Recovering Recording Costs, a Response by Jimmy Ether

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the challenges musicians face trying to recoup their recording costs. Specifically, I asked how bands and musicians that do not tour frequently recover these expenses when the general public wants their music for free? Jimmy Ether, a musician, engineer and studio owner responded with such thoughtful and detailed comments that I thought his reply would be better suited as its own post, so here it is:

"Hey man, just taking a peak at your blog and thought I'd offer my perspective on all this. First, a little correction on the recording side of thing. There is a big difference in major label and indie rates in the recording business. There are literally dozens of good recording studios in every major city who provide great quality recording at around $500 a day, and a lot of those are having to cut deals to entice the home recordists to step up in quality. $1500/day studios are strictly for major label acts and there isn't a single sane independent artist that would use them.

That said, it would be quite impossible in this day and age to track and record an album in less than a week and you'd need another week to mix (unless you are, like Frank Black, going completely live to 2-track. Most records take about 3 to 4 weeks. But, you're price is pretty close. Most quality indie "studio" records are made in between $4000-$10,000.

I agree that there is no way the industry can function on a entirely free model, but I also firmly believe that most bands and labels are far too short-sighted with their tight-hold on their music. Free music goes both ways. If you can entice (essentially link-bait) press, bloggers, fanatical music lovers, etc. to write, talk, review, distribute and promote your music by giving them music for free, then your gain far outweighs your cost (in fact, in digital, the cost is essentially nil provided that the person otherwise would never have purchased it). There just have to be terms and limits. You have to figure out the value of a digital asset verses the potential value of an action resulting from allowing that asset to be given to someone free. The more direct control you have over that, the better return on investment.

There is also a pricing:convenience ratio. If the price is reasonable enough and the payment/download process is significantly easier than dealing with P2P, a large enough percentage of people will buy the download to make it profitable. $1 a song... is *not* that price.

I'd love to see a number on the budget being spent to subvert P2P file-sharing. If that amount were instead spent on making the experience easier for the consumer and *especially* on artist development (which is basically non-existent these days), then the industry as a whole would be in a much better position.

People who trade on P2P are a label and band's best friend when you get the model right. They are DJs sans-payola. P2P is the new radio. It is practically impossible for an indie-band to get attention without them. Just look at the correlation between the artists who are traded on these networks with the playlists on top college radio, 'zine coverage, indie store sales rankings, paid digital downloads, and blog coverage. Is it that the media is feeding the P2P? Nope, because the records are getting leaked (by, *cough* smart label promoters) to P2P *way* before even press copies get mailed. They'll never admit that in public, but the smart ones know it works.

I'm not saying the Radiohead model works. It doesn't, *unless* you are already a famous artist on the level of Radiohead. They only rose to that level because millions of dollars were spent in the promotion of their previous albums. Promotion costs a lot of money and far eclipses production and manufacturing costs. That's a budget that has to come from somewhere. And where to find that money is the major problem we face with new industry models.

Good blog BTW!"

Great feedback Jimmy, and I agree with you that P2P can certainly be a musician/band's best friend "when you get the model right." This philosophy also seems to be the direction Larry Lessig is suggesting, as seen in this video - as it becomes a middle ground where P2P becomes the distribution vehicle for music, but artists are still compensated.

Again, thanks for your detailed reply, and best wishes in 2008!

Btw readers, the picture in this post is of Jimmy Ether's  studio.

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As I finished this post, I was listening to: Melpo Mene - Hello Benjamin via FoxyTunes

Comments

[Jimmy Ether]

Thanks for the post Duncan! Quite kind!

I went back and watched both the Rains and Lessig spots, which were quite good. I agree with both for the most part. But Rains' final comment at the end regarding making material free and then later charging for it not being feasible seems a little naive. It's like saying that a soap company who sends out samples in the mail should then forever expect consumers to pocket the product in the store without paying. The implication is that once you make a download free, you then forever should expect people to take it. When you pay for a download or CD, you are paying for that instance of the material, not a license to every instance ever to be released. I realize he's speaking more to artist crying foul about their material being on P2P once they get popular, but that's narrow view of the issue. Sure, people should continue to freely share the free instance, but that doesn't give license to take later instances.

Lessig's moralistic view, on the other hand, hangs a little too much on the expectation that people should do the right thing. They won't. It's a financial issue. They love music (and movies) and want to hear what their friends are listening to. But that new XBox game is far more appealing and more difficult to steal. Finance will trump morality every time with the majority of downloaders.

The solution might possibly be simple value-added methods. Build strong communities around an artist who *want* to support that artist. Give them cool stuff for that support. Give them a venue. Give them legitimate free stuff for buying music. The artist and labels who get it right will succeed. The ones who are unresponsive or don't seem to care will have far lower conversion.

[Chap]

I disagree that P2P is the new radio. I'm a member of many of the most notorious underground invite-only music sharing sites. I just compared CMJs Top 200 to the number of downloads of the recordings on it at a few sites, and I do see a correlation there, but trying to find good new music on file sharing site is like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. The limitation is time and bandwidth and I tend to use those two resources on things I've already heard are good. It's the "taste makers" and "gate keepers" and social networks that generate buzz. Music bloggers and college radio programmers are not finding out what's cool and new from BT or whatever flavor of P2P you might prefer. They might pull something down from a P2P network after they hear about it, but P2P is not the source of buzz.

[Patrick Bryant]

My comment is really just a cheap vehicle for sneaking this in: I had the privilege of recording in the new Jimmy Ether studio a couple of weeks ago, and there's no comparison between that experience and the DIY stuff I've done in the past.

I say after a decent hand-held portable recorder or a mic for your laptop, save up for sessions with a pro. Ask around and find a producer you can work with, someone who understands your work, who has great ears and broad taste, who's not afraid to tell you when something sucks, etc.

But what do you're finished recording? To tell you the truth, I'm not sure. I can't quite let go of the physical artifacts, so it's hard to imagine not pressing disks. Besides, I like the old retail model of flogging records at a gig. But that's not exactly a "breakout" model. I guess I'll just play it by ear: get the recording in the can and then do some Web marketing, print some disks, keep playing shows, and see what happens. With a strategy like that, I guess it's a good thing I have a day job ;-)