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
Great sig. Just out of curiosity I consulted The Oracle of Bacon [oracleofbacon.org]. Unfortunately it shows that Osama Bin Laden has a Bacon rating of infinity. This is actually not very uncommon. About 12 percent of people shown on film cannot be linked to Kevin Bacon through film work (it's actually much harder to find someone with a bacon rating of 4 or more). Osama is one of these. Oddly enough, he has an entry in imdb.com [imdb.com] He was in 2 films, "Afganistan: Land in Crisis (2002)" and "Osama Bin Laden: Behind the Madness (2002)" During the filming of one of these he apparently lost some toes.
the internet is weird.
looking at it from the wrong angle (Score:4, Informative)
The real cost isn't equipment, its labor. Equipment is essentially a 1 time investment. I'm producing my album with about 30k of equipment and it will sound as good as a pro studio, however a real studio will have $100k - nearly infinite dollar ammount of equipment... but since I know how to use the equipment LABOR IS FREE. Also alot of the cost of equipment is the building. Real studios have special buildings with modified heating and cooling systems, special wiring ducts, and the rooms are dressed in sonics to reduce sound reflections.
I have no doubt that albums like britney spears cost 1mil to produce. Assuming the studio has all the equipment you need... You need to hire session musicians (drums, bass, keyboard, backup vocalists, string players, guitar). Then you need support staff like vocal coaches, multiple engineers, multiple songwriters, etc etc. All of these people make 25 - 100$ hour, plus the 50 - 500$ you are paying per hour just to be in the studio (the companies may own their own studios, I dont know. They may also have session musicians on salary, thats the way I would do it).
Now a band that comes to a studio with its songs written and well rehearsed, doesn't need anything but a few engineers and THAT can be done on the cheap. Real professionals can do an album for nothing. I've seen all star jazz bands walk into a studio, lay down each song in one take, and be done before lunch. Couple days mixing and the thing is done. But those are guys who've been playing for 35 years.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
I dunno, just my thoughts.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
The major labels are as big as they are because they know how to market the talent that they sign. They get bigger with every artist/band they sign and become more in demand to the artists/bands due to the size of the marketing machine. It's funny that the demand for a label tends to increase in relative proportion to the number of artists they've signed. It's a kind of self-perpetuating desire.
I don't think I'm shattering anyone's illusions when I say this, but the major labels have never been "about the music". Their sole purpose is, has been, and always will be to market the heck out of you so that your (their?) product sells. Obviously, that makes them money that you're hoping they'll share with you. Sure, they hire people that know how to make music sound good. It's in their best interests to make you sound and appear good. No, they want you to sound *GREAT*. But the goal is to sell a product that was never their's to begin with to people who probably would never have known it existed, or even that it was desired. They take the job of promotion off the shoulders of the artist(s) so the they can focus instead on making a great product to sell.
And that's where the model starts to break down. They don't share enough with the artists to make them happy. They use scare tactics and legal papers to get what *THEY* want. The artists that want to be promoted widely must either sign with a major label or spend the majority of their time on their own promotion duties. There's 2 major problems with this alternative approach of DIY-promotion. First, the artist isn't focusing on the product that they're promoting, thus producing an inferior product that won't live up to the promotions. Second, the major labels have most, if not all, of the major distribution channels locked up to themselves by being prohibitively expensive for the DIY'er. It's really more about scale than total cost per unit. So not only is it time-consuming, it's also prohibitively expensinve to market yourself. If you were a recording artist, what would you rather be doing: sign a contract or spend your time and money marketing yourself? It's like choosing between the lesser of two evils. The only other option is to not participate at all. But those with real talent and the desire to be successful and famous generally don't have the time and/or money to do the job themselves. At least with the major labels, you can streamline the process a little and only worry about the money. From that standpoint, the labels start looking pretty good. Until you realize that you're locked into a contract that's even more expensive to back out of... We've heard that story too many times to count.
Then there's the issue of payola. Despite the fact that this is no longer supposed to be going on, it does happen, just under the radar and/or with shady deals. The local FM radio station probably won't even consider playing a song by a new artist unless they get something out of the deal. I'm sure everyone can cite exceptions to this, such as a local-only segment run for maybe an hour of each day, but that's all they are: exceptions. As a general rule, you won't find new talent on any of the "popular" radio stations across the country at prime times unless it's delivered by one of the major labels. If you can cite exceptions to this, please do so in the hopes that we can find a station in our area and support them.
I'll also draw a parallel to Microsoft's own strategy. In case anyone's been living under a rock or in a coma for the last 3 decades, I'll need to explain that Microsoft is primarily a marketing machine. It's products are "good enough" for the general popluation, but are far from superior. I don't think too many of the
I will reiterate that marketing (and distribution as a result) is the key that the major labels hold. And they will hold it for as long as they see it as an advantage. Since the internet can be (and is, indeed) a lucrative distribution channel for any size label, it only stands to reason that they want control over that medium. But since the internet is founded primarily on trust and freedom (as in speech), gaining control over it has been fairly painful for all parties involved and can probably never be totally controlled by the major labels.
I will also point out that the future of the major labels' is far from certain, but I do think that they have an opportunity to survive more peacefully with the internet population in the future. Understandably, control over distribution is a concern. But I also really think that the leverage of the major labels will be weakened by an extremely inexpensive and accessible distribution channel like the internet. Don't get me wrong. General promotion for things like concerts, appearances, etc., will be their primary draw to up-and-coming artists. But none of this will happen until the internet is "old-hat" to the grandparents. Until then, it's business as usual.
I actually have very little experience in the professional music industry, but I am a hobby/home musician that frequently jams with friends and perform only for people I know. When I perform, I only recoup my costs (very little, usually just a few bucks for gas) and usually get a free meal. I'm happy that way and never want it to get bigger. Before I settled into this mode, I did look into promotion and explored the options of signing with a label. I almost had an ulcer (at age 22!) just hearing about what other smaller "signed" artists got in their "deals". The point is that I did my homework, but my knowledge is almost all second-hand.
its getting cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
Then there's studio time. And paying the engineers, artists, producer, and the entourages of all the above mentioned people. Plus food, limos, champagne, jimmy hats, mini hot dogs, whipped cream, broken instruments, bail, hush money, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and there's about $980,000.
So you can see how these things add up.
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:5, Funny)
Or is that whores/lawyers?
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
In all, we spent $600, but the total equipment value came out to somewhere around $4,000. The production process (250 copies) will run about $2.50 per CD (with labels and everything), and the final CDs -- covering all production investments and the price to produce the final copies -- will be sold for $10 each. Oh, and it sounds halfway decent [visi.com], even after only half an hour of tweaking earlier today.
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:4, Informative)
The real costs of any effort of that type are going to be people costs. So it costs $600 for a recording for a chuch band, maybe $1000 if you had to hire more of the equipment.
On the other hand a top act such as U2 or the like are likely to want to spend several days in a fancy studio with a full crew of sound technicians, personal assistants, caterers and the like. It is pretty easy to end up spending $10K a day that way - even if you own the actual studio and all the equipment.
After that there is the cost of making music videos and the payolla required to get airplay. Those costs have gone up quite a lot since Queen spent $500 to make the Bohemian Rhasphody video.
Clearly the industry can't spend $500K+ on the low budget albums that form the bulk of new releases. But even so few of those low budget efforts are going to have a chance to get anywhere near the top 40.
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, you absolutely can get a set up for $20,000, but you get what you pay for. There are some things you can skimp on, but some things just simply cost big money and cutting corners directly impacts the sounds quality. For example, you simply can't buy a decent sounding studio vocal microphone for less than $1000, and you should be spending more like $3000 to get something that sounds nice - you can spend more if you want. A decent analog compressor will set you back over $1000, and while digital compression has its place (I'm definitely no luddite when it comes to audio technology) there are still times when an analog compressor is best for a number of reasons.
There is monitors and amps. The sky is the limit here, but I wouldn't mix a commercial album on anything costing less than $5000 (yes, I do use near fields most of the time, but still need the big speakers for reference).
Then you get to room treatment... oh boy. This one is HUGE. If you want a great sounding drum kit, you need in rough order:
- A great drummer
- A great sounding drum kit
- A great sounding room
- A bunch of nice mics (5 - 10 mics at $1000+ each)
- A bunch of good quality inputs for those mics
- Then something to mix it with, record it on, etc - that's almost a detail
A great sounding drum room with decent sound proofing can easily cost tens of thousands without going over the top. Let's not even mention the acoustics in the control room. On top of all that you need a skilled, experienced engineer who understands how all the above interact - the human, the acoustics and the electronics are all part of a complex synergistic relationship that feed off each other (yeah, it sounds like hippy crap, but it's true - work a few years in a studio and you'll know what I mean).This is just getting started, I could go on. So for those who think all you need is a beefy PC/Mac, a copy of Cubase and a nice sound card, then you need to get out of hobby land and work on some real records. BTW, I'm certainly not saying that you don't use those things, I'm generally a fan of computer based recording, but they are just a small part of a big picture.
One caveat: for electronica, anything goes. There are no rules and no real concept of low end as far as budget goes. I'm mostly talking about music with live musicians, which there will always be a demand for.
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:4, Funny)
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:3, Informative)
Re:its getting cheaper (Score:5, Interesting)
The current oligopoly setup has pretty successfully supressed that large group of non top-studio-recorded musical performances and the listeners were forced into 'consumer' positions where they were only presented with the 'creme brulee' recordings so to say. But often a grilled steak or beer with wings will taste very well indeed.
Get prepared for a market with lots of music out there performed in studios with, for your standards, sub-standard equipment, professionalism and sound quality. And also be prepared that a lot of listeners will enjoy listening to it. That doesn't mean there won't be any demand left for quality work and equipment. It just means that the artists and fans that aren't big, fast, or rich enough for the good stuff still get to play their game without being blocked out by the 'market' situation. It will probably actually result in more work for you because there will be more bands out there that start small and cheap and that later will be looking into something better. More music will enter the 'funnel', leading to a larger number of bands requiring hours in the high quality studios.
A renaissance for music. It's coming.
how did others do it? (Score:3, Insightful)
my son's high school... (Score:3, Funny)
Average? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Average? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Average? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously? Do you know how much money it costs to make a David Hasselhoff record even remotely listenable?
Re:Average? (Score:3, Funny)
- RustyTaco
It depends on the artist (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that much (Score:5, Informative)
Reproduction costs are higher though. Especially for nice packaging, like cardboard cases or multipage inserts. We got a great deal and it was still $1 per CD.
For $250,000 you could build your own studio and still hire a good engineer and producer... and get 5000 copies made. Markup is way more than 100%, I believe most of it goes into marketing and "artist development"
Re:Not that much (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not that much (Score:4, Informative)
1) The Internet. It costs very little to create a web presence, more than just a band website. Making some of your tracks available for download off MP3.com and the like, having fans of the band talk you up in the circles that listen to that sort of music, swapping advertising space with other productions with a similar clientele, and generally getting your name out there. It doesn't take much, and if you are a half decent band you will create a snowball effect.
2) GET OUT THERE!! play gigs, and plenty of 'em. Play with bands that wouldn't usually play together to try and get some crossover fans. Play underage gigs as well as licensed, because grommets grow up to influence the music industry too. Hook up multiple-bill gigs so the divided costs are less between the bands while giving the punter more bang for their buck. After ripping up a few scorcher gigs, we've attracted the attention of localised media, ie: fanzines, interviews in gig guides, and the local (and bigger) music press. Yeah, I know this sort of promotion is not on the same level as U2 would use, but every little bit helps and the money saved by getting awareness through the free media can then be used to try and break new markets. As my old grandpa used to say, a dollar saved is a dollar earned. If you are prepared to put in the hard yards, you can do quite a lot of promotion with very little cost involved at all, if any.
250,000 is too much (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, everything is getting cheaper. Things like mixing are moving towards being done on a less and less expensive PC. A Mac with ProTools can do a LOT these days.
Faulty premise (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth is that most of the production costs are paid by the artist. With a new artist, the label fronts the money to produce the album, to be paid back out of artist royalties.
One of the big complaints of artists, which several prominent performers have pointed out before, is that they can almost never repay all of these costs from their first album, unless they are one of those rare acts which goes platinum with their debut. Most acts are then pressured to rush a second album, as cheaply as possible, to increase their revenue to pay off the production costs of the first album and get them into the black. (Hence, all those infamous "sophomore slump" albums.)
In other businesses, this practice is called "loan sharking", but it's the way the record industry has worked for decades, and there's no sign of stopping as long as this business model continues to work.
Re:Faulty premise (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Faulty premise (Score:3, Funny)
Faulty premise # 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual costs seem to be what this article has in mind. Most people know what it costs to press a CD and wonder how that $0.25 turns into $20. We also imagine that musicians already own their instruments and have something to record. As you seem to know so much about what's going on, could you detail some actual recording costs for us? Like, what does it cost to rent a studio? Where do we get this outrageous half a million dollar figure from?
Re:Faulty premise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Faulty premise (Score:4, Insightful)
They forgot to mention... (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm, this comment'd be funnier if we were talking about the Portland Trailblazers.
Cost (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cost (Score:3, Insightful)
a straight recording of a band in a studio can record an hour of music in a recording session or two for less than 5 grand. but most pop albums include lots of layering and pre- and post-processing. getting a top talented producer and engineer to accomplish this isn't cheap (hey, the producr's got to eat too). plus there are back up singers and musicians that have to be paid too. but it's still not nearly as expensive as the record companies say it is.
the couple hundred grand fronted to a band by the record company is supposed to be used to make the recording, and is about right for making a recording with decent production values (no comment about the quality of the music, but the sound should be decent). all the other expenses the record companies attrribute to promotion and distribution are clearly grossly inflated. for example, record contracts make provisions for 'breakage', a leftover from the days of 78 rpm records.
and the record companies have little or no incentive to keep costs down. vivendi universal owns a record company that spends money on promotion. vivendi universal also owns mtv. with the band paying the costs of promoting on mtv out of their royalties, and all the promotion money coming back to vivendi universal anyway, why should the comapny do anything to keep the promotional costs down? note that the record companies have no fiduciary responsibility to the bands they sign and carefully control how their books can be audited in the contracts they force upon the bands.
Depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
For big business music, however, several thousand dollars are spent. The average is raised a lot due to how many effects and how much processing goes into making pop music. Britney doesn't hit that note? Touch it up with several thousand dollars worth of software (if you're legit
But the bottom line here is it depends on what you meant: Major recordings or a bunch of bumblefucks like myself on a budget.
cost way over inflated... (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggests cost... (Score:5, Interesting)
A music video, a self-contained commercial for the album costs a LOT of money ($100k up to $500k), without actually bringing any money in by itself (except for the growing trend of musicvid DVD's).
Everytime you watch a music video or listen to the radio, that's marketing money spent just to get you to buy the album. For people that want to go big-time, you gotta shell out the big-bucks. That $20 you pay for the CD pays for pretty much every method that got you aware of the CD in the first place. Except for word-of-mouth, which to marketers, is priceless (which it is, since it's free).
Recording Costs depends on the "artist" (Score:5, Interesting)
Mastering of an album costs about $4000.00 at Gateway Mastering. Thats the best place in the world. CD Duplication for color inserts and other things it's about $1.00 each.
So it's like $12000.00 for recording, mixing and mastering and another $8000.00 for 8,000 cd's. So now we're upto $20,000.
But now you gotta' pay the "independant promoter" companies (which are subsiderary companies to the radio stations) lots of money to get it played on the radio. Thats an extra $10k.
So a total of $30,000 for a good band to pound out a great CD.
Re:Recording Costs depends on the "artist" (Score:3, Interesting)
Prod cost doesn't bother me a whole lot... (Score:5, Insightful)
What does bother me is their reluctance to satisfy me as a customer. If an album sucks, I want a refund. Forget it, open it == bought it. They don't even want me sampling the music to alleviate their no returns policy. The way I see it, if they're going to charge a premium for this crap, shouldn't I become a happy customer?
So yeah, they can charge what they want as long as I find the price reasonable, but I demand better customer satisfaction if they're getting such a ridiculous markup on it.
$25,000 (Score:3, Interesting)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Costs can be huge. (Score:5, Informative)
And, if the label thinks you might actually move some units, they'll be paying expenses, per diems, touring costs and marketing. Believe me, that can cost a lot of $. Fact is, it costs a lot of money to put together a "best-seller."
FYI, signed bands actually pay for the recording costs (the money is "fronted" by your label) so the studio only pays if the album doesn't break even (most albums actually) -- and if the band never generates sales to cover it, the label will eventually eat the cost, but even in those cases it's a write-off
You would be surprised how many bands you know that have never made a dime from royalties because they owe their label for the recording costs. Hopefully most signed bands are smart enough to know that the only money they'll likely see is from sales of schwag.
ah, just what the world needs (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, and it shows.
Re:Costs can be small (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The Bass is buried. I could only hear it during the guitar solo. Even then it had no presence, which is sad because the bassist seems like he or she is decently skilled. More bass in the bass!
2. The drums were balanced incorrectly. The sounded like they were off to the left some. It left me feeling like I was looking at stage left the whole time. The kick, which should probably be in the center, isn't.
3. The guitar was also off to the left.
4. It sounds utterly dry, no reverb at all. A little reverb makes all the difference in making a song sound big.
This is why the big studios get the big bucks. Their engineers won't make these mistakes. A good producer wouldn't accept it either. By professional standards, this is a good demo, nothing more.
It is a good demo, though. I wish you luck in your career.
Re:Costs can be small (Score:3)
Classic Steve Albini Article (Score:5, Informative)
The article demonstrates how a band can manage to generate millions of dollars of profit for a label, but still owe the label money.
The article includes sample figures that indicate 'recording costs' of $150,000, and a wholesale price of $6.50 per CD (circa 1994, when the article was first published).
Look at that math! (Score:4, Funny)
On the other hand,
if a chicken and half lays an egg and a half every day and a half, then how long does it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick all of the seeds out of a dill pickle?
Quality and Fees (Score:3, Insightful)
A high quality (ie expensive) studio with high quality engineers and high quality software and equipment can make a decent singer sound good, and a good singer sound great. That's where a big chunk of that change is going.
Another big chunk is probably inflated values given by the RIAA in order to milk as much money out of the artists as they can in fees.
C'mon, there can be lots of extra costs (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Bringing in a well-known producer to help you get the sound you want. Ditto for engineers.
2. Studio time in the high-end studios--with millions of dollars in equipment--can be very expensive.
3. Spending lots and lots of time in the studio--weeks or months instead of the "4 hours" people are citing. Heck, you'd be lucky to get one good take of a song in four hours, even in your basement studio.
4. Session musicians brought in for various tracks.
5. Celebrity backup singers (e.g. Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch singing backup for Steve Earle).
6. Weeks of production work done by someone else, often someone well known and highly compensated, after the initial recording sessions.
Yeah, local bands don't do all of this, but we're talking about big "cash cow" acts here, not a bar band from Austin.
Here is what Steve Albini said (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course this is in early '90 dollars but here is the snip on the bottom:Of course Albini had a different point with this article: the majors screw people over so if you decide to not go independent, you are putting your life in your hands. Or from the article: "The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never "recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked."
Some of this is just trickery (Score:4, Informative)
This trickery generally benefits the artists because they're not taxed on the benefits it provides them with, unlike the 7/11 clerk, who has to pay income and Social InSecurity taxes on every dime of his income.
I'll bet the 7/11 clerk would change places with them in a heartbeat.
I read a very interesting biography of Richard Branson, who founded the Virgin record label among other enterprises. He was taught a hard lesson in economics from the other side of the fence. He signed some number of bands. One was a huge hit, the rest did poorly. Overall, he made very little even though his business was glamourous and he had a lot of fun with it.
In other words, just because the gross is pretty doesn't mean the net isn't ugly.
In this case, consider that the semi-hit analyzed here has to support a number of flops, that don't come even close to recouping their costs. Overall, then, the label probably does a lot worse than you think, precisely because this guy selected a middle of the road example.
Anyone know what the actual profits of the record labels look like?
D
It all completely depends... (Score:3, Informative)
Two hardcore/metal bands I knew a couple of years ago from the same town each put an album out around the same time. One spent a couple of weekends at a small local studio and put together a full-length CD for about $1200. The other, who had hired a manager and thought they were going to go big time, took a month off, put themselves up in an apartment in a town 30 miles away and recorded an album in a "big" studio for $30,000. They never did get the big break. The two guys who wrote most of the material left the band because they refused to quit their jobs to do the joke of a "tour" the band set up after the CD came out.
The band i farm, with whom my former band used to play shows, went from making self-released records at the same $20/hour studio we recorded at and being recorded by their friends in recording school to recently doing an album for a small indie label for $6000 at the Blasting Room (run by Stephen Egerton and Bill Stevenson from All/the Descendants).
The point is, it's a really difficult question to answer. Really big bands spend a lot of time in really big, expensive studios working on albums. It's incredibly easy to run the cost of a recording up to the $200,000 mark or past when you're speding six months in a $2000/day studio in another country (thereby incurring housing costs as well). Or working in multiple studios. And bringing in guests to play. And hiring three different engineers to mix, etc.
As for markup. When I was working in a CD store (1994), we, as an independent store, paid the one-stops an average of between 8.99 and 10.99 for discs which had a usual retail of about $15.99-$16.99 at the local chain store (it was a big deal at the time that the new Tom Petty greatest hits album cost us $12.49 and was going for $17.99 in the chain stores).
Of course, as an independent, we had to undercut the chains by selling the discs for $13.99-14.99. And, of course, as an independent, we also had less buying power and had to buy discs through a middle man. The chains who were charging more for the same discs got them far cheaper directly from the labels by the truckload.
One more thing to consider as far as major labels are concerned is that their idea of artist development is to throw a bunch of money at a whole group of performers and hope that one or two of them make it big. They charge the associated costs to make the album back to the artists and give them all a big advance. A couple make it and actually pull in enough money to cover those costs and make some money. The rest never see any money past their advance because they aren't paid royalties until the album breaks even. Some make several albums that never break even and just go deeper into debt with each album.
The best thing that happens to some indie bands that jump to majors and don't get big is to get dumped from the label because by the time that happens they're usually so far in debt they'll never get out. If they've still managed to keep a good portion of their fanbase, they can go back to making cheaper albums for a small label again (see: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones).
The interesting thing about the music industry is that albums are like films. If you keep the budget down, you don't have to get a lot of business to make money. Chasing Amy was Kevin Smith's most successful film not because it brought in the highest box office take. Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back all made about $30 million at the box office, but Chasing Amy was the only one that cost less than a million to produce. Similarly, Elektra stays with a band like Phish, who refuse to promote themselves to a wider audience and don't sell a lot of albums because they sell a steady amount of albums and they don't spend a lot of money making those albums.
Factors (Score:3, Interesting)
a) Musical equipment. Not cheap. Many unknown musicians think nothing about having 5-20 thousand dollars worth of equipment. Multiply that by the number of musicians in the band. OTOH, a $150 used MIM(made in Mexico) Fender strat played through a $100 amp will convincingly duplicate the "Nirvana" guitar sound.
b) Studio Time. If a band is skilled enough, they can produce their records in a home studio. You could feasibly do this with one microphone plugged into the back of a sound card, record one track at a time, and mix it down with some program you downloaded off alt.binaries.whatever. Or you could spend more money. Or you could spend a lot more money.
b2) You could hire out a studio and an engineer, and a producer, and this is where it really can get expensive. It would not be much of a problem to blow through 500 grand if you hired a couple of name brand guys and spent a month or two in an expensive studio.
So, does it cost $500,000 to record a CD? It can. It can be done for much less. And if you have some geeks at your disposable who know something about audio engineering, you could conceivably even get a high quality record for a small fraction of what some rich rock star is going to blow through making an album.
As much as you want (Score:3, Insightful)
And then there's the marketing. Just put up some flyers. It's free. Want something more effective? Buy a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. Or negotiate a spot on the Tonight Show. Or something in between.
And don't forget to pay the independent promoters to do their payola thing with the radio stations. Don't want to get involved with those goombas? That's okay. You've still got your album. Just don't expect it to get radio play.
How much does it cost to produce an album? However much you want.
It's way too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
The system in which we all have to pay for way too expensive studios with way too much way too expensive managers which usually also produce a way too expensive videoclip and have a way too expensive team to think about what the next single from this or that album should be. All payed for by us. Well then we all have to pay for things like MTV, RIAA-tax, normal tax and the rest is income to artists. Some make multizillions a year but newcomers can hardly get on the market because of the marketing-machine all CD-buyers invest in. So I say once again: don't buy CD's from the big labels, don't record your album at the big labels. ANY band with a bit of a studio at home (cheap multitrackers work just) can record an album in a few days. Invest $800 in the first 1000 CD's and sell them online. Just send them out yourself - when the volume goes up, let somebody else do it for you..
Korn cost $4 mil (Score:3, Interesting)
i'd say the average artist (but the average artist doesnt sell shit for records, comparatively) costs under $100K.
This is the wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
So you aren't asking the correct question. How much a single album costs is pretty much irrelevant to answering the real question you want the answer to.
-Sean
My two cents (Score:3, Interesting)
Nirvana's "Bleach" - $600 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a great album. Captures everything they were about in their prime. It's not the best recording I've heard, but it's more than OK and I'm guessing the've made their $600 back.
But other forms of music require a bit more than a four track and a couple of cheap guitars. Into techno/electronic music? Expect to spend more $$$ getting that to sound right. Jazz can probably be done cheaply. Point and record is how the best sounding recordings are generally done.
IMO, any band that spends millions on recording is trying to get something that just isn't there. If you can't capture the essence of what your band is for far less money, then I suggest that the recording process is being used to hide the band's shortcomings.
-S
Priceless... (Score:5, Funny)
Well Known Producer: 250K
Other Expenses: 100K
Seeing your album on KaZaA the day of release: Priceless
MP3's - there are somethings in life that you don't need money to buy - for everything else there is the RIAA
Ten years... (Score:3, Informative)
She had a few cds out at the time, and I remember hearing from her (or her manager) that the cost to make an album *for the label* is around one dollar apiece.
Frad
Do I bother *YOU* at *your* work?
Cost = $0.00 (Score:3, Interesting)
"Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis (Score:4, Informative)
Studio time, plus the musicians pay was pretty much a days work for the 10 or so people involved.
Then there is the cost of pressing the records (which is probably higher than making CDs).
Anyway, check out the book Making of Kind of Blue [dacapopress.com].
Today you can probably record and print 1000 CDs for under $5000.
My experince of album production costs (Score:3, Interesting)
Today it's very different. I have a friend who does his own CDs. He writes it all and has his own prologic setup and does all his own music and sounds excellent.
Now try recording a band who doesn't know anything about production. Invariably there's a sound engineer and producer - total cost is 100-200$ per hr but could be a lot more. Studio hire (and extra equipment hire if necessary) is anywhere from $0 to $X000 a day, but lets say its $500 a day. Now how long will this sucker take? Record it in a week and it'll sound like it. Let's say a month which still isn't generous. Then you're all working 12-20hrs a day. That's $2.5k a day, $75k a month. Then all the things we missed like up front money for the band to live off, legal fees, CD cover design, marketing and so much more.
Yes, you can record a CD for $2k. But you can also validly spend $500k too (especially once marketing kicks in). Then there's all the times money is spent on all the above and the album bombs and makes hardly a cent (it happens more often than an album doing well).
You want to do it all at home on your PC and do your own cover art etc etc. Great! More power to you, yep you certainly can. Doesn't Moby record all his stuff at home in his NY apartment? You can too! Now what's the chance you'll sell millions of copies (even if you're really good)?????
Hi. I work for an independant label. (Score:3, Informative)
Depending on the band, and the producer, and desired quality, base studio costs can run you from a few thousand to 20 or 30 thousand, depending how much you have to work with the artist. The studio charges you time and material, typically, including the media they master on. Most of the expense at this stage is for engineering, mixing, and mastering. If your band had to travel to the studio, you have that to account for, plus expenses if you flew in a producer or engineering team.
Once it's mastered, you've got to think about selling it. That requires art and layout work. These costs can be anything from farting on a piece of paper for some color to god knows what else.
Once you're ready to press, you find a manufacturer. For smaller batches, prices are understandibly higher. Decent quotes for quality CDs, covers, trays, plus time and materials for a batch of say, 3000 cds, would float around a buck to a buck and quarter per unit. Don't forget about shipping, because 3000 cds, in cases, weigh a little more than a pound.
If you're paying staff to handle all this for you, you've got them to consider, plus your real estate and other overhead figures for the period they're working on it. If you're doing your own marketing, well, you get the idea.
The major labels turn the market into a pigpen. CD prices for major artists are high because radio stations are fat and happy on the bribes^Wfees they charge the major labels for prime airplay. That's why you get the same 15 songs on a daily basis. You gotta root around to find the quality stuff. Labels with online stores for their artists (hint.) are great places to find quality music at prices that don't factor in distribution markups and larger overhead (which has to account for those large bribes^Wfees).
Tired of what's on sale at Walmart? Check into your local music scene. The fish are fresher.
You're forgetting... (Score:3, Informative)
A lot has to do with the type being recorded (Score:4, Interesting)
Take classical music. You need a BIG ass room like Olympic 1 [olympicstudios.co.uk] in London, or at least a decent size room like Electric Lady A. [electricladystudios.com] That costs a lotta money.
Many artists want to use a lot ot live, real musicians, and sometimes they require more than a tiny room filled with geekware to give a great performance.
For proper strings, you need a nice space, ditto live drums. Same with live piano. Again for horns. Backing vocals sound great in a big room. And there is world of difference between lead vocals done in a bathroom versus those done in a solid isolation booth with a great mike.
While we're on mikes, there is going to be a huge difference between some cheap ass stage mic and a Neumann U47 from the 40's which are VERY expensive.
Then let's discuss mixing. Mix it yourself in your basement? Cool. But if you want it to sound amazing, get Bob Clearmountain or Andy Wallace to remix it at 5 grand a day.
So, can you get a record out the door cheap? Yeah sure you can. Can you get a album that is as flawlessly made as a Seal CD? Not a chance. Even Nirvana had Andy Wallace mix their stuff.
Speed costs money: how fast do you wanna go?
Wholesale costs. (Score:5, Informative)
In late 1996, a label rep from WEA (Warner's distribution arm) told me that it cost the label an average of $3.20 per cd to get it to market. Thing is, that's for a major artist, and that cost includes promotion, big-name producer, etc. Your mileage will vary significantly.
My advice is to get a good hard-disc 16-track (about $800) and do everything up to the mastering process yourself. Take the product to a local engineer and have him master it (usually about $200, often far less). With the finished product in hand, all you have to do is cut a deal with a distributor. From there, you have the choice as to how it's marketed, promoted, and most importantly, priced. Even if you can sell it at $10.00, you'll be far cheaper than major-label stuff, and yes, price is a selling point.
One last thing. If you do it yourself, it's yours. It can't be shelved three weeks before release, used without your consent in a Gap commercial or held for ransom because you threaten to break a restrictive and humiliating contract. Paul Simon still has to pay to play "Sounds of Silence" in his concerts.
Size does matter (Score:5, Informative)
Let's say we have a five-piece rock band just trying to get their stuff heard. After spending months of their free time writing and rehearsing material they decide to record a four-song demo. One full day in a studio with an engineer. Then mastering, and optimistic 1000 copies of the disc, including cases and artwork, to sell in the Internet. Total cost approximately $2000. If they sell all the copies for $6 they get $6000. Reduce expenses, and they have $800 for one person. That's not much for months of hard work put into their material.
Let's take another example. CMX, a popular Finnish band who have basically no markets outside of Finland, because all their material is in Finnish. Three years ago they did a 120-minute double-album, which has sold over 20000 copies (that's successful, gold certification in Finland is 15000). They had two studios for four months to record it. Total cost, including cost of people involved, was probably somewhere near $200000. That's about $10 per album sold. Add distribution and marketing. Had it been a single-disc album it would've been a disaster, but as a double-disc it could be sold for a slightly higher price of about $22-$25.
This is one of the most expensive albums ever produced in Finland. It wouldn't have been made if they weren't a well-established and popular band. Getting songs even recorded and released if your potential audience is small (like in smaller countiers, or with somewhat marginal music) isn't easy.
Most less-known artists have dayjobs, because they would have to sell tens of thousands of CDs every year to make enough money to live. A lot of my over 600-CD record collection is from artists, who sell perhaps 20000 copies of their albums worldwide. They simply can't afford $200000 to do a record, nor have they time to write and record a new album every year because of their jobs.
Then again, should records really cost only as much as the production, marketing and distributing them really costs? Sure, you could get the latest Britney Spears or Limp Bizkit disc for $5 and they would still be profitable for the record company, but stuff by CMX or Shadow Gallery or [insert your favourite underground artist] would still be at least $15 just to break even.
Don't Forget: (Score:3)
Keep in mind that, despite how little the artists make there is still money to pay out to:
Ultimately I think that asessing things on a per-cd cost is the wrong way to go. The RIAA Like everyone else is not just into CD's they are into "Brands." Each band isn't just woth the fees for CD's but also the revenue from concert tours (that Ticketmaster doesn't take), the Revenue for Music Videos (minus the cost of getting them made), T-Shirts, Magazine appearences, benefit shows, movie spinoffs (I'm certain that Britney's manager got a cut of her acting fees), etc.
So the real question is, is the amount that I kick in to the brand with my cd price of 20USD "fair" or am I getting shafted by the same people who claim that I'm screwing them because I have an internet connection and a CD burner and therefore must be stealing Mettalica's crap?
I say its not. Even though Clearchannel owns enough radio stations to dictate the rules there, and MTV/VH1 are in the same sets of hands, thus forcing the record companies to play by their rules, I still think that they're doing well. I belive this because The costs of CDs has risen faster (so far as I can tell) than the rate of inflation. In order for this to be a survival move it would mean that:
At then end of the day though I have little sympathy for them because:
To Quote Paul Wolofowitz "Companies come, companies go that's the genius of capitalism."
First hand experience (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, for refernce, Nirvana's big hit record cost about 50k in the end to record, they probably paid somewhere in the 10-20 cent range for each unit, but they spent 100 million on promotion. its pretty easy to see why they charge 15 dollars each.
In the end it realy depends on your level in the pyramid, and your budget. I have heard awesome records that i know cost half of what our did, so It can be done relativly easily, you just have to have your head on the right way on the right day.
My debut album costs (Score:5, Interesting)
I had something that I needed to say with the album. I wasn't looking to become a Superstar I just wanted to make my money back. A lot of people were really supportive of my songwriting. Requesting my songs in the clubs. I'd been interviewed by reporters, signed autographs, and won a competition with one of my songs. I figured if I could get $5 per CD then I could sell 700 and break even. Leaving 300 sample/promotional CDs.
I got a distribution deal, UPC barcode, top spine label strip on the CDs, and got one of my songs onto a compilation CD that was sent to approximately 400 radio stations here in America. I'm thinking why would anybody need a record label? I can do this all on my own.
Then I found out that this is when the hard work really begins. Everything I've done until now has been for naught. I've got boxes of CDs that no one knows about and I don't know how to promote them. I'm a songwriter, not a salesman. I can hire independent promtional teams for as "little as $250 a week" they said. They'll get my name out, put stickers on walls, give away T-shirts, etc. Of course I have to have the stickers and the T-shrits, after I've spent thousands making the CD.
Well I'll just play, I thought. The music's what important. Until I got a phone call at home from a club owner saying they couldn't allow me to play my songs there, because someone had threatened them with legal action. Appearantly my songs are "intimidating" and they took offense to them. I don't who it was, but it was probably the same person that was sending certified letters to my P.O. box saying if I didn't apologize for my music they were going to sue me within five days.
I was getting requests for my CD from radio station DJs in Europe (Great! I've promotional ones I can send them). I didn't figure the cost of mailing them out. The shipping costs added to the price, dollars depending on where it was going. Some countries have import tariffs, customs requirements, etc. I either had to sell more CDs or increase the price. Can't sell them without promotion, which I can't afford.
I tried a free web hosting service to promote the album, but the bandwidth was far too limiting to allow MP3 downloads. So I pay monthly for improved reliability Shameless self-promotional plug [denismarshall.com]. More money. More cost.
Then the distributor sends me an E-mail saying Valley Media, which is their link into main distribution channels, has gone bankrupt and I won't see any money for any of the CDs they had in their warehouse.
I've been threatened, harrassed, investigated (3 times now), insulted, lied to, stolen from (by companies not fans). I understand why some bands say they don't want to be famous. I found out what real parasites some people can be.
I finally put all the songs on my website as free MP3 downloads. I rather give the music away that have it used against me. Besides it's not that good. (Told ya' I not a salesman)
P.S. Did you know that managers at some chain record stores don't have the authority to buy CDs? They're only allowed to stock what they've been shipped from the corporate buyers.
Don't jump to conclusions... (Score:4, Informative)
As mentioned in an earlier post, the compact disc media has become very very cheap over the last 15 years, yet CD prices continue to rise. Here are some of the other costs involved in producing a CD:
MECHANICAL LICENSE FEE: When you buy a CD, part of the cost covers a mechanichal license fee. Believe it or not there is a fee of 7.55 cents PER TRACK for any CD pressed.
RECORDING/ENGINEER FEES: It is not a simple process to create a CD. There are 3 steps, recording (at least $2,500 per track assuming you don't need to many overdubs), mixing (at least $2,000 per track) and mastering (at least $500 per track). Now these costs are relative to the caliber of studio you record and mix at. For a big-time artist at a platinum-quality studio, you can easily quadrouple these numbers.
RECORD COMPANY FEES: Most people get upset and claim these guys are driving the cost way up. Well, for the most part, that is true. But it is important to realize that these people are the ones responsible for promoting an album. The artist does NOTHING to help move their albums (well, I suppose you can count touring). The producers and record execs do all the work to push your album.
PRODUCTION: It boils down to $2.25-3.00 per disc for 1,000 - 10,000 copies. This includes a glass master, the disc itself with 4-color face printing, 10 page 4-color insert, jewl case, barcoding and all those annoying stickers on the case edge. For large quantities, the cost is certainly hess. Probably about 40% less for more than 500,000 copies.
I certainly hope you find this information useful.
-DJ Blair
Re:Depends (Score:5, Funny)
On plasic surgery and skin bleach, or on his recording?
Re:Depends (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/dirge.
From the RIAA story this morning
link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So.. (Score:3, Informative)
Put it this way: you can spend however much you want to make an album. If you want it to sound like it wasn't recorded in a bathtub, you'll spend more. If your band is ready to play the songs (instead of writing them in the studio), you'll spend less. Are you loading your own gear? No cartage fees. Do you even own the gear you'd like to play with? Using session players? How many guys in your band? Have they recorded before? Are you recording the parts separately? Are you recording it 8 seconds at a time? Digital? Analog?
If you're "big," 1,000 bucks a day for the studio's about average, not including engineers/producer/etc. Plan for 3 or 4 months in the studio. The first Sabbath album was recorded in a day; Metallica's Black Album took ~8 months.
Are we including promotion? That's a whole new set of equations. Basically what it comes down to is:
It depends,
which is why it's not a good place for discussion.
Re:So.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's just because I'm a jazz musician, but I don't understand how people can spend 3 months in the studio! Doesn't it make more sense to write your songs first, rehearse them, and then go to the studio and record each one in 3-4 takes, max? Go ahead and spend a couple of days getting the equipment set up, but that still doesn't come anywhere close to months!
Do people actually try to write new songs in the studio? Do they spend weeks teaching cute teenage boys and girls how to play four chords on a guitar so that the band appeals to the target demographic? Any they honestly wonder why they never make any money...
I can only assume that they're recording dozens of takes of each track. Maybe if they hired more talented musicians to begin with, they'd be able to get it right the first time.
If there is a serious answer to my question (what do bands DO for 3 months), please respond...I'm curious...
Re:AVERAGE $500k+? (Score:5, Informative)
From personal experience: in 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 25+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money. So I make the bulk of my living from live touring, playing for 80-1500 people a night, doing my own show.
-Janis Ian [janisian.com]
Re:Steve Albini's "The Trouble with Music" (Score:3)
The Music industry is a business. As with any business, don't sign anything without having a contract lawyer look at it, and if it involves budgets, go over it with someone who understands such things [i.e. an accountant].