How to Budget and Record an Album in 2017: Three Approaches to Breaking Down the Cost

Read on for hree approaches to breaking down the time and cost of making an album in 2017.

Two of the most common questions we get from musicians here at SonicScoop are:

“How much should I budget to record a full length album?” And, “If I want to record my next album myself, how much do I really need to spend on gear?”

On a similar theme, one of the more common questions I get from new studio owners is:  “How much do you think should I be charging, anyway?”

Conveniently enough, today’s story should address all three of these questions—plus an even more important question that you might not be asking yourself. Namely: “Should I even be recording an album at all?”

Today, we’ll go over three models for recording an album, compare their strengths and weaknesses, and estimate the costs of each. We’ll be drawing on some past research we’ve done here, as well as some fresh new survey data we’ve collected as of 2017.

But first, let’s visit that most important of questions that you can ask yourself in this arena:

It’s “the current year”. Should I be making an album at all?

Let’s face it: We’re back in a “singles” culture once again. I’ve been writing about this on SonicScoop for years.

This tends to happen every time a new consumer audio technology emerges, and every time a large new generation starts consuming music en masse.

Perhaps some day, as millennials continue to age, albums will become ascendant again. But until then, the great bulk of the “echo boom” generation is under the age of 30, and their purchasing and listening habits seem to be driven more by the fresh new single than the full-length magnum opus.

That’s not to say that no one sells albums. Of course they do! It’s just that if you’re planning on selling an album, you should have a fanbase first.

Beyonce has no major problem selling albums. Neither does Radiohead or Taylor Swift. (Though the quantities may be lower than in decades past.)

But you? Are your fans asking for an album? If not, why are your giving them one?

Wait… you don’t have any fans yet? Let’s work on that first.

A Better Way to Build Fans (…And end up recording an album along the way)

Fine, fine. I’ll eventually give you what you want:

I’ll tell your how much you should budget to go in and record your magnum opus of 10-15 songs, and I’ll break it down in a variety of settings, from the humble home studio to the enormous, palatial “world-class” recording facility and everywhere in between.

But before we get there, I’m going to tell you what you actually need to know: Don’t start by recording an album. Start by recording songs.

Think about it for a minute. If you can’t sell me on one song, how the hell do you expect to be able to sell me on 12?

Start there. That’s how so many of the greats did it in generations past, from The Beatles to Phil Spector to Motown to Frank Sinatra to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Can you get me truly, deeply excited about one song? If so, great! Make another.

If not? Too bad this time, make another. And another. Maybe you’ll finally find your voice, realize your unique message, and start truly connecting with people on song #3 or #5. Then, do more of that. (While always remembering to try new things.)

What? Did you expect to be an absolute genius at this on your first try? If so, you have too many participation trophies sitting on your mantlepiece. Swipe them off the shelf, throw them in the trash and get started working on another song.

Write and record one really great song. Get people interested in it. Succeed or fail, make another one. Get it out there. Let the cold hard world judge it. Take their feedback with that quintessential artistic blend of of curiosity and disinterest. Then, make another song.

There is only one exception to this general rule: If you’re playing in a genre that relies heavily on the impact of a whole bevvy of original arrangements that you’ve already been testing in front of reasonably large, live, in-person audiences for years (jam bands, jazz ensembles, experimental acts, some heavy music subgenres come to mind) you can ignore this advice.

Otherwise, starting off with one song at a time is probably the approach for you. Build your “album” brick by brick, song by song.

How much should this cost to do? Fortunately, not much more than recording them all at once. Plus, there’s the added bonus that you don’t have to save up quite as much money (or go into as much debt) to get started—all while giving yourself the opportunity to build a fanbase along the way.

Once you’ve got that fanbase, then we can start talking about making your next album from scratch, all at once.

1) How Much Will This “One-Song-At-A-Time” Approach Cost?

To pursue this strategy, I’d recommend booking 1 or 2 days at a reasonably well-equipped studio with a reasonably experienced (and personable) producer or engineer.

Choose wisely, because one of the major reasons some artists are scared away from “proper” recording studios for life is due to a formative experience with a jerky recording engineer that they didn’t connect with, but chose to work with anyway, just because they were cheapest.

Bad engineers have created more good engineers (mostly by scaring musicians into recording and producing themselves) than you might imagine. So choose wisely. Ask for referrals from artists you respect and can relate to. Listen to their past work. Meet them in person. Shop around with more than one option.

Based on my 2013 analysis of recording studio rates I found that—of the recording studios in New York that listed their day rates publicly—all of them fell between $400 and $825/day with engineer, with the most common rates being $400, $600 and $650.

Studios that did not publicly list their rates tended to have higher rates, often as high as the $1000-$1500/day range, with a precious few of them going as high as $2000 or $3000/day.

Today, based on our most recent surveys, fewer commercial studios seem to be found in the New York City area that advertise rates in the $400-$500 range. Prices appear to have risen slightly at both ends of the spectrum, with a bulk of mid-level commercial studios in the still-very-attractive $600-$700/day range—and with much nicer accoutrements than similarly priced NYC studios would have had in the past.

In markets outside of New York City—including respondents from much smaller urban centers such Portland, Kansas City and Dallas—prices could often be found in the $400-$500 range for similar spaces. (And some options can be found a bit lower still.)

Obviously, there are still an elite few who can command much higher rates. To work with some very notable engineers in a major city, you might expect to start looking in the $1000-$2000/day range.

With this in mind, I would generally recommend connecting with a solid engineer you respect in the $500-$850/day range to start. If you come in very well-prepared, and with all your own musicians sourced, you should be able to record—and even mix—one amazingly-well-realized song in just one day.

This is sometimes referred to as the “George Martin Approach” or, as I like to call it, the “Song A Day” approach.

Do this once a month for a year and you will have an album at the end of the year, all while having built a following that may actually want to buy that album when it finally comes out.

Hey, it worked for the Beatles. But what do they know? Maybe you’re better at this than The Beatles already. Seems credible. Go for it.

But, if you are just getting started (and have even a fiber of humility in your being) this “George Martin” approach is generally a much better idea than sitting on 12 songs as you record them in breaks between work over the course of a year and a half, only to finally release them into an uncaring void as the band splits up.

That is what I like to call “The Conventional Approach” to recording your first album. We’ll get to that later if you’re still interested in it for some reason.

Costs and Caveats

Depending on the way you decide to play it, this brings us to a low figure of $500 per song and a high figure of $3000 per song. As a general rule, anticipating to spend between $500 and $1500 per song for an satisfyingly well-produced and well-realized track is a pretty good place to start. Let’s call it $1000.

Please note that there may be additional costs, depending on how much of the production you’re able to do yourself.

The scenario above assumes that you (or you-plus-bandmates) are able to write, arrange and perform all the music yourself, and that you can demo the songs in advance on your own.

If the studio or producer you have selected needs to source musicians for you, expect to pay at least $75-$300 for each player, depending on how long you will need each of them. (Also: Expect not to hire the very cheapest producer on your list, especially if you need their help arranging the song.) For professional mastering with a credible craftsperson, expect to spend anywhere from $50 all the way up to $300 per song.

To maximize even further on your sessions, you could look at recording two songs on one day, and mixing them both on a subsequent day. That’s still basically “A Song A Day”, but it allows you to release twice as many songs, and record a full length “album” much more quickly, if that is your ultimate goal.

This approach does require that you demo, demo, demo, demo. This is where your home studio or YouTube performance channel comes in.

If you’ve already written all the songs, you could instead book a full day at a studio and go ahead and record all the songs you have inside you all in one day, all live. If you have a full albums worth of material in your already, go for it! You might be able to cram in 1 or 2 takes each of 10 songs in one day and get good demo-quality recordings.

Even if you don’t get something out of it that even resembles the full-length magnum opus you were hoping to release, its a small price of tuition to pay for learning all you will learn about the recording process, about your strengths and weaknesses as a performer, and about your arrangements and your songs. It will also leave you in a much better place when you’re finally ready to record your release “for real”, no matter what approach you decide to take.

2) The Conventional Approach

If you already have a fanbase—or if I haven’t persuaded you to break with the long-broken tradition of starting your career off with a full-length album—let’s talk about the “conventional approach” costs.

So. You want to make an album the way they made them from around 1970 until a decade or so ago. Great! Why you picked that time period to model our career after, I have no idea, but OK, let’s roll with it.

(I mean, are you expecting to get “signed to a major label that will discover you” or something? Have you heard of the internet? OK, whatever, what do I know.)

If you either A ) already have a fanbase or B ) are new at this but totally insane, then recording a full length album all-at-once to get your career started could be an awesome way to go.

The first and most important part of this process is to demo all the songs you plan to record. You can do this on your own YouTube channel, in your home studio, or by booking 1-2 days in a less expensive studio (or even a decently equipped rehearsal space) with your producer.

Ignore this part of the process at your own peril. This exercise will very likely make or break your album. Countless bands have skipped this step, only to realize how they should have really pursued each song after the album was already completed.

Expect to spend anywhere from $0-$4,000 on this pre-production part of the process. $500-$1000 is probably a good mid-level target.

Then, you’ll want to record your basic rhythm tracks. Expect to be able to lay down 3-4 well-executed songs per day over 2-3 days at a total cost of $800-$8,000. $1,200-$2,400 is probably a pretty good mid-level target.

Then you’ll want to do overdubs. Expect to budget at least another 2-3 full days (though perhaps at a less expensive rate in a slightly smaller room) for another $700-$7,000, with a mid-level target of $1,000-$2,000.

Then, for mixing, you will probably want to anticipate at least $250/song from a credible mixer, all the way up to $2,500/song or more for an incredible mixer. Let’s call this $2,400 – $4,800 for pretty good mid-level work.

Add this up, and you’ve got a rate range of anywhere from about $4,000 to $[infinity symbol] with a good mid-level target of about $5,000 – $10,000.

Again, this assumes that you (or you-plus-bandmates) can write, arrange and perform everything yourselves. And, we have left off mastering, which you might want to budget anywhere from $500-$3,000 for.

Naturally, this paradigm changes quite a bit if you are working on electronic, hip hop or some forms of modern pop music. We can probably do a whole separate story on that some time.

Similarly, artists who repeatedly hone their craft in front of real live audiences (jazz, jam bands, some forms of esoteric rock or experimental music) may be able to record a full album with a “live in the studio” approach, all within a day or two, plus perhaps, a day or two of mixing.

3) The Home Studio Approach

Sure, you could start off by buying all of your own studio gear and recording yourself. That’s fine. If you want to pursue recording as a hobby or as a career, that’s especially great!

Just bear in mind that every hour you spend learning the recording side of your craft is an hour that you’re not working on your songcraft, or your performance chops, or playing live, or making YouTube videos, or connecting with audiences.

When it comes to setting up your own home studio, the gear is actually the smallest part of the total cost. It’s the often-unseen opportunity cost that will take the real toll on both your financial and your artistic bottom-line.

Do you want to spend 15 hours more per week thinking about recording technology and techniques and 15 hours less per week thinking about making music? Only you can answer that question, but it’s a question you should be asking yourself.

In short: Do you want to be a musician, or do you want to be an engineer? An incredibly rare and fortunate few may be blessed with the advantages to be able to dedicate sufficient time to do both with any real success. But in all the years I have spent covering this industry, I have very rarely met them.

If your primary goal is to be a musician, then keeping overhead (and the learning curve) low is key. If your goal is to be a producer or engineer, then the sky’s the limit. Just don’t lie to yourself about what approach you are primarily looking to take. As the cliché goes: A jack of all trades is a master of none. Like most clichés, it is a cliché for a reason.

Suffice it to say, I have never seen anyone get into studio stuff who didn’t end up spending at least $5,000 on stuff they decided they absolutely MUST have to record, whatever their particular poison may be.

Is the extra cost of “GAS” (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) plus the opportunity cost you’ll spend taking your home studio seriously worth it? That all depends on your goals.

As far as specific equipment goes, you could just use the built-in mic on whatever computer or phone you already own and call it a day. But most people who take recording themselves seriously will end up wanting to spend, at a minimum, $100-$1,200 each on one or two microphones, $200-$1,200 on an interface, $100-$1,200 on software, $50-$500 on headphones, $300-$2,000 on speakers.

All that is for a two-channel system, and is not to mention any acoustic treatment, control surface, forgone use-value of living space, opportunity cost, or the need to buy a more powerful computer than you otherwise might.

Leaving all those out of the equation (the wisdom of which is quite questionable) gives us a range of $750 – $7,300 for a pretty cheap or pretty decent two-channel system, respectively.

All of a sudden that aforementioned “$5,000” number for a fairly modest system of decent quality and power doesn’t sound too far-fetched. It’s funny how things can start to add up.

Keep that in mind when you weigh building a home studio against working with a truly lovely producer or engineer that you respect and admire.

Summing the Signal

Having finished this article, I’m realizing that the numbers and analysis are quite similar to what they were the last time I broached this topic, over 4 years ago.

There have been some increases in the cost of studio time in major markets, but consumer inflation has been fairly low since 2013. (Officially, consumer price inflation has only been 6%, though asset price inflation tells another story.) Though the mean, median and mode all appear to be just slightly higher than in 2013, good options can still be found in every major price niche we covered back then.

That’s a lot of words to say “things are pretty much the same today.” But sometimes, that’s useful to hear. Look for another analysis like this the next time things change. That could be one year from now, and it could 5 or 10.

In the meantime, keep putting out the best work you can, as often as you can. Keep “feeding the machine.”

Justin Colletti is a mastering engineer, writer and educator who lives in Brooklyn.

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