What to charge for a recording session?

[Andi]

I´ve been asked by a friend to record his band. Now I got absolutely no idea what i should be paid and how (per hour, per song...). They got all the mikes and outboard equipment, i got a digi001 and my skills .
If anyone has done this on a homerecording/semipro level, i´d like to get some recommendations.

[Vaphoron]

Like you said, there are basically two ways to go about charging them. You can do an hourly rate or a fixed rate. There are good and bad things about both. With charging per hour you must decide a few things. If you are going to charge them for setup time or if you will charge just for recording and mixing. Benefit of this is they won't screw around but it could make them rush and therefore not be as precise. If you do a fixed rate there is always the chance you will get stuck with someone who can't stop fooling around or someone who can't get their part right. You may be able to come up with a solution somewhere in between also. Like, set up a session for 6 hours and charge $75. If things are going good though you might give them a little extra time. Its things like that that make people happy. But you have to be strict sometimes. I worked in a professional studio for a while and got some experience on dealing with clients which is something thats great to have. So, for a quick answer to your question I would charge about $15 an hour with something like the Digi001 but I would be a little loose with the time. The other option would be to do it free but I doubt you would want to do that. I recorded people free for a long time just to get the experience. I don't know how much experience you have but its just something to think about if you haven't done this type of thing much. Good luck...

Jason

[Lowfreq]

Boy, what a loaded question. I won't reiterate what the guys said before me, but I wish to add one more thing to think about. How good are your organazational skills? Set up a firm schedule for production. Including set-up, time for fine tuning mic positions/levels, etc. I say fine tune assuming a pre-production set up was run through first.If not, what are the songs the band wants to record? How well do they know them? Are they ready for recording or does the band only have chorus figured out? You get the idea. If unsure allow for sometime for mic/room tweaks accordingly. Are these guys serious and will they listen to you? Charge accordingly. Price goes up with attitude. I usally charge by the hour for tracking only. This burns the most time usually. Mixing and/or mastering depend heavily on the project. Chances are your gonna loose money at first. As long as your having fun...who cares?

[Cybermonsters]

I've run a studio for 11 years now and we have different rates for artist development/songwriting and band demos.

For bands we charge an hourly rate, have a full day discount, and don't charge for set-up time. I've found a lot of bands think you're burning the clock when you take a little extra time to tune the drums, mic placement, etc.

For smaller projects we give some free CD's, and full album projects we usually give free mastering. Makes us and the client sound better!