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Originally Posted by brandau  Hey Justin. I've stepped up my studio resume lately, and I'm wondering how to handle it. In the past a studio generally hires me with a budget they're working with, and they just give me an offer. I've started working with a few heavy hitting producers, and I'm starting to make a name for myself. The problem now is that I don't know whats reasonable to charge for a session. I still take it on a case by case basis, but when these producers call they're looking for a price from me. Sometimes its just one song or a whole album. You know how it goes. I'm worried about lowballing myself or charging too much and burning the connection. I want to be these producers go to guy. A couple guys I've been working with have some serious clients and could really propell me into a new realm of studio playing and artists. Thats worth more to me than $, but I gotta eat too. So I guess my question is how do you handle these situations? Do you have a flat rate per song or day? Also, do you handle all this yourself or do you have an agent. Thanks so much for participating in this forum. You've been really informative. Not to geek out too hard, but Seachange is one of my favorite recordings, and I use it as a reference in the studio all the time. later bro |
Hi, thanks a lot!
This is a valid question, but tough to answer for your case. Here in town, on the very high end, session players of any type can make as much as $1500-$2000 a day. Occasionally even more! But those days seem to be rare. Now, it's all about being flexible. I usually say "what's the budget of the project?" when they ask me for a rate. I then proportion it to suit.
Standard scale for 3 hours per the Union is $372.57. However, most rhythm section players (as opposed to individual string players, horn players, etc) usually get double-scale for that period of time. That tends to be ideal more than real, but at least it provides a point of comparison for what people should make on a real record.
The thing is, I'm flexible. I just need to know the budget of the record. If they won't tell me, my manager will find out.
And yes, part of the time, Jeff negotiates for me anyway. He negotiates my producer fees for me completely. (check out the site:
www.dangerbirdmanagement.com) Suffice to say, per day, I'll make anywhere between $500 (for a low-budget indie record, if I like the people and the project) to $1500, and it is wholly budget dependent. When I do remote recording at home, I'll do a per-song rate, which of course includes the bonus that they get several takes to choose from, and I do all the engineering.
If I have time, I'll even still do demo sessions for people - somewhere around $200 for a song if it doesn't take too long and they're not trying to make OK Computer.
Maybe 40% of my sessions are put through the Union, so that's all good too - they are obliged to pay decent rates for me, plus there are royalties to be earned from what's called the Special Payments Fund, which the Union collects on your behalf. Every August 1st, that check comes, and it's not small if you do a good amount of Union work in there. Likewise, for all the film work I do, there's a similar check on July 1st from what's called the Secondary Markets Fund. Good stuff.
Best,
JMJ
