Moses Avalon - Confessions of a Record Producer

Beware of the producer who agrees to do something for free. Sometimes this is legit, but often it's the producer trying to impose a virtual fee for his work.

Below are two sets of numbers for the same project. On the left is the budget the producer submitted to the production company. On the right is the real budget that the producer kept to himself. This budget was for a 24-track traditional recording for $25,000.



Basic Tracks		Basic Tracks
Rehearsals - one week in rehearsal room:	$600	Rehearsal in studio:	$560
Lockout for studio, 7 days:	$4,000	One week lockout in large studio	$4,000
(10 reels of 2" @$150 per reel):	$1,500	Tape	$1,720
		Tips	$50
1 day in smaller studio:	$700	Assistant:	$140
Overdubs		Overdubs
One week in smaller owner/operator studio:	$2,500	2 weeks at smaller studio:	$2,600
		Assistant:	$1,400
		Maintenance fee:	$40
Mix		Mix
11 days at mix studio:	$10,000	11 days at ___ Studio:	$5,000
Tape (5 reels 996, $50 per reel):	$250	1/2 tape @ $50 + shipping:	$400
Rentals:	$1,000	Rentals:	$450
DATs:	$60	DATs:	$88
		Travel:	$200
		Miscellaneous:	$200
		Mix Engineer:	$1,000
		Phone:	$100
Post-production mastering		Post-production mastering
Digital editing, 32 hours	$1,200	Digital editing 32 hrs. @ $40 per hr:	$1,280
Sequence premastering, 4 hrs. @ $40 per hr.	$200	Sequencing/premastering @ $40 per hr:	$200
Mastering, 4 hrs. @ $175 per hr.	$700	Mastering, 4 hrs. @ $175 per hr:	$700
Engineer/producer fee:	$3,000	Eng/producing fee:	$4,000

Total	$25,710	Total	$24,128
		Rebate from tape return:	$1,112
		Adjusted total:	$23,016

EXPLANATION:

Here the producer managed to skim an additional $2,694 by doing two things. The first is a typical kickback arrangement with the studio. For every dollar billed, the studio kicks back a "commission" to the producer. This is legal, believe it or not. But the second technique is quite clever and questionably legal: The tape rebate. This is the producer's way of hiding additional profit. Here's how it works:

Artists and small production companies rarely keep track of how much recording tape is used on a project. Even major labels suffer from this "fall through the cracks" syndrome. The tape that is unused gets returned to the supplier for a credit to the producer. This credit will be never reported or passed back to the label as it should. In the next project, to the next client, the producer will overcharge him tape costs as well, and again he will return the unused reels. Over time, the producer can build up quite a hefty cash reserve.

For details and other examples of ways producers "skim" cash form recording budgets see pages 124-138 in Confessions.