How much is too much? Am I putting too much work into client songs?

[Ionei]

Hey,

so recently a friend who has some unfinished work with me came to finish some stuff off, he ended up just saying he wanted to start a new song, a cover of Black and Yellow by Wiz Khalifa.

I'll be programming all the drums and pretty much doing everything except recording guitar and recording vocals.

Should I do this?
He didn't even come with basic drums or anything.
But I have some really good ideas for this cover and I was quite excited to do it so I just started writing drums.

Or would you consider this(programming ALL the drums, structure etc) part of your job?

Probably be getting paid $100 for this song all finished.

 

[lelahel]

personally i will not program drums, i done that before but you will feel annoying because it is not your music ! if you see what i mean

 

[Lon]

Hey,

so recently a friend who has some unfinished work with me came to finish some stuff off, he ended up just saying he wanted to start a new song, a cover of Black and Yellow by Wiz Khalifa.

I'll be programming all the drums and pretty much doing everything except recording guitar and recording vocals.

Should I do this?
He didn't even come with basic drums or anything.
But I have some really good ideas for this cover and I was quite excited to do it so I just started writing drums.

Or would you consider this(programming ALL the drums, structure etc) part of your job?

Probably be getting paid $100 for this song all finished.

in a simple money to effort ratio.. you just got royally screwed.

But if the client is somehow locally semi-famous and you can now print your name on the CD and get more work... it was maybe justified.

 

[C_F_H_13]

in a simple money to effort ratio.. you just got royally screwed.

But if the client is somehow locally semi-famous and you can now print your name on the CD and get more work... it was maybe justified.

This. Sometimes you gotta suck it up and do way more work then you are being paid for, in the hopes of more work.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

how about just doing something nice for a friend?

 

[Ionei]

Okay, I'll suck it up and do it, because I'm sure I can make this cover sound sick, so it'll be worth it just to hear it.

The friend isn't semi-famous, quite unknown.

 

[Ice Man]

Is 100 dollars your going rate for a song? Does working on this impede your work on higher echelon clients or higher paying projects? Do you have anything better to do? If taking it on doesn't interfere with most or any of those things, then why not? At the very least, you can always tell your friend that this was a tossed bone and if you make it sound incredible, just tell him that next time you'll charge more next time to justify your work and superior product. If you have strong ideas, never turn down an opportunity to cut your teeth on projects that you can shop to wider client bases and turn friendly discounts into new business and better pay. I run a fledgling operation and for the last three years I've stayed busy because clients are excited about their end result and they promote. I've never even had to advertise. Am I a hugely successful studio operator? No, but all those little extra hours of work and friendly discounts have returned awesome dividends with steady clients and new and larger projects. I say do it up and use it as a stepping stone!

 

[Harley Barley]

When i started working with bands i was doing 100$ a song just because without any other work you can't charge too much more then that. if i was you i would probably charge how ever much you regularly charge for recording mixing etc a song then charge extra for programming and performing.