Breaking down the barrier - Financing your music career
26/11/24 20:20
Breaking down the barrier - Financing your music career
Look - building a “career” with music has never been, or will ever be, easy. In fact - it’s simply expensive. But, if you think logically, it’s actually no different from any other product based business, and I think that understanding is the key to accepting the reality of how you’d make a living from making or performing music. And as cold as it sounds, you “have” to think of your singles, records, albums, performances as “products” that consumers will either buy or they won’t. So if you’re building a music career as an originals solo artist or band, you’re building a business. And in your business, you need something to “sell” to your customers - and that’s your physical music and your physical performances. In this blog, we’ll just deal with the making of a record, and specifically how you could,potentially finance it - ie “pay” for it, There’s 3 key stages to making a record: Writing it Making it Marketing/selling it
Writing
This is the “free” part, that really only takes time. And time doesn’t cost anything, so take your time to get it right. It’s worth spending the time composing and arranging as much of the song as possible without professional help. If you can arrange Drums, guitar, synths, etc before you get to the recording studio, you’ll save yourself a bunch of money later on. I, and many other Engineers, are happy to sit around during paid studio time while the band writes their song (and in days gone by, groups would do this, but someone was paying for it!) but I’d rather that your time was spent with me doing my work on your music, not sitting there watching you do yours.
Of course, if you don’t have the skills for arranging quality Drums, bass, synths, strings, etc - as a multi instrumentalist, I help many musicians flesh out the productions for their songs during their studio sessions. In fact, when I advertise a prediction that it takes 3 days to complete a song from scratch, it takes into account composition time, with me acting as a session musician - coming up with interesting parts that you’ll like in your song.
So if you’re capable of writing advanced parts for your songs, do it (or at least outline it) before coming into the studio.
Recording / Mixing / Mastering
This is where the start of paid time comes in. Studios can be really expensive, but they don’t have to be. At the core of a studio is its Engineer, no matter what flashy stuff they have on display. White Room, although a singular production room, is highly equipped with top quality Pro Tools Ultimate, Avid Interfaces, Great river preamps, a huge collection of classic and modern synths, a huge library of real and synthetic drum samples, brass and string libraries, choir libraries, guitars, basses, any guitar or bass amp you could want with our Kemper profiling amp, and industry standard processors from the likes of Universal Audio, Drawmer, PSP, and more.
And I’m trialling, quite frankly, a ridiculous price per day built into a monthly subscription to support grassroots artists in being able to afford to make their product. At £500 per month for 4 days for 5 months minimum, that equates to £125 per 8 hour day - when my stand alone daily rate is £250.
This will allow you to fully track, mix and master a 8-10 track, radio ready, album ready to sell and make money with either as a physical product or on the streaming sites, of which we upload your work to 150+ sites for free.
We also produce Dolby Atmos versions of your music. Do a search on Amazon for SACD and Surround versions of classic albums and you’ll see the price difference from a regular stereo record. And we’ll also upload your music to Dolby Atmos streaming sites, so you have double the earning capacity of recording at a “stereo only” studio. And we do the Atmos versions at no extra cost to you which is, frankly, nuts!
Marketing
Marketing is actually where, traditionally, most money is spent. You can’t simply post your links and songs in groups and expect anyone but your Dad to notice. You have to market your music like every other legitimate artist to make your music stand out …something that so many really don’t understand.
But marketing is another level, and for subscribers of our £500 per month production, we’ll also help you flesh out a marketing package to suit you and your demographic.
(So for those keeping score, for £500 per month, you get full stereo and Dolby Atmos production, AND, marketing advice for your album).
So how will you pay for it?
This is where most will fall down, because financially committing to something is serious. When you say “I can’t afford it”, what’s really being said it “I can’t be bothered to get the money together to pay for it”. We all have the capability to earn from somewhere. What ever your circumstance, you’ll be able to do something to generate some money if you think about it. When you financially commit to something - you really mean it.
So how can you go about getting money together to finance your album?
First off, I will say that I am not a financial advisor and I create no duty of care between myself and my reader. These are purely ideas to get you thinking, and possibly realising, that it might not be that hard to finance a record.
Pay for it out of your wages
If you have enough spare money at the end of every month, simply pay for it. You could either pay per day for sessions, or commit to our subscription at £350 or £500 per month. Of course, this is the exclusive province of those with disposable income, and that might not help those from the poorer backgrounds.
Earn it in other ways
You may discover that you can earn some extra money, specifically to make your album, by taking on a second job or doing work for people. Things like gardening, washing cars, cleaning, etc have long been the way that kids could save up for consoles, but it’s no less true for adults. And when you work for something, you really do truly appreciate it more. Other things can include weekend jobs, evening bar work, etc. Just get onto the Job sites and see what's around, or think of a niche in your area that's missing and see if you can make some money by filling it.
Perform!
For musicians, this should be second nature. I’ve spoken to many original “people” in my time, and have always advocated performing cover music for their bread and butter, but using their spare time to make their music, but many baulk at the suggestion. The reality is that, if you’re good and right for the work, you could make £200-£350 a night working with cover bands. (Not in pubs!). Do that to finance your album, you’ll either be able to pay as you go with 2-3 gigs per month, or in a few months with 2-3 gigs per month.
Loan from family
This is doing it easy, but bear in mind that the money has to come from somewhere, and it’ll have to be paid back. If your family can collectively loan you the money to finance the album, it would be a way of doing it quickly and without any interest being accrued. But it would likely need to be paid back. It’s likely that they’ll allow you to do it over time so it can be manageable.
Loan from the bank
This is where things can get a little serious because you’d be taking out a loan that’s interest bearing. So it’ll cost you more in the long run. But, it doesn’t have to be a problem. It’s just the cost of doing business. Most businesses are started on borrowed money so you wouldn’t be any different. As long as you can manage the repayments, and you commit to them and not let the debt get out of hand, and it’s your only choice, it’s not the worst idea. Debt is only a problem if you don’t manage it.
Credit card - specifically a 0% credit card!
You may not have considered that you can pay for studio time with your credit card, but there are lots of platforms that allow you to send money to a freelancer / business with your credit card. Paypal is possibly the most recognisable. SumUp is another rising star. It’s important to remember that if you’re using a regular credit card, it’ll be interest bearing. But if you have a credit card that charges 0% on purchases for a certain amount of time, you can pay for the studio time upfront and then manage the repayments over a longer period. Again, as long as you manage the payments and, specifically with a 0% credit card, pay it off within the 0% limit, you’ll pay no interest and have no problems.
Your product may even start developing income from physical and streaming sales before you even make the first payment!! (Unlikely - but not impossible)
A financial ‘backer’.
These are guys who will loan you the money in return for a share of the profits of the album. To be honest - this is a risk for them, and for you. Because if you enter into a business relationship like this, there’s an expectation. And you should remember that it’s highly unlikely that your music will make money!! Nothing against you or your music, but if you consider how many people are ‘doing it’ verses how many people are ‘trying’, you can bet the gap is pretty wide!!! So this option is a risk for the guy fronting the money with an expectation of getting their money back plus profits, and for you if the product doesn’t generate money and profits and you’re liable for paying the initial investment back!!
Crime
Yeah - don’t. Just don’t. You won’t be running for President anytime soon, so you won’t get away with anything!
Why am I qualified to talk about this subject?
Because, of course, you don’t know me or my history! I manage touring tribute shows, a PA company, and the recording studio - all of which are generating me a healthy income. I know how much I’ve had to spend to build good quality equipment that produces a great sound that I can rely on; I know how much I’ve spent on marketing over the last 5 or so years, and logically what’s needed to market a product; and I’ve build all of my work from scratch, with little to no help.
Today - the work I’ve created feeds 10+ musicians and audio engineers, as well as myself.
And even now, some of my business is financed by credit - but only because I’d rather not spend my bank balance, and I’m happy to pay a small amount for using the credit over a long period of time. So none of my suggestions are bullshit - they're all genuinely viable options, and probably not the only ones either! Get advice
If you consider any of these possibilities, make sure you think it through and possibly get advice. It would also be sensible to sit down with your finances and work out what you’ll need to do to afford what you’re looking to do.
Making a record has always been expensive to do it properly but it doesn’t have to be overly expensive, especially if you consider something similar to what I am doing with White Room Production Studio. I’m in the lucky position of having good quality, regular, work with my tribute shows and my PA company that I can afford to discount my studio sessions to support grassroots and emerging artists without working for free.
