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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."
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.
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.
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.
All of these numbers are insane anyway. I dont have the ability to check the actual numbers but i know from my economics classes that these seem unlikely. This is simply someone guessing about somehting they probably dont know much about.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
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."
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.
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.
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
Are you a musician? Do you know how these things work? Do YOU have a site that sells digital music cranked out by some PC? Don't you think that people have enough common sense to go with the cheapest way possible without sacrificing the necessary quality of their music? Why have I not heard any of these sites that are so absolutely brilliant? No doubt the famous ones have sold their souls, but your sweeping generalizations should be backed by at least a reference or two.
But did he make a profit? The RIAA needs to mitigate their risk by selling at a higher price since not every band they sign will be successful
Vote for Pedro
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
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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.
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 don't think making a recording is as cheap as a lot of readers here think. that cheap pc and cheap gear some talk about is fine, if you want to make a cheap shitty sounding recording.
a straight recording of a band in a studio can record an hour of music in a recording session or two for less than 5 grand. but most pop albums include lots of layering and pre- and post-processing. getting a top talented producer and engineer to accomplish this isn't cheap (hey, the producr's got to eat too). plus there are back up singers and musicians that have to be paid too. but it's still not nearly as expensive as the record companies say it is.
the couple hundred grand fronted to a band by the record company is supposed to be used to make the recording, and is about right for making a recording with decent production values (no comment about the quality of the music, but the sound should be decent). all the other expenses the record companies attrribute to promotion and distribution are clearly grossly inflated. for example, record contracts make provisions for 'breakage', a leftover from the days of 78 rpm records.
and the record companies have little or no incentive to keep costs down. vivendi universal owns a record company that spends money on promotion. vivendi universal also owns mtv. with the band paying the costs of promoting on mtv out of their royalties, and all the promotion money coming back to vivendi universal anyway, why should the comapny do anything to keep the promotional costs down? note that the record companies have no fiduciary responsibility to the bands they sign and carefully control how their books can be audited in the contracts they force upon the bands.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
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.
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
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?
So then why should they sign with them? Produce the first album yourself, try to make a profit and invest that in the rest.
This is what a lot of artists do. One example is Sarah Slean. SHe released her first 2 cd's independently. After starting out small in touring, she's made a name for herself in the NE, getting her music into Dawson's Creek and FOX's Murder in Smalltown X. Now she's signed with Atlantic records, has released an EP, and an album last year.
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the recording of nevermind
We're not talking about pure geek technical excellence at slider positioning. The subject is quality of album.
You ever hear "Frampton Comes Alive"?... No studio at all. While I'll be the first to admit that a good enough producer can almost single-handedly create a killer album (if he can choose his own studio musicians... Think "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"), the main thing you need to make a good album is good music played well. If you don't have that, you have........ well, you have what we seem to have now. Rap, "boy bands", Brittany Spears (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong. I sure hope so, anyway.), or whatever overproduced, corporate-manufactured non-music they're trying to sell now. If the RIAA wants to see big sales, get Nick Mason to wake up Pete and Dave, and let's have another Pink Floyd album. Better yet, let's have somebody else start making music that good, as they need their sleep. The problem is that there was a huge rise in the importance of recorded, recognizable, repeatable music, which created a business model which brought in enormous profits. As other forms of entertainment reduced the demand for pure audio, the record companies who sprung up in that rich compost began trying harder and harder at the part of that business process that they can influence. It's a lot like the situation where your car starts to overheat, and loses power. As it happens, you can maintain speed by pushing the throttle pedal farther down. This, however, aggravates the overheating condition. We've got the same thing going on now. There are damn few new artists that command respect. Only the mindless ones want to be like "in sink" or Tiffany. It's not attracting real, intelligent, talented people any more, so all the record companies can do is crank harder on the publicity machine, and seek new income through fees on data storage media.
I'm sure that prior to the wide availibility of the automobile, there were some really incredible buggy whip companies, producing superlative whips, which could touch the horse in just the right way, making it excited to run, without causing it a trace of pain. I'll also bet that they did everything they could to survive after they were no longer needed. They're still gone, and we don't need them to come back. Back when producing and distributing an accurate copy of a piece of audio took a big business, the record companies served a very important purpose. Now, they are as important to music as buggy whips are to transportation. I really don't see why this is difficult for them to understand. I'm really sorry for the people who are no longer needed in their jobs, but there are still a few really excellent telegraphers out there (really... I've met one), who had to find something else to do. Sadly enough, I'm beginning to think that that fate is already coming around for unix system administrators. Anybody need a really good one?
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
I am NOT a sound engineer and I greatly
appreciate the necessity of a good studio
and experienced professionals.
HOWEVER, why do most albums sound like
crap? (i'm not talking about the music)
Why are they compressed and normalized to
sound so very loud (always at 0 db)?
I do not doubt the abilities of the people
who mix/master etc, but it seems to me that
studios deliberately process music in a manner
that always favors radio broadcast/MTV and
lame computer speakers.
There is a contradiction here: companies use
the best equipment possible (=best audio quality)
but generally they assume that the average
listener/consumer is completely incapable to
tell the difference (which may be true, to
some extent).
Anyway, I assume that production costs are quite
low compared to marketing costs.
P.
150-250% might be a little wacky, but 100% seems reasonable to me - the book publishing industry is similar to the recording industry in a lot of ways, and bookstores generally get around a 35-45% discount off the cover price while distributors and major stores (Amazon, probably B&N) get the standard "deep discount," which is 55%, so 100% is a reasonable markup estimate for books anyway.
Of course, CDs might use a totally different price scheme, but it seems like a comparable product.
You know, I used to have the same problem. For about eight years, I mourned the death of Classic Rock. New music was crap, and I wouldn't listen to it. When Cobain killed himself, I was glad I could add Nirvana to my Classic Rock staples (Foo Fighters still suck). I eagerly anticipated Rage's breakup so that I could put them in my collection, too.
If I could quote a sage who once remarked to me,
The reason, I think, for the suckage of new pop-consumption music is that it is without soul. And I think 'consumption' is a good name, because it wasn't written for the intrinsic joy that creating music brings artists - it was written for popular consumption to bring studios money. If you want soul, you have to find out what the kids are doing, and the kids are, and always have been, on the dance floor. In the sixties it was rock and roll, in the seventies it was disco and funk, the eighties was european techno (read: eighties disco), the nineties were electronica (read: nineties disco), and it's still going strong. The new music that I like these days, I hear from DJs on the dance floor, and that would blow the mind of someone who hasn't seen me since I was exclusively a Classic Rock bigot.
Find the kids, and you'll find the music with soul. (If you're hearing Britney Spears, you've traveled back in time to a 1999 Rec dance full of teenyboppers. Try again. =)
Oh, and OT in my own post, an interesting thing to chart is the correspondence between different drug use and different music. In a completely unscientific way, I associate disco with cocaine, classic rock with heroin, and electronica with everything else. =) (Everyone's drinking and smoking, so I don't include that.) So the question is, does the music dictate the drugs, or do the drugs dictate the music?
Or, it could mean that this guy didn't do his homework before he put out the album.
Sounds like it to me.