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How Much Does it Cost to Make a CD in 2006?About 10 years ago, just after making Confession, I wrote an article about the cost of making a full-length recording that would be mass-produced on CD. I had an agenda: I wanted readers/listeners to understand why one CD needs to cost you somewhere between $12 and $18. My hope was that fans of mine (or of any other artist) would happily support their favorite artist’s records once they understood the costs. Now it’s 2006 and the whole business of selling music is radically different from 10 years ago, and all of us, myself included, are trying to figure out how we are going to be able to continue making music when it is so easy for audiences to get our music for free. I count myself as one of those artists who is thrilled by the technology that allows songs to be shared and swapped. For me, this ability to share is more natural to the human condition than the attitude of ownership and holding things tightly, but it doesn’t solve the problem of how I am going to make a living recording my songs. My hope is that after all of the sharing has been done, that some of the people who have received my music for free will end up buying an entire CD with the artwork, or that they will come to one of my shows, or buy a t-shirt or whatever. I also hope that this article will encourage you to dig into your own pocket and buy the music of artists that you love. Your investment is a vote of confidence and literally allows for that artist to carry on doing what they are here to do. This article deals directly with the financial details of Parachute, which I recorded over the winter of 2005 and 2006. The CD was released in June of 2006. 98% of the record was recorded in my home studio, Lucy Max, and was then mixed at LRS Studio in West Hurley, NY. The general scenario was that I hired an engineer, Dave Cook, to do much of the set-up of my studio since it was new. That required some new equipment and sound proofing, so the numbers I will lay out do NOT include the cost of building the studio, but they do reflect costs for new equipment specifically purchased for Parachute. That included a Pro Tools LE system, a Mac G5 and 20” screen, reverb software and related software peripherals. It also included things like a headphone amp, cables and a couple of excellent microphones. It does NOT include the fact that I rebuilt my piano over the course of that previous winter in preparation for Parachute. These expenses (the piano and the studio mortgage) are considered long-term investments and are depreciated over time. Dave Cook set up mics and sounds for me, and then I was left to do much of the actual recording and editing of my tracks alone. I tell you this because his not being there to record most of my tracks (piano, guitar, vocals and backing vocals) made Parachute much less expensive than it would have been if he had been there for all of it. I paid him for his time in the studio at an hourly rate. Also, I hired Kevin Bartlett to help with production. Normally a producer’s fee would be 2 or 3 times what I paid Kevin. As a result, Kevin really acted as a consultant for me. He came to all of the sessions that involved other players doing overdubs (which Dave Cook was always there for too), but again, he was not present for the bulk of the sessions because they involved only me. Again, it’s important to note that if I had asked Dave or Kevin to be involved in the many hours of studio time that I did on my own (more than 300 additional hours), the cost of this record would have been substantially more. And just because it’s such an outrageous number, I’ll tell you that Parachute, a 43 minute CD, took nearly 600 hours of my time to record. 250 of those hours also involved Dave Cook or another engineer. To date, I have spent about $54k on Parachute. That means that I have to sell 5400 units at an average of $10 per CD to break even. It’s worth noting here that I have not gotten paid at all for my part of this project. That will happen when I pay off the investors who invested the 50k that I spent so handily, and the additional 4k I put on my credit card to make up the difference. (I do not recommend this practice. The artist should always pay them self, but for accounting reasons, I was unable to do so. They should also do a better job of staying on budget, but my experience tells me that they never do!) So please, if you like Parachute, buy a copy now! The sooner that you do, the sooner it is that I can make another record! Thank you! Here’s how it all breaks down: (all these numbers have been rounded up to make it easier for you to read)
I’m guessing that most of you who are reading this article are musicians who are considering making your own record, or you’re wondering if your project looks at all like mine, so I’m thinking you may want me to reflect on these numbers a bit. The first thing I have to say is that you don’t need to spend this much on a recording. The second thing I’d like to say is that you can (and I would love to) spend much, much more on a recording. If I were to do this record again, I would have figured out a way to spend less in production so that there would be more left over for marketing. This is true for almost everyone I know that makes records independently. We are not good at leaving money for later. There’s never enough to make the record, so we hate to be tight with the actual music part. I’m thinking that I could have cutback by paying musicians less. I could have asked my friends if they would have played for less. But frankly, that doesn’t feel good to me. I try to pay other players what I would like to earn if I were in their shoes. You may be able to bargain better than me because I choose not to bargain at all. A better choice for me might have been NOT to have certain songs involve overdubs, but I’m glad I didn’t make that choice either. Likewise, I might have gotten away with paying Dave Cook a flat fee for the whole project (rather than an hourly rate), but again, I chose to avoid a flat fee because it can backfire big time when the project begins to run overtime (which it always does). In my case, the first publicist I hired was ineffective, so that $1300 was a complete waste and still REALLY bugs me! A good publicist is well worth the $1000 - $1500 per month that they might work for you when a record is newly released. Make sure you know who you are hiring before you do so. A publicist can guarantee you nothing in terms of press, but they CAN guarantee that they are legitimately in business and that they will give it their best shot. Be sure that they LOVE your music too. It’s hard enough to get press even if they love your project, so you want to be sure that they’re truly enthusiastic when you hire them. If you were going to spend much less on a record I would recommend making your record in a home studio with all of your best musician friends sharing the cost of making it – and the reward. There is so much great software for home recording that there is no reason not to do it this way. If you spend nothing else on others though, do pay for the best engineer that you can afford. It will make all of the difference. And DO NOT get cheap when it comes to mastering. Finally, always have good art. I’ve learned the hard way how awkward it is to have bad cover art. DON’T DO IT! So here’s the reality: selling records as an independent artist is REALLY hard. After the initial couple of months following your release, when maybe you’ve sold 1000 records to your best fans, the selling is done one record at a time. The best thing to be doing is performing because that is where you will sell records in quantity. Finding a gig is the hardest part of that scenario and I have no answers for that. The only thing I have learned is that my most exciting and financially successful gigs are the ones that I produce myself. That is, I find a venue that I can rent and I produce a bigger show than any other venue would be willing to risk on my behalf. In other words, I take on all of the risk. Often I make these shows benefit concerts so that I am able to sell tickets at a higher price, and I have a better shot at publicity because I am not the focus – the beneficiary is. This is a win-win situation for everyone: My music is heard by a wider audience, the music satisfies the people in that audience, I sell records, the organization receives money for their charitable works, and the whole evening is worth all of the effort that goes into it. It’s a ton of work, but it does do good things and I encourage you to consider thinking like this too. Be aware, though, that the risks are very high. You may loose some money, so be prepared to do a number of shows this way before you see it paying off. I hope this helps. Please feel free to be in touch with me if I can help you with more specific questions. Good luck! |
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