At 12/21/14 01:44 AM, AnthonyLocke wrote:
Yes to both of your questions. I own a studio and I've also been to a few pro studios. The pro studio price depends on the studio. Some give bulk discounts, student discounts and things like that. It's common for a decent studio to offer 100 dollars per song. For that price they'll record, mix and master. They might give you 10% off if you're making a full album. Some charge an hourly rate. Some will give you a cheaper price but they'll want to earn royalties (that one isn't very common but I've seen it happen.) For higher end studios the hourly rate is pretty common. I've seen 110 for two hours, but the longer you book the cheaper it gets, for instance, you can book 24 hour lockout for 540. The price also depends on if you want an engineer or if you've got an engineer. Are they just recording or do you want them to mix it and/or master?

I own a home studio, nothing fancy but I can produce quality work. Since I'm not super well established I charge 50 dollars for a song, mixing and mastering included.

I have plenty of tips for building out a home studio. But if you don't mind my asking, what's your budget look like? I could tell you to get 10,000 dollar monitors but if you've only got 1,000 to spend that wouldn't be very good advice. Also, what kind of work do you want to do? Are you trying to compose using sound libraries? Are you looking to record real instruments? Both? What's your end goal? Are you doing this as a hobby or do you really want to have a go at making this a career? I wouldn't advise investing heavily into something you intend to drop in a few weeks...

Thus far my studio has cost me ten thousand dollars. That will go a bit higher as I start to upgrade, but with it I could do this. Keep in mind though, for a professional studio, ten grand is nothing, you might spend that much on one microphone. That being said, you don't need to spend hundreds of thousands to get really good sound and good quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9zVbR0ZjOQ

Cheers!

Thanks dude! Working in a studio sounds really expensive. But maybe its worth it if the song makes money. There is a lot of music on this website that I would want to hear on the radio. Your studio sounds much cheaper.

I have no money. I spent it all. I just have a DAW (Logic Pro), a Yeti Microphone, and a Mac Computer. That doesn't stop me though. I want to take my music to the next level. I've been passionate about making music since 7 years ago. There have been pauses in-between mostly due to self confidence. But I like making and working in the music industry. So far I've met really cool people and have been able to create a creative vision behind my music. I compose using sounds libraries and have never recorded any real instruments. I like to compose whole songs. Like pop but different. My end goals is to have an album out by 2015-2016.

I have no money. I spent it all. I just have a DAW (Logic Pro), a Yeti Microphone, and a Mac Computer. That doesn't stop me though. I want to take my music to the next level. I've been passionate about making music since 7 years ago. There have been pauses in-between mostly due to self confidence. But I like making and working in the music industry. So far I've met really cool people and have been able to create a creative vision behind my music. I compose using sounds libraries and have never recorded any real instruments. I like to compose whole songs. Like pop but different. My end goals is to have an album out by 2015-2016.

Hi adonnias, sure it's important to have quality gear and the skills to produce a song but don't forget about the business and marketing side of your music if you're really serious about it. One thing to think about would be your press/radio/online marketing strategies. It takes a whole team to promote a pop musician (=$$$$) and building a following organically takes time. If you're expecting to make a living from your music there's an article that talks how 43 million Pandora streams of "Happy" earned Pharrell Williams only $2,700....... (http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/12/43-million-pandora-streams-of-happy-earned-pharrell-williams-a-measly-2700/).

My advice is to work on your music business & marketing skills as much OR even more than your music skills.

Hope that helps and isn't too off topic :)

At 12/21/14 09:25 PM, adonnias wrote:

At 12/21/14 01:44 AM, AnthonyLocke wrote:
Yes to both of your questions. I own a studio and I've also been to a few pro studios. The pro studio price depends on the studio. Some give bulk discounts, student discounts and things like that. It's common for a decent studio to offer 100 dollars per song. For that price they'll record, mix and master. They might give you 10% off if you're making a full album. Some charge an hourly rate. Some will give you a cheaper price but they'll want to earn royalties (that one isn't very common but I've seen it happen.) For higher end studios the hourly rate is pretty common. I've seen 110 for two hours, but the longer you book the cheaper it gets, for instance, you can book 24 hour lockout for 540. The price also depends on if you want an engineer or if you've got an engineer. Are they just recording or do you want them to mix it and/or master?

I own a home studio, nothing fancy but I can produce quality work. Since I'm not super well established I charge 50 dollars for a song, mixing and mastering included.

I have plenty of tips for building out a home studio. But if you don't mind my asking, what's your budget look like? I could tell you to get 10,000 dollar monitors but if you've only got 1,000 to spend that wouldn't be very good advice. Also, what kind of work do you want to do? Are you trying to compose using sound libraries? Are you looking to record real instruments? Both? What's your end goal? Are you doing this as a hobby or do you really want to have a go at making this a career? I wouldn't advise investing heavily into something you intend to drop in a few weeks...

Thus far my studio has cost me ten thousand dollars. That will go a bit higher as I start to upgrade, but with it I could do this. Keep in mind though, for a professional studio, ten grand is nothing, you might spend that much on one microphone. That being said, you don't need to spend hundreds of thousands to get really good sound and good quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9zVbR0ZjOQ

Cheers!

Thanks dude! Working in a studio sounds really expensive. But maybe its worth it if the song makes money. There is a lot of music on this website that I would want to hear on the radio. Your studio sounds much cheaper.

I have no money. I spent it all. I just have a DAW (Logic Pro), a Yeti Microphone, and a Mac Computer. That doesn't stop me though. I want to take my music to the next level. I've been passionate about making music since 7 years ago. There have been pauses in-between mostly due to self confidence. But I like making and working in the music industry. So far I've met really cool people and have been able to create a creative vision behind my music. I compose using sounds libraries and have never recorded any real instruments. I like to compose whole songs. Like pop but different. My end goals is to have an album out by 2015-2016.

If you know exactly what you want to do in the studio, then yes it can be worth it. But I've seen people go in with a vague idea and before they know it they're out of money. Luckily, you can get better and better sound quality every year out of a home setup.

If you're into the pop scene or doing EDM type stuff, I'd say don't bother with a studio. For really, really good vocals, I'd say go to a studio, but you're not going to get much better than midi for that kind of music (as far as the actual music goes.) Investing in good sound samples is critical. Komplete 10 Ultimate would be a good start, however, that's not precisely what you need (it comes with a lot of stuff you wouldn't need, but you ever want strings, or percussion on your stuff it is a good investment.) If I'm getting what you're getting at, you'd want a library called Alica's Keys (comes with Komplete 10 or can be purchases separately,) and 8dio has a great Dubstep and EDM library.

Komplete 10 Ultimate is really only good if you intend to use most of it's features, or else it's a waste of money, but if you do want those features, buying the bundle will save you about 9 grand, so for me it was a big win. 8dio is a good company, but they're very expensive. Check out Eduardo Tarilonte, as well as Embertone. They've made some of the best libraries I've ever heard and they're also very reasonably priced for what you're getting, whereas 8dio is fantastic but it's a bit overpriced. Most of these libraries wouldn't be super useful to you, BUT if you ever want to go in another direction, or again, want to use strings or horns or whatever in your pop music, they'd be worth a look.

We all started exactly where you're starting now. A laptop, software and a meh mic. It will make you that much better having started with next to nothing. I do recommend getting a desktop though. At least with my productions, they often suck up A LOT of resources.

The first song I composed (not talking about my singer/songwriter work, but as a composer) I had my keyboard, electric drum kit and a free synth plugin. No midi capability for my keyboard or drums yet (cause I barely knew what the hell midi was lol.) For the synth I used my computer keyboard and the DAWs Piano Roll. And with it I managed to make this. There's really a lot you can do with simple sounds, and once you get to that point where you really need better stuff, you'll be able to use it well.

Do you have a youtube page up?

https://soundcloud.com/paul-cating/into-the-breach-original

At 12/21/14 10:51 PM, DSykMusic wrote:
Hi adonnias, sure it's important to have quality gear and the skills to produce a song but don't forget about the business and marketing side of your music if you're really serious about it. One thing to think about would be your press/radio/online marketing strategies. It takes a whole team to promote a pop musician (=$$$$) and building a following organically takes time. If you're expecting to make a living from your music there's an article that talks how 43 million Pandora streams of "Happy" earned Pharrell Williams only $2,700....... (http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/12/43-million-pandora-streams-of-happy-earned-pharrell-williams-a-measly-2700/).

My advice is to work on your music business & marketing skills as much OR even more than your music skills.

Hope that helps and isn't too off topic :)

Thanks! This is really useful information for me. Its true that you have to think about marketing side of things too, thanks for pointing that out. I think it would be nice to make money off of songs, but can people still make money from albums these days (i thought just concerts)? I am slowly building a following and would like to see my album being marketed in the press, online, etc.

At 12/22/14 03:04 AM, AnthonyLocke wrote: If you know exactly what you want to do in the studio, then yes it can be worth it. But I've seen people go in with a vague idea and before they know it they're out of money. Luckily, you can get better and better sound quality every year out of a home setup.

If you're into the pop scene or doing EDM type stuff, I'd say don't bother with a studio. For really, really good vocals, I'd say go to a studio, but you're not going to get much better than midi for that kind of music (as far as the actual music goes.) Investing in good sound samples is critical. Komplete 10 Ultimate would be a good start, however, that's not precisely what you need (it comes with a lot of stuff you wouldn't need, but you ever want strings, or percussion on your stuff it is a good investment.) If I'm getting what you're getting at, you'd want a library called Alica's Keys (comes with Komplete 10 or can be purchases separately,) and 8dio has a great Dubstep and EDM library.

Komplete 10 Ultimate is really only good if you intend to use most of it's features, or else it's a waste of money, but if you do want those features, buying the bundle will save you about 9 grand, so for me it was a big win. 8dio is a good company, but they're very expensive. Check out Eduardo Tarilonte, as well as Embertone. They've made some of the best libraries I've ever heard and they're also very reasonably priced for what you're getting, whereas 8dio is fantastic but it's a bit overpriced. Most of these libraries wouldn't be super useful to you, BUT if you ever want to go in another direction, or again, want to use strings or horns or whatever in your pop music, they'd be worth a look.

We all started exactly where you're starting now. A laptop, software and a meh mic. It will make you that much better having started with next to nothing. I do recommend getting a desktop though. At least with my productions, they often suck up A LOT of resources.

The first song I composed (not talking about my singer/songwriter work, but as a composer) I had my keyboard, electric drum kit and a free synth plugin. No midi capability for my keyboard or drums yet (cause I barely knew what the hell midi was lol.) For the synth I used my computer keyboard and the DAWs Piano Roll. And with it I managed to make this. There's really a lot you can do with simple sounds, and once you get to that point where you really need better stuff, you'll be able to use it well.

Do you have a youtube page up?

https://soundcloud.com/paul-cating/into-the-breach-original

I'll check out those things you told me about! They sound really good. Right now Im using Logic Por (not sure if I already told you this) but the sound library on that is very extensive! Just like you said since I'm just recently moving from garage band I find myself being able to manipulate the software better than if I had no experience using garage band in the first place.

I like the song on the link you sent, a little haunting, reminds me a little of mine craft when the sun is setting.

I don't have a youtube page yet. I will in the future but for now I'm still busy trying to receive criticism on my work.

Thanks! This is really useful information for me. Its true that you have to think about marketing side of things too, thanks for pointing that out. I think it would be nice to make money off of songs, but can people still make money from albums these days (i thought just concerts)? I am slowly building a following and would like to see my album being marketed in the press, online, etc.

I think the best way to make money off your album would be to sell it at a concert. Merchandise is king. Although there are plenty of people making money off licensing their songs for TV shows, video games, anything else.

Ultimately it's important to know that there's NO SINGLE WAY to make a career out of music.

At 12/22/14 11:03 AM, adonnias wrote:

At 12/22/14 03:04 AM, AnthonyLocke wrote: If you know exactly what you want to do in the studio, then yes it can be worth it. But I've seen people go in with a vague idea and before they know it they're out of money. Luckily, you can get better and better sound quality every year out of a home setup.

If you're into the pop scene or doing EDM type stuff, I'd say don't bother with a studio. For really, really good vocals, I'd say go to a studio, but you're not going to get much better than midi for that kind of music (as far as the actual music goes.) Investing in good sound samples is critical. Komplete 10 Ultimate would be a good start, however, that's not precisely what you need (it comes with a lot of stuff you wouldn't need, but you ever want strings, or percussion on your stuff it is a good investment.) If I'm getting what you're getting at, you'd want a library called Alica's Keys (comes with Komplete 10 or can be purchases separately,) and 8dio has a great Dubstep and EDM library.

Komplete 10 Ultimate is really only good if you intend to use most of it's features, or else it's a waste of money, but if you do want those features, buying the bundle will save you about 9 grand, so for me it was a big win. 8dio is a good company, but they're very expensive. Check out Eduardo Tarilonte, as well as Embertone. They've made some of the best libraries I've ever heard and they're also very reasonably priced for what you're getting, whereas 8dio is fantastic but it's a bit overpriced. Most of these libraries wouldn't be super useful to you, BUT if you ever want to go in another direction, or again, want to use strings or horns or whatever in your pop music, they'd be worth a look.

We all started exactly where you're starting now. A laptop, software and a meh mic. It will make you that much better having started with next to nothing. I do recommend getting a desktop though. At least with my productions, they often suck up A LOT of resources.

The first song I composed (not talking about my singer/songwriter work, but as a composer) I had my keyboard, electric drum kit and a free synth plugin. No midi capability for my keyboard or drums yet (cause I barely knew what the hell midi was lol.) For the synth I used my computer keyboard and the DAWs Piano Roll. And with it I managed to make this. There's really a lot you can do with simple sounds, and once you get to that point where you really need better stuff, you'll be able to use it well.

Do you have a youtube page up?

https://soundcloud.com/paul-cating/into-the-breach-original

I'll check out those things you told me about! They sound really good. Right now Im using Logic Por (not sure if I already told you this) but the sound library on that is very extensive! Just like you said since I'm just recently moving from garage band I find myself being able to manipulate the software better than if I had no experience using garage band in the first place.

I like the song on the link you sent, a little haunting, reminds me a little of mine craft when the sun is setting.

I don't have a youtube page yet. I will in the future but for now I'm still busy trying to receive criticism on my work.

It sounds like you're headed in a very good direction! I'll tell you one thing though. A good pair of near field monitors is never a bad investment. There's a reason the pro's say not to mix in headphones (it's safe to make tweaks, but always double check on the monitors.) Yamaha makes good ones. I have the Yamaha HS5 though you'll probably want something with more bass response. The HS8s are good (pricey though.) M-Audio isn't a bad place to start. I wouldn't spend more than a total of 600 on monitors....that being said, I also wouldn't spend much less than 400 on monitors or else you run into the issue of "what's the point..." At the end of the day there are three things you want. Wide frequency range, as flat response as possible, and you want what are called Active Monitors.

You'll want to buy them from a store where they have a display that you can test out. The guitar center near me lets you plug your phone in and go through the various monitors. I like to listen to my own work and work I'm familiar with so I can really get a sense of what's going on. When you're playing with that kind of money and with equipment that vital, that directly impacts the quality of what you can produce, don't buy on a whim. I'd also advise that 9 times out of 10 you should ignore the sales rep. I've only met two people at guitar center that ever really gave me good advice and helped me out, the rest fed me a lot of bullshit, they just didn't realize I knew it was bullshit... "Oh yea these are the flatest monitors ever, you'll never need another pair, when you think about it, a thousand now is really saving you a lot." Rule of thumb, don't trust broad sweeping statements when it comes to audio equipment, there is no "it's the best." There's better and theres worse and there's how much you're willing to pay. I'd also shy away from equipment that's "too good," because a lot of the really high end gear is only useful in a high end, well built, treated, environments like an actual studio. So while you could spend 7 grand on some of the most highly regarded monitors, in a regular old living room, a lot of what you payed for would be wasted.

However, at the end of the day you want to listen to you music on your nicest headphones and your trashiest. Try and buy a 3 dollar pair of ear buds, a 30 dollar pair, 150 dollar headphones, 10 dollar headphones ect... The color of the sound might be different but as long as the overall balance is the same and as long as many of the characteristics stay the same (relative to each other) you'll know you've got a solid mix.

One of the last things I do is listen to my mix on my crappiest earbuds, make some slight tweaks (nothing drastic.) Then I listen again on my monitors, if it's good, I go through all my headphones, earbuds and then I know it's in a good place. It's also important, once you get to that spot, to step away from it for a few days, don't listen to it, don't think about it. That can be pretty hard, especially when you're super excited to get it out, and you're also so damn on edge to just be done with it. but it's a must. That way you come back with fresh ears and a fresh perspective and you can make sure that you've made good decisions.

Thanks by the way, I'm glad you liked the song! I've found that if the writing is good, people will often be able to see through the lack of polish.

Anyhow, I ramble lol...

Best of luck in your endeavors, I'll be around , feel free to reach out. I've gone through enough trial and error at this point that I'm fairly confident in my ability to navigate and mitigate the hurdles of building up a home studio.

Cheers, and Happy New Year!