Making money with orchestra samples

[bozmillar]

Hey guys,

Not sure if this is the right section to ask this question, but I figured it's worth a shot. How many of you guys make money composing music?

I just do it for fun for now, but I thought it would be a fun idea to charge bands to add an orchestra section to their songs. I'm pretty clueless on how much people might be willing to pay for this kind of service, so I wanted to get an idea of what kind of price range I should be able to expect with this type of work (assuming I got really good at it).

My initial thoughts are that I should charge about $200 for a standard 3-4 minute song. Is this a completely ridiculous price? or is it too low?

Anybody do anything like this?

Here's an example of a song I'm working on right now so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. I'm doing the string section for it (for free, to build up my resume). I updated the audio file to be the latest version.

[richiebee]

Depends what your market can stand. Sounds kind of obvious, but that's where it is. If no one will pay $100 for a string section, it doesn't matter how good you are. On the other hand, if people are currently paying real string sections $1000, you might do well.

My sense that it could be very unfair to charge a fixed fee. Unfair for your customer if you decide to do a really simple part, unfair for you if your customer wants an incredibly complex arrangement.

No doubt about it, your sample is good. Very good. It's absolutely worth paying for. But only your customer base can tell you what its worth to them.

Are you planning on just doing the string work, or is this for customers for whom you will be doing the whole engineering? There are complications to both, though for the latter, its easy to justify your standard hourly rate. For the former, you have little control over the finished product. In that case, you could end up re-doing stuff because the engineer is incompetent.

I can't answer your question. I like what you did in the sample. What about something fast moving... how do you deal with arrangements like that?

[bozmillar]

You make a good point. I guess I have to feel out the market to see what people would actually be willing to pay. I just have no idea because I always do stuff myself so that I don't have to pay for it, so I have a hard time getting calibrated to the real world price of music services. I personally feel like pretty much everything is extremely overpriced, but I'm a bad judge since I don't like spending money on anything I don't have to.

[Danny Danzi]

Totally agree with Richie on all counts. You're time and creation is worth something for sure. But, without a credible name, it's nearly impossible to charge what you are really worth. If you're credible and get notoriety in this field, if that was my song and I was a signed artist and you told me $500....I'd hand it over without a problem. However, if I'm a small artist or a kid writing tunes just trying to get a bit of backing atmosphere, I'm not going to be able to afford that amount and I'll be searching for someone that charges cheaper rates.

It's all in your credibility for you to get big jobs....until that time, you have years worth of proving to do unfortunately....or at least until you can land a decent act that has a following. Then your prices can go up. The other side of the coin is...if you love doing this, you have the choice of doing lots of job for a cheap price, or few jobs for a more expensive price. Starting out doing this is very difficult because of all the software that is available for people to pretty much come up with something on their own. There are groove samples of midi's that can be loaded into synths etc that can pretty much be edited and used right inside a song with a person not knowing anything about how to play.

So you have to keep all this in mind. My suggestion would be, if you really love this stuff...and you have the time, offer your services for a major discounted price coming out of the gate. Get some artists under your belt and ask to be allowed to showcase a before and after somewhere. As time goes on, the client base as well as your credibility grows. If you really do good work, some major band may happen to find you and say "this guy's cheap, but damn, listen to the work he does!" And the next think you know, you're golden.

A friend of mine was a great engineer. He never got what he was worth and he always did fantastic work. One day he did a few things for Breaking Benjamin now he's so busy he barely returns my calls. LOL!! Good luck in whatever you decide.

[richiebee]

Originally Posted by bozmillar

You make a good point. I guess I have to feel out the market to see what people would actually be willing to pay. I just have no idea because I always do stuff myself so that I don't have to pay for it, so I have a hard time getting calibrated to the real world price of music services. I personally feel like pretty much everything is extremely overpriced, but I'm a bad judge since I don't like spending money on anything I don't have to.

For what its worth, I feel as though most of my stuff is in the same boat. I do it all myself because I don't like spending money to pay someone else to do it.

I have one great client in terms of MIDI stuff. He gives me work and gets me money. I never ask him for a fixed amount - he gets me what he can, and that tends to vary from client to client. Some have funding, others don't. He's a producer, and a great arranger but a total technophobe. I do all his tech stuff. Sometimes I'll do something for $50, other times it'll be $500. It all evens out. It's all experience at this point, and although I always have an evolving shopping list for my studio, I'm fairly patient.

This is something else that you need to factor in. What does it cost you to do this stuff, how much do you want to do it, and what happens if someone else gets the gig.

I have a day job that stops me from taking really involved gigs, but my studio has been funded almost entirely by gigs over the last 4 years or so. The money I make in my day job doesn't get touched as far as the studio goes. So I can afford to take things slowly, not take a salary and check out the lay of the land. If this is all you do, its a very different story, and you need to do a market analysis of your local area to figure out what you need to earn and how you can earn it. Nice to think that you can get work over the internet, but that would certainly not be a solid flow of work. The internet market in virtually everything is saturated. Getting people to choose you over everyone else is hard. Go for the local market first and use the internet as a good supplement.

You clearly have skills. Have you thought about writing for TV and film? Maybe you do that already...

If you're not running a commercial studio at this point, don't be afraid to do gigs that you don't particularly like, but that pay. When I played in bands, we used to charge a lot of money for playing wedding receptions. We hated doing it and so felt really justified in charging a lot of money. People paid. That's how my band was funded. These days I do a lot of editing work for dance studios - they provide me with tunes they want to use and I edit them - make them longer or shorter or slower or faster or whatever... they pay good money for this work, and its pretty simple. Sure you have to be good at it and listen to lots of really hokey music, but its not rocket science.

[garww]

Another point is that stuff like this is fun !! So if you like this kind of work, it's worth making a market for it.

[bozmillar]

richiebee, we're pretty much in the same boat. I have a day job, and really, I'd just like to make enough money to pay for more recording junk.

I have thought that it would be fun to do TV scoring stuff, but I'm not sure I have the drive or even know how/where to get started on that. Plus, I find myself pretty scatterbrained musically. I always get excited about something, work on it for a while, then completely change up what I like working on.

Funny thing, I actually find the dance studio thing to be the easiest way to make money. I find parents who are willing to pay $150 a month to take dance lessons don't mind shelling out $15 to get a song edited. Get a class of 6 students and you can make a quick $75. Unfortunately, these only come along every few months for me.

too much fun stuff, too much time wasted sleeping every night.

[richiebee]

I'm frustrated by a ridiculous local scene. All the indie filmmakers are married to musicians! And they all want traditional music, something I don't do, because I'm not from here, so didn't grow up with the kind of music that practically all the locals have in their blood!

Getting scoring work is incredibly difficult. There's always someone who will do better for nothing!

I'm writing for libraries now. The money is peanuts, but it trickles in on its own without me having to do anything on a regular basis. The writing is zero pressure, and always good practice. Writing to a picture would be more satisfying, but this works... for now.

[Danny Danzi]

Richie, one of the ways into that sort of thing is to find production companies that do jingles, video games etc. They are always looking for musicians to work with them on projects. The problem is, most of these places don't really advertise or exploit themselves. Most of the work you do is "work for hire" which gets you a buy-out price for whatever you do. I've done a few video game scores and what sucks is, the money is decent, but all you have is a receipt that you were paid for the work. Most times your name won't even show up in a credit list because it was a work for hire. Heck I'd be happy to have a name credit over the $250 per instrument I got to do some of the work on Need For Speed on the Playstation 1 format. LOL!! The reason being, sometimes a name credit is worth much more than a price...especially if someone enjoys what you have done.

The other side of that coin is, if you are a hired gun for a company like Chuck E. Meyers (not to be confused with Chuckie Meyers lol) or Lou Deleise and Associates, you can be requested when that firm is hired to do another score, game or jingle. Other times you'll score something and the work is sold, not the recording and the company will use its own musicians to play on it in their vision. Every company is different. It's a business to where you sometimes have to separate the artist in you from the business man.

I did a game for the first Sega CD console called Beyond the Limt which was a Formula 1 racing game. They literally used my guitar solos and had their own guys play some rhythm guitar, drums and bass....and THEIR names get listed! Mine never gets listed because it was a work for hire. That kinda hurts the artist in me and that's where you have to look at it like a business. Most people that have a chance to make a few bucks with their music won't care about that though....then again, it truly depends on your frame of mind as well as your passion.

Check into some of the jingle companies that may be around though. Most times they sub out work to other artists for a pretty fair price and it could keep you busy doing lots of different things. Commercials for tv, radio, intro's for various things, small movie scores for rated b or rated c flicks etc....they have some pretty cool connections if you can land the right ones. Worth looking into, that's for sure.

[Svencanz]

Hi Boz,

I am in a similar position to you, just starting down the track of selling bits of string-based music to locals. Not being rude, but I was disappointed in the strings in your song - although the overall impression is "nice".

I think the strings in your song were flat, one-dimensional and predictable - so my challenge would be to get "more life in there..."
My own thinking is that I will offer over-meeting of expectations... just got to figure out how to do it....
My first step in this particular process was getting LASS - LA Scoring Strings.

Listen to the demos found on this website:

audiobro | demos

Especially the two by Colin O'Malley.
Now, that I believe people will pay for...

Cheers,

Sven
Honorary Devil's Advocate