I charge per song, not per hour. Bands here seem to be a bit nervous when they meet per hour rates, so well... Perhaps I should. Because here's what in my opinion guarantees good results:
1. preproduction
- meeting the band at their rehearsal space, checking the material, recording their songs on camera for me to think over, discussing, planning) = 1-3 hours
- preparing the projects, re-skinning, tuning drums, setting up their instruments (or my instruments) properly = 6-12 hours. yeah.
- (more and more often). doing draft tracks. each band member plays his track into the project the way he does in on rehearsal. switching effects on their pedalboards, etc. really helps me to give them final advice on the hardest pieces and to plan the workflow with each member. 1 hour per song.
-----------------------------------------
9-16 hours roughly
2. tracking (per song)
- drums. 2-5 hours. I never hurry
- bass. 1-2 hours.
- guitars. 2-6 hours.
- vocals. 1-6 hours.
- keyboards and stuff. 1-6 hours. sometimes more, sometimes none.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 (ha-ha-ha! never) - 25 hours
3. editing per song. I edit everything, and do it with care. so it takes time. cos in many cases you can't just auto slip edit stuff. you must LISTEN and THINK.
- drums. 2-6 hours.
- bass. 1/2-2 hours.
- guitars. 1/2-6 hours. sometimes editing solos hurts so much.
- vocals. 2-6 hours. it's really individual, but at least selecting best takes with real care and a touch of tuning/timing correction.
- keys etc. 0 hours. doing it while tracking.
------------------------------------------------
5 - 20 hours
4. mixing per song.
- mixing in general - tone shaping, eq-ing, compressing, fx, etc etc etc. it's creative. so sometimes it's 2 hours. sometimes it's 8. anything in between. However, when everything is fixed, mixing is pure fun. Especially after all this exhausting editing.
- reamping (optional), which I consider a part of mixing process. 1-2 hours.
- automation. 1-6 hours. it may be an extremely time- and energy consuming process in heavier projects. because it is the key to the perfect balance.
-----------------
3 (almost never) - 16 hours
4. mastering. it usually does not take any time, because I mix through the masterchain. I think of mixing and mastering as one single process.
5. revisions.
it may take no time at all. but usually it takes up to several hours to select new takes, to paste them into prepared mix. or to change the tone of one mix element and then to adjust the whole mix to it. some clients are ridiculously anal about revisions. it's ok, but it takes time. and sometimes you can't understand why, so you're acting against your own taste.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 - 3 (let's be positive on this one) hours
All that said, let us count:
24 - 80 (!) hours.
And once again, I charge flat rate per song. If it's something really simple, I charge less, if it's over six minutes and extremely complicated, I charge more. But sometimes it's damn hard to explain why it takes a lot of time. When you divide the whole process into elements, it becomes clear.
