I've been told to raise my rates. Hmm.

Last week I picked up a Mastering gig for a major new client. This came from one of my current relationships, and was greatly appreciated! It led to my spending the bulk of this past weekend in the studio.

While I've done mastering in the past, it's something I've preferred to leave in other people's hands whenever possible. I really enjoy tracking and mixing bands. the Mastering portion always seemed like that little bit I didn't trust myself with. However, over the past 2-3 years, I've had to do what I've considered "fast and dirty" mastering for a number of projects. This has led to a few mastering projects for other bands who liked what I did.

In fact, mastering is becoming a larger portion of my commercial work in general, and I'm finding I really enjoy it. I'm realizing I can't charge my regular rates for it though, and interestingly, my clients agree. On a break from listening yesterday, I called some of my regular clients and asked what they thought about my decision to raise my rates.

Every one of them said "About time!"

Wow. Very heartwarming.

I have to say, I'm really proud of the work I did on this particular project, and I'm EXCEEDINGLY grateful that Cakewalk added some mastering tools to the mix in 7. Sonar 8 should be on my porch when I get home today... I'll wait until this project is off my desk before installing it (just in case), but I can't wait to see how it does on my machine.

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Corey

hey Corey

when i was working for myself as an electrician years ago some
people siad i worked too cheap. i was very giving and fair about
pricing. people commented very highly of my work. it seems that in
the world of services that price becomes less of an issue when
people are pleased with your work. in music they have something
they can hear and and something they can touch "the medium".

it is similar in doing electrical work. when they can "see" your work
it means sometimes more to them than say fixing a wire in the attic.
it may be in a way too that getting more work for mastering is at least
sort of like raising the rates. great job on your skills. People are happy with your work? thats cool. now if someone could create a forum somewhere where we could put our masters up for critque and ratings. maybe there allready is one but i havent seen it.

or is the the songs forum allready doing this "in a way". it does seem
though that the "songs" are in the making for the most part and can
be critqued from a whole lot of angles. anyway im glad for you.
and im sure youll get more work of this kind.

i like reading a postive post like you do.

jimmy

oh i forgot to mention sonar 8 does have some nice mastering
plugins but they will delay the sound "some of them". so they in
some ways are for the "master" only. but you know that right?
id like to know your feelings about them too if you'll post on that
topic. when i first got it i was so exited to have the new tools.

but later came to find that it was "me" and my "ear" that needed
mastering. so now i reach for differrent plugs for mastering differrent
things instead of one fix all set of tools. but then again im allways
changing when one thing works better than another.

jimmy

Hey, Jimmy... which new tools are you talking about, specifically?

Corey

i dont remember exactly whats new in 8 that isnt in seven.
boost 11? guitar rig? but thats a guitar plug and not a mastering plug
64 bit comp. vintage channel 64. or wre these in 7

Or manybe the "new" tools were synths etc. when i first loaded 8
getting it to work and not crash was a nightmare. works fine sometimes
and gets cranky at other times. i like 8 dont get me wrong and it
doesnt seem to drag down the computor like 7 does.

my setup is dedicated to daw only. no internet and other stuff
no word proccessing, no video software (nothing big anyway)
so having the program be finicy at times get agravating.

the more it works right the longer it stays right and the more it
does not so good things the more it does that too. if you have 7
keep it when you load 8. now this is really bazarr. 8 said it
couldnt load my audio driver one day. i loaded the same song in 7
and it played fine. i saved the song in seven and now it plays in 8.

I did the same thing on another tune and "did not" save it "in 7" and
now it played in 8. also 8 has an awfull lot of samples most of which
i took back off the computor (in theyr folders)

new tools? that would be a good post to see what is new in 8 from 7
or would just checking out the products page do that anyway? Ill go see

jimmy

Hey, Jimmy... that's what I thought. Yes, Boost 11, LP64 EQ, LP64 Comp, etc... LOVE them.

One of the main reasons I decided to pick up 8 was for some of the new dynamic processing. I'm very much looking forward to taking a listen and using the new tools.

Corey

ORIGINAL: lazarous

In fact, mastering is becoming a larger portion of my commercial work in general, and I'm finding I really enjoy it. I'm realizing I can't charge my regular rates for it though, and interestingly, my clients agree. On a break from listening yesterday, I called some of my regular clients and asked what they thought about my decision to raise my rates.

Every one of them said "About time!"

Wow. Very heartwarming.

Corey

Well the saying goes that the cream will always rise to the top.

It's sounds like you are well in the flow and good stuff is happening for you presently.....I like it when you share these things and the sense of gratitude you exude seems to underline why its going well.

It's really refreshing to hear good news.

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue
Corey, I think it makes good policy to constantly endeavor to raise your rates. Take your customer list and sacrifice half of it to price incompatibility. Use the higher rates to float you while you continue working with the people who really appreciate the value of what you do and find and appropriate budget. Work back to 100% capacity and then do it all over again.

It took me a long tie to learn that this system works well for many service professionals... It's worked for me... maybe it will work for you.

Mike, once again, thanks for the excellent advice. My role in this world has always been that of the "caregiver" - I think it's part of the reason most of my clients enjoy working with me, but at the same time, it's forced me to keep my rates low so I don't become exclusionary in any way.

What it's really done is make me a little insane. I end up doing work for bands that really shouldn't BE in the studio, frankly. The other problem is this area is SATURATED with studios, and I was already at around the top rate that can be asked for space like mine. The point that was made to me on Sunday during my calls was that my space is comfortable, clean, warm in the winter, cool in the summer, etc., and that my clients come for me.

I'm still trying to get my head around it, but your policy makes a LOT of sense to me. I'm going to keep it in mind as I move forward.

Now, if we can just sign this one major contract... I'll be golden. :-)

Corey