how much do you charge for mix and mastering a track?

Jboibeatz

Jboibeatz

Member
Hello future producers, I was wondering how much everyone charge for their services. I'm also an engineer but just need some insight on how I should go about charging for my services. I honestly think I'm selling myself to short. I use to charge 10 an hour for studio time with mixing and mastering. The equipment I'm working with is pro tools, krk rokit 5 w/ bass traps, and the blue bird mic. I'm still an amateur with this but I don't think my quality is not to bad. I don't have a sample of my recording cuz I'm on my phone. Just need a general idea
 
This is that sh!t that kills the industry for professionals... amateurs offering cut-rate mixing is effectively making the professional studio obsolete, it's really unfortunate too, i mean do you value your craft??? 10 bucks an hour isn't even enough for me to chat with an artist... SERIOUSLY!!! I mean you get that for working in a call center (minus taxes)... If you're charging 10 bucks an hour people won't take you seriously, and when you do get to the pro level you'll lose the clients that you had at the 10 buck level because they'll feel discriminated against when you have to raise your prices... and you WILL have to raise your prices or have several side jobs

My advice, stop charging per hour and charge a flat rate for a block of time... and charge for the use of your equipment, I'd set it at something like 200 for a 5 hour block of recording... 50 bucks per song mixed, and something like 50 bucks per mic for the day... but dont break it down that way, just tell 'em 300 for 6 hours... the extra hour is for mixing down the tracks
 
BeatComMusicGRP said:
This is that sh!t that kills the industry for professionals... amateurs offering cut-rate mixing is effectively making the professional studio obsolete, it's really unfortunate too, i mean do you value your craft??? 10 bucks an hour isn't even enough for me to chat with an artist... SERIOUSLY!!! I mean you get that for working in a call center (minus taxes)... If you're charging 10 bucks an hour people won't take you seriously, and when you do get to the pro level you'll lose the clients that you had at the 10 buck level because they'll feel discriminated against when you have to raise your prices... and you WILL have to raise your prices or have several side jobs

My advice, stop charging per hour and charge a flat rate for a block of time... and charge for the use of your equipment, I'd set it at something like 200 for a 5 hour block of recording... 50 bucks per song mixed, and something like 50 bucks per mic for the day... but dont break it down that way, just tell 'em 300 for 6 hours... the extra hour is for mixing down the tracks
Click to expand...

I completely disagree. Terrible economy, music label downsizing, poor studio management, and clients getting better results with independent studio owners, home studios, and freelance engineers is making the professional studios go out of business. But definitely not obsolete.

That said, I wouldn't pay $40/hr for a $300 monitors and a $400 microphone and a bunch of bass traps, and an a semi-pro engineer.

I'd structure like this - $20hr with a three hour minimum. Mixing isn't free, it's time. So they want to track for 3 hours, fine. They can mix on their own.

At the same time you can make however much your clients can pay. The number is somewhere between what you're worth and what your clients think you are worth.
 
If you have the skill, there's nothing wrong with charging high end clientel for your prices. Gotta remember though, even if you take your craft seriously, it doesn't mean you have the funds to do so. Everyone starts somewhere. Right now, there's nothing wrong with a low end person mixing, but in all honesty, if you're struggling to pay 10 an hour for a song to get mixed... just learn to do it yourself and cut the middle man.
 
If your new to this. I'd start off cheap until you've raised a fan base then maybe think about raising your prices
 
For me, it depends on how much time is invested. Mixing a rap song would be a lot easier for me than mixing a full piece orchestra, so naturally I'd charge more to do the latter.
 
You have to find the place where "What you're worth" = "What they're willing to pay".

Once you get there... that's when you know it's a fair transaction. Only charge $10/hr if you feel your craft is truly worth $10/hr lol. At $10/hr, if I were an artist using your services I wouldn't have huge expectations. I'd expect a decently recorded product... maybe 1-2 gems here on there that the engineer got lucky on. If you're worth more than that.. you need to charge more, and not be afraid to do it. You're WORTH it. Time really is a big deal. Think about all of the other things you could be doing with your time.


Personally, I charge by the project. I kind of have an idea of how much time it will take me to complete a task. So, if it's 2-3 songs... I charge about $150-$200. To get more clients, right now I'm offering to do full albums for $400 - $700, depending on the degree of difficulty. I have a lot of poet clients right now, so $400 is more than sufficient to record the voice, construct the beat, mix and master.

If I were to ever charge $1500-$2000 for that same project, i'd 1) put more time into making the music production perfect... 2) I'd have to up my mixing game. Right now my mixing can't compete with real professionally trained engineers... but it's a quality enough product for general playback purposes across normal mediums and radio (which seriously isn't hard to do when you know what you're doing to an extent).
 
The reality is that you must charge what the market will bear. It can really drive you batty trying to figure out the magic price point, and it will probably take some experimentation on your part. Try one price point for six months, then try another, compare the differences.

I would recommend trying to mix on a per song fee rather than hourly. It will make it a lot easier for the client to budget things and you can lose work just because a client is afraid something might go over budget. It just makes it easier.

This is what I charge for mixing: www.feistychicken.com/studiorates. For full on production there are enormous variables so it really depends on the situation – it’s not quite as cut-n-dry as mixing – but it’s in the ballpark of a few grand and up per song.
 
I charge $30 an hour for tracking. Plus equipment rental. I do a free ruff mix. Then I charge to finish the mix based on track count and complexity. If everything is tracked perfect and it isn't over cluttered, the mixing isn't that difficult. I do a "mastering stage" after mixing to get the loudness to compete.

I think what people like about my mixes are that I don't go over-board with fx. I let the artistic image of the artist shine through. I only add modulation that is needed or asked for. I like to use tons of analog emulation. Get everything sounding less digital as possible. I think my Ace-In-The-Hole is Slate Digital Virtual Console Collection. It does amazing things for stereo separation and analog saturation. I also like analog compressors, eqs, ect. Really get that thick analog sound.
 
I appreciate everybody input. Everybody info was really helpful. So i guess you got to have the skill to charge the right price heh? It seems everyone is good at this and know what there talking about. Could one of yall be my personal mentor? lol. Im serious
 
I believe it all depends on the knowledge and time you have spent applying that knowledge that allows you to determine your rates, because yes its your time. I know some people with very low end, inexpensive studios that bring in bigger and higher quality sound than the professional studios, all because they know what they are doing. So with that said, I charge $55/hr with a minimum of 2 hrs. Mixing/mastering is a flat fee of $350 for 3 songs, since it takes time to mix and master songs, and if they are doing a whole album I just add an extra 200 bucks for no more than 10 songs. People pay and it all works out.

Key is to know your level, know your skills set, and have examples of work to show clients what you can do, and go from there.
 
$50 per step. $50 to record, $50 to mix and $50 to master. Period. If they want a block of time then discount it accordingly. I personally only give discounts after the 5-10 hour blocks of time. Yes your skills play a major role in this as well so if you don't know 100% what your doing then you may wanna keep your prices low enough to compete but high enough to be valuable.
 
Honestly... I did some pro-bono work for 2-3 months before I started charging.

You gotta make sure you can actually do the shit they're asking for lol, plus you gotta gain confident in yourself. You need that extra bit of experience to learn your workflow and see how you react under certain situations. People can tell if you've never done this before.

Just work on 1-2 friends projects to get your skills up.
 
$10 an hour!! is a bit low, but it's a start. The clientele you're bringing in, isn't the same clientele that would go to a large studio anyway, so it's not killing the industry. If anything, clients that go to large studios just drop the coin on their own setup and get some big producers / engineers in.

I do think you should charge for your results. Sounds that you're also learning as you go and refining your technics, so even if you charge low, your still making money and not dishing it out on a course. I've been to audio engineering schools and really, there's no better way to learn then feeling the pressure and learning as you go. So charge what your clients are willing to pay. You'll know when you're charging too much, 'cause work will be slow...

I know people who won't approach a studio/engineer if there rates are too low. I've moved up over the years by clients paying me more then I was charging, saying I had to charge more.. and now I'm charging $50 per master..

Regards
 
Shit, do it for freeeee. hahah. jokes.

---------- Post added at 10:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 AM ----------

I like to charge a flat rate for a song, but it can get annoying if the artist takes forever to track, so yeah. Usually about 50-70 per song, depending on the person. That keeps them coming back, therefore making you more money.
 
My rate depends on the project, what's involved, and how much the client is willing to spend. If they can't afford my normal rate, I'm flexible. But with that flexibility comes restrictions. So mainly that's time, sometimes extra outboard gear, revisions, and versions. So the less money they have, the less time I spend, period. But they still get a great end product because I've developed a good method when working with people on a budget.
 
So since this forum seems to be mainly sound engineers, what advice would you give producers? I've found that I'm typically hit or miss with my "mixes". I have some tracks that sound pretty much mixed, ends up around -3 or -2dB and just need tweaks here or there. Then I find myself working on tracks and halfway through I realize the damn song is about -6 or -8dB, and is completely unbalanced. As for my style, 99% of the time I adjust the level of a track AS SOON as I finish recording it. More times than not, I even add the reverb or whatever FX I want on it (this is because until recently, I've never worked with an engineer). Now, I try to send a few bullets of what it is I'm looking for.

So what advice would you give somebody like me who hasn't actually gotten placements yet and is simply trying to have a nice a-- mixes for tracks that they want to shop around? Keep in mind most of us are going to be willing to work with you guess online, so it's hard to convey every single thing you want done on a track until you hear it back. And I know time is money, so I've actually just taken mixes that I would have rather done some tweaks to simply because I was only pay $20 for it.
 
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