About going to a studio...

T

Thared33

Member
Aug 16, 2002
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I'm completely out of the loop about this but hear me out. Let's say that I want to record some stuff that's the length of a 3 song demo or so, but I wanted it to be album/studio quality. If I went into a big, GOOD studio and had most of the DI tracks, midi files, all of that stuff already prepared, how long do you think it would take to record and how much would it cost? I'm talking for the tracking and the mixing, no mastering, that'll come later.

Basically, if I had my shit together and ready to go and wanted to make an awesome demo/EP in a big, fancy studio - I want some ideas of what prices I'll be looking at. The time it would take too. I know that rates and time vary and there are lots of things to consider, but if I were given a ballpark that'd be great. I'll be paying for this directly out of my own pocket, so yeah.
 
So much of it depends on how prepared you are and how well you perform. That will dictate how much time is needed with tracking and editing. Mix process depends on how well all of that goes and how free the mix engineer is to focus on mixing rather than fixing mistakes etc.

If you want album quality you need to account for a few things, like giving the right amount of time for editing and mixing. For 3 tracks maybe give a day for drum editing alone. If you want everything else tuned and pocketed then perhaps another day. Mixing the rough guide could be about a song per day if you want professional quality.

Drums could be done in one day, rhythm guitars on another, lead guitars on another, then finally vocals. So roughly about a working week for tracking, 2 days for editing and 3 days for mixing. That's at the very best an estimate and plays it somewhat safe, assuming you need time to get your performances right, and give enough time to the engineer to get the right tones.
 
Perfect answers. Have you guys got an idea of the price in USD? The ballpark. Let's say for about... 2 weeks or so, total time. I'm very flexible though so this two weeks could be off and on if necessary, more of a 'project'. Take in mind that I'll use solely drum samples, so no live drum tracking. I've got only guitar, bass, synth, and vocals to track, and the synth stuff is done with midi so that takes even more time out. If guitar DIs and bass DIs are used as well, that narrows it down further.

I don't want to spend $10,000 on this, but I can swing... let's say ballpark of $4-$6 grand. I'll have to pay for flights and shipping equipment so I'm looking at a budget under $10 grand or so for this project.
 
If you're going that route, you could probably shop around on this forum to get the best drum programmer and reamping done, then find someone to mix it all for you. You'd save all those airfares and shipping. Would only have to pay to do the vocals somewhere.
 
There's a lot more to it than that, trust me. This is quite a big project that I'm trying to do on the smallest scale possible. Being in a studio with a good recording and mixing engineer is the best route for me to take. I have a friend that owns a big studio and he's an option, but I wanted to check and see if anyone knew what the ballpark would be for other big studios.

If anyone can't give me an idea it's fine, I'll just email a few studios instead.
 
If you're looking for a truly professional-level recording, count on spending at least 2-3 days in the studio per song. Most engineers/studios will either charge hourly or they'll charge a flat rate (based on an estimate of how much time your recording will take). Cost-wise, the sky is the limit, but for 3 songs you should budget at least $2000-3000 for a professional, retail/radio quality recording.
 
Can you please clarify something for me.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how to reconcile the idea of wanting to invest a significant amount of time and money on this demo and get a top-level production, yet not use a studio for a real drumkit recording. Completely sequenced drums will instantly cheapen the sound of the record, and half the battle of recording in the studio is getting a good kit sound and performance. If you are using MIDI drums then your costs diminish significantly, but so does the professional caliber of your CD.

You don't need to book flights or ship equipment. You can simply record guitar DI files in a small project studio that has a pristine single-channel chain and then send it to any engineer of your choosing to reamp a great tone for you. After this you can get the tracked product and simply send it to the mix engineer of your choice. This is commonly how small scale worldwide collaborations are done.
 
Thared33 said:
Perfect answers. Have you guys got an idea of the price in USD? The ballpark. Let's say for about... 2 weeks or so, total time. I'm very flexible though so this two weeks could be off and on if necessary, more of a 'project'. Take in mind that I'll use solely drum samples, so no live drum tracking. I've got only guitar, bass, synth, and vocals to track, and the synth stuff is done with midi so that takes even more time out. If guitar DIs and bass DIs are used as well, that narrows it down further.

I don't want to spend $10,000 on this, but I can swing... let's say ballpark of $4-$6 grand. I'll have to pay for flights and shipping equipment so I'm looking at a budget under $10 grand or so for this project.
Click to expand...

i have your answer:

gimme $6k, and i'll take 2 weeks off my "real" job and devote it to getting you the most killer demo EVAR
 
Are you sure you want to spend 4-6 thousand dollars for a THREE SONG DEMO? To be honest, dude, people see demos as shit, no matter how good production is. I wouldn't mind spending that much money on a demo, specially not with the shitload of talented people in here who could do it for at least 10 times less the money you are willing to spend.
If you are going to spend thousands, make sure you are making an album at least...
 
Dexter_prog said:
Are you sure you want to spend 4-6 thousand dollars for a THREE SONG DEMO? To be honest, dude, people see demos as shit, no matter how good production is. I wouldn't mind spending that much money on a demo, specially not with the shitload of talented people in here who could do it for at least 10 times less the money you are willing to spend.
If you are going to spend thousands, make sure you are making an album at least...
Click to expand...

Phew, I was thinking of posting this, but thought better of it - now I don't feel so bad just +1'ing it :D (though while I guess I agree with the demos = shit part, adding one or two more songs and calling it an EP solves that :loco: I still honestly don't feel like all that money is worth it though, considering the amazing quality of stuff I've heard from people on here who I at least assume are charging nowhere near as much, considering they work out of their bedrooms with relatively inexpensive gear but are talented as hell!)
 
Well, to be clear, I'm not saying absolute pros like Andy don't deserve every cent they charge, I'm just saying stuff by people like Ryan still sounds pretty goddamn good to me! (apologies if you charge $4k-$6k for your projects Ryan :D)
 
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