Re: music production
Well, I am a record producer...currently I live in Dallas and do okay at it...though I am moving to Nashville (which is another place you can make a lot of money producing records -- also London is good).
I agree that there are two routes to success as a record producer, but I would differ slightly in what I tell you those routes are. There is the "musician" route -- where by having played a lot, recorded a lot as a musician you realize you have the creative knack for helping cultivate the best out of other musicians in a studio setting. There is also the "engineer" route -- where you obtain a masterful understanding of the technical side of recording music and parlay that knowledge into a role actually being the producer of different projects. Also included as a prerequisite for either route is a solid grasp on budgets, negotiation, and business in general. As the producer of a record, you must be willing and able to provide artists and labels with detailed budgets outlining what you will need to be able to deliver masters to them...you will need to be able to negotiate with studios, engineers, programmers, musicians, airlines, hotels, equipment rental services, logistics providers, and other necessary vendors of goods and services for favorable prices that will help lower the overall costs of recording albums. You also will need to cultivate an understanding of how you get paid, how labels and artists and managers make money -- in short, you do need to know a good deal about the industry itself.
When you're there on all these fronts, you will then need to network the crap out of yourself, develop a resume of tracks for demonstrating your work, and hope to get lucky with some good artists/songs to the point where you become a respected name in the industry that people seeking production will come to for their pending projects.
If you hit it as a record producer, it's not at all unheard of to make 10k/track as a recoupable advance plus 4 points once the advance has been recouped. Record 5 albums per year (usually at 15 tracks per album, because not all of the recorded tracks make each territory's final album release) at that price and you're looking at 750k/year before any of your albums even make enough money to get you into recoupable territory.
However, this is rare -- and getting there is hard work. I'm certainly not at that level, but hope to be within a few years time.
If you do not have a big background in either music or engineering...you either need to get one fast or find another line of work to pursue.
|