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How Much Does it Cost to Produce a Recording?
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."
labels need to get rid of talentless artists and get people with actual creative talent to produce their own shit
Equipment needed: Samsung T-300 mobile phone.
30 seconds. Press little round button on phone. Listen to methodical female command: begin speaking after the tone.
SPEAK! SING!
Press "ok." Enter a name for your recording.
Cost: zero. Phone can be purchased for $50 on eBay. Works with Telus, Qwest and Verizon Wireless.
is based on a 100% markup
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
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
I was just talking to my fiancee about this, trying to convince her of the evils of the RIAA. And, you are very right. It doesn't cost nearly as much as they say.
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.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Someone does some faulty math based on statistics they found on the Internet, their result doesn't agree with a statistic they found somewhere else on the Internet, and it winds up on the front page of Slashdot?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
with large ATA hard drives and digital interfaces for various applications to drive real-world mixers and soundboards becoming cheaper and cheaper, the actual cost of recording, in a real sense is very minimal. A whole setup can be had for $20,000.
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.
While your numbers may hold true for the average, it obviously takes less money for the likes of William Shatner or David Hasselhoff to produce an album than U2.
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.
I have no doubt that a lot of "big label" albums go into the million dollar range, but I would have a hard time believing that's the average.
Plus, there are other ways to bring in cash besides CD sales. Royalties for radio play, soundtracks, etc, Concert sales (due in part to marketing of CDs), and plenty more I'm sure.
In any case, I bet >500k production costs are the exception, not the rule. Although, if you include marketing costs as well, it probably jumps up a lot.
Jeff
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
... bailing the artists out of jail.
Hmm, this comment'd be funnier if we were talking about the Portland Trailblazers.
"Derp de derp."
Probably not more than $1,000 if you rent a studio and distribute it on p2p.
That probably includes costs for promoting the record so the actual production might be less. Also, concerts should play into the revenue generated by the album (isn't this where most of the money is made?)
The cost is similar to the cost to produce a movie..the studios and equipment have already been bought and paid for, so the conglomerates can bill themselves whatever ridiculous amount they feel is neccesary, so they can then steal the "cost" from the artist when their record sells. I don't know how a why this system is still around, but I don't see it changing anytime soon. The actual cost to record and album can be just about anything, you can make "professional" quality sond on just about any PC with a variety of software..and many "artists" do just that, especially dance artists. Just about every beat you hear in a hip hop song was or can be made on a sampler that cost less than $3,000 USD. The Wu-Tang clan is a prime example, they produced their first album for next to nothing!
What about the cost of advertising and promotion? I've heard those are the biggest costs in producing and selling an album, and dwarf the cost of actually recording the album itself.
The cost of actually recording the album can be anything from a few thousands to a few tens of thousands of dollars. However, once you start to talk about promotional expenses, advertising, licensing songs from publishers, business overheads, videos(!!!) that can skew the numbers totally.
There's also a vast difference in the equipment used on different albums; it's quite possible nowadays for a couple of skilled people to put together a top-40-quality album with less than $10,000-worth of equipment, but many of the top studios have $millions-worth and cost $thousands per day to hire.
I can buy a mic and plug it into my computer. As time goes on infinitely, the price per recording, per minute, drops infinitely too :)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I seem to recall hearing once that CD wholesale to retail markup was quite a bit more than 100%. Perhaps as high as 400% even I want to say.
All circuits busy.
the cost of an album depends considerably on what you're trying to do, and who you are. Assuming you're in a small band (like myself), an album will usually cost maybe $600 just to record and master, and then another $2000 for a good amount of copies in cd and tape. This doesn't add a lot of frills, especially in the recording process; not much can be done on a budget such as that, like studio musicians and really nice effects and what not. But then again, you could get a bunch of buddies to do anything special on your album, and that'll usually work. Or, you could do it with less quality for even less money, or record it at home. But for some professionalism, thats the way to go, and it'll usually run between $2000 to $3000.
;) and special hardware and a technician that's expensive as hell. Plus, with all the processing, even more goes into it. Producers at that level are also hella expensive, further jacking up the price. And studio musicians are expensive as hell.
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.
We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
and they've produced two or three kick-ass CD's so far.
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Dont ask stupid questions
It's only inevitable that Apple will own most, if not all, of the good production tools. They'll figure out a way to make them easier to use and who knows, maybe they'll eventually build custom boards for PowerMacs that can turn them into a MIDI controller.
On that note, the group most likely to keep Microsoft from dropping MacOffice is its stockholders. They don't see Apple as a threat, they see its userbase as a great source of revenue for a major stock in their portfolio. Unless revenues on MacOffice collapse, MS execs will be roasted if they drop it. All the while, Apple quietly builds up its portfolio of music/movie production tools.....
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
A buddy did an album 5 years ago. He got many things cheap (friends doing guitar, drums, production, etc for cheap...I did the graphics for free). His run was small...maybe 1000 CDs and 500 tapes. I seem to remember him saying the whole shmear cost him about $5k. Not just duplication...all of it. That's about the time he got married and so it was certainly not a huge cost.
It ended up being quite good. Also, that duplication included full-color silkscreen on the disc and a full-color 6 page trifold insert.
I remember he wanted to have a track without a number (kinda like on Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever), but at the cheaper price he went with the duplication house didn't offer that kind of thing.
50 CDs - $12.00
Audio Editing Software - $249
Studio costs - However much you pay for your rent
Total: ~$500'000
Those maths skills sure come in handy!
here what comes? you just shot a blank, kid.
...back in the 80's when CDs 1st appeared they were more expensive than albume, even though they cost LESS to produce. The record industry said once the cost of tooling was paid for cost would go down, they lied... Even in a pro studio you can record an album for way less than $100k. The rest of the supposed cost goes to marketing and promotion, which is a bunch of BS. The record companies are bigger crooks than Enron... I see 1000 CDs regularly for just over $1k w/ packaging....
I have a friend who did some record production a few years back. Overall his cost of production was never more than $3000 or $4000. That all said, he never had to do the recording or the mixing or any of that. Nor was paying the band part of the deal. Still when we are talking real production cost of the CDs themselves, we are talking dirt for that. When you start talking studio time and the time and effort to mix a CD properly, then we are talking a great deal more.
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
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
in the mid 90' when all of my friends were getting signed and dropped as fast as the ink could be spread out on the contracts, it was common to get a $250,000 thousand dollar record advance. these advances are of course recouped entirely before the band sees any mony and generally went to the producer.
higher budgets were not uncommon.
today theings are different. A&R guys are more careful - if they don't get a hit in 6 months their careers are pretty much over..they get less money than they did 5 years ago - say 40,000 on average.
a studio i work at when i'm in nashville just cut rates from 2200 per day to around 400 per day.
there are a million speculations we could make about why this has happened, but one of the big factors is the feasability of releasing a record recorded entirely on a computer - evereyone and their broher has a home studio these day, and the tiny budgets they get go into building up - this has also had a devastating effect on san fran's massage parlor community, that once thrived on desperate looking guitar players looking to blow off some steam between traking sessions at the Pilgram...
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).
Standard recording costs range between $40 on up to $200 or $300 an hour depending. But an average joe could record at a high quality studio for about $60 an hour. Depending on how good the band is you could do a whole album in one week at 12 hours a day. Thats $3,600.00 in recording costs. About another week to mix the album at 12 hours a day. Another $3,600.00.
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.
is a piece of string?
I don't really care how much the markup is on a CD. That's not an issue with me. If it costs them a penny a CD, and they sell it for $15, that doesn't bother me one bit. The truth of the matter is that they're charging what people are willing to pay, not based on what they actually cost to make.
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.
"Derp de derp."
Where did you get the $.5-1 million figure? I'd bet the RIAA invented those numbers to aid them in their fight against piracy and fair use.
[Posted using a dual 1.25 GHz Power Mac running Mac OS X Server 10.2.3 and serving up 60 gigs of music to whoever wants it. Visit ftp://louise.dhs.org/ for more details.]
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
Get it here.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
"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."
.25 is a pretty hefty chunk of change.
906.6 Million (records) *
At my estimation, that's about $226,500,000 dollars.
Those albums take quite a bit more than that my friend.
When will all the famous musicians of the world realize how bad they're getting screwed by the recording industry?
A cheap pc plus some even cheaper recording software is all you really need. Add a webpage and simple e-commerce script to sell copies of the music, by the song or by the album.
I got plenty of friends who have told me in all honesty they would indeed buy digital music by the song online. Why do all the world's greatest musicians and bands think they need anyone? If the music is good, it will sell. Honest people will buy it.
All the musicians have yet to realize it's a whole new world now, they have to adapt to the capabilities of the internet. Resistance is futile as far as I can tell..
Is it just the recording of tracks, punching them to CD's and putting them in fancy packaging?
Or does that also include video clip, advertisment, and paying your way to the top of the charts? I hope not, when I pay for a music cd, i'm paying for a copy of the tracks, not the added bullshit that does nothing for me.
"Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson
Time for another round of "Idiot Slashdot Reader
Yanks Numbers From Ass While Smoking Bong And
Sitting Around With Other Idiots Contemplating
The Universe In Their Navel"!
$5,000/hour to rent studio time * 4 hours, and another $5,000 for post production work.
Jason
ProfQuotes
A must read for any band about to sign a contract with a label, and an interesting look behind the curtain from an insider.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
My band released our second CD (right before getting signed alas) independently and the seven songs on it (about 30 minutes worth) cost us about $15K of studio time. Note that this was a no-name studio, with a no-name engineer, and self-produced. We've known small bands that have been signed to semi-majors, and even a somewhat-known producer, engineers and studio time can easily cost $250K. I imagine top quality studios, engineers and producers cost much more.
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.
making an album is pretty cheap. . .
all you need is:
1)Talent
2)several grand to rent out a recording studio for several hours to record (depends on the studio)
3)several more grand to reproduce the CDs/LPs for distribution (varies depending on how many you plan to sell)
PLEASE NOTE: This doesn't include advertising or hiring Spike Jonze to make your video for MTV, nor the Bentleys to boost the artist's ego, nor the cost of the "Bling-Bling".
Steve Albini wrote a classic article, The Problem with Music, on the financial shenagins pulled by the record industry.
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).
This means that the actual production cost has to be less than $250,000 per album, otherwise the record industry is losing money.
Don't you get it? They are losing money. That's why the record labels are crying foul and ol' Tommy had to go.
IANABSMIL (I am not a blood-sucking music industry lawyer), but I would guess that about $0.15 per copy goes straight to those wonderful legal minds who draft the contracts and enforce the copyrights. The money that pays for their kids' braces doesn't just pop out of thin air, you know.
but there's this "cost calculator" on the net for publishing an album.
A google doesn't show anything familiar.
IIRC, you need to gross a million dollars just to recieve ANY royalties towards your own pocket.
All the money towards production is a "loan" from the producers towards your effort.
Man, I almost went blind reading that.
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?
A good book to read that covers this topic is Tim Sweeney's Guide to Releasing Independent Records by none other than Tim Sweeney.
mund freud.
It really depends on the band, their needs, their own access to equipment, etc. Electronic artists, for example, can completely produce their own CD from each song to the final track layout without having to touch a studio. Many well known artists such as Fat Boy Slim are almost entirely done in their basements, etc. In those cases you're looking at about $20-$30k worth of gear from start to finish. DJ's have it even easier -- my setup, including the computer and legal (yes, I paid for it full price) software amounted to about $4000.
Artists that actually need a sound studio are in for paying a lot more because it takes a lot more people to actually make things happen, along with space, equipment, etc. Get into bigger acts and you're talking about a lot more expensive people too since "my cousin who did the high school play audio" isn't going to be the same guy who mixes down a Top 40 album.
There are lots of kinds of album. Sure, the latest Britney Spears probably cost $1000000 to make, but not all musicians are Britney (thank God)
A friend of mine recorded a CD last year - don't know the exact cost, but I VERY much doubt she spent even $1000 (Canadian) for production. She printed a couple hundred of them, sold them all herself (word of mouth and selling at concerts + busking, mainly), and has now printed up a new batch.
Now, it's not a "professional" recording, but all things considered, it's damn good - better than most professional ones for sure.
It's never appeared in a major store, but why should it? This is the sort of recording that we could use more of, instead of the billions of overproduced things that are out there.
I take it the reason behind trying to find production costs are to attempt to campaign for cheaper music CD's (could really use this in the UK, considering most are released in the £15 range). However it is usually hard to factor risk into the retail cost.
In a similar veign there was a campaign by fairplay in the UK to try to get cheaper video games factoring in production costs to arrive at a fair price for games. Coming to the conclusion that cheaper games related to increased sales.
I sort of feel that charging slightly higher prices allow more risky/niche acts or games to be released, allowing both the mass market to prosper and the more off-beat market to exist. Rather than the business taking the risk of few sales for less money
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?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
people likes us produce it for the sake of it, the record company gives us $50,000. and that's it.
If the poster's sources are mainly Slashdot stories, then he/she is presumably aware that the RIAA makes albums from the blood of children, while evicting widows and orphans from their homes and removing the fingernails of musicians for amusement.
In fact, a more balanced view would be that the RIAA does only some of these things, not all of them.
(Yeah, yeah, the RIAA doesn't make albums at all, it represents people who do. But just try working that into a feeble joke.)
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.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
ok ... stop looking at the artist and start looking at the companies that the artist work for. the band doesn't fly on the warner brothers jet, the warner brother's execs do. the bands don't live in bel air, the execs do. the bands don't give away 400 tickets for their shows, the execs do. what does all this mean? except for a very rare occurence when an artist becomes a mega start and it really is mute who gets what share, most bands live on very little and the execs take the spoils. do your research, this is true.
Pablo Piccaso was never called an asshole. Not like you.
If you understand the whole process, you understand where the money actually comes in. It's true about the cost...you spend months in the studio recording, doing overdubs, mixdowns, mastering, and the finally the pressing.
The cost is very high. And yes, the numbers don't add up. Your initial estimate is about right. It does cost a lot of money and most of it isn't returned by the sale of the CD initially. Maybe if it's something like "Hotel California" which keeps selling for years, you actually start making money on it.
There's another part of the industry people often forget about since it's not quite the same thing when you're an amateur. Live shows...that's where the money is recouped.
Whenever an album is released, the band goes on tour. The high cost of the concert ticket partially makes up for the costs. Granted, a lot goes into the payment of the 100 or so people on the tour and the equipment they use. The audio consoles cost well over $100K a piece. True, you can get a Mackie for 7 grand, but it doesn't really cut the mustard for this. The moving lights are easily at a minimum 5K each. The trucking...whew...don't get me started. It's expensive, but, it pays for the costs of the recording.
After all that, if you're lucky, you make enough to pay back the record company for paying your bills while you were recording the album. If not, it was probably your last.
Now, if you ever want to see anything from all your efforts on tour and in the studio, hopefully, a few people actually bought the CD and you get paid a few pennies which get added to your bank account. Unless you're one of the superstars, there won't be a lot of those pennies.
So I guess we should all boycott the recording studios and touring (lighting and sound reinforcement) companies since they are causing the prices at the local stadium/arena/club to be so expensive. God forbid someone actually make a living in this world.
I would guess that the album retail (about $15 per album) is based on a 100% markup
It's way more than 100% markup.
My friend who produces CD for games and music, etc. told me that the cost of producing a CD with packaging material is around US$0.5 each(his factory is in China, but he received a lot of orders from US).
This is the cost of production alone. This doesn't include the cost of producing music, royalty, designing packaging material, agents' commission, bribe to RIAA for price-setting and artists' drugs and legel fees. However, he told me that the combined cost seldom exceed $5 in each CD.
So the rest $10 goes to evil capitalists' pockets? Well may be, but most of the time they are spent on advertising. The money earned from albums is usually spent on advertising for newer signers. Sometime a company might spend more on advertising to promote a new singer; but in this case the signer will have to sign a relatively long-term contract to make up for the initial investment. E.g. most of the profit from concerts and commercials will go to the company within contract period.
Sure, you *can* record something in your basement recording studio, and these days it can be pretty good, but it's easy to see where higher costs can come from:
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.
but if you knew you'd be assraped, why in the name of god and all that is holy did you sign?
His record costs have no doubt increased, but his first album, which sounds pretty darned good (both musically and technically) cost him something on the order of $200 and he sold it from the boot of his car.
Mind you, I think he also spent 5-6 hours mixing some other band's material in return for a few hours of using the equipment to mix his own stuff. So perhaps that should be more like $400.
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
What a waste of time and webspace. Is there some unwritten law that people who write on the internet are barred from actual research?! Instead of guessing about all of your facts, why not simply do some research? What friggin' waste!
Recording technology has gotten incredibly cheap - thus, there is NO REASON for production costs to be as high as high as they are often quoted. Case in Point: Good friends of mine are in a NewYork Hipster band called "Liars". They recorded their fabulous album "They Threw us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top" in TWO DAYS for $2,000. They pressed a thousand copies, jumped in a van, and toured the US for 3 months straight selling their own CD's. In so doing they generated a lot of buzz (because of their TALENT, remember that stuff?). Thus, when they returned to NewYork, they got picked up by a bigger label, which re-released their original $2000 album. Rolling Stone picked it as the second best debut album of 2002. So, these days there is NO more reason for record production to cost $500,000 than there is for C.D.'s to sell for $16. The old old regime of bullshit prices is rapidly going extinct.
I think, therefore I thought.
most of my buddies have built studios based aroud DAW (digital audio workstation) software with the money they got for early release from their 2+ record deals..the first album bombs, and the label shells out 90 or 100 grand just to get you to go away...the funny thing is that here in austin there are now as many studios as there are dropped rock bands. the resulting competition has driven studio costs down s low that the labels really on have to give up 40 thousand dollars (give or take) to get a record tracked - producers fees are higher than studio time now !
There are many costs that go into account for a big budget project then for the average person who records at a budget studio. A well known recording studio with large sound boards, multiple isolation booths, and lots of new and vintage out board effects units will run 2 to 3 thousand dollars a day and that usually only includes the studio and an Assistant Engineer. You can figure 2 to 3 months of studio time. That right there is around $200,000. Then you include the engineer who will charge $500 a day and the producers fee's. So add $40, 000 for the engineer and about the same for a Producer. Many times an album will be Mixed at a different studio then it was recorded, so that adds on more days. Top notch mixing engineers will charge 3 to 4 thousand per song. So we can add 20 more days of studio time to mix at $40,000 and $40,000 for mixing. Now add a Mastering engineer to master the album at a cost of $5,000. Then add the day to day food for the group and any other luxories. Hotels, flying to different studios to work with different people etc ...
This just describes the pieces to get the Album into a shippable form. Then there is the production costs after that. These numbers are obviously not exact figures, but they are real figures of what things cost in the music recording world. So you can see where such a high figure could come from.
Twice one end to the middle.
-Strider
ftp://louise.dhs.org/ no longer exists on the internet... And you only posted 30 minutes ago...
Crap. What kind of cost are you talking about? Paying for Britney's hotel suite between takes?
Lots of local market singer-songwriters with modest day jobs make and produce their own albums (for the simple reason no one else will until they become well enough known). I have several friends who have done this. They rent recording studio time, rent or cajole studio musicians to help them, and have a batch of CD's printed and cut. It's few thousand dollars, maybe three to ten. There's some kind of collusion in the whole industry (and I'm sure, fixed costs of paying for the making of the original minimum batch order), for they ALL sell them for $15 on the road. But any huge costs quoted go to publicity, huge salaries or advances, and, of course, to the record company.
Oh, and it sounds halfway decent...
:-)
Dude, try running that through a spectral analysis. You have a nasty frequency cutoff at around 17.5-18kHz (not unlike what you hear on poor-quality MP3s. Could be the Ogg encoding, but I don't think that would've mangled it up that badly).
(Can't comment on the music, btw; I live in a totally different genre
Cost of producing an album for me? About $5000 tops. That's including software, but excluding hardware like my protools and mic. Recording digitally is so easy any sucker can do it... remember Afro Man? Cuz I Was High? That was done in a basement with cheap synth crap equipment, and I'll bet it cost less than $1000 to do the entire thing.
/. with my website as soon as we're done.
Of course, costs of producing an album rise drastically when you gots your hoes and coke to supply.. note that it costs SNoop Dogg 90 g's in hoes alone to make a video.
Figure about a half ounce per roadie of premium bud, probly about a grand a day in coke per performer, strippers, a Bentley, and maybe payments to various law enforcers - shit adds up when yore a real rap superstar.
Other side of the coin is Remy Shand, who built a platinum record in his parents' basement in less than four years, and spent almost every cent on just buying the equipment.. no recording studio time for that lad. It's all so relative - I mean, somebody can spend billions developing an operating system that's only marginally better than the next best OS which was built by freak hobbyists working out their parents' basements.
for those who care, I'm recording an album right now in my parents' basement. I'll be trolling
just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
Lots of my friends are in bands, they run about $1,200 to record about 40 minutes including mastering and about $1,500 for the first run of 1000 cds ...
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."
What is music when you despise all sound?
http://www.outwar.com/page.php?x=267317
... and don't assume that the mean production cost relfects the median production cost. I don't know how many albums the major labels release each year so would be curious as to where the estimate of 27,000 albums produced per year comes from. If the major labels release significantly less and the rest of the 27k comes from smaller labels, this might account for your average estimate of a $250k/album production cost. In addition, the major labels are going to put more resources in the production of some albums over others. If there's less than a thousand albums released per annum with high production costs, then they in fact some labels may be making money, esp if the album goes platinum. It is likely, that just like the movie industry, they actively hide this proper accounting to escape royalty payments and minimize taxation.
KLF's The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) will answer all questions.
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It is the best book ever on recording an album and availble as a
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on the artist, the label, the studio, etc. Even among people I know personally, the figure has varied widely. The most my own band ever paid in studio costs to record anything was when we paid $140 to record a six-song EP. I know one band who had a pretty decent regional following and were together for ten years. They released several recordings, but a lot of them were done really cheaply because they knew people who would cut them breaks.
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.
Independent bands in Indianapolis produce a whole albums for under $10,000 by using their own computer as the studio mix board, cd burner, and etc..
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?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
What's a good microphone? A few thousand? Looking at these numbers, throw $50,000 and you have the equipment & location to be so close to what the big boys have that there is no difference really. Talent is another thing. Then again, even the large labels are lacking in that most of the time.
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.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
You assume each album costs the same. Most of them, the ones you see in the bargain bin and such, probably cost a fair bit less to produce and bring to market than Britneys latest crap(Just think how much money they spend to convice people that chick can actually sing). So the high profile ones, probably do cost close to what they suggest. But the little bands that don't get the same distribution or marketing support probably are dirt cheap, making up for the expensive crap.
So basically, you want to know from slashdot readers if slashdot posts are accurate. I think we all know the answer to that one.
Bruce Springsteen recorded "Nebraska" by himself on a 4-track. If you figure $1000 for the 4-track and $500 for the guitar, you've got a professional album right there for $1500. I'll assume you don't want to figure in time spent practicing the guitar or money spent on lessons. But what about the actual CD? Do you have a computer (if not, add $1500 for say, an iMac and Digidesign's mBox (and if you like, forget the 4-track altogether))? Well, you can burn 1 for a quarter. Or you can get 1000 professionally duplicated for $1000. Or you can get a bazillion duplicated for a quarter-bazillion dollars. But you want to record in a professional studio? $50 an hour then, $100 an hour, whatever you want. Add an orchestra ala Metallica? What's that, $1000 an hour? Studio musicians? Take a wild guess. You'll find someone who works at that rate.
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.
c-hack.com |
I think there needs to be a distinction made between Production, Manufacturing, and Distribution. I believe in the music industry, these are distinct costs. Manufacturing is mostly a standard cost for everyone that is the same across the board. Distribution (includes Marketing) has many levels and the cost scales based on the Distribution Channels. (sending a copy to the local radio station is much cheaper than buying ads on MTV) Production is highly subjective and can range from nothing to millions. It can include many costs, including paid musicians, musical instruments, studio time, post production, blank tape, etc... (common practice: "hey, let's go play guitar on the yacht in the Bahamas and write it off as 'production costs'")
What's the lowest cost to produce an album and have it sound good? I don't know, and I'm sure everyone won't agree. -DNA
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
A good engineer != good producer. If you want good production, you will have to pay for it. And producers, the ones who really know how to mold a good sounding album, aren't cheap, even for the non-famous ones. Yeah you could find some uber engineer who knows every miking technique know to man to wear the producer hat as well, but that is no guarentee he can produce. If you want to really get miserly with your recording costs, and DAT rental is all you need, record it live with 2 mics. There is no law that says all recordings must be multi-tracked.
The biggest part of getting a recording is the human element. John Mutt Lange could get better results on an 8-track unit than you could with all the time and best equipment in the world.
ahh Big Black
.25 friend just pressed a small run and thats about what it cost.
Albini rocks,
I bet he has better figures now, he could take one of the bands he promoted and run the costs, say the Jesus Lizard.
oh that dude that said cd with full color insert for $1.00 is on crack, at most its
you pay for 9 albums of artists you wouldn't like or buy (considering that only about 10% of the artists promoted by RIAA members sell good enough to cover costs)
It seems like more and more 'popular' artists are have so much re-mixing and re-touching done to the sound that the costs of producing an album should be going up, not down. Physical production (i.e. stamping out a million cd's) costs are probably going down, but there is a lot of behind the scenes work at the studio that has to be done to make modern artists sound as good as they seem to. I bet that studio time costs some serious $$.
If I was hired to make a crappy artist sound good, and I knew they were gonna make millions off of it, my services wouldn't be cheap!
The number they give is their rough (and probably not horribly inaccurate) cost of a successful recording. You know how flat screens were insanely expensive because of the amount of bad screens it took to get one good screen? Same thing with recording except there's no scientific process they can undertake to figure out how to choose the bands that will make a lot of money over bands that will lose money long run. Not that the recording industry is mistaken for the Red Cross by anyone, but at least complain for a reason based in facts.
There are us few engineers that have access to (or own our own) equipment and give our time for free to promising groups...
That said, I'm currently finishing up recording for a great group.... it'll bring they're total costs to about $1/cd, we figure... as they're estimating an initial purchase of 1000 CDs, professionally packaged and everything.
I think that's a pretty good deal =)
Hillary probably gets paid something for her troubles. Or do you think she does what she does just because she believes in a good cause?
You are asking for it :)
1000 cds kost about $800 to produce, booklet included. 7 days in your own studio costs nothing. Bandwidth for 1 average MP3 costs $0.03. CDs for $2.00 should already have been reality something like 35973 years ago. The same for MP3s for $0.10 a piece and $1.00 per album. Sell 50K albums and you get about $25. I think that's about the same for artists in the current system. ...but you'll never get through the marketing-wall the big labels have put up with the money of CD-buyers. The same wall that helped the region-code (or whatever it is) on the DVD, will help DRM to your PC and will help your money in their hands.
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..
0x or or snor perron?!
I'd like to see that question answered. If the RIAA sucks so much, why do bands keep signing with them?
Some friends of mine made a CD a couple of years ago, cost the label 800,000+ (USD). Flew them to Hawaii to have Todd Rundgren to the producing. They later sold less than 10,000 albums before they and the label mutually agreed to end their contract.
I myself have a home recording studio, probably set me back 3,000 to 5,000 (USD) to set up. Then a couple of months to learn everything.
I'm lucky since I can play all the instruments I want well, I don't have to hire a bunch of people. It's also taken me 6+ months of spare time to get my first 12 or so tracks completed. (I make my living doing code).
I can definately see 100,000+ (USD) to get a CD made if you just go in and do it as band if its your full time job.
i remember seeing this on the television set. korn's new album cost 4 million dollars, because they set themselves up in rental mansions during the recording, and all kinds of other ridiculous things. i believe i remember hearing that the 1 million dollar mark was reserved for huge artists.
i'd say the average artist (but the average artist doesnt sell shit for records, comparatively) costs under $100K.
With all of these sums, don't forget that there is someone in the control room of the studio, recording the damn thing. There there's the mixing/mastering engineer, who takes what the band records, and melts the multitrack down to stereo, and masters to CD.
People time is expensive - don't underestimate the costs of that part.
(Of course, if you find someone who'll mix for free, it can be almost as good, for vey little money. See my journal if your interested.)
I don't know about the cost, specifically. but i do know that the sound-boards in major studios cost between 200,000 and a million.
Logic, macros, and more
It cost $606.17 dollars to record the Nirvana album "Bleach". It was very succesful; It shouldn't cost $50,000 dollars to put out an average album.
Since when did Slashdot start posting stories that aren't based on any specific figures in any way whatsoever? I've never seen such a blatant disregard for quoting specific statistics in my life.
... "I would guess the album retail is based on a 100% markup..." ... "albums are sold at wholesale for about $7.50 apiece"... "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 think that the average cost is probably less than $0.25 per copy."
"Around 27000 albums are produced"
Could this post be any more vague?
Hell, throw in a guess that the second gunman was 'somewhere on the grassy knoll' and you've got yourself an oversight committee.
Megadeth's first album cost $4000 to produce. The record company gave them $8000, but the other half was spent on drugs (mainly cocaine).
The World is Yours.
"potential" profit margins.
That's asuming all CDs are sold.
It also doesn't factor in shipping costs, advertisments, all the cheesy little misc. fees.
I would say 10,000 is a very conservative value too, as far as marketing to radios goes.
Big productions really do cost 1 million to make, mostly because it's all spent in advertisments.
*shrug*
None the less we still get price gouged. (and as has been said Microsoft has got the RIAA by the balls when it comes to price fixing.)
After winning $100 in our high-school "battle-of-the-bands", my band of three people decided to make an album. We each chipped in another $66 for a total of $300, and with this money, recorded for 6 hours in a decent, small studio (small room, one employee). We made one hundred copies ourselves using plain-old CD-RW drives. The 100 CDs were $10, and the cases another $30 (I think). The guitarist's mom (who is a graphics designer) did the art, using pictures the guitarist took for his photo class. We printed those on store-bought CD inserts and labels ($10, maybe?), and stuck them together ourselves. Total cost? $350. We sold each CD for $10 ($5 for close friends).
For $350, the quality of the album is pretty darn good, a whole lot better than our self-recorded one. All these recording costs seem simply absolutely ridiculous to me! Of course, professionals don't do 6-hour studio jobs, but then even The Police spent only $2000 for their first signed album.
I think that there is a general consensu on the dark rites that Record Industry executives perform in their lounges. We have seen production costs range anywhere from $1,000 to a million on this chat, and fundamentally any of those numbers could be right. It just depends on the circumstances of the artist and company. I would like to point out that CD Prices haven't really varied that much (correct me if I'm wrong) over the past 15 years. For those of you familiar with the concept of inflation you might notice something, that no real change in the price over a long period of time actually means that the price went down. Every year, your dollar buys a little bit less, and for something to stay the same price means that whomever is producing that good has reduced costs in such a way that it is either outpacing, or matching inflation (more likely the decrease in production costs outpaced inflation). The issue then is if the price of calculators can drop during a period when inflation was insane, then why can't the price of a lower end item (as compared to say, graphing calculators) drop. It can, but the people producing it, want to make money and they do that the best way they no how to keep prices as high as they can. This is called marketing. Marketing is a slang term for 'randomly finding out something that makes money and then copying it about 15,000 times until either a) you find a new thing that makes more money, or b) the copies stop making money'. In the era of splashy pop music (that of 98 degrees, O-Town, the Backstreet Boys, In Synch, Britney Spears, Mandy Moore, Christina Aguillera) the formula was for big exciting shows and a lot of pomp and circumstance. In english this means finding people with no real talent, but a degree of looks and the ability to 'shake that ass' (please excuse that last comment), since no one wants to listen to a group of people that can't sing and since none of them play any instruments they have to get someone to do all that work. So the real costs for Pop albums come in: -Promotion (creating a fervor for a group using; flouride in the water, MTV, and Derro mind beams) -Engineering a group (not just sound engineering, but consultants for image, sound, dance, and every other aspect; they also need writers for the music (since when other bands write music they do it themselves, and thus you don't have to pay a writer), writers for the lyrics (see the last side comment), and a team of engineers to make up the sound, you probably get the idea) -Choreography (making those white boys dance is hard work) -Videos (yes, this is part of the MTV push) -Concerts (you have to coordinate all that lip synching after all, and the fireworks and ridiculous stage designs) -Sacrifice of four blondes, 3 brunettes and a redhead to Cthulu (because you know, he desires to eat all ofthe recording industry for not making enough music about him, but most music written about Cthulu played over and over summons him, and chaos ensues, so in reality it's easier to get the sacrifices) -15% tithe to the Lord of Darkness (with a big deposit up front, the devil wants his money before you try and repent) Anyhow, that's my story and I'm going to stick by it.
This is the wrong question. The cost per album is really, really easy to calculate. It is the amount of money a record company spends over the number of albums they sell. The real question is what is the minimal cost to producing an album and why do they pay so much more? Well I think it is probably very much like drug companies (which I *do* know something about). Like drugs or potential drugs, there are probably things being produced that never become profitable. Albums that don't sell, but are paid for have to be included in this value. These are reasonable expenses. The, IMO, unreasonable ones are like the massive PR machine that tries to keep the status quo.
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
This was with out any fancy packaging (or maybe no packaging at all), but I think with at least like a paper sleeve over the CD. More packaging (cases, liner notes, boxes, etc.) was obviously extra.
That's what I recall. Prices may have gone up, or maybe even down, but I bet a lot of folks would still charge you about that. This was in the US too, really big companies I'm sure get their CD's pressed overseas for less than $1.
More than half of all the expenses go to advertizing and promotion. (not even counting concerts, because those pay for themselves and make a profit) In fact, it's an even larger expense than royalties. For a $12 album, I estimate $4 goes to the retail store, 100,000 copies regardless of filesharing or watnot. It can easily be produced for $20,000 + $0.50 packaging per copy + $3 royalties per copy. That means guaranteed profits as long as they can produce decent stuff while keeping costs down. Lack of profitibility is entirely the fault of the RIAA for having ridiculously and unnecessarily high espenditures. If they want to be more profitable they should stop spending so much money on bribing senators with campaign contributions, and let the music promote itself for a negligible cost by just mailing out free samples to radio stations.
Repeal the DMCA!
I'm sick of the typical Slashdot response to a question like this: "the hardware + software = cost of producing an album." Somebody who goes out and buys a Mac and tries to record an album is going to get nowhere. Most of the costs of recording an album for a major label go towards recruiting a producer (this makes a huge difference), paying the engineers, marketing, and other things like studio time and mass production. Plus, depending on the genre of music, it takes extremely good equipment to get a good sound (great heavy distortion takes top of the line amps, same with good drum sounds needing excellent drums). Also, top of the line mastering studios cost thousands of dollars and are crucial if you want your album to really be playable on any type of stereo - getting an album to sound great in the car, on the radio, and out of a computer at the same time is extremely difficult.
$45 per U Colocation Special
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
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Don't take life too seriously. It is only a temporary situation. Usual disclaimers apply.
I think the artist and writer ususally get around $1 each ($2 if it is the same).
As for the studios costs, it must vary enormously between records. Many releases (if not most) are just compilations of previous work and thus have no recording costs. For others there must be large variations between the garage band and the Madonna.
Store markup is around 50%; I saw the figure for a gas station that sold some CDs.
Tor
Looks like the editors don't want it to be obvious when the expend hundreds of their unlimited mod points bitchslapping a thread anymore.
~~~
Some of the best albums ever have been recorded for beans compared to that. if you want a list, start with nine inch nails (do it themselves), the doors (never spent a huge amount), nirvana (recorded Bleach for $600), rolling stones (particularly earlier non-digital), and early beatles.
How much does it cost Nelly/Britney/Nsync to fill their album with dialog tracks and other filler for only a couple "real" songs? It cant be too expensive since technology costs keep decreasing and there are more than enough qualified producers/engineers/studios out there.
Note that this was a no-name studio, with a no-name engineer, and self-produced.
Yeah, and it shows.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Economies of scale...meaning you can't include such things as marketing and CD replication, since the more you sell, the lower these relative costs are. You want 1 million copies? Fine, pay X per copy...oh, you want 10 million, great, then the price per copy is discounted X.
You can estimate production costs, but this has to vary dramatically. I can make my own music and produce desktop copies of a CD with my burner for the cost of the equipment and blanks. Ask Elton John or Ms. Streisand to put out a compilation CD of new material, and you can imagine the millions of $$ & EU in that deal.
Trying to estimate this for today's market will require bracketing...top artists vs. new talent; that sort of thing.
Figuring out the absolute cost of producing a CD, including, overhead, materials, paying graphic artists for design, etc. is easy. But does anyone in this or any other industry price their product on a break even basis? (i.e. does Gateway figure it will cost them $500 per pc if they produce 1 million pcs, so they price them at $500? Of course not, they would have to sell their entire inventory before they were even) Unless a record company assumes it will sell every copy they make, they cannot sell them for anything near the actual cost of production.
So, lets list the costs involved in this, front to back, and see if we (there is no we) can figure out the costs:
Building - buy or rent
Office Equipment - buy or rent
Permits and Certifications of Occupiancy.
Safty inspections
taxes
Support staff - custodians and such
Garbage/sewage/water/electric/gas/phone/internet
Paraprofessionals salary - receptionist, office manager, so on
Furnature/rugs/artwork
Health insurance for employees
Professional salaries
Officer salaries
Legal retainer - non-flakey foaming at the mouth services (EG:No Napster suits)
Payroll taxes
Signage
Advertising
Building maintance
Security/armed gaurds/alarm/nightwatchman
Computers/infrastructure/lan/hardware/software
Recording equipment
Cells phones/PDA's/office supplies/postage
I'm sure I missed quite a bit here. Someone else fill in what I didn't think of off the top of my head...
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I could see big name POP artists using crap loads of $$$ for their crappy music... Take the cost of them having to purchase the music from someone else, pay for the band, and backup singers, pay for the studio time, producer, manager, the CD production, the CD inlay printing, the packaging, and the distribution might come out to be a little high.. Now I know it doesn't cost that much all the time, a guy I work with produced 1000 CD's for about $2000... The music industry is way to overhiped... I'd rather listen to undeground music then mainstream.
Studio Time: 50K
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
About 1/3 of those items are to the direct benefit of the artists. The guitars, the sound equipment, the blow-out party, the catering, the tour bus and the limos are all effectively income for the artists.
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
Unless you tie it in a circle.
It's Easy.
That's not to say the artist is lazy. But maybe he doesn't care about money as much as he cares about the music. If you can have your music produced, promo'd, have your booking taken care of, etc, etc, etc - and still make a living - that's great. You reach a larger number of people - you get to live the dream. And I'm in a moderately successful unsigned band - the other 50% of making music is crap. You have to walk around in the cold postering. You have to call bar/venue owners six or seven times if you've never played there before. And you have no contacts in other cities - you have to fight for every venue that gets to know you.
Yes, there are booking agencies that will do these individual things without having to sign away half your rights, but signing with a label gives you a chance to - with a single scratch of the pen - get rid of every headache you suffer as a musician.
Don't get me wrong - you shouldn't expect that the large labels are going to treat you with even an ounce of respect. But the benefits can outweigh the disadvantages.
Last post!
My band went to a local studio, and it ended up costing around $1200. We paid $300 each for a 10 song EP, and the quality was on par with most of the independent bands that I enjoy. All of the recording was done digitally, and we spent 4 ten hour days hashing it out. The notion that good music has to be expensive to produce is ridiculous. Elliott smith made a couple of his better albums, Roman Candle, and his self titled album in a friend's living room. Of course, this depends on the type of music you like, but if you want to go cheap, it's always a possiblity. I may be wrong, but I believe that Nirvana's first few albums were also ultra-low-budget.
I primarily listen to stuff that falls into the indie genera; however, I don't see why a pop album couldn't be produced in the same fashion. Not that I like pop... Afterall, I'm supposed to be emo-fabulous!
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
...ago, I worked for a contemporary country artist (Michelle Wright, "Take it like a man" was *the* U.S. hit) as the front-of-house tech.
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?
This is a sample sig. Press F1 to personalize.
http://www.buzzmachines.com
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.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Cletus T Judd produced his second album for $15,000.
I remember that Nirvana's Bleach said something like 'recorded for $600' on the back...
I think you've left out the "other" costs of producing albums, i.e. the other bands/singers that a studio spends 50,000-100,000 on before deciding they're not worth the investment.
So, the price to produce one successful group also includes the money spent trying to create 10 other groups without success.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Dee-lite recorded 80% of their huge selling first album on a Macintosh in their living room. Megadeth recorded their first album for $4000 after blowing the other half of their budget on drugs.
If it takes $250,000 to make you sound good, hang it up.
$0, Pure Gold
And I mean this in the nicest possible way, but really, get a clue.
"I saw some numbers on slashdot, then made some wild assumption about which I know nothing and the numbers I managed to end up with didn't match some other numbers on slashdot. Please give me your uninformed opinions on this topic so that we can all demonstrate our stupidity in the same place."
This is a rough interpretation of the question posted. This shows the exception to the rule about the lack of existance of stupid questions.
I'll bet a majority of those $500,000+ numbers
include a gross percentage point commission in
addition to an up front fee. With $10,000 of
equipment, a sound-proof room, and a few weeks of
time with someone who knows what they're doing you
can make a great sounding album.
A few exception people, e.g. Bob Rock who does
Metallica, may be able to ask for high six figures
up front - but only because the end result is
guaranteed to go multiplatinum.
Considering that Slashdotters will hear this story on the third iteration it should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but it is quite entertaining.
So this guy, my friends brother, was a high school kid at the time (a few years ago). Being relatively bored in school, he lived for making music.
One day, he visited a large career fair; and in some lottery he won a state of the art laptop computer. He sold the computer immediately and bought a snazzy synthesizer.
Later that year he was approached by some girl at school who dreamed of stardom; she was singing and asked him to provide the background music. He agreed, and wrote some standard background stuff for her song. The girl took her song to a record company, and hoped that she would be 'discovered' and get to sing with a real band.
The record companies called her a few days later. They did not care for her song; but they wanted to know who had written the music. Soon enough a limousine pulled up outside my friend's house and took this guy to the recording company.
Now, most people don't know this but a good chunk of all that poppy boy band music is actually made by one or two fat guys in Sweden. My friends brother apparently had a talent for making that kind of stuff, and furthermore he had experienced with the synthesizers and music equipment. So he was asked to join a small team of these pop music writers.
I don't know how the story ended, but last thing I heard was that the guy noticed how his friends complained over having to shuffle 6 figures of Krona (5 figures of $) from their check accounts each month. Of course, if you get a quarter or so for each Back Street Boys record and say a penny for each time your hit song plays on any radio station in the world it adds up...
Tor
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.
Today you can probably record and print 1000 CDs for under $5000.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
has a sony 24 track digital studio! they were featured in time for a story on drugs in high school. but, since the parents in this high rent zip code subsidize the drug usage, the recordings are much cheaper to produce!
Give it to Hasselhoff all you want but Shatner's singin' is way better than his acting.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I sure can be costing more $ to produce a CD. Recording studio charge the more every year for use of facilites, I hope the sound engineers are getting raises every so often, and the cost of printing the colaterial material for promotion is no going down. ie the art work on the cd cover and the graphic design of the jewel case and cd. As a commercial artist I know I charge more and more every year as I have to pay more and more in cost to run my business. So the cost to make CD's sure as hell can be going up.
The disc is professionally recorded and pressed, and even includes a very well designed and nice looking insert. The quality of both is indistinguishable from RIAA material. I don't know what exactly they paid to have this done, but I know they couldn't have afforded anything in the 5 figure range.
To really understand where are the money goes, you need to read The Problem With Music by Steve Albini, music producer extraordinaire.
An Excerpt: Recording Budget: $150,000 Producer's advance: $50,000 Studio fee: $52,500 Drum, Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $3,000 Recording tape: $8,000 Equipment rental: $5,000 Cartage and Transportation: $5,000 Lodgings while in studio: $10,000 Catering: $3,000 Mastering: $10,000 Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc expenses: $2,000
Governments are not necessary.
The abilty to perform well, write a good song, does not immediately equal the ability to capture a quality sonic recording.
...you lost me?
Because this excellent essay is strong enough to be worth quoting as a whole, I paste The Problem With Music. Apologies for the odd formatting (tables not allowed, even if your data is tabular -- only the staff are allowed to do bad html! :).
Manager's cut:
Legal fees:
Recording Budget:
Producer's advance:
Studio fee:
Drum Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors":
Recording tape:
Equipment rental:
Cartage and Transportation:
Lodgings while in studio:
Catering:
Mastering:
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses:
Video budget:
Cameras:
Crew:
Processing and transfers:
Off-line:
On-line editing:
Catering:
Stage and construction:
Copies, couriers, transportation:
Director's fee:
Album Artwork:
Promotional photo shoot and duplication:
Band fund:
New fancy professional drum kit:
New fancy professional guitars [2]:
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs [2]:
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar:
New fancy rack of lights bass amp:
Rehearsal space rental:
Big blowout party for their friends:
Tour expense [5 weeks]:
Bus:
Crew [3]:
Food and per diems:
Fuel:
Consumable supplies:
Wardrobe:
Promotion:
Tour gross income:
Agent's cut:
Manager's cut:
Merchandising advance:
Manager's cut:
Lawyer's fee:
Publishing advance:
Manager's cut:
Lawyer's fee:
Record sales:
Gross retail revenue Royalty:
Less advance:
Producer's points:
Promotional budget:
Recoupable buyout from previous label:
+++++++++
Record company income:
+++++++++
The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.
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.
Steve Albini is an independent and corporate rock record producer most widely known for having produced Nirvana's "In Utero".
I love that essay. A cousin of mine is a fairly successful rock musician in various bands here in Boston, and as much as I'd love to see his bands really take off, reading this essay makes me very glad that that hasn't happened yet. Sad, really, but it seems like the only way to really "make it" is to go the Fugazi styled DIY route so that the industry can't fuck you over...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I think the same holds true with CDs, There is a market price for CDs. There is not much price elasticityto charge more for an album that might be especially expensive to produce. An artists either dips into personal funds, sells T-Shirts, or borrows money from a label to produce the music. The artist then pays more money to manufacture the CD, which, from the ads I have seen, costs like $3 each in small quantities. Hopefully through CD sales, more T-Shirt sales, and concerts they make enough to cover production.
So, to answer you question, I don't think anyone can come with a real average to produce an album, and i don't see that the labels have any incentive to even accurately investigate such a number. Any numbers they produce are going to include generous administrative and profit padding, which is only reasonable. Therefore, we can say that labels need about $500K to be generated on each album to 'break even'. If we believe your numbers(which I would guess to be inflated), about half of this is generated by sales. The rest is generated by other artist activity.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Back in the early 90s my band recorded 3 albums, all self funded and it took about $2k each time. But we were amateurs and got equipment for free and used friends instead of prefessionals wherever possible.
Today it's very different. I have a friend who does his own CDs. He writes it all and has his own prologic setup and does all his own music and sounds excellent.
Now try recording a band who doesn't know anything about production. Invariably there's a sound engineer and producer - total cost is 100-200$ 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)?????
pithy comment
For an excellent article with a profit and loss (record labels profit, bands loss) sheet for an average band see here: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
How much does the average new killer software application cost to produce? By my calculations software applications are significantly overpriced. It should cost someone less than $2000 for a nice laptop and at most $1000 for them to distribute the software online. So, if they sell 10,000 copies, the unit cost should be around 30 cents. At $30 for a software application, that's a markup of 10000%. This must be criminal, right?
As with software, the cost of producing and distributing music is approaching the cost of the labor involved. How would you value J. S. Bach's time vs. Britney's? How would you value Knuth's time vs. a notoriously poor programmer whose code you were once forced to use?
Most truly great music albums require the expertise of many highly skilled individuals over long periods of time. These people deserve to be well compensated for their labor.
Seriously. And I've spent all day slogging through invoices and records, so all this shit is nice and fresh in my head.
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.
- billn
For every paying position, there are 10,000 people who want that job. Too many people want to be "successes" than there are positions for it. Talent is no guarantee of having a paying musical job.
B&K 4011's > V3 > AD2K+ > Nuendo Multiset > Sony Viao CV1N (Sonicorder) > WaveLab 4.0 > .wav (@24bit/96kHz)
About $15,000 (you don't even need to go this far). If the musicians would simply record their gigs with a quality two track rig.
This is a totally unforgiving, honest process. A properly positioned pair of omni-directional mics can record anything from a symphony orchestra to a stinky punk show.
Two ears, two mics, two tracks! When executed properly this process can reproduce the magic and essence of MUSIC.
The 'Setup' costs alot more than 20K. Just to have a room built will cost you more than that. You need engineers, acoustical consultants, etc. The equipment itself if very $$$ if you want something good.
Just your monitoring system will cost at least 3,000 if you want something that's really professional. A friend sells $30K monitoring systems in addition to running his studio, and i'll tell you- they do make a world of difference between them and my 'crappy' 700 dollar monitors from Event.
You need D/A convertors for the monitors, you need quality cable, you need a recording system. You'll probably want large flatscreens. You need mic preamps, compressors, microphones, great A/D convertors, etc. Then you probably want a good mixer, which will start about 10 grand, up to over half a million.
There's really alot to it. Just your Protools rig will probably top 20K if you are really going for a good setup with the new 192khz interfaces.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
You advise me to not buy from labeled bands. Fine. But what if nothing suits my taste? I'm not buying a CD just to "stick it" to the labels? Why should I buy stuff that is crap to MY ears?
Why not just download the information for free from one of many publicly available annual or quarterly reports?
Even better, why not contact the Investor Relations department of any of the related companies and just ASK?
Read a quote by Madonna that said the very top artists with cream deals may make $1 from every CD. One more number to punch in.
One man's pork is another mans job.
-Sen. Robert Byrd
I have a friends band that recorded their entire CD for under $3000. If you are dealing with the major lables however, the costs vary. For a new artist signed to a major label, the advance for recording can be anywhere from $175,000 to $300,000, however if you are megaartist, this number can go into the millions. Any money not spent on the recording goes directly into the artists pocket. However, its all recouperable.
Artist royalties are usually still figiured on the retail price of casettes, even though they are cheaper. The SRLP of a casette is usually about $11.98. About $9.95 of this is usually available for the artist to take royalties out of because of a concept called free goods, where the record company gives away records to make retailers buy more. The average artist gets about %10. Which means for every record of whatever format sold, the artist gets about a dollar.
This doesn't seem like much, but artists usually make most of their money on publishing royalties, not record royalties.
In my day as a musician (no I won't say when that was) record companies signed about 100 groups per year and would hope 10 would be popular. But they still had to pay to record those groups, market them, underwrite tours, In other words they spend far more money than you are calulating, and losing a lot more than you are aware of. The recording costs you are talk about might work out the be the average. The big groups are dropping way more on recording and new groups records on super tight budgets. Then I hate to think about the money they waste on these formula boy bands and Britney all looks no talent types.
I'm make electronic music in my basement using a $500 homebuilt PC, a decent digital audio card an ADAT recorder and a digital mixer($900) I got everything on ebay except the PC and its all high quality. Churning out an album costs nothing more than learning the audio software, learning the mixer and $20 or so for a good ADAT tape. Pressing the album can be had for about $600 for 1000 cds. So if you take the time to learn your mixing tools and software, you save anywhere from 500-20,000 dollars. Bottom line - I'd say a month or so of learning basic tech info on mixing is worth it, but if you're lazy and have money to blow....do it.
Gosh! I'm going to ask a Slashdot question, but instead of waiting for the answer, I'm going to make up a bunch of stuff based on my kindergarten level of economics, plus some numbers I pulled out of my butt. Hey everyone! Look how smart I am!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Its all about the merchandising.
That, and touring. Record sales do nothing... until you factor in the tour. When's the last time you spent $25 on cheaply made Wal-Mart T-shirt. Oh, and now with DVD and CDs of bands' live recordings, its a double hit. Just think some kid in Ukraine spent more money to see Dave Matthews Live in Austin (bought the DVD and CD) than the tickets cost.
I won't even get into this swamp of comparing costs, but what no one has pointed out is that while there are situations where you can record great tracks in your basement using digital gear, it's not universally true for all musical styles
Take classical music. You need a BIG ass room like Olympic 1 in London, or at least a decent size room like Electric Lady A. 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?
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
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.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
The problem is that not every record sells a million copies. Not every artist tours large arenas and stadiums. Many international artists sell perhaps 50000 copies per album, and tour at small clubs. If they can afford to tour at all.
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.
Everyone seems to think that a musician with a computer and a mic can make an instant best seller. Something like:
1- Sing into a computer.
2- ???
3- Profit!
But it's just not that easy. Let's take a few factors:
1- High quality studio space. If you don't want to hear the sound of traffic in the background, or the musician's kid sister laughing on the phone, you're either going to need to build or rent time in a high quality studio. Sound proofing, quiet-yet-comfortable air conditioning, good lighting, good equipment and furnishings. Just slapping some egg cartons on a basement wall doesn't do the trick for 99% of the non-rave-style music out there.
2- Good engineers. You want someone to blow out your eardrums with feedback? Hire a cheap engineer. You want your bass drum to sound hollow? Hire a cheap engineer. You want any number of things to go wrong during a recording session? You know what to do. Good engineers don't come cheap.
3- Producers. Musicians drink too much of their own cool-aid, and if they are permitted to do so, they will come up with the stupidest stuff. The Beatles' producer rescued a "joke" song called "Scrambled Eggs" and had Paul write some serious lyrics, so it turned out to be "Yesterday." The most commonly played song on the radio, and it never would have been without the producer. People like that don't come cheap.
4- Promotions. Some people have mentioned this, others have pish poshed it. But it's important. A song that's not promoted is not heard. It is extremely rare for a song to get popular by, say, viral means. And it's back to the old question of the tree falling in the forest. If nobody hears your song, I don't care how good it is. Conversely, it doesn't matter how bad Britney's latest number is; if they push it hard enough, people will buy it.
Hmmmm... #4 makes me think of microsoft software...
The truth is that you can spend $500k or more on a recording if you so wish, but with the development of digital recording capabilities it is cetainly no longer a prerequisite for a great recording. Many successful bands these days find a compromise between expense and all out production. In many cases this means tracking drums and bass in an analogue studio with a good large recording space, tracking everything else in a smaller, generally digital studio, and then mixing somewhere with a large analogue console, generally an SSL, or Neve. Furthermore, with the rise of many digital studios, the large analogue studios can no longer charge what they once did. In my opinion as a sound engineer and musician, no band needs to spend more than AU$10000 to create a very professional album so long as the money is spent wisely. Any costs associated with duplication, marketing etc. being extra. Often high recording costs are not borne by the record label anyway, they are recouped from the advance given to the band upon signing. I know of one band from my home town who are signed to sony and getting national airplay, but before recording the album they owed they're record label AU$26000 after recording 3 EPs and doing fairly well in terms of sales. The record labels are really just venture capitalists in a particular industry and as such they try to reduce the risk to themselves as much as possible. They must therefore be treated as such.
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."
The record company doesn't sell *ANYTHING* for $15.
First it goes to a distributor, who sells it either to a 'one-stop', or a large chain of stores.
They have it sitting in a warehouse, then they sell it to individual stores. Those stores have people sitting around all day to actually sell this junk to customers.
Some customers steal stuff.
Some CD's get returned.
Each level has it's own markup- typically 40-100%, which in a lot of business is barely enough to keep the lights on. (Tower Records and Warehouse are both bankrupt!)
$15 -$5 for the store =
$10 - $3.50 for the distributors =
$7.50 to the record company (using my simple math) who needs to promote the record. They need to pay the janitors, the secretaries, the accounting department, the guy who works on their computers, etc. etc.
I used to own a print shop, and people would figure the price of paper, and they would bitch and complain because they thought 75% of each job was profit. As they stood and talked to me, and my employees, in my lobby, under my lights, listening to machines I paid for, and paid to maintain, inside a building I paid for, next to vehicles I paid for, that were insured by me, used gas I bought, employees wiped their asses with toilet paper I supplied- and the government wanted taxes out of the whole thing.
75% my ass, more like 5%.
Ok, so this is ot. This must be slashdot math. My previous (the parent) post:
/. can't (besides spell).
Moderations: 70% Insightful, 40% Interesting
I guess there are other things that
-Sean
I have a band, Metric Nut metricnut.com, and we have a cd about to come out on February 25th on Times Ten Records. The cds total cost to record for us was about $10k. This is a pro peice of work. The studio that we use is a moderately high end place that charges in the 500 a day range and since we aren't selling a million records we only pressed a couple thousand at about 90 cents each. We have gotten a little college play around the US, and some good reviews, so you can figure that the recording is decent enough, although look at the white stripes...that is a garage recording.
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.
The / in
The industry runs off kickbacks to AR reps who OFTEN sign bands to deals, then take 20-30% of the contract advance earmarked for the band's recording and tour support. It's referred to as "raping". Duh. Figure in also the cost of "independant consultants" who essentially payola the radio station con-glomerates to pay for play.
It is not dissimilar to why tickets to sporting events (or any other mass media-sponsored entertainments) are so expensive.
Doing the math won't work here to explain why CDs must sell for so much. Ask them to pull back the curtain instead.
Really, why do you think the industry's accounting is so bad? Hint: because, like Enron, the have LOTS to hide....
Almost all the major music companies are owned by the six largest international media conglomerates which own major stakes in magazines, books, tv, film, radio broadcast, etc... This means, that costs to promote a band besides special event production costs is actually nothing, but possibly opportunity costs.
Being the big Beatles fan that I am, I have to wonder how they were able to get such good sounds (which often still sound fresh nearly 40 years later) without all that top of the line equipment. I'm not suggesting that they had crap 2nd hand stuff, but certainly much of the equipment at Abbey Road wasn't state of the art even for the times - that became a point of contention in the late 60s (using 4 track when others had 8 track, etc).
creation science book
Moderations: 40% Flamebait, 30% Insightful, 20% Funny
Is slashdot really the place to go for mathematical discussion?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I've been involved in a lot of indie rock band CDs and I can tell you that you can make a very good sounding and looking CD for about 12-20k. A lot depends on paying guest musicians, a producer, studio time, etc.
However, it really can take $100k or more to make a record for big name acts. The biggest difference is the time spent to make things sound "perfect". A producer I respect put it this way: for $20k you can get a record that you can listen to 10 times without finding the flaws. For $100k you can get a record that you can listen to 1000 times or more without hearing the flaws. For a platinum selling artist, that's a big deal because their songs will be heard thousands of times by any one person.
Here's another way to look at it. You an go into a studio, bang out 12 bed tracks in a weekend. Spend another week or so laying overdubs and such, about 10hrs/song to mix, then a day to master. OTOH, a big $$$ act might spend several days laying the bed tracks for a single song, not to mention weeks overdubbing.
www.newsateleven.com
This is an album I am on. Including equipment and production, it cost us about $25000 to produce. That is probably as cheap as it gets...its an extremely well edited and recorded album, we happened to have the know-how to do the majority of it ourselves, with as little rented studio time as possible.
That price however, doesn't factor in the cost of our time.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
who are they kidding? 1 million to produce a cd, mebbe if they suckered the band out of their cut and are piling up costs to get them in debt so they can get more contracts out of em.
the "professional" sounding cd is a myth. most if not all of the stuff coming out on cd is crap. it may sound ok on regular stereo's pc speakers etc, but those things are designed to cover up the mistakes in shitty recordings.
just listen to one on a very high end stereo (like 25g's worth) and you will hear where that million dollars production cost didnt go.
A name you can trust.
Do you live in Appalachia, or on Mars? Because I remember being able to go into any music store back in 1990 and listen to any record beforehand. This was pre-WWW times. And now with the Internet, this "I can't hear the song beforehand" argument is even more useless.
I did a 6 song project on analog tape for 750 dollars. That includes mix down. It will be another 1500 or so to do printing and shrinkwrapping in jewel cases.
If you want one, visit www.daggaculture.com and shoot me an email. 5 bucks.
How is it that so many /.'ers claim to be able to hear the difference between 128k MP3 and 128K ogg with their golden ears... but then turn around and claim that a record recorded for $5K with some discount mics and sounds even remotely as full and as big as one that was recorded for $80-$100K -- it's so true that you get what you pay for.
Part of my job involves getting sent demo recordings from unsigned bands. So many of them sound like crap -- but then those artists get bitter that they didn't succeed when they think they sound just as good as U2. Producers like a Rick Rubin or a Trevor Horn aren't successful just because they discovered some formula... they actually know what makes a hit record sound different than some indie bedroom recording.
If you can't tell the difference between the sound quality (not talking talent) of a record that comes from Sony and one that your cousin mixed on his Mac - well guess what, the record-buying public can tell the difference even if they can't point to it specifically. And that's where the money goes.
-sker
nonsig. unsig. desig.
Everytime you watch a music video or listen to the radio, that's marketing money spent just to get you to buy the album.
then why do my Hendrix and Zep albums cost 20 dollars also? I can't tell you the last time I saw an ad or music video for either.
Aston Games
Not only do Slashbots believe labels should not make any money, but even artists shouldn't as well. Case in point, the recent article about Phish selling their concerts online. The general consensus was "damn those greedy musicians!".
Your typical Slashbot is a hypocrite. He will tell you that as an artist you should give away your product for free (and support yourself some other way, like being a fry chef at McDonalds, for example), all while he is cashing his check from his IT job.
The 10/10 rule (which I just invented, but is nonetheless real) states that if you start with $1000 you can build a crappy-to-mediocre recording solution, and that forever thereafter you can increase the quality of the sound 10% by paying 10 times the money.
I have that crappy $1000 solution for some home recording, and produced some decent tunes, using mostly software but also some conventional recording. A buddy of mine, who happens to be a real pro in CD mastering, Greg Reierson of Rare Form, volunteered to master our CD on his fantastic studio equipment, and made it sound *so* much better -- and this was just mastering, after we'd already done all the mixing. Studio reference speakers. My god. I had no idea, just amazing, made my home speakers sound like tin cans.
OTOH, even my crappy home studio is significantly better than the gear that most Beatles albums were recorded on. Don't underestimate the importance of talent -- and that most emphatically includes the talent of recording engineers.
It's like laser printers -- they aren't as good as high-end presses, but they're good enough for the undiscriminating eye. However, just owning one doesn't make somebody a designer, any more than owning MS Access qualifies one as a DBA, or buying AutoCAD makes you an architect. The musical equivalent of the "desktop publishing revolution" is hitting -- anybody can do a halfway decent recording of their stupid crummy songs for very little money if they so choose -- but that doesn't make them John Lennon.
The real question isn't, how much does it cost for a label to record, package, and promote worthless parasites like Britney Spears and John Tesh, but how we're going to build a way to find & support the really good musicians out there who are struggling to create great art with no money. Swapping mp3's without paying Eminem doesn't help support music -- we need a positive solution that puts the money where it belongs, in the hands of musicians and the engineers who make them sound so good for so few bucks.
I see there must be a hundred comments with regard to the cost of production of any given music. Unfortuneately, this is only a small portion of the music industry. Yes, it is a very imortant aspect, but its not the sole factor in price. Artists need to cover their costs and make a profit, record companies, distributors and finally retailers all need to do the same as well. Its a big chain, with lots of costs accumulating on the way. Its how business works, deal with it.
Stealing is wrong. But the argument about protecting the "artists" makes me wonder: Who do we want to protect? An artist is supposed to perform for the joy of creating and sharing his creations. I'm not saying that he "should" live in a damp attick chamber, but does he absolutely need luxury? An album can apparently be produced for a few thousand bucks. How many /.'ers spend that kind of money on their art/hobby without expecting an immediate return?
Sincere artists being starved by illegal file sharing is a myth. There's a well tuned mass-media producing machine that experiences severe cuts in its profit margins due to illegal file sharing.
I have produced several CDs at the local level. These are good quality productions of local rock and singer-songwriter artists with paid pro backup. I usually do arrangements and guitar parts. Typical costs: about $20 - $30K, which I get perhaps $5K. But here's the rub - in many many recording deals, the labels DO NOT put up these funds. Bands rely upon their own sources for production until they are truly a proven commodity. The costs can easily be much higher, depending upon location, studio and players (the top Nashville guns run over $300/hr each - and they are worth it). The money spent at a music store on CDs is distributed in several different directions, so that path leads to long payoff times for artists. When a local sells off the bandstand at $12/pop, they might break even at about 2000 CDs. That's quite a bit in a local market in most cities. Most band lose more than they gain, but they have their product in their hand. In other words, the studio costs are really just one factor in a complicated and highly varied chain of events. There is no monolithic conspiracy to keep prices high except perhaps at the very top where the really awful music is produced ;-)
Estimating an average cost (the way you did) does not show the actual situation. Considering the Pareto rule, saying that 80% of the cost is generated by 20% affects your calculations much. This can explain why some of the albums costs $1M to produce.
Because it gets you exposure. Which in turn translates into money. Concert revenues go to the artists, under many contracts. Same for t-shirts and hoodies and all that crap. Those things make a lot of money. You didn't think it really cost 20-50 dollars to put on a concert? Or 30 to make and print a shitty t-shirt? I could make you that shirt for $10. The rest is for the vendor and the band.
The median cost of production (studio time plus cutting and mastering) should be somewhere between $10k and $20k. Marketing and promotion is where most of the money goes. Sad, but true - an album doesn't have to be good to sell well.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you're the same guy posting anon to protect his oh-so-precious karma. Otherwise the "anonymous" quip would just be to hypocritical to believe.
Where? Don't just fucking say it sucks because he did it cheap, enlighten all the rest of us as to WHERE and WHY it sucks.
Well it doesn't help that the timing of the guitarist is off, that the singer's voice is flat and practically cracking, and the lyrics are trite, insipid, uninspired boring emo BULLSHIT. but that's really beyond the scope of this flame.
Out of my hands:
The highs in the guy's voice are way to high, listen to the Ss and even the Ks somewhat, they blast out in the high range. The high hats are the same. In fact, it's so loud that I think it might be getting cut off or something, it also sounds like the singer has a cold, but maybe it's just him sucking Also, not nearly enough bass.
track6/7:
The whole song is to quiet. and when the guy yells "party at the drug store" it's softer then his regular singing voice, which is odd (did he pull away from the mic or something). The bass gets washed out too, it seems.
Lower Providence:
This is the best of the bunch, actually. We can hear how bad the singer's voice is nice and clearly. Was this song really recorded along with the others? If I'd downloaded this one rather then out of my hands (or track6/7, which is even worse) I probably wouldn't have. The other guitar that comes in at 2:47 is really loud and jarring, though.
The honest truth is that you couldn't tell the difference if someone didn't tell you.
perhaps, but I doubt it.
If you can, you are in a tiny, tiny minority and, therefore, don't fucking matter for shit to the rest of us.
Yeah, whatever. If I can tell the difference with my $35 RCA/Radio shack speakers and $60 sub, a real Audiophile would probably shit a brick. The difference would be palpable on anything but the lowest end boom boxes and headphones. Just because someone can express the difference doesn't mean they can't tell. Otherwise, why would anyone buy a nice stereo?
Have a nice anonymous fucking life...
Yeah, whatever Mr. unsigned emo boi. There are more former band members in this country then people of Asian decent, by an order of magnitude. We can measure our respective anonymity in the future, AC.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
And you *know* there ain't no way you'll sell any records without having some hot momma jiggling her jello on MTV!!
Hi, I'm writing from the iMac in the student lobby from Recording Workshop. It's basically a boot camp for future audio engineers. Anyway, I can share at least a little insight of the greenhorn/textbook variety.
When you go to a studio, they'll go through a couple of steps. Basically you bring in instruments and they hook up microphones to capture the raw sound to tape or hard drive. That gives you a raw take. Then you can go over the raw sound instrument by instrument to weed out instrument mistakes. That's called overdubbing. Once the engineer has all that data, they fiddle and tweak and polish the sound using all kinds of EQs and compressors and the like. The band can go home for this part. That's called Mixdown.
After that's done, the engineer gives a golden master to the band- basically, a CD with good sound songs ready to be copied. CD copying companies can burn many many copies as well as the graphics and liner notes. The band could sell copies then. After that comes promotion, which involves massive advertising campaigns, payola to radio stations, interviews, getting on MTV, and things like that. This can also include bringing in big names to sort of spread their magical aura on a project. Some producers just have a way at turning bands into successes, either through skillful management, hidden paladin-like success auras, or both! All promotion is sort of pimping an album out until it has household name recognition. This is what the RIAA sized companies are really all about. These million dollar marketing campaigns act as giant megaphones, shouting out an artist's message louder than bands not backed by an RIAA company. Have you ever bought a CD of a band you didn't know existed? Non-RIAA/Big 5 distribution and promotion channels like Napster are of course frowned on by the RIAA, in fact the RIAA would probably like to make them illegal, monopoly style. But I digress.
I can tell you a little more about the making the CD phases. There are lots of ways to get your band recorded for relatively cheap. (As in $500-$5,000 dollars.) If you live in the Coloumbus area, you can get your band recorded for free by training students at the Recording Workshop. (www.recordingworkshop.com) It's a little like getting your hair cut at a barber school but at least you'll have something on CD. The instructors here also work professionally on weekends, their rates are about $55 an hour in the studio. One instructor completed an album-level project in 144 billable hours. Elsewhere, professionals with their own studios also charge in the $30-$60/hr range for recording. Big name studios such as The Hit Factory and Sun Studios can run perhaps $200 an hour, give or take a couple hundred. Duplication costs could be maybe $1 a cd. Everything else falls under promotion. Hope this helped!
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.
You say that 906.6 million cds are sold per year and you don't include the $0.25 cost of copying and printing?
906,600,000
x 0.25
------
$226,650,000
Maybe you should have added that in...
but for the most part the recording was free!
Maybe in a perfect world...
Unfortunately, the "quality" you speak of is largely obtained through the use of "quality" equipment.
Ya know how they say, "You get what you pay for?"
Well, in this case it is true. Just the microphones alone make an incredible difference in overall sound quality. I've just been finishing up a recording as a singer and the mic I used earlier was about $400. I needed to do some overdubs and went to a friend's house that has a $2000 mic, and you can tell the difference.
Aside from that you've got your preamps and effects units... sure you can use the inserts or plug-ins for your favorite software like Pro Tools, but it's just not the same. And you can hear the difference.
You've also got mics that are designed for a specific instrument, so you need all kinds of mics for the drum kit alone.
I just don't think it's an accurate statement to dismiss equipment as a large cost. In the case of bands that do their own recordings, they have most likely built up their collection of equipment over a large time period... but it still has to be figured into the cost.
thundercatzlair
Recording your album does not have to be expensive. James Dewees from The Get Up Kids records his side project Reggie and the Full Effect for dirt cheap. Here is some words from the man himself I found in an interview with him.
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 and Reggie and the Full Effect are on Vagrant Records)
...to make. Based on this CD, they signed a deal with Geffen and the rest is history.
It's still possible to make a record for this much.
Granted, if someone signs to a record label, they'll get a lot more money to play with.
Dolemite
_________________________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
"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"
Freeloaders will still pirate the stuff with the same abandon, label produced or not. The pirates aren't gonna say "Hey, the RIAA has been cut out, I think I'll send Mr. Artist some money." Just witness the reaction of the Slashbots to Phish's selling of their concert online. They were immediately pilloried as greedy robber barons-in-training, similar to what the RIAA is seen as right now.
You and orangesquid both... Wouldn't have that 2 little sentences could lead to that much food for thought.
Here is an interesting suggestion that I would
like to pass along.
I am currently in the market for some commercial
sewing equipment. This could also apply to recording
and mastering equipment, which would be applicable
here in this forum.
I was at a business roundtable at the Portland
Chamber of Commerce (which I belong to). As part
of this meeting, we each got a chance to stand up
and make a non-selling request (a request for legal help, request to hire someone, request
help in finding suitable space, etc). I stood
up and made a request that I was in the market
for some specialized sewing equipment.
I had gotten some responses. One of them was of
particular interest. The suggestion was to have
some business cards made out that has my name
and phone number, but instead of the name and
nature of my business, it would simply have
'looking for specialized equipment' and would
list the make and model numbers.
Another suggestion is to talk with commercial
real estate agents and bankruptcy lawyers. They
know of businesses that might be heading under.
The reason that I mention this here is that
these methods might be a good way to acquire
some, if not all, of the recording and mastering
equipment for very cheap. In fact, I knew of
someone who got a room full of server equipment
free because a business had to clear out a space
very quickly to avoid large fees.
Good luck!
MCP
Cleara
You need to get out more buddy. If the most creative thing you did today was draw an ass using ASCII for the purpose of flaming a /. mod you need more fresh air.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
I can assure you that the cost to the wholesalers is much less than $7.50 for the average single disc CD "album".
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
You mean, you don't like the music video?
Have a peek.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
While your numbers may hold true for the average, it obviously takes less money for the likes of William Shatner or David Hasselhoff to produce an album than U2.
... and standard deviation was born.
So who are you saying is The Standard Deviant - Shatner or Hasselhoff?
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
The artists (rather the 90% that do not end up being popular) have to pay it back.
All the Money is going to lip sink training, even then britney still messes up, and the boy bands... don't even go there, when was the last concert where the performer Really sang for real, plus all the stupid overly choreographed Dancing with all the on stage lip sinkers in perfect time with each other...they cant sing jumping around like they do, and The RIAA wounder why people with half a brain or over 14yr buy that crap.
Seriously, is Robbie Williams *really* worth 80 million UKP? I mean, what can he possibly spend it on?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
A little online research got the following: Studio time including mixdown for mixing $30.00 per hr or $300.00 per song. Figure 12 songs just for grins =$3600.00 Provide master for you to do your own mixdowns add $100.00 CD pressing in quantities over 5000 is about $.20 ea. Now add in the speculation for a total. Who gives a damn? Go to a retailer and buy a CD by, say, the Doors called, say, The Doors, because you have to update your music library again. Lets make the assumption that all the LP promotion, studio time, extra musicians, production, legal stuff, artwork, and all the rest of the overhead were paid for in the first couple of years - hell, give it 4 or 5. But, it sure seems there was at least one hit on the album so I suspect it was sooner. Now let's assume in the next 25 years or so that releases on 8 tracks, cassettes, and additional LP sales made the band and the record company a few bucks. Any LOGICAL explanation why this CD costs within a buck or two of the new releases? HELL NO, WE'RE NOT GETTIN SCREWED. That doesn't even begin to describe it. If it takes 30 year old music to support today's artists then maybe some of these people shouldn't be recording. I bought that album for about 6 bucks when it came out. Damsure didn't cost an additional 10 to press and ship CD.
Steve Albini doesn't know how to do math. The band members got a $250,000 advance on royalties. That means if there were 5 band members then they took home $50,000 each at the beginning of the contract. After deducting the $250,000 advance and expences they are $14,000 in the hole. Let's say that the "5" band members pay off that $14,000.
That means that each of the "5" band members took home $47,200. If there were only 4 band members than they would have taken home $59,000 each, that's after paying off the $14,000 royalty deficit.
How does Steve get that each member only made $4,031.25?
Advance: $250,000.00 $250,000.00
Manager's cut: $37,500.00 -$37,500.00
Legal fees: $10,000.00 -$10,000.00
Recording Budget: $150,000.00 -$150,000.00
Producer's advance: $50,000.00
Studio fee: $52,500.00
Drum Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $3,000.00
Recording tape: $8,000.00
Equipment rental: $5,000.00
Cartage and Transportation: $5,000.00
Lodgings while in studio: $10,000.00
Catering: $3,000.00
Mastering: $10,000.00
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses: $2,000.00
Video budget: $30,000.00 -$30,000.00
Cameras: $8,000.00
Crew: $5,000.00
Processing and transfers: $3,000.00
Off-line: $2,000.00
On-line editing: $3,000.00
Catering: $1,000.00
Stage and construction: $3,000.00
Copies, couriers, transportation: $2,000.00
Director's fee: $3,000.00
Album Artwork: $5,000.00 -$5,000.00
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $2,000.00 -$2,000.00
Band fund: $15,000.00 -$15,000.00
New fancy professional drum kit: $5,000.00 -$5,000.00
New fancy professional guitars [2]: $3,000.00 -$3,000.00
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs [2]: $4,000.00 -$4,000.00
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $1,000.00 -$1,000.00
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $1,000.00 -$1,000.00
Rehearsal space rental: $500.00 -$500.00
Big blowout party for their friends: $500.00 -$500.00
Tour expense [5 weeks]: $50,875.00 -$50,875.00
Bus: $25,000.00
Crew [3]: $7,500.00
Food and per diems: $7,875.00
Fuel: $3,000.00
Consumable supplies: $3,500.00
Wardrobe: $1,000.00
Promotion: $3,000.00
Tour gross income: $50,000.00 $50,000.00
Agent's cut: $7,500.00 -$7,500.00
Manager's cut: $7,500.00 -$7,500.00
Merchandising advance: $20,000.00 $20,000.00
Manager's cut: $3,000.00 -$3,000.00
Lawyer's fee: $1,000.00 -$1,000.00
Publishing advance: $20,000.00 $20,000.00
Manager's cut: $3,000.00 -$3,000.00
Lawyer's fee: $1,000.00 -$1,000.00
Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 = $3,000,000
Gross retail revenue Royalty: [13% of 90% of retail]: $ 351,000 $351,000.00
Less advance: $250,000.00 -$250,000.00
Producer's points: [3% less $50,000 advance]: $ 40,000 -$40,000.00
Promotional budget: $25,000.00 -$25,000.00
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $50,000.00 -$50,000.00
-$12,375.00
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
after that, every album is free...
You can tell that Steve Albini is a music industry insider. He uses accounting tricks to make it look like the band members didn't make anything when in fact, according to his own numbers, they made about $50,000 each assuming there were 5 band members.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
The more albums you sell, the more costs that show up. More expensive videos and more of them would be just one example that comes to mind.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
So why isn't anyone else bothering to drop Albini's numbers into a spreadsheet and examine them? Wake up people, the band members made approximately $50,000 each, even according to Albini's own numbers. He's just doing accounting tricks to make it look like the band members got screwed.
As an extention to Mark Twain's famous saying:
There are lies, damn lies, statitics and balance sheets.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
Unless you're signed to a major label, in which case they advance you $100,000 - $1,000,000 and say, "here, we hooked you up with this producer (who is working for us) at our studio." So you take the money you have borrowed from the record company and use it to pay them for the producer and the studio time, and the post production, and the DAT and mastering, and the art and packaging, and duplication. By this point, unless you're a well-established artist (i.e. already rich) you are now permanently indebted to the label when your record tanks, which it will, and they write the whole thing off as a failed business venture then sue you for the advance.
Or you could spend a couple hundred or a thousand bucks on a mixing board and some kind of recording device (or just use your damn computer) and make a record that sounds just as good. Sure, it might not be ULTRA RICK RUBIN SLICK but nobody is going to notice except assholes anyway.
This is another item of interest for the big ticket sales promotion campaigns. I'm not talking about the liquid stuff either!!!
See my journal, I write things there
Now keep in mind that the first rule of sound recording is: any sound is usable, somewhere.
Still, there is a subjective level of aural quality that most strive for. If your original recording never acheived this, no amount of mixing later on with bring it up to this level. If you had strived to recorded a crisp, clean giutar on one song but instead laid down an out of phase, noisy track, sorry, nothing will fix that later. Now something could be done to make that fuzzy guitar work, but what you are doing is settling for something else. You had to abandon your original vision. Proper recording in the first place would have allowed you to achieve your original desired result.
That's why that "new" Beatles track that was made a few years back from these cassettes Yoko found sounds crappy (at least the Lennon portion), even with modern technology.
nirvana's first album, "bleach" was recorded for $600.00 by Jack Endino. i am sure all of you know that name (nirvana, well, you should know jack's too). whatever. i can go on and on, but knowing the reason why i do come to slashdot everyday is because it is a learning resource and an "alternative" to other mindless computer dribble. and also watching how most (note, i did not say everyone)people even here think "music" are bands like "Creed" and heavy metal like "Metallica." - "like, right one, dude!"
blah, i am drunk, pissed off at this crappy post and going to bed.
are getting cheaper and cheaper these days. Most of them come with builtin effects and cd-burner. Throw in 5 or 6 Shure sm-57/sm-58 mics + a vocal microphone and you have what you need to make good recordings. That is of course if you know how to use the equipment. For cd mastering, use something like Wavelab from Steinberg. All this for appr. $3000 (one time cost).
When you spend more than, say, $10,000 on a recording:
1. You are paying for the producer/engineer's time. Odds are, if it costs this much, he also recorded Hendrix, Beatles, Dylan or some other larger-than-large act, or has some other sort of whacked-out, expensive credentials.
2. You are paying for 'studio tricks.' For example, one thing that indie music is good for is raw, unedited, undressed recordings (mostly). They aren't laden with punch-ins, vocal assistance, drum triggers, samples, etc, etc. Grab any song from mainstream (major label) radio and listen hard enough, and you'll know what I'm talking about.
I am by no means a professional engineer, but I've had a home-built studio in my house long enough to know that major-label recordings (the really expensive ones) usually sound like shit to me, if for no other reason than because I can hear all the unnatural crap that they saturate the recordings with to make it digestable for the mainstream.
It's almost as if, in the music industry's naive youth, a standard was set or a rule was defined that said that for a recording to be good, it had to be saturated in large hall reverb, have dynamic delay on the 4 simultaneous vocal tracks, use amp simulation on the 44 guitar tracks and use pre-sampled drum triggers for the drums to pass off as legit. Do you ever just want to hear what the musicians really SOUND like? Me too! Hopefully this bullshit ideal will die with the music industry.
I'm really not trying to be a troll or something...I'm just trying to illustrate that it REALLY doesn't cost that much to make a recording. It's actually very cheap. I said $10,000 at the top of this post, but even that is WAY more than I'd ever spend for "perfection."
--
z
Straight Outta' Comdex
In a recent interview in a Dutch newspaper(sorry, not online), an executive for one of the big distributors said that the retail price of a CD is divided into 30% for the retailer, 30% for the distributor, and the remainder for the entire production process (studio, royalties, production etc.).
... i'll say whoever spends $250,000 on a cd production is bloody stupid. a good studio with technicians will cost around $1,000-$2,000 a week. if your artists aren't completely incompetent and can focus on production only (i.e. song-writing and most experimentation should be done!), that's more than enough to record an album.
original cover art (if it's painted, one of the more expensive things) will cost you around $2,000-$3,000 with all publishing rights. cover/booklet designers will cost something around $2,000 for the design.
so that'd be between $5,000-$7,000 per cd. let's say you're extravagant or are swimming in money, or stumble around blindly during production and take a lot more time, and triple the amount, you'd be at $21,000.
now _promoting_ the album is an entirely different matter. that not only costs a lot of money, but also time, and time == money for the business, i'm afraid.
considering that the figures you've heard are mostly about very popular artists (that's what i assume, at least), you can be sure that massive amounts are spent on propaganda... err.. marketing, i mean.
i'd be curious why you're asking, because if you're looking into producing cds yourself, don't worry about huge costs for that part.
Say if A owns B, C, D, E. Say B does the album "for the artist", C does the recording and D does the marketing, E provides the sessionists, and so on. Then C,D, E and etc can charge B anything.
So it could well be that "Cost" = the projected revenue of album * X.
Where X is chosen depending on how much the company wants to screw the artist, and how the main company wants the profits to look for the various companies it owns.
Sure your production levels can be very high quality. It could even be noticeable, but it's called diminishing returns. E.g. instead of having the singer/musician sing/play 500 times you do 50-100.
BTW A doesn't even have to make money- esp after it or the subcompanies pay off the fat cats running the various bits.
That way they can say they're losing money because of P2P and piracy.
This sort of thing is done for movies too.
For a world-class studio-produced album, the costs are going to be much higher than for a smaller studio recording.
To give an idea, a world-class studio (which would have 24-track 2" recording and million-dollar consoles) is generally $1200-1900/day + an engineer and a second. Depending on the engineer, it could be between $500/day and $5000/day. A second is generally going to be between $250/day and $500/day.
An album produced this way generally costs around $150,000 to complete, including the mastering and media and all parts.
Then there are smaller facilities which will produce an excellent quality album at a fraction of the cost. Of course, they might have a Trident console instead of a classic Neve 8068 or an SSL 9000 J. Generally speaking, an album produced in this manner would amount to $10,000-$20,000.
And then, there are home studios (not of the low-end project/hobby grade) that can also produce an excellent album and $10,000 or below.
Basically, the lower-cost facilities (or the lower-cost recordings) rely in the artist being "with-it" enough to get their job done in a reasonably quick timeframe.
A small facility can cost just as much as a world-class if the artist wastes lots of time.
The way the music industry works, basically, is they sign an artist and give them $150,000 to make an album. The artist can then choose how to record their album. The label's only requirement is that they get a high-quality multi-track master, a stereo master, and often nowadays, a multi-channel master.
The artist has the option of how to spend that $150k. They can spend it on a world-class facility (which is what most artists do) or they can build themselves a studio and do it themselves (and hire a good engineer).
The more intelligent artists build a facility and consider the first album's cost-of-production a loss. Then, if they're lucky enough to get a second album, the can pocket the next $150k and hire a good engineer.
The nice thing about the second option is that even if they don't get to do another album for the label, they keep the studio and can make whatever they want, whenever they want!
And you can make a pretty damn good studio for $150k.
Jory
I think the number you here from RIAA sources includes stuff like advances to the band, producing videos, etc. They charge all of that back to the band.
The local bands y'all know who've made their own CDs don't have videos, or all those "distribution costs."
but don't forget the promotional costs. In this day of advertising everywhere, there are very few artists that are going to be sold without an all out in your face publicity campaign to let you know that they are out there ... especially the new artists. Advertising isn't cheap even when it is cheaply done.
Sure, equipment is expensive, but isn't a lot of that more or less a one-time cost? If you're building a new studio every time you want to record another album, sure things are going to be really expensive. But if you can re-use a lot of the equipment, it's not nearly as bad.
I don't suppose you can always use the exact same studio configuration each time you go to work on a project, and there's always going to be some equipmenet purchases to replace broken stuff or upgrade outdated stuff, but the tech isn't exactly disposable.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I love that song!
As people in the UK might know, not only do they have standard record producing costs here...but now they've added a new cost of making serveral million people suffer with TV specials... Of course i can see why there doing this...Instant number 1 hit, production fees paid by phone in votes (30p/min to vote...pah!)...now thats like free money to me.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
In the UK, you should reserve GBP100,000 for a professional album (CaVa studios in Glasgow, Town House post production in London, Masterpiece mastering and creation of masters in London)... It will take 6-9 months life cycle typically for an album to be recorded, mastered and released. Most of that time is spent in the studio.
The above figure includes session musicians.
It does not include manufacturing and distribution... think 30p per CD manufacturing (Tribal in London), and distribution is negotiable but we used 3MV/Pinnacle.
You then pay on top to market and position your release within a store... but that's a totally seperate discussion.
Its really unfortunate when I read this kind of outlook on music. It is almost the same kind of story as people absolutely certain that anything but a BMW is crap.
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 $3000. Nothing in that microphone justifies that price in raw materials or craftmenship.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
But what about distribution man! EVERYBODY knows that it's the most important part of music!
- a moderate quality microphone, 30$
- a t-connection 0$[gift certificate]
- everything else - everyone else's junk 0$
- 50 Cds-~50$
of course, i've only got the first track done, and the next two recorded, so i figure it can't run any more than 750$, plus around 1$ per disc sold. mabye the rest of you musicians find things work differently, i'm not sure. all one really needs is a descent computer[descent>=400Mhz era with ok sound card][what,1000$?], microphones[30-120$], instruments[which the musicians should have], musicians[musicans will and should do anything for free. or mabye food.]...other stuff[electronic toys *cough theramin*] would probably help but they are not necessary. i'm sure musicians in the 1800s didn't need a brand new style of electronic feedback noise or custom created sound waves...and i don't remember them complaining about it.either way, if this could be done using home video cameras, and home [macintosh] computers with a budget of practically nil[although, i'm sure they could have if they had wanted to] for the project [to my knowledge, of course]... - you can get studio quality sound on your own. if all else fails,..what really is keeping you from making your own microphones? tape recorders? tin foil or otherwise phonograph presses?
be proud of your work, if nothing else, musicians...if you have been just in your attempt, you have made the world a better place.
almost forgot - distribution? put it on an ftp server. if your good, someone will mirror you. don't even touch mp3.com, they are owned by those who would seek to make you a weak, thin and broken hopeless, after they steal your work, and make you pay them for screwing you over. keep music free.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
... the best opera stars in the world ... Studio mics aren't cheap. Some run as much as $20,000 ... have to be constantly kept up to date with the latest technology ...
True as these facts might be, I don't see how they explain the high prices (>$30) of some recordings.
I've seen some recordings made decades ago selling for $20, 25, 30. The performers are long dead. So either
- 30 years after production, they're still trying to recoup expenses, or
- they've long since recouped expenses, and churning out $0.25 CDs to sell to gullible operatic listeners at $30 each is basically free money for them
I've pretty much stopped buying CDs. Do I think it's "sending a message" to the record companies? I doubt it. Buying recorded music on CD is simply too expensive these days. I'll buy a $150 turntable and wait for some old guy to croak and his wife puts his opera collection out by the curb.
And so the artists is forced to jump in blind, or try to make it on their own. With the advent of the Internet, it's at least possible to hope that you can make it yourself... but still, very few bands do it, because the anti-competitive record labels control the major channels of distribution by maintaining high-barriers of entry and with things like payola (technically, "indie" promoters nowadays).
All the brainy contract-reading nerds in the world can't compete with an entrenched anti-competitive cartel. But if you think you can do better, please do try.
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.
If you are technically skilled, you can trade your time for money and get very good sound quality in your recording. Consider Tom Scholz, who put together a recording with a small cadre of people in his basement, which became the self titled album for his band, Boston, and was the greatest selling premier album of all time. Interestingly, Tom was an engineer with a masters from MIT, developed analog technology for recording, and has been a real "perfectionist". Most of the recording was originally done in his basement, at a cost far below what the studios charged. Interestingly, he still records using analog (for sound quality reasons), and claims "Wherever there's a microprocessor, there's trouble.".
Let's sum up the OP's question: I don't know anything about what I'm asking, so I'm going to pull some numbers out of my ass and then state that they clearly prove the point I wanted to prove.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the idea that albums currently are overpriced, but there are about a billion (okay, I made that number up) better ways to demonstrate it.
The other day I read this Steve Albini article on where the money goes.
Worth reading.
Hundred dollars. Definitely a hundred dollars.
How ya like dat?
This is what $600 dollars of studio time buys you in Ohio. http://www.nfactorrocks.com/Sounds.htm
We spent $25 an hour for this, recorded seven songs and this is the quality. Don't mind the singer he sucks and has been fired! My point (aside from shameless promotion) is with the advancement in recodring technology what do you need some big fancy producer for if you are actually talented. Big time producers are there to make musicians out of people who are not! I mean look whose albums cost the most to produce? This bubble gum meaningless crap the record companies market to death and get every little 12 year old on the planet to buy it. It's worse then the cigarette companies ever where! It's not like you ever saw Joe Camel adds in the middle of teen magazine! If you can get one 12 year to buy something you bet that 20 others in the same class will want it. Most record companies target audience appears to be the 10 to 20 year crowd, ever been to one of these bands shows? I had the joy of being on security at one. I've never seen so many screaming children in one place at one time. Only concert I've ever seen where the place was sold out and the parking lots were not full!
Having been involved in he record industry as an executive for an independent label here are some of the facts:
The more you spend on an album the more you have to recoup from the artist in other ways. Meaning: Contractually we sign a deal for a record. That gets added to the "bill" as we (The record label)pay the up-front costs of recoding, mastering and printing. We then negotiate for a deal on price per record (split 50% for writer, 50% artist called artist's share and performer's share, these things get tricky when percentages are split up depending who is on writing credits ad how many people "actually" contributed to an album's writing). Standard is set at about $1.00 - 1.50 per record (this cost rises as an artist sells more and has more of a strong hold on a market - upper ends are $3-5 per album sold. This money gets recouped upon selling albums and no money gets paid to the artist until the costs are covered for the recording. This does not cover "signing bonuses" which are applied as cash up-front to cover living expenses from recording ( these are also recouped down the road). Writing credits are always paid.
The albums are then sent to a distributer (negotiated for a fee) they are then responsible for putting the record to market. we get paid between 7-10 dollars per album. This money goes tio the "account" for marketing and promotion of the album (which is generally 3-4 times the cost of an album) this is then set against the account of the recording artist and is made up for in touring.
Touring makes the bucks. That is why and stay on the road so long. Be aware that they get paid (in some cases hundreds of thousands per night to perform) and this is how large debts are repaid to the label and how money gets credited towards the next album, and so it goes.
I hope this helps. Coward Out
I know a couple people in the music industry. Here are just some facts for you...
7 out of 10 records lose money
2 out of 10 break even
1 out of 10 makes money
The average cost of a record is about $1,000,000(USD)
So, while you commies might think the record labels are just pure evil etc (I think they are stupid, but work with me here), they are all the ones taking all the financial risk. When they sign a new artist, they know there is only about a 10% chance that *IF* they make a record, it will make any money at all.
So, they do most often than not lose money on a record. "But why" you may ask. Because of Enimem and Britney Spears. "Artists" like them bring in enough money to fund all those money losing records. But, as you may have noticed, the record companies havn't been funding such records lately. There has been more Britney, and less stimulating music, and there is a damn good reason. For the fist time in a long ass time, record sales have been down. Now, maybe im going out on the limb here, but I think it has to do with all you commies that rather steal music than pay for it. While you think you are shafting just some corporate big wig, you are shafting your self even more, because it means they record labels need to increase their Britnet:GoodMusic ratio. That means less good music, and more Britney clones.
But know what, there is a good side to everything, right? no.
I do bookkeeping for an independent music retailer, and we buy from all 5 majors (Sony, BMG, UMVD, EMD, WEA) as well as a number of distributors and one-stops. I can attest that approximate wholesale (according to our computer which spits me out average cost whenever I invoice) as approximately $10.02. Now that's not to say that everything costs that, just that's the average from over time (several years worth of invoices). So a markup to $15, is actually ~50% up, rather than 100% (whereas actual retail list is somewhere around 100% at 19.95)
Is this an accurate representation of what it costs the music industry to make titles? No. As a matter of fact, one of the more egregious examples of bad pricing was that recently we could purchase Sony mid-line titles directly from Sony for $8.99... but we could buy those same titles from an overseas distributor--the same titles made by Sony, just across the Atlantic-- for $6.99. With taxes, freight, and import, we were still something like $1.75 cheaper per disc. Insanity, I tell you.
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
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. 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.
Whenever these issues come up, it's always a good idea to refer to The Problem With Music by Steve Albini. He's one of the best music producers ever. Even if you've never heard of him you probably have an album he produced. He does a great job of breaking down who gets what in a record deal.
Studio time (wide range in prices here)
Cover Art (graphics are not cheap and occassionally very expensive, not in the $10,000 mark usually, but still a cost)
Studio personel (high prices producers will cost up front, especially if they think the project will tank)
Hotel/food for band (unless they happen to live near the studio)
Tour Support (this is a MAJOR cost)
Videosanother MAJOR expense)
Payola (yes, it still exists)
print marketing (advertising is not cheap, neither to produce or get printed)
Cash Advances (most bands get some sort of advance and most bands never fully pay that back. I understand that this is a ruse, but on paper, it is a loss)
Bands operating at a loss (which is most recordings. Profit making acts must make up for the ones losing money)
Record company expenses (just like liquor must cost more in a bar, music must cost more in a company due to office space, secretaries to A&R people, to executives to janitors)
Image consultants (you have to decide how to market any product, it doesn't just 'happen')
Cost of CDs (this is a tiny per-unit cost, but some companies have a nice little scam where they pay their own sister/daughter company more than it should cost to produce them and thus increase their losses. BMG was known for this)
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Click here or here.
The Movie and Music industries make ungodly profits compared to other businesses (in fact you can lump that all under the umbrella of Entertainment - including professional sports).
Why in the world do we continue to pay inflated prices to these people? What do we get in return - a few hours of escape? Why do we value entertainment more than safe streets, a well educated society, or any number of other more meaningful things that struggle on the edge of bankruptcy?
The simple fact of the matter is an overpowering greed drives all of this - and hypes it up in the media (I don't see any glitzy commercials about real Teachers in the media). I have news for you, its not how large your bank account is, or how many toys you have that is important when you die. Bankruptcy of the soul is worse than living a humble life.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
That 906.6 million albums includes Bach, Beethoven, The Beetles, Cindy Lauper and so on. What you need to know is how many of those 906.6 mil are NEW releases within that fiscal year, then re-run your numbers.
Maybe $500,000 - $1 million to produce an album isn't so crazy.
Is three things:
Graff
Ineffective promotion
Pandering to artist/producer ego
I found my inner child, then I got caught abusing it...
I don't even know where to begin. Oh, yeah: there are no laws that state you cannot make a *huge* profit on what you sell.
As with software, the cost of producing and distributing music is approaching the cost of the labor involved. How would you value J. S. Bach's time vs. Britney's? How would you value Knuth's time vs. a notoriously poor programmer whose code you were once forced to use?
Maybe you can't... but what's the difference? If you buy something you have made a conscious choice to pay for it. You are making a bet that the amount of money you shell out will net you a product/service that is at least of the same value. Now, if the product is grossly negligent, or falsely advertised, you have at the very least a moral right to demand your money back, but the company who sold it to you is not necessarily required to honor that request.
The company needs to pay its resources, software developers, marketers, rent, etc, etc, etc. Your hypothesis that the unit cost of software is around .30 is ridiculous.
What does the cost of producing a record have to do with slashdot? 600 comments from people whose sole experience in the music industry is probably how they once burned a CD of a band they recorded via mini cassette at a concert in the local high school. I recommend taking these comments with a very large grain of salt.
And what's with the slashdot editors? Maybe I should submit "Ask Slashdot" articles about gardening tips or how best to bore out the engine on my Dodge Duster. I thought this was Slashdot not Learn2.
"Snootchie Bootchie" -- Jay
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
I haven't seen any of these costs/factors listed (at least w/in my threshold)
+ recording and studio costs, as well as (many types of) production costs, are not factored as line items, but within the structure of a recoupable advance; in this scenario, an artist receives a block of money ($10,000 to $1,000,000+) for the album. Even though these costs will be taken out of the mechanical royalties resulting from sale (songwriter's royalties are slightly different, though in many cases the label arranges to acquire these as well) before any share of those royalties are paid to the artist, the total advance is still considered a "cost"
+ beyond the advance, some producers or studios will have the clout to acquire back-end points on the recording from the label -- in some of the more blustery figures produced by the industry, I have seen the amount paid to these producers counted as cost, even though it's a percentage of the PROFIT after sale.
+ the work agreement (mini-contract) for an album may also contain agreements on recoupable promotion support (generally tour support or independent promotion.) though this "cost" is taken from the artist's royalties as described above, and even though it doesn't relate directly to the album, it is often figured into the album cost! (sometimes, arrangements for promotional support are made through management companies, corporate sponsors or seperate agreement with the label -- these costs are not associated with albums, but may still be recoupable...)
if all records out now how the talent that was recorded on that album (which allowed it to be recorded in six hours), we wouldn't be complaining about the $18 CD's.
... and it does cost him just a few euro.
:)
They did borrow some equipment (and do already own some more) and have a room for recording.
You don't need much more for a punk album
Btw, the cost for mass-production of cd's is about 50 cent per CD, afaik.
OK, I've just about had it with all the audio snobs who are spouting that the current crop of inexpensive PC audio interfaces result in shitty recordings. 99.9% of people would not be able to tell the difference between a recording on $500K worth of studio equipment and one done well on a $500 6 channel sound card. I would guess that at least half the audio-snobs who have said so couldn't either. Just because the expensive equipment has .5% less THD doesn't mean the other equipment is shitty. The cheap equipment sounds great. The pro equipment sounds better. The one person out of 1,000 that can tell the difference isn't worth the extra $499,500 expenditure to most people/bands. Especially since, most of the time, that 1/1000 wouldn't care or isn't in a room quiet enough to notice.
If you're playing CD's at a party and put a tape in, no one notices any difference in sound quality. Ditto if you put on a early 90's CD vs. a 2002 CD recorded with the latest gear. A $50K monitor system would sound great, and mixing on that will solve many problems that only people with $50K stereos would notice. But the vast, vast, vast majority of the time music is played on $500 home stereos, $100 boom boxes, or the stock stereo system in a car. Or as an MP3 through a set of $5 computer speakers.
Pro gear is great, good studios will produce the best recordings, but inexpensive home recordings can be very, very good, provided you know what you are doing. They can also be horrible, because there is no guarantee that the equipment will be used correctly, but I've heard horrible recordings from cheaper studios due to the same problem.
This sentence no verb.
The retailers pay very different rates for the disks. The small retailer pays about 10-12$ US for a disk that retails between 12-17$ per disk. They purchase from middle men who are low margin operators. The large retailers pay about $1 less per disk. The actual cost for them varies though because of various marketing agreements where they get money back for advertising disks and so forth.
...they market bands and musicians.
Remember though that the music industry is layered. There are the labels who sell through distributors (ie. Virgin records sells through Caroline IIRC) and you have companies under them, all of which are part of the "music industry". There's a lot of hands in the pot. What worries the RIAA is that most of those hands are being removed.
Before we declare the recording industry dead remember, there's one thing they do that Napster was never very good at...
Madonna spent that on the photographer for her latest album. not to mention she did the whole album and then the label told her to re-cut it. michael jackson's last album cost what? $50 Million dollars?
Wholesale is about $7 a disk from the majors to the distributors.
With protools, everyones a singer!Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Remember you are paying for MORE THAN THE DISC when you buy a CD. I must admit that CD's are grosley overpriced. YES, the record companies are making a killing and YES, the artists are (for the most part) getting screwed. However, looking over the threads, I've seen some people are a bit unclear about the process of creating a CD and the costs involved.
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
Rimshot !
According to a book I read (it's only a few years old now), the cost to manufacture a CD is $1.35, that includes jewel case, printed insert, and silk screening on the CD. Obviously the production costs (everything that goes into makeing the master, etc.) will have to amortized over the number of CDs sold.
So, there's a bunch of starving artists on Slashdot making albums for under $10k. Big deal. It's a whole different ball game when you talk about big commercial albums. Certainly you can get good quality at home with your cakewalk and do it all on a weekend. Big records don't happen this way.
Where's the money go? Studio time, engineers, producers, and song writers. Notice that studio time does NOT cover engineers. As some on here have pointed out, you can record your album in a "real" studio for not much cash ($10k). In fact, the big studios are do not cost much different from other studios in terms of flat studio time (average is probably about $65/hour nationwide).
Now, when you add in a big name producer, things are real different. You can either pay the producer flat hourly, or royalties, or some combination.
Engineers are the same way - although they are more often paid for their time. So now you're paying $65/hour for the studio PLUS another $50/hour (or more) for Joe Engineer. And possibly more for the producer.
So, how does that end up being big money? Figure it like this:
Typical album has a min. of 12 songs, right? Let's make each one an average of 3.5 minutes.
How many instruments (tracks) on each song? Hard to say, but let's create a typical virtual album:
Drums (obviously taking several tracks but one take for all tracks)
Bass guitar
2 Rhythm guitars
2 Acoustic guitars
1 Solo guitar
1 Lead vocal
3 Backing vocals
2 Keyboard
2 Sound effects
This is a reasonably simple setup for a joe average commercial crossover pop/rock song.
That's 15 individual "takes" that have to be recorded. At 3.5 minutes each - that's 53 minutes (about an hour). Just to record them all perfectly on the first try.
Of course, that never happens. So, you really are going to probably spend at least 4 or 5 takes to "get it right" - not to mention recording "alternate" versions. Also, between each take you go back and listen to the previous one to see if you're happy with it. So, 5 takes really takes the time of 10 takes. Now your one simple rock song is going to eat up a minimum of 10 studio hours just to track it. This of course, assumes you have written and practiced the song before getting to the studio (not always the case).
My 12 song album will then take a minimum of 120 studio hours, just to lay the basic tracks. At $115/hour that comes to $13,800.
Mixing a commercial album averages about a song a day - that's an 8 hour day times 12 songs. That's another 96 hours or $11040.
Mastering is the next step and probably costs at least a week of time at $150/hour for the mastering engineer. That's $6000.
Then you have your "other" costs. Creating the art work for the disc and packaging. You pay some marketing agency a boatload for this (maybe $10K or more just for the design). Then comes printing, cd duplication, and assembly.
But that's not all you're paying. Now, with a big rock band, they are probably going out and buying some new gear for the studio (every guitarist needs several guitars and amps, right?). There's easily $25k to $100k in new gear (ever price a studio quality drum kit?)
If it's an analog studio (as most big studios recording rock bands still are), then you are also paying for the tapes you record to.
For many commercial albums there's also the cost of songwriters and arrangers as well as studio musicians. Many times big recording companies will hire hit writers for new bands (and established ones) as well as big names performers to help ensure success. How many times have you seen "Joe Average band featuring Big Name Singer!" on MTV? Imagine paying out $25K to $50K for the song to the writer, then another $10K plus to have some known folks come and perform. Need an example - think about Alanis Morrisette and here first big hit (You oughtta know) - the album was recorded with one band, but that song was recorded with musicians from the Red Hot Chili Peppers - partly for the name, partly to ensure it had the right "groove". Somebody paid for that.
After all of that you still have to distribute and market the thing. That means boxing it up and sending it to cdnow.com and your local music store. It also means getting the hits onto the radio station so that people will know to go to the store and buy it.
And we haven't even started talking about videos and MTV yet.
It adds up fast. Think about a "Britney" album costing $20K to $50K just for someone to write her songs.
I've recorded 4 Gold records and a LOT more that never made it to that level.
I can say without fear of contradiction, the 4 that went gold were high dollar recordings and the others were too cheap to get the quality they needed to make something out of it. Each one of the Golds cost well over $300K to make.
The rest however, many of them I don't even let them put my name on it. Musicians come in with a dream of recording the next big thing for $5K and their friends and the drunk people at the bar where they play love it. However, they can't get air play outside their local area if at all. The recording sounds like crap since they didn't want to cough up the cash to have their vocalist recorded with a nice microphone (the Shure Beta 58 works good enough on stage so it should be fine for the studio), through a great pre-amp, into a reasonable quality console (I'm not talking Neve Capricorn or SSL 9000 here, but more like a good Amek or something), onto a medium which will help bring out the subtleties of the voice.
Those are also the recordings where I got paid up front. There was no way I was going to go for points, even though they offered them. I knew they wouldn't make enough on it to pay for my time, unless I wanted to work for 20 cents an hour which most of them would have grossed me.
Seriously, you get what you pay for. You've all seen at least the promos for American Idol. Those people are the one who for the most part, think they can sing. Holy crap!! They're friggin' tone deaf! I'll take their money, but not the points. If they really want to record a CD, I'm happy to do the best job I can within their budget. However, for some people, no amount of technology will help them. But their friends and family still think they're great. Hopefully, my talents and the talents of the musicians backing them help to pull the wool over the eyes of their friends and family.
The sooner people realize it takes money and talent to get a good recording, the sooner they won't mind paying for it. I don't disagree that your buddy's band recorded their album for $5k and it's great. However, put it up against "10 Summoner's Tales" by Sting, and you'll hear an incredible difference. Put it up against Donald Fagan's "Nightfly", hell, anything...Barenaked Ladies, Red Hot Chili Peppers, New Order, Aerosmith, any of the high dollar recordings and you'll notice there's a difference in the quality of the performance, the recording, the production and the little piece of plastic wrapped aluminum.
Most people here are confusing the recording/manufacturing process with the total cost of bringing the CD to market--You can make your own CD for any amount of money, but how/where are you going to sell it? much of the cost is in distribution channels--Joe's Garage Band isn't going to walk into WalMart with their self-made CD and magically get it into their stores. I had a chance to hear a lecture by Danny Goldberg of Artemis Records, previously head of Mercury, an all-around industry heavyweight, and someone, imo, who really does care about the artist and the product. He made some excellent points about the music biz, about how it really comes down to 1 or 2 hit songs a year that make or break a whole record label. (His current label, for ex, uses big 'hits' like 'who let the dogs out?' to finance less-profitable, but critically acclaimed artists like Steve Earle and Warren Zevon). Do a Google search on him and you will find some interesting viewpoints on the music industry, from a real insider, not Hillary Rosen. Of course, one may point out that all these distro costs don't count on the internet, but there, the problem is that with no filters, so much music is being posted that it's hard to wade through and find the 2-3% that are actually good--this used to be an argument for the labels, that they were using professional judgement to pick which bands were really good--it doesn't seem to be that way anymore; I guess my bottom line for this post is that although I consider big labels to be corrupt and cynical, neither am i totally in favor of having no labels. Check out Danny Goldberg and Artemis Records to see what a third path looks like... ps. this is not meant to be a shill for them--i was just struck that this guy really knows what he's talking about
well.. doing some recording costs money.. for a label it's a lot cheaper but for us independent people it's about $1100 for 500 cds (with jacket) for the printing. If you get real studio time that's more expensive.. maybe $75 an hour.. factor in (if you don't do any studio work) equipment costs (you can build a fairly decent hard-disk based recording system for about $2000.. get a decent (at least 16-bit) sound card, a good compressor, a preamp, mikes, instruments (and amps if necessary) a recording program (unless you use something free or open source) plus a ton of time (this is what i spend most of my free time on).
I'd say (if we were to say if you were to bill your own time at $15/hour -- reasonable right? )
album time for recording is worth 20 hours/week and (for me anyway) 3 months of recording (not to mention the writing) = $300 x 12 = $3600.. this is all for personally recorded stuff.
so.. i'd say at least $8k for the lowest budget recording (on your home box).
anyway.. just some numbers.
obviously any task could be billable.. open source software requires tons of time.
However, what is the absolute alternative to the record labels?
Sony, Warner, Universal, Bertelsmann, and EMI are the five major labels. The absolute alternative to the major labels is small, local labels. And unless you're into Top 40 teen pop, you can find pretty much every genre well-represented on smaller labels.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Too many folks on here think you buy a copy of Pro Tools and BLAM!! you have a "pro studio". Not even close.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those that sit in wildly expensive 160-track digital recording-studios, drinking beer and dreaming of how they would make their album if only they had some inspiration and weren't as drunk as they are. ;-)
Piling up a bill during a 5-month drinking party can already amount to an important figure, but if you choose to do that not in a nightclub, but in a multimillion dollar recording studio instead, with high-paid engineers and producers hanging around, bills tend to get really high. ;-)
Though admittedly staying one year(!) in a studio while 'recording' their album is something of the past, I imagine that there is some very important money-spending going on by the hyped "Stars".
The rest of the musicians are checked into a smallish smelly studio without catering and told that by 5 PM they'd better be out with a finished recording tape 'or else'.
You do the math as to which average price this amounts to...
I am recording my current project in my living room using my PC and about $2000 worth of outboard gear and software. Feel free to download some of my songs here.
No, I don't work at McDonald's and dream of being a superstar... Anymore. heh.
I've been in the music business as an independent artist for almost 10 years now. Over the years, I've released a few CD's, all of them self-produced and funded. They were cheap to make (somewhere in the $2000 - $5000 range) and sounded that way too. One of my close friends has gone on to produce a CD that he is currently shopping to major labels on the coast. He had the opportunity to bring a big time producer into the project this time around, so that brought the cost up as well. Last time I talked to him, the CD was done and ready for mass production and he was a little over $500,000 in debt to his financers. Basically, the cost of a CD comes down to what you are putting into it. The big names out there that are selling these things at Sam Goody are probably putting closer to a million into just the production, not to mention paying for the rights to use songs that they haven't written, exceptional studio musicians, studio time.. the list goes on.
Not to defend the price of CD's, however. I still think they are over-priced. Unfortunately, I also know that after the artist gets hung with $500,000 in production costs to pay back, he then will probably get signed to a deal with a major label that will mass promote and distribute his CD's for $18 a piece, of which he will maybe see $1, if he's lucky. Pretty crappy deal, wouldn't you say?
Working in recording for several years there are many factors that go into the cost of a record.
A. How good the people are coming into the city
B. How much they paid for a name on the recording (not all recording is created equal, but alot of it is)
C. How much money was spent keeping the Diva or Devo happy when they were recording
you also have to notice that there are alot of under the cover costs (especially if you do things right) Since most things are recorded digitally today (pro tools, nuendo, cubase, logic, reason) the expensive analog equipment should not raise the cost of the recording. What the problem is that exists is everyone (even if they just sit on their ass) wants a cut, and gets a cut, making things more expensive for artist and consumers.
First, you have to sign the artist to a contract. That's about $1000 in lawyer's fees (and usually well worth it). Then you have to make some demos. Those shouldn't be much more than $100 for tapes and cds. Then you actually have to go into a studio and record the thing. This probably costs $5000 if you're careful and no one working on it makes a decent wage. Then it needs to be mixed and mastered by people that know what they're doing. That's about $2000 for mixing and $1000 for mastering if you shop around. Assuming the artwork and photography is free, pressing the cds comes in at about $1 per cd. But that's just the beginning. Radio promotion can run from $300-$3000 per month as can Press promotion. We're an independent label so those numbers are closer to the bottom. Then if we want to buy an ad in a magazine that's another $200-1000. More than likely, at this point we'll need to press more cds before we even have the technical possibility of breaking even.
If your reading this you in all likely hood posses more potential recording capability than possesed by a Bang up top of the line recording studio in the 70's. If your sound card is shitty you need 2-500 bucks and the cost of whatever prgram you want to run. If you can capture quality sound ( EASY ) and you can mix multiple tracks ( can be done with free programs or progs that cost $XXXXXXXXX ) then you can produce a high quality recording.
The skill at mixing tracks is as much an art as ripping a killer solo which leads to studios with high end equipment and kick ass sound rooms that enable uber recording quality. However with minimal work you can get close to sound room quality ( which is not always desired in the first place, alot of that isolation is so that they can add effects of rooms with differant qualities ) you can easily forgo this if your band has the talent to play a song straight through. Play it a few times and get the input levels right then play it a few times and take the best one wrap it and sell it.
Of course the one take recording is the province of skilled musicians who can actually play their material. Imagine if record lables only signed people capable of doing a decent one take recordings.... imagine actual individual flavored music instead of studio homgenized junk with the latest 'sound'.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
...if people would still be getting their hands hacked off in Sierra Leone if we spend a tenth of the time we spend on this trying to solve problems that matter.
Liberty uber alles.
Thunderweasel's first-person account of his experience trying to market a self-made album should be required reading for everyone browsing the comments on this article.
It dispels the myth that record companies are just unnecessary middlemen who do nothing for the artists except extract their pound of flesh.
Does this mean that the industry isn't broken? Depends on what 'broken' means. Does it do what it's there to do? Sometimes, perhaps even often. Could it be improved? Most definitely.
NOW, you are on a major label. You have a contract, you are planning on entering the studio to make your album. You are now paying union rate for "interns", $1000 a day for a guy to do the mic setup (phase doctor), $2k/day for the engineer, lease rate for specialized gear that the engineer wants to use, hourly for the engineer assistant, day or week rate for temp staff and catering, the producer wants 1 or 2 points or more on sales (!), the ghostwriter that fixed your unpalatable chord changes gets paid, the amp repair guy who fixed the amp that the engineer says that you blew up gets paid, .... shall I continue?
The kicker, it is all coming out of your contract payments! Same for the publicity, video, booking, all expenses! It didn't cost the label one thin dime to make your album. They handle the distribution and marketing and then get a lawyer to tell you why you only made 13k/yr apiece after two years of your 3 million dollar contract. Meanwhile, all of the profits from sales have been swallowed up by a monopolized sales/distribution ring run by your good friends at the RIAA.
The artist is absolutely the LAST person in the chain who gets paid. If there is enough cash around so that you have made enough profit for enough people then you get a sniff, and not much else. So, yes, that $17 for "Just Add Money" by the "Flogging Junkies" is going right back down the chain of commerce and the artist never sees more than a few cents. It is a racket. When this sort of thing happens in third-world countries it is denounced by Amnesty International.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
My band's last album cost $1.45 per disc including the session and it is all ours. No idiot in a Benz telling us to keep up the good work and then heading off to Aspen to blow our money on his 19 year old mistress.....
The Sawtelles
Frampton Comes Alive is the worst piece of shit ever. Don't believe me? Just try to sell a used copy of to any used music store in the world! You'll get laughed out of the store.
WTF do hams know about music, or anything else for that matter? You don't think Comes Alive is over-produced? That album is full of overdubs, and processing added after the fact. It's not like a quality classical recording where you place a couple of mics into precise position in a room.
There is also the cost incurred of the groups that DON'T make it.
These are business costs that are rolled into ones that do.
Much as is the cost for lights, and employees insurance, cleaning crew, etc..
Most companies do this with their products, its part of the overhead of doing business. And it raises the cost of end products.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I keep reading about the old line along the lines of: Yea for every 100 signed bands -- only 1 of them makes any money. The rest gets "eaten" by the record companies. Thus the band that makes 10 "Meeelion" dollars on a million dollar process -- goes towards paying off the other 9 bands that only make pocket change on a million dollar investment. That is a sick business plan.
Imagine if a pro football team brought in and signed every college prospect to a 1 million dollar contract before they even stepped onto the field at a college or semi pro level. And then complained that the handful that could actually perform at the pro level were making them any money. And that money was all being spent on the thousands of college prospects to whom they spent 1 million each on.....
But -- It does not work that way ---- these players prove themselves at that "unpaid" college OR "minimum wage" Semi-pro level (no cost at all to the pro teams) ----- and then the select few that become great, accommodated, and polished at that level (along with becoming household names) ---- get signed to million dollar contracts.....Thus reducing the risk to the people that pay the millions. Even though a few of them (Ryan Leefe types) fall through the cracks --- the majority continue to prove that they are the "best of the best". (People buy tickets, they buy merchandise, TV contracts.....etc.)
Here is some dirty math: If an unsigned band gets a cult following and sales 10,000 copies of their self financed "demo" , garage concert tickets and home made t-shirts to said cult. And a record company sees this and decides to sign them --- well the smart thing to do, would be to not invest any more money into their initial (signed) effort than can be recouped by selling the record, tour. merchandise to the 10,000 (proven) customers.....then everyone wins. If NOT then they fall into the same category as if the pro football team were to invest a million dollars into every college or semi-pro athelete.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
geekee writes "But unknown artists will give their left arm for a recording contract that is a supposed rip-off. Why? Because it isn't a rip-off. Unknown artists want someone to take a risk on them."
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.
For recording and engineering it cost one band I'm in a pizza and a 12-pack. To print 2,000 singles it was around $1,000. We used wrapping paper with bunnies on it for the cover and painted on the band name and wrote dumb goofy titles. Photocopies for the insert were $20, (discount from a sympathetic Kinko's employee).
The recording was great. I'm really happy about it, which doesn't happen with a lot of recordings I've done.
A budget 7" I know, but it was the top listed alternative single in Rolling Stone. It's the issue of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in bed on the cover. A weird listing based on the top selling records at stores chosen at random.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Well known, talented bands like Rush, Dream Theater and Steely Dan can spend months or longer in the studio writing, jamming, doing arrangements and co-producing their album. Because their albums sell a lot of copies, they tend to have a large budget for production. And these are musicians that don't need 50 takes to get something to sound really good. That said, I appreciate their attention to detail and considering the quality of the finished product, think its perfectly fine that they spend $250,000 or more to make an album. I still think their albums should sell for $10, but will pay $15 because of the quality of the music.
However, if Creed goes into the studio and spends $1 million on their next piece of crap, that doesn't make it worth $16.99 at Sam Goody. In short, the cost of production is not directly related to the cost of a CD.
No, I didn't say favorite genre, I said favorite ARTIST.
I expected this. You may want to refresh your memory about monopolistic competition before reading further.
It's no good telling someone to buy a CD from some other artist 'but it's ok because it's the same genre'.
"It's no good telling someone to buy an OS from some other vendor 'but it's ok because it runs the same programs'."
Most mainstream bands sound like at least two other bands on other labels. Sure, some artists such as Aphex Twin have a unique sound, but for every Backstreet Boys, there's always an *NSYNC and a 98 Degrees, and for every Britney Spears, there's a Christina Aguilera and a Jennifer Lopez. Sure, a Backstreet Boys CD and an *NSYNC CD are imperfect substitutes, but excepting the "sux/r00lz" fanboys, they're closer to perfect than some analysts would think.
Note that 99.9% of people will require the ability to buy music from their favorite MUSICIAN, not just genre, legally, if they're expected to change their vendor.
Are you claiming that substitution is so imperfect, that demand for particular artists is so inelastic, that only 0.1 percent of listeners are willing to discover new music if some bands' albums are less expensive than other bands'? Performers come and go, and listeners will follow their tastes. Look at what happened to fans of Tupac Shakur: when the posthumous flow of albums from Tupac's label slowed down, Eminem popped up, and Tupac fans had a new favorite rapper. Something analogous happened to Nirvana fans when Kurt Cobain died, and the same thing will happen when the Backstreet Boys break up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Does anyone know what's been going on the last week with comment scoring? I have a karma bonus, and I thought I used it when I posted the above comment, in that I did not check the "No Karma Bonus" box on my comment. But when I was msged about a moderation, it told me that the comment was currently scored '2' (should have been '3'). My info page currently lists the comment as being at '5', after three moderations (correct), but when I look up on the screen at it as I type this reply, it clearly says, '4'.
I'm going to file this on the sourceforge page unless someone can explain what's going on...
thanks
original cover art (if it's painted, one of the more expensive things) will cost you around $2,000-$3,000 with all publishing rights. cover/booklet designers will cost something around $2,000 for the design.
Speaking as one who does do design for bands, $2,000 for the design? That's a rather arbitrary number. For example: I'd charge Mudhoney $2,000 for some artwork becuase they aren't that huge of a band. Now, Pearl Jam, I'd charge them far more than that.
When it comes to design, the value of the artwork is far more than just labor and materials. If i were offered simply an hourly rate for my work as opposed to a lump sum based on the value of the work, I'd laugh in the band's collective face.
Now, pardon me while I go and prduce and direct a music video for Kultur Shock for less than $400. chuckle
Pooty tweet
Yes, your points are my points exactly.
I was trying to point out that labor is becoming the primary cost in a number of human endeavors, as technology continues to lower the cost of the necessary tools for creation and distribution. In many ways the costs of producing music or software are approaching the costs of writing a novel. Anyone can afford a pen and paper, but a great writer is very expensive.
When making their calculations for music, many posters seemed to neglect this trend and the significant cost of expertise. I thought that putting their calculations in the context of software production would point out this problem with their calculations, since it rightfully comes across as ludicrous. My thought was that most here are more familiar with software production, distribution, and pricing than they are with music.
Maybe I should have stated my points more directly.
Thank you for responding.
If I remember correctly, Aerosmith was being charged around 500K to record an album -- so they put together a 100K studio in one of their houses and produced their stuff on their own. It worked fine.
If you do it yourself, it's yours.
Oh really? What if some music publisher with $100 billion of equity sues you on grounds that you "accidentally copied" a song written by one of the publisher's songwriters? George Harrison lost such a lawsuit. How, before publishing a song, can a performer-songwriter make sure that the song is original?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Once you have Cubase = $289 (or other) and a Delta 44 Card = $229 (or other) the CD media to master to only costs 8 cents.
... marketing and promotion and coke ... 2 million.
oh
If there is a serious answer to my question (what do bands DO for 3 months), please respond...I'm curious...
The point here is we're talking about rock music, not jazz. Jazz recordings: the focus of a session is to "capture" a take in as natural a setting as possible. Particularly solo or small group recordings. This is very much also the case with classical recordings. In most cases with a classical recording, no compression or other outboard gear of any sort is allowed. It has to be as pure as possible.
Rock and pop music: the focus is much more about the presentation. Artifice. Have you heard the drums in a rock record lately? They don't resemble real drums in any way whatsoever. Mixing the drum sound on a recording so that it in any way sounds like Limp Bizkit or Marilyn Manson: that takes days. Days!
Many bands now, on a major label recording, it goes like this:
Spend several days setting up for beds. Set things up so everyone can see each other and you can all track live off the floor. However when you first hit "record", the only thing you're keeping from that session will be the drums. That's it. Drums alone can take days of tracking, then it's thrown over to protools guys for time optimizing (matching it rigorously to a click track.) That can take an extra day or three. ProTools engineers alone charge $8000 a day just to be on site (whether they actually do anything or not.)
Next step: is guitars. They're laid down very strategically so that they're tracked clean, but that the effects settings for mixing can evolve. That can change drastically from the first day of tracking to the last. Average time for that with most bands is a week. There are entire books written about micing instruments, and guitar amps in a rock recording can eat up more than two thirds of those books.
By the time we get to vocals, now you hire specific protools people for post production retuning of vocals. If you are dealing with a band which in any way is expected to get airplay or top-ten status, if you're not using protools retuning or retiming, radio is not interested. Vocals in most pop / rock recordings are not at all "natural" vocals. They're sweetened, processed, compressed, punched (ie: retaken in portions even for single words, or syllables of words.) Often they're doubled for reinforcement (ie: the vocalist has to retrack the "keeper" vocal as closely as possible to the original keeper.)
On and on.
Mixing a track can take anywhere from one day to eight days. Then the label can still say it requires a remix. "The drums need more punch", "The vocals aren't loud enough", "those guitars need more crunch", "Bass is too loud", "Too much / too little autotuning", "Rock radio will never accept that vocal take", etc.
This is the reality of most if not all recordings you hear on radio today. I am not making any of this up.
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Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
For that matter, I can't hear any difference between an MP3 at a bitrate of 96, 128 or 196.
I must be one of the lucky ones. If it sounds good *to me* then that's all I care about!
(BTW, in the past two years I've bought exactly *one* brand-new chart CD, and that was because it was by my favourite band of all time. Everything else has either been back catalogue at a discount, or compilations. Nothing else has caught my interest. Modern music sucks...)
You must think in Russian.
A friend just finished making a demo, and it cost updards of $250. The demo is 4 songs. Its very expensive to produce an album. Cheap to make the CDs, though.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
i meant to say "about half an oz good weed per roadie per sesh"
what retard drinks budweiser when there's Guinness to be had?? poor schmuck.
just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
Gotta give Jack points, he does good work. He produced the second album for one of our artists and is slated to do the first for another of our groups, RSN.
- billn
Check out this guys article. His name is Steve Albini and he was been in the business for a while, got sick of it and quit. Here is a good reason why. http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
CD sales are not the only source of income that the artist and record companies have to look forward too. Other sources include, but are not limited to:
- Radio Licensing
- Corporate Licensing (Ambient music you hear in various stores)
- Concert/Tour income
- Merchandising (People actually pay for Kiss dolls)
- Video game / Movie Licensing (other forms of entertainment)
- Special Appearances (Music Awards etc...)
This list, of course, applies for the most part to popular music artists. Smaller and underground artists don't usually rake in the kind of figures the big boys do but their recording costs are usually alot smaller.
Didn't slashdot have something about this, pertaining to the RIAA of course, posted in the last week or so?
Er, Nirvana on In Utero and The Pixies on Surfer Rosa? Lord Google turns up this:
> Two years after the release of Surfer Rosa,
> Albini was said to have denied ever
> producing the album, describing Surfer
> Rosa as "a patch-work pinch loaf from a
> band at their top dollar best, blandly
> entertaining college rock.
Ah! The Google vulva births a second child:
> Steve Albini :) -- no...
>
> Influential indie rock recording
> engineer, member of the late Big Black and
> Rapeman, and still-extant Shellac. Also
> briefly in the Army (a duo with Jay
> Tiller of Couch Flambeau) and played bass
> for Flour. He's recorded albums for
> Nirvana, PJ Harvey, the Breeders, the
> Pixies, Helmet, Cheap trick, Jesus
> Lizard, Bush, and "about 1000 bands
> you've never heard of." Courtney Love
> asked if he would produce Hole's recent
> album, and Albini said -- surprise
So, er, there you are. Keep on rockin'.
Are you claiming that the S/N ratio at a live concert is better than what you can get in a studio because it's louder?
The only problem with your math is that if I sell an album for $15.00, I only make about $2.00 per unit. For console games, I make about $10.00, which is higher than most of the big players even get (I know this as I'm good friends with several national retaliers).
I remember the old metal and punk albums from the 80's. I swear you could hear people talking in the background! Some of those albums were REALLY raw. No production. 4 tracks and then they're mixed together. Listen to black flag. ZERO production, but excellent none the less. I remember the Misfits live album (the name escapes me at the moment) which had mistakes in it and everything! That's what I prefer. I love that REAL feeling. I still remember on the Reign in Blood album (slayer) where there's a production mistake. The song piece by piece you could hear how one of the lead guitar tracks was just shut off, no fade. I happen to like that kind of thing
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
record contracts make provisions for 'breakage', a leftover from the days of 78 rpm records.
The "breakage" term in recording contracts has become "packaging and breakage" and now "packaging". It's as if the performers were paying for the shipping.
Will I retire or break 10K?
CD's aren't typically $20.
Best Buy stores sell CDs for 13 USD, and 13 USD is worth about 20 CAD.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I asked a friend of mine that has worn quite a few hats in the music biz, to answer this question for me. Is response is based on an independent band, going it themselves (IE: No Label support), but still trying to turn out a top-notch quality product. My criteria was an album of 12 songs. (Since that's the average amount of tracks a CD has these days)
He sez:
"for the most part, it can be a little or a lot... depending on your expectations, you could walk into about ANY studio, set up play live and get all 12 songs done in one day. of course it would SOUND like you did it in one day too!! as a good friend and collegue once noted, "you don't fart ROXY MUSIC ALBUMS OUT OF YOUR ASS! it takes HARD WORK and LONG HOURS to make a good cd...
oh! one moe note...it also kinda depends on how GOOD the musicians are...
so, let's look at a BARGIN cd.
Figure:
3 days on rhythm tracks (four songs a day) @ $500/day (average local price dfor decent studio)
3 days of overdubs (guitar/keys/horns etc) @ $500/ day 3 days of vocals (lead and bg vocals - guess what!! you can't sing as well as you thought) @ $500/ day 1 day of bells and whistles percussion, sound efx, etc) @ $500/day -remember TWELVE SONGS)
lessee, that's about $5,000.00 and you haven't begun to mix.
it takes on an average, about a DAY to mix ONE song that's gonna be able to compete with stuff on the radio - but since we're doing the BARGIN BASEMENT thing.....figure 3 songs in one day (you'll see where the extra time actaully contributes to the CD LATER...like AFTER you hear it on a local college station in between the FOO FIGHTERS and AMIEE MANN)
so, lets see...back to that TWELVE SONG THING AGAIN.... 3 songs a day, divided by 12 songs, carry the one - hmm...that's 4 days @ $500/song - another 2 grand...
Now we've got the "car" built and painted....now the final buff - MASTERING
figure mastering at 1 hour/song @ $75/hour - tha's another 900.00
now we're up to 7900.00 and we haven't even sent the CD to be duplicated.
what else? hmmm....art work....
if someone in the band is not COMPUTER LITERATE in graphic design, figure $500 for design and
implementation of artwork and films (not counting photos and supplies)
ok...now... $8400.00
NOW w'ere ready to send it to duplication..
figure about $3000 - $4000 for duplicating 5000 cds...there are some deals out there, and the more you order, the more you'll save....the rough price for 1000 is about $1200. but as i mentioned, you go up on quantity, you go down on price.... oh.... shipping aint free. Figure about 300-500 in shipping of 5000
cds...
ok, depending on what kind of deals you have managed to negotiate along the way, you're sitting around $12,400.00, give or take some...at the BARGIN PRICE of $10 each, all you gotta do is sell 1250 to break
even....
these are just rough figures, and as i said before, depending on your expectations...
my advice, if you don't have an un-limited budget, or a huge touring fan-base, cut the number of songs to 5 instead of twelve...you still satisfy all the reasons for releasing a cd...."
Of course everybody knows that there is much more involved and it all depends on whether you are with a major label, how many sales you expect, etc.
A project that I've been involved with over the past year is coming in around $20,000 or so after recording everything (11 songs, one of which is a remix), paying the (one) guest musician on the album, mixing everything, mastering, having artwork done, duplication, and initial promotion.
I'm not adding in the cost of putting together the artist's web site since she's my wife and I did it for free. My only cost was to the ISP.
The scary part now is that we're in the hole $20k and need to make it back with sales and performances. We'll just about break even if we sell all of the initial run of 1000 discs we had made. Then we can get more made and start pulling in the profits.
If you were with a major label, you could spend much more on the production of the album and have potentially many more sales, but it is questionable whether or not you would actually get any money out of the deal anyway, even if you did somehow manage to be on of the "hot bands" chosen by the music cartel to be the flavor of the month. More likely, you'll be one of the many bands that the label decides to not actively promote, and then your entire career is screwed since they own your music.
Yea! Isn't the music business fun?
I'm involved with an Australia, grassroots, electronica label (www.dumphuck.com). We don't make money from the label, we all have full time jobs, and more often than not we LOSE money. Same with the musicians themselves.
Most of our records have been compilations to raise money for Amnesty, we press around 500 CDs per run. All tracks are donated. The distributor and the retailer takes a cut. We, as a label, make nothing. Nonetheless, the CDs retail at around $20AU - and we sell them at $10 a pop.
Fact is, we don't expect to sell all 500 copies. I think our first compilation - released in 1999 - is close to selling out. So our costing for the CD has to take into account our reasonable expectations of the volume we can sell so we can meet our production costs. We needed to sell 100 CDs to cut even. We did. Rejoice!
Since then, the compilation series (Beat and Squelch) has sold reasonably well and has always broken even and kinda turned a profit for Amensty.
Selling a CD in the Australian market is very different from the American market, mind you. Our population is small and diverse.
Now, we ended up releasing an album for one of our artists (Sonik Professa). It was a decent album. Again, $20. We didn't shift many units at all. I think it was like 80 or so. It got the point where WE (as a label) had to pay the distributor money to buy back the unsold CDs from the retailers who didn't want it anymore. It was around $2 a CD to 'deshelve it'. Thats a $1000 to buy back unsold stock on top of our pressing expenses. So we ended up being $1500 in the black on our hobby. Its worth mentioning we split the pressing costs with the msuo...
Another album is released by a guy called Deepchild. Its a killer album. The guy has profile internationally (he was reviewed very favourably in Wire) and has been getting killer reviews. He's on rotation in the big youth radio over here (Triple J). He sells like 64 CDs. Total. Again, he's lost around $1500 or so.
This does NOT include the cost of mastering (which we get done cheap by 301 Studios here cause they luv us) or the cost of the musicians gear... or any of our time.
The problem is marketing. We don't have the money to do it. Therefore we lose money cause people aren't aware of our product. Yeah, we can try and sell CDs at shows, but with shows of around 100 people, only around 5 people buy the CD!
Keep that in mind when you whine about the price of CDs, even from independent labels. Most of us don't make money. Most of us lose money. If all the musicians worldwide who didn't make any money stopped making music, the world would be a much quieter place (and would be full of so much crap)
Yes, musicians love what they do, but why shouldn't they then be paid what they deserve?
This whole movies and music and books should be free philosophy is fucking nonsense. Why don't you try working for free for a change rather than expecting us to do it out of the goodness of our hearts?
Not sure what you mean about "Asian decent" but I assume you're referring to our bassist. Hell of a guy.
:P. The lyrics are annoying though, I guess I just hate listening to people wine about their broken hearts or whatever it is those people wine about. I can't stand dashboard confessional, for example, ugh.
:P
I was just trying to find something commonly known statistic to the number of people who have been in bands. 20% of the people in this country have been in a band at one point or another, while about 2.6% of the people in this country (the USA) are Asian American. Most of us have an intrinsic idea of how many Asian people there are, and when I made the analogy I was trying to say that there are ten times as many former band members... and that being in a band won't make you have a non-anonymous life. After I posted the comment, though I realized that they could be talking about things like marching band, or whatever... oh well.
Anyway, you guys aren't that bad, and I sort of hit back hard because I though you were attacking me first
Oh well, good luck with it and as long as you're having fun with it, whatever. Until the radio starts playing you 24/7 and I can't escape it. Then I reserve the right to hate you and deride you to everyone I know. Along with Linkin' Park, Creed, Avril Lagvine, and all the annoying bands and artist with so much inexplicable popularity
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Hilarious. A guy who strokes catgut across string now knows more about recording technology than a studio engineer.
Why the hell should any violinist starve? If an orchestra won't hire them, they can always become studio engineers.
When a band signs a contract they are generally given an advance in the neighborhood of $250,000. That money is to pay for producing the record and it goes to the engineers, the producers, the artist who designs the covers, etc. In the end there's maybe $50,000 left for the band to live on. Yes, $50k for the whole band to live on for the year or so it often takes from the start of recording to the time the album goes on sale.
Note that it is an advance, not a grant. The band has to pay all that money back before they get any for themselves, and that takes a long time on the 1-2% that the band is making on album sales.
The recording effectively costs the record company NOTHING. Then, packaging, shipping, and promotions cost the same for a CD as they do for a cassette, although the manufacturing of a CD is orders of magnitude cheaper, and yet the CD costs twice as much.
I think it's important to note, here, that a FEDERAL JUDGE, who has spent a great deal more time examining the economics of the music business, has convicted several members of the RIAA of Price Fixing, and has determined that you and I should be paying no more than about $13 for a CD from a big name artist. Think about it.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I am a recording engineer working on major label albums (right at this moment actually). I don't really understand peoples strange assumptions when it comes to recording music. Why do people have such a hard time understand the time and effort involved in making music, but not movies? In every way it is almost the same except on a smaller scale and we waste A LOT less money.
;-) . I mostly work for people who are not interested in "pretty good". It's not a hobby. This is their career and how they put food on the table (sometimes it's a lot of food). They don't say "hey, let's go make a pretty good record". They are spending the money because they think it's an investment and it's going to pay off.
The days of wasting huge amounts of money are over. That was the 70's. Record companies are very tight and hassle you over costs constantly. They won't spend a dime they don't have to, make you account for everything and argue about it. The figure of $500-1500k is way too high for an AVERAGE record, but not unheard of. Korn supposedly spent over $4M on the last album. $150k-300k would be more like average. I'm not a producer, artist or record exec so I don't give a shit how much it costs as long as I get paid!
We have lots of equipment, rentals, people, special effects, editing, mastering, blah blah blah just like movies. Equipment is very expensive and contrary to popular belief it is not usually owned or "paid for". Many of the big recording studios are in debt up to their eyeballs. A pro recording console alone costs $250k-$1M, usually leased or on payments.
I know your friend made an album for $2.00 and he sold all 50 of them for a profit. Fascinating. Please tell me more.
I've made records for $5k that sound Pretty Darn Good, if I do say so myself
I loved "Pi" and I loved "The Matrix". The budgets of those 2 movies are not even in the same city, let alone the same ballpark. It's 2 different things.
You can make a GREAT album for cheap, there is no argument about that. I mostly work for people who want to make "The Matrix" . Did you watch that movie and say "why didn't they just use a video camera like my JVC and save some dough?" Did you say "I shouldn't have to pay $8 to get into Pi because the budget was much less"? Why isn't the DVD less? It still had to be marketed, packaged blah blah blah. Besides, that's the market price!
Having said all that, CD's are way overpriced (IMHO) and if you are an "artist" record companies will rob you blind.
side notes:
most of the "live albums" from the 70's and 80's were actually studio albums, and through the 80's many band members didn't play on their albums. This doesn't happen as much now because we have the technology to "fix" all that.
most of the bands you see on MTV and in stores don't make any money. Unless they sell a LOT of records they will end their contacts in debt and go get a job. But they will have many good stories.
I just wanted clear up some of the mis-information.
YHBT. HAND.
This is the first time I've taken flak for not swearing. I had no idea it would be offensive.
philcrissman.com.