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
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.
What about the middlemen? (Score:2, Interesting)
That doesn't actually cover the cost of recording the music, which is usually fronted by the label to the musician as a _loan_.
Most musicians (John Fogherty for example, in CCR) get screwed so badly by the record co. that they lose all rights to their own music...
The delusion of Ferraris and Supermodels is manufactured. In reality it's barely enough to stay alive.
It depends on the artist (Score:5, Interesting)
Cost (Score:3, Interesting)
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: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.
$25,000 (Score:3, Interesting)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Depends (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/dirge.
From the RIAA story this morning
Re:Recording Costs depends on the "artist" (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Liars "They Threw us all in a Trench." cost $2,000 (Score:2, Interesting)
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."
Re:Not that much (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I have seen (Score:2, Interesting)
Thats one of the many problems of the music industry..the cost to produce an album using latest technology went way down and yet the music industry did not adjust to offer better quality albums..so the big question is what did they do with the money?
Was it snorted up their collective noses?
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.
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.
Re:Why not for free? (Score:2, Interesting)
My two cents (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's what $8000 in studio time sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So I hate to ask you a REALLY DUMB question... (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably because if there's one thing more tempting than money, it's fame.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:3, Interesting)
Cost = $0.00 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
I dunno, just my thoughts.
My experince of album production costs (Score:3, Interesting)
Today it's very different. I have a friend who does his own CDs. He writes it all and has his own prologic setup and does all his own music and sounds excellent.
Now try recording a band who doesn't know anything about production. Invariably there's a sound engineer and producer - total cost is 100-200$ 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)?????
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: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.
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: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.
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?
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.
Re:how did others do it? (Score:3, Interesting)
- 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
They had a great drummer (ok, let's not get into Ringo arguments - listen to the results), great kits (Ludwigs I believe), they had a great sounding room (I've been into Abbey Road studio 2 where most of that stuff was recorded - they haven't touched it since the beatles were there cause it's such a gorgeous sounding room), microphone technology hasn't improved enormously since the 60's - it has improved (some transformerless mics do sound great IMHO) but many original 60's mics are still in use. The inputs weren't bad back then, they have improved, but not bad.4 track vs. 8 track wasn't a sound quality issue, it was a flexibility/creativity issue. The 4 tracks were actually not bad sounding, but were (compared to todays equipment) very expensive to run, and probably to buy as well.
Remember at Abbey Road, the engineers were fully qualified electronics engineers who really knew their stuff, so the equipment was all in top shape, many commercial studios these days are very neglected. Some of the equipment the beatles used was made to order for them. Also, as bands spent 3 days doing a record rather than many big bands doing 3 - 6 months, the record companies could afford to spend the big $ on a studio which would spit out 100 records a year.
Re:interestingly enough... (Score:0, Interesting)
Anyways, the industry buys the smaller more efficient competitors once they spurn out a fairly popular genre. Moon Ska records was offered 2 million dollars, but they rejected the offer based on ideals and they went bankrupt a few years after.
Recording can be cheap... (Score:1, Interesting)
Live: How much time do you spend in the studio?
JD: Two days. Two or three days, not very long, we try to keep it as economical as possible. I don't see how people can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a record. It's just retarded. You don't have to spend that much money. I spent three grand on the first Reggie record and it sounds fine.
Of course, thats in a different scene altogether. If you're an electronic artist, it may cost a bit more to produce than other types of music.
(The Get Up Kids [thegetupkids.com] and Reggie and the Full Effect are on Vagrant Records [vagrant.com])
Re:how did others do it? (Score:1, Interesting)
The reasoning was quite simple, high quality audio products were rarely availible on the market. Anything they built would sound better and be more "high tech" than what could be purchased.
In the mastering room (which was very little more than a transfer room), they were *allowed* to use Fairchild and DBX compressors. This was used to keep the needle from literally jumping out of the groove on a record.
The reason to use 4 track was simple. 4 tracks on a 1" tape will actually give you more than double the track width of an 8 track 1" tape. You must also remember than analog tape "bleeds" to tracks next to it, so blank spaces had to be inserted above and below each track. These are guard rails, to keep the sound isolated to the proper track. When you realize that 8 track tape needs double the number of guards (which are the same size as the 4 track guards) you'll see that 4 track offered *much* more track space...
Its the same reason 16 track 2" tape is still popular. Even on the same machine, a 24 track headstack will sound *vastly* different than a 16 track headstack. There are even companies that will build 9 track 2" headstacks. (the 9th track is smaller and is used for synch)
Bass will generally sound more full if the tape is run at 15 inches per second, but the noise contributed by the tape is much greater than if it was run at 30ips. 16 track 1" can be run at 15ips without noise reduction, 24 track 1" cannot. It either needs noise reduction (Dolby SR), or it needs to be run at the faster speed of 30ips.
This isnt just some mumbo-jumbo. The "head bump" caused by running at 15ips is around 50hz, the headbump at 30ips is much higher, resulting in a weaker bass sound.
Ok, so I'm off on a tangent... Back to the Abbey Road... AR built their own equipment to stay *AHEAD* of the competition. Your competitors can purchase the same equipment as you, but by building their own they were guarenteed to have a certain something extra to their sound.
Btw, Beatles switched to 8 track for the Revolver album. Previous to that was 4 track. Its rather easy to hear on cd/lp. Because stereo was not the *intended* format for their early records, any stereo version is nothing more than the 4 track master, panned hard right and left. This is why the drums are on one side and the bass is on the other.. Same issue with guitars and vocals. The mastering engineer was simply told to hard pan the tracks. Stereo was *NOT* a consideration! Some ppl doubt they even had a stereo monitoring setup..
oh well, enough ranting
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:So.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, that didn't please a lot of the older fans, but it got them many new ones, so who knows whether it was good move or not...
Re:Technobabble Arrogance... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have spent most of my life playing the violin (~20 years). I have played in quite a few nice halls, including Carnegie hall. I have a violin that cost $15,000 ten years ago a violin bow that cost $3000 eight years ago. I appreciate and understand that musical instruments are expensive.
The problem I have with the recording crowd is that most are somewhat dilusional in their experience of music and sound. This is primarily due to the "measurement effect". People come to assume that weights and measures are the only standards of value in a variety of instances, and this is quite apparent with recording engineers. Using all sorts of gizmos, they have come to convince themselves that they know what high quality sound really is. They have all sorts of proof to back up their claims, all sorts of essentially meaningless technobabble.
But compare a live violinist on a $500,000 Stradivarius to a locally produced violin and the former will sound far better. Even the sound enginner will agree. The problem is he will not be able to fully explain why. The reason is sound is still something that is not well understood. Even the most musically illiterate know a Stradivarius is the best violin, but no one really knows why. I won't even get into how a musical hall has such a profound impact on the sound as well. There are so many factors, so many variables, a precise measurement or even facsimile is virtually impossible. In the end, sound quality is very subjective, "purity" in a recording doesn't exist. Its the music itself, the patterns and harmony that really defines the music.
This, more than anything is why sound engineers produce work that always sounds artificial or at least different from the original. It may be a good copy but it is still a copy.
I got news for you, that $3000 microphone really is nothing special. There is no way a manufactured microphone truly costs $3000 when a violin bow made by hand over weeks using imported Brazil wood costs $3000. Nothing in that microphone justifies that price in raw materials or craftmenship.
Deal with the devil (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a question you could ask of any desperately aspiring musician or band: "would you sign a deal with the devil, if it were the only way you could ever become nationally famous?"
I'll bet that in at least half of the cases, you'd get a "yes". The record labels know this, so they do everything they can to be the next best thing.
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.
There is no correct or final answer (Score:2, Interesting)
The original poster is asking two questions really, not just one. There's the question of how much does it actually cost to record a releasable recording. The second question relates more to the final retail price of a CD, which often has very little to do with the price of the studio recording or even the raw manufacturing.
The process of recording is pretty straightforward but can be done a number of different ways. You could rent some fairly decent mics (even the multi-thousand-dollar types) for a month as well as a digital multitrack hard disk recorder and take your time in the comfort of your own home to get the right feel for every track you want to lay down. That can drastically reduce the cost of recording, and many major artists now do this. However the norm is unfortunately going into million-dollar studio facilities to track every single part of every song at a cost nearing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the case of major labels, this is the expected method. But that's not even where that ends. That price could usually include your producer, but not the mixing. Mixing these days is the biggest expense any label spends on a recording. Tom Lord-Alge mixed pretty much every top ten rock single you heard from 1989 until 1998 (most notably: Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Third Eye Blind, Blink 182, on and on and on. Look his name up on allmusic.com) He charges a minimum of $20,000 to do a radio mix and edit of one song. One song! These days Andy Wallace is the new "hot" remixer and he's in the same ballpark. (Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, etc.) More often the price is higher because with that mixer's name attached to the song you are virtually guaranteed a #1 spot on most major radio stations.
But that doesn't explain the price of a CD being anywhere from $16 - 19. (US) Someone posted about how Elvis Costello's 1st album (My Aim Is True) cost $5000 (in 1976) to record. Yet a later album (Imperial Bedroom, in 1980) cost close to a million. Guess what the price was then to buy an album? There weren't CD's yet. The average US price to buy the LP for both of those albums, despite their vastly different recording costs, was approx. $7.99. Same is true today. If I record an album at home and it costs me $10,000 all told to record it and mix it, my label still charges you $16 - 19. If my next one costs $200 million to record (*cough* Michael Jackson *cough*): It still only costs you $16 - 19.
The difference is about the amount of risk the label is taking on. There is less risk (assumedly) in releasing the next Limp Bizkit album than there is in releasing my first recording. Therefore the price is eaten up by the more popular artists. When I get to #1 status, it's assumed that my albums are now eating up the costs it wil take to get *your* first CD released. And so on.
Keeping in mind that the "cost of producing an album" also includes things like making a video, or printing posters, or hiring radio promoters, etc. etc. etc. The *average* cost of an album, that an artist owes back to a major label: $80,000 - 100,000. Average. The label almost never breaks even on a first release, which is why we now have all these "sure-fire" #1 artists. (Britney, et al.)
Sorry to go on and on. I have worked in the industry for many years. I have worked on demo and pro recordings in that time. The question is never easy to answer.
My feeling: labels are doomed. When you recognize that the average 17 year old now has access to technology that most major artists started to have ten years ago, it really changes the perspective of how long the labels will last.
There ya go.
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Getting signed and making it in the industry (Score:2, Interesting)
Lots of people also give their 'right arm', so to speak, and their paycheck to casinos and other such types of gambling. IMHO, it it probably easier to win a slot machine jackpot than it is to 'make it' in the music business in the way that many starry eyed wannabes think is coming to them when they 'get signed' by a major label.
Many aspiring artists and songwriters fail to understand that -you- are employing the -label- when you sign a contract. They wouldn't be so enthusiastic about 'getting signed' by the door-to-door insurance salesman or Anderson Consulting, for that matter. They think that 'getting signed' == being propelled to stardom on a magic carpet, but in reality, it is more like hiring a major consulting company to help you reach Fortune 500 status but instead going bankrupt paying their fee while they have you running around doing all the legwork. To extend the analogy, once you are bankrupt, they buy you for a 'song' and -then- cash out, leaving you wondering what happened.
This illusion is propogated by the media concentration and marketing influence of the major labels. The same influence which creates manufactured one-hit-wonders with billions in revenues yet elusive profits seems to make people think they can be the next pop star if they are just 'found' by the right sugar daddy.
This stuff is becoming more and more like an infomercial every day- "Johnny signed the contract, and now he's down at the beach partying with the babes. You too can be the next Britney Spears- if you're hot and you can dance, we'll let you sign the contract too, and then you can be on stage selling product for us, erm.. performing your art as well. In only 20 years, you too might be rich and famous. (fine print...compensation not guaranteed...substantial penalty for early withdrawal...artist is responsible for all expenses incurred on their behalf...company held harmless if artist fails perform as instructed)". You get the idea.
Business like these will gladly take a sucker for all they are worth. These people are not out to help your career, they are out to extract maximum value from your intellectual property and your good looks while you 'till the soil', so to speak. This is why most business-savvy artists don't sign major deals unless they have a lot of leverage (like a huge existing fan base) to negotiate equitable agreements.
BTW, in order to justify getting the lion's share of the profit, less than ethical businesses tend to grossly inflate the perceived monetary risk they are taking. As we've all seen, especially lately, corporate conglomerates have many unseen pockets to help them define 'risk' and 'profit' in a way that best suits their own interests.
Re:$20,000 for a studio mike... (Score:2, Interesting)
Upgrades are also for time/sanity sake, a lot of the new gear may technically be "cleaner" than some of the older gear, but a big part of it is new features and time saving. Going from tape to hard disk can save a lot of cue time and can make punch ins a whole lot easier, as well as instant feedback on effects and switchouts. Add to that easier "un-do's" and archiving of the steps, and losless copies. Now, of course with Dat you can have losless copies, but only so many, eventually that Dat wears down as well, especially if you're tracking back and fourth a bunch of times over one spot.
Mics also wear out over time, not always to the point where it stops working, but can loose some of it's acoustic clarity, dynamic range, and ability to deal with loud input (especialy true with close instrument mics; like for drums, trumpets, saxophones, electric guitar amp stacks, etc.)
Mixers also wear out, pots, pre-amps, plugs. Mixers can go obsolete as well, many producers and engineers would get lost without a computer controled mixer, especially with the 24, 48, 96 or more tracks available to them now. Many producers and engineers like to mic and track each drum head, cymbals, etc seperately to mix. Same with electric guitars, they'll take a raw feed from the instrument and a multi-mic feed from a stack, then pick and choose from there. Options and quality are a big deal, and innovations can make huge strides in both.
Now, those are just studio costs, but record companies don't always own the studios they use, often time in the studio is rented, expensively. Then paying all the engineers (often multiple) and various setup people. Things get real expensive real quick, and that's just to lay down the tracks, after the track are laid down, they must be mixed. The mixdown proceedure takes many things in to consideration, and things can change drasticaly from the original recording to output from the mix with effects and other sounds. Look at albums like U2 Zooropa, there are lots of studio effects and lots of coordination in that album (compare it to the Joshua tree, funny how the basic make up of the song styles fit almost track for track) that probably took up close to the same ammount of time in post production as in the actual recording.
There's also a lot of equalization that goes in to each recording, watch a good recording in a spectrum analyzer and you'll see peaks and everything, but you'll also see program across the spectrum. The "wall of sound" is an important part of music as a basic "rule," although, if you're good any rule can be broken, something that a little band called Strawberry Alarm Cock proved to many producers long ago. They proved that rules are there for people who need guidelines to make "good" sound, but if you're naturally good enough, you can ignore those rules and at times intentionally break them and still come out with a good sound. Take the time to listen to Incense and Peperments and you may see what I mean, or you may just hear a good song, either way you'll win.
Of course, with the original question, you do have to take in to account that all of those "albums" produced aren't all done the same way, and at the same cost. You can have a few hundred albums at well over $2 million to produce, and a few thousand at $5000 to $100,000. That's also assuming that those numbers are correct, and not inflated (ala the RIAA inflation of cd burners incident.)
Re:Just a guess (Score:2, Interesting)
My sessions were done on a TEAC 4-track reel-to-real. I literally used to bounce to VHS (Hi-Fi) and back down to 2 tracks... My whole goal was to capture the performance and the song and not worry too much about the gear. My console was this old Soundcraft piece of crap that I stole from a club (err... borrowoed) and my Mic's were cheapo Sure's, the vocal mic was an old Tube mic that I found at a radio station my friend worked at -- they were throwing it out, so I snarfed it.
For effects I had a compressor and reverb -- thats it.
My monitors were actually just a pair of Kliptch speakers and the power amp and headphone amp were basically NAD home stereo quality things -- good for listening to Steely Dan, probably not optimal for monitoring and listening to a performance.
The studio itself was actually my apartment, which was on the third floor. We'd use each room as a "booth". Heh.
I'm talking REAL spartan here. But my point is this: People, to this day tell me today that my recordings were some of the best that they'd heard. I was skeptical, but then when this person called and wanted the masters of my recordings (which I had but were in pretty bad shape), he explained that the demo's she spent so much money on sounded flat, over produced and (get this) too expensive. Hahahahah...
I think I charged her $20 an hour. The whole thing was like $400.
The point is, its how good the music is, and how good the production is (production of the performance)...