Questions about how you operate...

[micahbell]

First off, sorry if this ends up being rather long...just got a lot of questions. You are the only studio bassist who is "making it" that I have any form of contact with.
I think I said this in one of my other posts that I thought I was asking a lot, so it still stands: I will not be offended if you don't really have time time to read all my junk and answer all my questions in great detail. But what ever you can say I will greatly appreciate it.

So you can best answer the questions, I will give you a bit about me.
I am 19 years old, and it is my goal to make a living as (mainly) a studio bassist.
Right now I have only played on one album, but in the next month when I move back home I will be doing here and there work as the first on-call bassist for two studios and I will be doing my best to find work outside of that as well.
With the two studios I will have fixed rates, but out side of that I am really just whoring myself out to who ever will take me for what ever price so that I can build up a portfolio.
So, these questions aren't "what should I do" because clearly we are in two different worlds here, but I am just very interested in how you work.

1) How do you get work? Do you work on call for studios, do you search out bands, do they find you? If I was making an album that needed some JMJ low end, would I just call up you/your manager and throw some cash at you?
2) Do you have a fixed rate or do you go project by project? If it is a fixed rate, do you charge by song? By album? By the hour?
3) How long were you doing this kind of stuff before it became your main source of income?
4) How do you like LA?
5) Is most of your session work done in LA, or remotely?

So that's what to know about what you do, and if you could please just read on and give a comment on the following that would be great. Again, stupid long. Sorry.
I plan on sticking where I am for the next two-three years, taking lessons from a few very skilled guys to fill in the gaps I am missing in my playing, play in a as many live bands as possible doing as many different styles as possible and play on as many albums as I can. Really get my chops down and get up a portfolio. Then I plan on hitting up LA or NYC with my portfolio, getting a cheap apartment, some part time job and doing the exact same thing I was doing in my home town, but see if I can make it my main/only job. Then, once I get up a big enough name that I can do remote work, move back home and do stuff from there.
I am not sure if these are realistic expectations or just a pipe dream, but I realize it probably won't happen over night, and I am going to work my ass off for the next 10+ years to make my dream happen.
My home town is great because there are not lots of studio bassists, so I feel I have a good chance of getting a decent portion of the local work.
The problem is that there really isn't that much work. This is why I want to move for a while.
How is LA for this? I get the impression that there are probably lots of people doing what I want to do but that there is enough work that I can get my foot in the door and fight it out with the competition.
Is that accurate or would you say that it is too oversaturate and I should head somewhere else?

Thanks a million times over if you got this far!
Look forward to your response.

[jmjbassplayer]

1) How do you get work? Do you work on call for studios, do you search out bands, do they find you? If I was making an album that needed some JMJ low end, would I just call up you/your manager and throw some cash at you?

Yes, the latter. As far as how I get work, that's really just a matter of staying closely in touch with other people who are working of EVERY variety (producers, engineers, A&R people, managers, AND OTHER PLAYERS).

2) Do you have a fixed rate or do you go project by project? If it is a fixed rate, do you charge by song? By album? By the hour?

Project by project. For albums, I'll do either a day rate or project rate. But it has been vital to my career to scale my rate to adapt to budgets.

3) How long were you doing this kind of stuff before it became your main source of income?

Five years, perhaps?

4) How do you like LA?

I love it. I'm from here, so it's home.

5) Is most of your session work done in LA, or remotely?

Mostly in LA.

So that's what to know about what you do, and if you could please just read on and give a comment on the following that would be great. Again, stupid long. Sorry.
I plan on sticking where I am for the next two-three years, taking lessons from a few very skilled guys to fill in the gaps I am missing in my playing, play in a as many live bands as possible doing as many different styles as possible and play on as many albums as I can. Really get my chops down and get up a portfolio. Then I plan on hitting up LA or NYC with my portfolio, getting a cheap apartment, some part time job and doing the exact same thing I was doing in my home town, but see if I can make it my main/only job. Then, once I get up a big enough name that I can do remote work, move back home and do stuff from there.
I am not sure if these are realistic expectations or just a pipe dream, but I realize it probably won't happen over night, and I am going to work my ass off for the next 10+ years to make my dream happen.
My home town is great because there are not lots of studio bassists, so I feel I have a good chance of getting a decent portion of the local work.
The problem is that there really isn't that much work. This is why I want to move for a while.
How is LA for this? I get the impression that there are probably lots of people doing what I want to do but that there is enough work that I can get my foot in the door and fight it out with the competition.
Is that accurate or would you say that it is too oversaturate and I should head somewhere else?

I do believe that now LA is quite oversaturated. There is a hell of a lot of competition here at the moment, but I'm not one to tell people they shouldn't come here because of that. I think there's always room for everybody, though it's quite a bit less work now than in the past, and for less money. I think your plan is pretty good overall, though you may want to remain flexible in terms of which big city you land in.

Best,
JMJ

[micahbell]

Thanks for the response, very helpful!

And yeah, I am quite flexible about where I am going to end up. LA was actually one of my last choices, with NY being #1, but I found two or three good friends who would go with me if it was LA so I figured that would help me ease in a bit. But LA, NYC, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago and Nashville are all up in the air right now. I still have a decent amount of time to decide.