Honest Opinion : How much would you pay?

9wetfckx43j5rg

Myself and a friend of mine have a video and audio production business and we want to offer young bands a unique service.

Our idea is that we come along to a band's gig (Or organize one if the band hasn't got a upcoming gig) and record a live performance HD video for them for their facebook/Youtube ect. While filming we would record the audio through the sound desk into our equipment meaning that the sound recorded would be great quality.

This would then be mixed and mastered to near radio quality. The artist/band would receive a MP3 live demo track and a live HD video optimized for Youtube and Facebook uploading with permission to enter the video to any band competitions such as the RedBull Bedroom Jam ect.

To all artists/band member reading this, what do you think of this idea and would you be interested in it? How much could you afford to pay for this?

Thanks,
Jen

PaulBrewer

Sounds interesting - Best of Luck.

SeanHurley

Firstly, what experience do you have? i.e. whats in your portfolio of work. What gear do you have?

As you can imagine the price for Anton Corbijn shooting your video and Jacknife Lee recording the audio will vary from a lad with a handi cam and a mini disc who is starting out.

TroutMask

you should do your own mix with a split from the venue multicore + your own room mics

9wetfckx43j5rg

Audio would be recorded through the sound desk to a Zoom R16 and then mixed and mastered on a Mac with a huge amount of software that I don't understand but the sound engineer does.

My expertise is in video. At the start it would be recorded onto a Panasonic TM300 and professionally edited but I am currently looking into upgrading this to a Panasonic HMC151. We're talking great quality work here but because I want to market this to young bands I'm thinking of charging around 25 euro per band member. So for a 3 piece 75 euro ect.

Trine

75 Euro for your transport to and from the venue, at least an hour or two at the venue (setting up, inevitable delays, actual recording, and packing up), a full mix with mastering, and editing of video the next day, plus time taken to upload the results to various sites/servers?

Really?

I think people make a direct connection between price and quality of product. If I saw a guy offering to provide your service for 4 times that amount I'd probably be more inclined to believe he is offering a more professional service. Not that I'd base it purely on price, but from first impressions it seems amateur, the kind of price a beginner would charge.

Do you own your own microphones? Or are you at the mercy of the venue's mics? You are also at the mercy of the live engineer, who may not give a **** that the vocal keeps cutting out or that the guitarist has kicked his mic, and may not appreciate somebody giving him more work to do...you'll have no control over that. He'd probably expect a tip from that 75 Euro you're making...

What if the venue absolutely stinks and the "great quality work" isn't reflected in the audio quality?

Do the band get any changes to the mix before the final mixdown? If I was in a band I'd want to hear and see it first before it makes it onto Youtube...

Do you have a backup recorder for the audio?

Sounds like a lot of work for no money.

madtheory

Trine wrote: »

Sounds like a lot of work for no money.

Yup!

Even for a one camera setup that is grossly under priced I think. The guy doing FOH sound is earning way more than that (or should be anyway).

To do a proper job you'd need 3 cameras, a split multicore split to a pair of Joco black box or Alesis HD24, your own mixer for monitoring and two pairs of room mics- all monitored in separate room (i.e. not in the venue) ideally. As Trine points out it would make sense to have your own mics so you don't end up using mics that the venue should've replaced years ago.

So somewhere in between those suggestions you might have a viable not too cheap, reasonable quality service for up and coming bands. However, these are not reliable customers, and rarely turn into repeat business (which is what you need) because most bands don't last. Plus there's days of time involved in setting up at the gig, mixing the audio and editing video. At the price you quoted, you'd earn more flipping burgers- and have more time for a life too.

All quite cynical I know, but it's true.

9wetfckx43j5rg

Trine wrote: »

75 Euro for your transport to and from the venue, at least an hour or two at the venue (setting up, inevitable delays, actual recording, and packing up), a full mix with mastering, and editing of video the next day, plus time taken to upload the results to various sites/servers?

Really?

I think people make a direct connection between price and quality of product. If I saw a guy offering to provide your service for 4 times that amount I'd probably be more inclined to believe he is offering a more professional service. Not that I'd base it purely on price, but from first impressions it seems amateur, the kind of price a beginner would charge.

Do you own your own microphones? Or are you at the mercy of the venue's mics? You are also at the mercy of the live engineer, who may not give a **** that the vocal keeps cutting out or that the guitarist has kicked his mic, and may not appreciate somebody giving him more work to do...you'll have no control over that. He'd probably expect a tip from that 75 Euro you're making...

What if the venue absolutely stinks and the "great quality work" isn't reflected in the audio quality?

Do the band get any changes to the mix before the final mixdown? If I was in a band I'd want to hear and see it first before it makes it onto Youtube...

Do you have a backup recorder for the audio?

Sounds like a lot of work for no money.

Well we hope to start it off in venue's that we are familiar with, where we know the sound engineers and won't have any qualms letting us patch in. Also we are familiar with some local venues that would let us host our own gigs meaning we could do the sound ourself and not be annoying anyone. We have our own mic's for recording drums and can use the venues mics for the rest which we are familiar with and know are good quality.

When expanding to more venues that is when we would start running into trouble.

We want to keep the charge as low as possible and if it's listed alongside a sample video then it would hopefully prove the quality of work regardless of price.

We could easily provide the band a sample copy before the final mix is done, thanks for that suggestion.

9wetfckx43j5rg

madtheory wrote: »

Yup!

Even for a one camera setup that is grossly under priced I think. The guy doing FOH sound is earning way more than that (or should be anyway).

To do a proper job you'd need 3 cameras, a split multicore split to a pair of Joco black box or Alesis HD24, your own mixer for monitoring and two pairs of room mics- all monitored in separate room (i.e. not in the venue) ideally. As Trine points out it would make sense to have your own mics so you don't end up using mics that the venue should've replaced years ago.

So somewhere in between those suggestions you might have a viable not too cheap, reasonable quality service for up and coming bands. However, these are not reliable customers, and rarely turn into repeat business (which is what you need) because most bands don't last. Plus there's days of time involved in setting up at the gig, mixing the audio and editing video. At the price you quoted, you'd earn more flipping burgers- and have more time for a life too.

All quite cynical I know, but it's true.

I've always worked hard, usually for no money at all. Video is what I have a passion for and I'd rather spend my life doing it and never turning a profit than work in a deadend job I hate but have a nice house. It's idealistic and I know I'm a dreamer but there's no one mad enough to offer the kind of service we can for a price that young bands can afford.

fitz

http://45sound.com/

Not sure there's a reliable market for the service you're thinking of offering tbh...

9wetfckx43j5rg

fitz wrote: »

http://45sound.com/

Not sure there's a reliable market for the service you're thinking of offering tbh...

That's a brilliant website, they're idea is fab. I'm not looking for a reliable income from this, more like pocket money to supplement buying small bits of equipment and to mash together my love of video and gigs.

alan kelly

I could be wrong but music videos might be a better way to go...

Getting into recording live bands is opening a huge can of worms... Remember if the quality is not at radio standard a lot of people will prob turn off...

If you came up with great 'cheap' and original ideas for videos and charged 75quid a day you probably wouldnt have a day off till christmas....

Just my 2 cents Good luck with whatever u go with...

tweeky

Good plan Alan, with a better soundtrack it will make the videos "look" better.
You tube is the only outlet for most bands singles these days and a cool video will make a much better impression than 1 token play on late night local radio.
Live recordings are usually recorded with pro gear and then overdubbed/tuned/fixed which takes time. Young bands will always blame the engineer for a crap gtr/bass/drum sound when generally the problem is musicianship/tuning/poor gear.

krd

fitz wrote: »

http://45sound.com/

Not sure there's a reliable market for the service you're thinking of offering tbh...

They're claiming they can fix the sound on youtube videos (that imagine are the distorted mashed up videos people shoot with their phones)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFN-BEGLJIY

If they can do that....How are they doing it?

fitz

I've no idea Krd, but I'll be following it with interest to see how it works out.

SeanHurley

From looking at the website I think it is based on shows that they have recorded the audio for i.e. not every show by everyband is available. I think it is aimed at more established bands that have had fan videos. I think they record certain gigs then if you have a video they will sync it to their superior recordings.

The first step in getting your video treated is picking a show from their selection.

krd

SeanHurley wrote: »

I think they record certain gigs then if you have a video they will sync it to their superior recordings.

How cunning.

That would explain the magic.

krd

Reyna Greasy Trait wrote: »

We're talking great quality work here but because I want to market this to young bands I'm thinking of charging around 25 euro per band member. So for a 3 piece 75 euro ect.

Jennie, a fair few of these young bands would be very far from broke. There's a lot of rich kids in these bands - if an eighteen year-old has a Nord stage piano, that might be a good indication that their parents are rich. And the toilet dispenser in their house has 20 euro notes on a roll, fresh, with their perforated edge still intact. These kids can afford more than 25 quid each.

Some of the older guys. Probably, most of the older guys in bands have very good jobs. They can definitely afford more than 25 quid each. Realistically. With the amount of work that can go into these things. 25 quid, per head, per song, is probably a cheap rate.

The way you're going about this. Since you're just starting off. Don't charge much. And always have the money to refund the people, if you completely screw everything up (like having a long whine noise running throughout the entire recording). The more mistakes you make the better you get. The more competent you get, the more of a chance you'll have of developing a career out of it.

Charge the broke kids, the broke rate. The rich kids the rich kid rate. And ******s who work for the ESB the ******* rate.

Good luck.

PaulBrewer

krd wrote: »

They're claiming they can fix the sound on youtube videos (that imagine are the distorted mashed up videos people shoot with their phones)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFN-BEGLJIY

If they can do that....How are they doing it?

That sounds like the 'good' audio was distorted and dropped on the front of the video - there's even a credit for the original recordist ...

That's not to say they can't do what they say they can

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

That's not to say they can't do what they say they can

Something I know that can be done - cause I seen it done. Sometimes with C60 tape (that's 8th inch?), the gain on the play back is too much and seriously distorts. But the signal on the actual tape is still good. And if someone has a tape machine where you can drop the gain, you can get a clear recording.

I saw this done a few years ago. Someone I knew (not a nice guy) his band recorded a demo at such and suchs studio. They didn't pay up front, and on their way out, the studio gave them a copy of the mix on C60. But the gain on the play back was too high - so the copy sound distorted and mushed - this was deliberate to get them to pay for the session. They took the C60 to another studio - where a guy fixed it for them and it came out sounding pristine, and that's what they put on the demo CD. .......They never paid for the session.

A mobile phone is not the same as tape. It's probably closer to a hearing aid. There's automatic gain adjusting circuits that go haywire with loud noises, and crowds. The digital clipping will be brutal. Lots of things could mash it up.

What probably would be great - and I want a royalty on this idea - if mobile phones had a concert setting - something that switched off all the gain adjustments, and just recorded at a lower level so it didn't clip as much. Then adjusted the gain, once the sound file was recorded - you might have more reasonable sound concert Youtube clips.

if6was9

The only way this will work well is if you get a proper split multicore or use splitter boxes before it hits the FOH desk. I tried my hand at recording a few gigs before using the direct outs from a desk and if they're post fader/eq then it's NOT going to work. These splitters are expensive and if you're not careful you can have awful grounding issues.

Alternatively you can set up all your own mics on the instuments and take a passive split using a Y splitter from the vocals but this isn't really practical- 2 mics on snare/toms won't leave much room for the drummer to actually hit the drums!

Video wise you are going to need 3+ cameras with guys who know what they are doing operating them. No point having 3 gusy all going for the close up of the solo at the same time, you need variety of shots and they have to be framed well. When I was in college I had guys from my class film some gigs and the results were far from spectacular cause we just didn't have the experience to know how to shoot in a way that was good for editing.

Also regarding rates it's important to put a value on your time. If you start low it's quite hard to ramp up your rates and still keep the clients you've spent time trying to get. You charge a band 75e for a video, a year later it's not feasible for you to be charging less than 50o since you've upgraded your gear and have a few people in your crew who all need to be paid. The band will NOT understand why its not 75 anymore. I've seen it happen and can guarantee you it will happen to you if you choose to go down that route. Working for very little gets old fast and at those rates you'll never earn enough to upgrade your equipment.

madtheory

This week I ran FOH on a gig that we shot with 5 cameras including one on a jib. We didn't run splits and a multitrack, or a web stream, on this particular one, but we usually do. AFAIK there's no other place in the country where you can learn how to do a big broadcast type set up by actually doing it.

off.the.walls

camera man, sound recordist, sound mixer, masterer, video editor+ time+ equipment rental+ travel costs.... i'd reckon your looking at about €500 for one decent quality song. Even then you would need more than one camera to make sure that the song stays in sync with the video.

off.the.walls

and thats paying everyone the absolute minimum.

9wetfckx43j5rg

Thanks for all the advice and opinions I'm taking them all on board. Can mods close this please?