Here is my $.02 from someone who has been in radio for the past 8 years, worked with countless numbers of artists, producers, DJ's and promoters.
There are a few schools of thought -
- Until you have a discography of material that can actually be purchased in stores, give your beats up for free, because you do not have much of a leg to stand on to request payment.
- Most indie producers can be had anywhere from $150-$1000 depending on what type of arrangement you make with them. Please realize that most indie artists and indie labels are not dealing with large budgets, and after you start paying more than $250 for a beat it starts to turn the song into a FINANCIAL LOSS. If you pay a fair sum of money for 1 beat on your album from an established indie producer, in 2006, people will just download that track INSTEAD OF BUYING YOUR ALBUM FOR THAT TRACK. This is why I do not think it is sound if you are a new artist to pay too much money for beats.
- I do think that if you have an established producer, part of what you are paying for with that price is for them to mixdown the song. A good mixdown can make a world of difference AND MOST OF YOU AMATEUR PRODUCERS HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH MIXDOWNS!
- If you can find people that are willing to pay you $1,000 with no published discography, MORE POWER TO YOU .. can YOU FIND ME THOSE PEOPLE!!
- If I am a producer and I am making beats often, I really don't have any problem selling a beat cheaply ($50 - $100) for a demo unless the artist is awful. I understand that when you get to a certain level of "name recognition" as a producer, you don't want your name attached to every garbage myspace / soundclick demo b/c they threw you a Ben Franklin.
- I will say that the window is open only for so long, and as long as someone is willing to pay you money, take it because you will not always be in demand.
- As a DJ I do also understand the logic that the more that people charge lower prices, your ability to charge a "fair" rate decreases as well! All I can say is STEP YOUR GAME UP and SHOW WHY YOU DESERVE YOUR GOING RATE! If you can prove you have the better mixdowns, you can lay cuts on your tracks, your joints bang harder than others, then you should easily be able to point to your work and be like "do you want it to sound like THIS or sound like ****"?
- If you bought your equipment with the main idea that you were going to get PAID off of this stuff, you MISSED THE BOAT. You are about 10 YEARS TOO LATE. Maybe you'll get your major label shot somewhere but you sure will not see it from the indie side of things. There are almost as many people making this music on the indie side that are consuming (and alot of those who are making it are also the consumers).
- I DJ with two other DJ's who have been making beats for 20 years. What they can do with the machines, cannot be learned in a few months or a year. They know so many tricks coming up from the analog era that you will probably NEVER know, and they were able to combine that knowledge with digital technology to have the best of both worlds. I don't even want to get into beat making because I just feel it will take quite a few years to learn everything that I want to know about making beats and mixing down joints to really be "official" with it.
Kids think that 6 months after learning their MPC / Fruity Loops they are ready to make music that will sound good on vinyl or in ANY type of system. Y'all aren't ... and until you are again .. you have not much of a leg to stand on.
