Print Page - Charging for work? How much? Sharing insights!

Hey

I just wanted to get a discussion going here about potential business models for us music and audio guys. I know there are people that do this purely as a hobby and have fun in their spare time (and thus are happy to do it for free). On the other hand I'm sure there are people who would like to get paid at least a little something or even, like me, who are trying to do this full time and thus would actually need to charge for music and sound in order to make a living. This isn't always easy, of course. When you're trying to get into the indie scene, you start looking for projects and maybe offer some soundtracks for free to start filling your portfolio and have something to show that makes you more valuable and which enables you to start charging for stuff as you have quality work to show off.

But when talking to composers it sometimes seems like a biiiig secret how much they charge, and few people actually really calculate what they would need to charge in order to pay their bills and the gear they use to make music. I'd like to get a discussion going.

What have you experienced regarding projects? What models worked for you: Did royalties work out for you or did you get paid upfront? How much did you charge, how long did you work on the album, have you actually counted the hours? Do you charge per hourof work or per minute of music? Did your projects work out for all sides in the end or did anybody get away unhappy? What's your cost structure: How much would you need to charge to pay your bills and live from the work you do. Of course, this is also a very geographic discussion. I for example live in Switzerland, which is a very expensive country. So to survive I need to charge completely different amounts, which is mostly a deal breaker for people. Why get the expensive guy from Switzerland if we can have more affordable guys somewhere else?

This thread is not meant to expose what others charge and then charge less to get an advantage over them. This is really meant as a friendly benchmark, to learn, and to improve. I would like to understand what business models work, how much time you need to write music, how much you need to charge for it. I would like to understand and to benchmark myself. Do I work slowly? Do I need to get better? Am I doing something wrong in my calculations? This thread is to help each other out and to see what's involved. To maybe not undercut ourselves in prices and to sell us for cheap. I often get questions like "What? A minute of music is sooo expensive?" But once I say what's involved it's clear why it is. So, if we all understand what's involved we may understand the business better, help developers and customers understand better what they're paying for and why, and create an environment that's a fair playground for everybody.

I really like to share information. I think especially in the indie area, where we're not bound to NDAs and really have the freedom of sharing ideas and knowledge, we should take the opportunity to do so.

And I'll start with sharing my experience.

Upfront Payment or Royalties?
As you know, unless the developer of a game has a well-paid job and pays for music upfront, it's probably going to be a profit share if you don't work for free. I updated my portfolio posts on several forums and constantly got contacted by people. They liked my music and wanted me to do music for their game, too. Because they couldn't pay me upfront, we negotiated a profit share.

In late February 2012 both devs urged me to create the soundtrack. They wanted to release the game sometime March. So I really sat down and created some pieces for their games. All in all, with feedback and edits, it took me about 33 hours to create a 7.5 minute soundtrack for one project and 24 hours to create an 8 minute soundtrack for the other project if I only count the time I really worked on it. I still check back with the devs how far they are but the games that should have come out in March are still not finished. Basically, people asked me to work on a soundtrack for a profit share and somehow lost the drive, maybe completely lost interest.

I'd like to add that one dev was veeery secretive about his project. I didn't see any screenshots of the project I only knew what music he wanted. But he said it's going to be released in March and he needed music. Today I'd never again do such a project. If I work for a game with a RISK (profit share) I'd like to know what the game is really about and if it's fun. Why spend a week of work on music if you can't believe the game will be good in the end? Thus working on a game you think won't sell well? This is definitely not going to bring you any money if you work on a profit share.

My learning: Check the project and the developer thoroughly. How far are they with the project? Does it feel like they're determined to finish the project? Do you think the game has potential? Would you like to play the game the dev team works on? Do you think you can get some royalties in the end or sell the soundtrack for some extra coins? CHECK THE PROJECT. You invest your time in it, so you should better believe in the project's success.

So for me, from an earnings perspective, royalties didn't work out at all. And I was too naive to really check the projects, the devs, and if I believed in a game.

How do I count my time / how do I charge?
I came to the conclusion that the most fair way of charging is to charge a potential client by the minute of finished music. Here's why. It's very easy for me as service provider to count per hour. But it's a super high risk for the customer. You say: well it takes me about 5 hours for this track. In the end, it's maybe 8 hours and the customer has to pay almost double. This way you really push all the risk down the customer's throat. I don't go into a shop to buy a car for 20,000$ and then it costs 35,000$ when I checkout. Or I don't pay for 8 hours of machine usage at the car manufacturer's site. I have no idea how long the car was in production and I don't care. The manufacturer counts how much time it takes him to create that car, how many people are involved, what the facility costs him and all that and breaks down the time and costs to one single car. And I tend to think along those lines. I know based on experience how long it takes me to write a simple electronic song, or a complex electronic song, or a medium orchestral song. I have to do all the calculations of how much I charge for my time, how much my gear costs and how long the amortization period is for that gear. I then calculate what all the gear costs me per day, or per hour. After defining with the devs or customers what kind of music they want, I know how long a minute of music will take me. Then we define how much music there will be, let's say 40 minutes. And then I can tell the dev, this is how much it is going to cost.

My way of calculating costs: So in the end I as a manufacturer have to do the heavy calculations. I don't hand the risk of costs down to the dev / customer. I have to bear the risk. If I have a bad day and don't produce that much music, it's my fault. I have to calculate all those risks into the price. But I don't hand the risk over. This way the customer has transparency on what it's going to cost if there is going to be more or less music.

How much time do I spend on music?
This of course depends on the type of music. I sometimes do concept tracks where I have a particular sound in my head already. Other times I first need to find the right vibe. Also, I found sometimes electronical music is easier for me to compose than a full blown orchestra as I lack experience and practice, so it naturally takes longer. Here's my breakdown.

It took me

1.9 hours / finished minute of music for an electronical concept track.
3.6 hours / finished minute of music for a mixed electronical / orchestral concept track
5 hours / finished minute of electronical music for an animation short movie I did
6 hours / finished minute of music for a purely orchestral project (music for an iPad audiobook)
4.5 hours / finished minute of music for a game with orchestral soundtrack
3 hours / finished minute of music for a game with orchestral soundtrack

So this is to start it off. How do you work? What were your experiences with projects?

Thankyou for a great post. Too many people are far too cagey about this information - audio being the crowded workplace it is, rates and means of getting clients are hard-won secrets.

I think the primary problem for me is convincing developers that they should pay a living wage for their audio. A lot of developers I speak to totally switch off when I tell them my rates (which are far lower than what I charge for other types of work), but the reality is that you can't keep the lights on with what developers expect you to charge.

I tend to work on an average of 4-8 hours per minute of music, depending on the complexity. A recent client wanted a 1:30 piece of epic orchestral/rock synced up to a trailer - all for $50 per minute. So that rate equates to under $6 an hour - far below minimum wage in the UK. This is just one of many examples I could give.

If you are freelance then your hours are precious - you can't afford to make music for a pittance just because you love it. The problem is that for every composer that stands their ground and demands compensation for their work there are 100 in line behind them desperate for any sort of work. It's a buyer's market out there!

Chris: I think you mean it took you 24 hours to make an 8 minute soundtrack, because making an 8 hour soundtrack... MOTHER OF GOD.... :wtf:

Anyway, my process...

I base my rates on how much time I have, how much time the project consumes, and how fast I work. As long as I'm not working for "minimum" wage by the end of a track, I have no problem dropping my rates accordingly.

As far as finding "work", it starts out rough, like you said finding projects that'll take you on to do the music for free. I honestly recommend places that are loaded with freeware projects for this, like this forum and the gamemaker forum(yeah... I said it).

Eventually, after spending years building from the ground up, you can gradually charge more and more. I've had private conversations with composers about their rates and heard things from a measily $10 per minute(Seriously... ), all the way up to $800(yes... for indie).

I won't publically diclose what I charge because it changes depending on certain scenario like I mentioned above. But I will suggest that when you sign a contract with a developer, you specify certain restrictions with certain levels of rates. If you do music for $50-$100 per minute, do NOT give them full rights. Give them just enough rights to use the music in their game. If they want to pay for more rights, jack that price up. They are going to make bank on some projects, and they know they are. You don't want to give them the intellectual property rights for $50 a minute for a combined total of... let's say... $500 dollars for 10 minutes of music, and then sell the game and make about $50,000. Who's losing here?

Build a reputation, not just with the public, but on a personal level with the developers you work for. If you make the experience good enough, they'll toss your name to other devs, and even do a bit of promotion for you as well, untimately coming back to you in the future when they need music again. Some of my best gigs came to me from other developers I've worked for in the past. They listen to each other more than they listen to your forum posts and emails. Don't let that deter you from sending emails though, by all means... send lots and lots of emails.

Another thing I do is promotional work, writing intro themes for podcasts, video reviewers, trailers, etc. You can get quite a bump in promotion from that and you only have to put a small amount of time into it. It takes me about... 20-30 minutes to write a podcast theme(15-30 seconds of music), so I have no qualms taking a loss on those. I've even been forced to accept payment for one of the ones I did... despite trying to refuse several times. Make them happy, they'll make you happy. :p

But most of all... just remember there are thousands of us out there. We are all competitive, and we will all continue to be that way. Stay strong, stay positive, and keep doing what it is that you love, regardless of the hurdles that get thrown in your path.

Tootles,
Zack

Hehe, lol, Zack, I wish I could write 8 hours of music in that time! Maybe if I'd do generative sound and would let the computer do the work... I corrected the error, thanks for the hint.

I'll prepare a post on how I calculate costs and what aspects come into the calculation so everybody can have a look at it. I think it might be interesting after all.

I understand if you don't want to reveal what you charge. I too have no fix price. It's all based on negotiations in the end. A huge company that wants a jingle should be able to pay a reasonable price whereas an indie project that you find very interesting might "get away" with paying glory and honor. It always depends what it's worth to you. On the other hand, we're here to help and share each other. This is not a price list and I hope nobody comes here and says "but in this thread you said you charged x amount of $". It's just to see what you charged and what worked for you, if you could cover costs in the end.

I also know a colleague that charges up to 700$ per minute, also in the indie space. But his work is epic. I guess it depends on the definition of "indie". There are a lot of indie companies out there that do have money and pay, even if they're not part of a big publisher or movie studio and can thus be considered indie.

As I mentioned, my achievements are working for royalties on 2 projects that still are not released and thus I made 0$. For orchestral songs for an audiobook project I actually made 800$. But broken down to the 70 hours it took to make that soundtrack, it ended up being 11.40$ per hour. Which is kind of very bad.

So, I'll work on that calculation sheet a bit more and hopefully have something tomorrow during the day. I'm eager to get some feedback on that, if you find it useful once it's finished and if I forgot something. It should help understand what influences final cost.

I finally managed to clean my calculation Google spreadsheet and make it easy to use. So, here it is. I took out some private stuff but this is basically how I calculate what I need to earn in order to survive.

I think this could be pretty valuable for anybody wanting to start his/her own business to see what you need to include in your calculations. It's a useful and versatile template and I put it under a CC-BY license. So you can copy it to your own Google account, adapt it, distribute it, heck even sell it if you think you have to, as long as the credits in the file stay intact.

I also opened this document up for editing. Anybody can play around (please don't destroy it - I got a copy but it's no fun for others). If you find a mistake, add a comment and I'll look into it! But go right ahead, play with the numbers and see what comes out the other end!

Let's make this sheet really useful for all us composers and artists out there!

I tried to comment as much as possible to explain what's going on. Look for the black triangles that indicate notes in cells. All the numbers that are GREEN can and should be modified. It's version 1. So I'll make version 2 when I get some useful feedback.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApW5_Vl64KSFdE1vMDZKQXdwSnBVZ2VjeFZBNlI1UEE

Help me make this really good and help others :) Share the love!
What do you think about it?

Hey moi

Yes, it means you would need an awful lot of projects! :concerned:

Well, all this spreadsheet helps you with is to calculate what you would need to charge hourly or daily if you ran your own business, earn a certain amount of money and take into consideration public holidays, vacation and such stuff. It helps getting your calculations started and see what it means if you wanted to make a living.

The sheet can of course be used in other areas as well, it's not only for indie game composers. And, judging from the numbers that come out of it, I doubt there's enough business around in the real hardcore indie sector (if I may phrase this that way) to make enough. If you broaden the scope, make music for small commercials for local companies, music for companies jingles in your area, it might work after growing and growing your business and network slowly. I think it's impossible to get to a breakeven point right away.

And then, of course there are people that do this as a hobby and are not dependent on this money, they do this as a hobby and either do it for free, or for some additional money. Then it's up to them if they work for fun and for a handful dollars. The world is big enough :). But I talked to a few people that were interested in these calculations. This helps them realize what they would need to charge if a company would approach them at some point in time. Because I also tended to just say a number if I needed to provide a quite to anybody, without thinking, and later realizing that this was just very low and I sold myself short.

So now I at least know what I would need to make to survive, and then I can deliberately say: OK, I do invest in this project. I offer services cheaper, but maybe I get some cut of the sales, thus taking a risk with a potential higher outcome in the end in the case of a success. I just thought I put the sheet out there for anybody interested.

Hello,

I had a nice little "spreadsheet chat" with Chris the other day and promised I'd share some thoughts on this later :)

First off, to answer this question:

Quote from: Chris Polus on October 23, 2012, 05:03:55 AM

So, how do you work guys? For money, for free? To learn, for fun, to live? What's your story?

I'm lucky enough to be able to produce music and sounds for a living.
That said, I'm not just producing audio assets for games, I also do the odd TV commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOHbzYg7FWE), work as a private teacher and choir leader and do all sorts of studio and live jobs. I also study philosophy on the side 'cause philosophy rocks.

The reason why I ended up doing mainly game audio is quite simple: I've been in love with games ever since I first sat in front of my dad's 386 when I was but a wee lad, and it was just a logical consequence to combine that passion with my equally strong love for music.

My musical background is very diverse, I've taken classes in piano, guitar, drums, music theory and classical vocals, played in lots of different ensembles and bands and ended up studying jazz singing, music production and education here in Hamburg. I don't consider myself a virtuoso at any instrument, but I know my way around most instrument groups well enough to produce with them and, most importantly, to communicate with other instrumentalists properly.

I won't be able to disclose what I'm charging for game jobs, but here's something I find worth mentioning:
I always try to make a point of the value and impact that sounds and music have on a game and this is indeed reflected in my rates. Still, I know that especially start-ups mostly don't have big budgets, so here's what I do in these cases: I give discounts and explicitly mention them in my bids, in the contracts and in the invoices.

This has a couple of beneficial effects. For one thing, if the company's first game is successful and they decide to work with me on another project, I have an advantage in discussing the budget.
Also, giving discounts implies a higher value of the music. "My work is worth this much, but I really dig your project, so I'll give you a discount in hopes of future collaboration."

What's really important about this is that I only grant discounts like this iff (if and only if) I genuinely like the project and the dev, i.e. I dig the game concept and/or art, I find it a great challenge, I like the way the team communicates... in a nutshell, don't be afraid to decline projects. Nothing is more frustrating than a job that leaves you in a grumpy mood, and offering these generous discounts to projects that you don't really have much hope for is dishonest and will inevitably make you sound like a used car salesman.

I have a few other thoughts to share: like I've mentioned in a similar thread (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29184.0), I'm writing a full article on this. Threads like this are really helpful for gathering ideas and other people's ways to deal with the tiresome subject that is being paid for doing what you love. Many thanks to everyone who's willing to share their experience. In my opinion, there's enough work for everyone who's truly passionate and hard-working, so let's forget about the fact that we're competitors and help each other out the best way we can. :)
Chris, may I quote some of your explanations for this? I'll provide a link to your website in the article in exchange.

In the meantime, I agree with my fellow-countryman Lauchsuppe: Go get Aaron Marks' book! It's a must-read for both audio people and game developer persons in general.

Cheers,
Moritz

Oh wow. That was years of experience in dealing with clients and projects in one single post. Thanks so much for your post Moritz! It's nice to work on something in one's ivory tower, but it's just a good feeling to get to know how other people work, what makes them tick, how they go about projects and clients.

Quote from: MoritzPGKatz on October 23, 2012, 06:27:27 AM

I always try to make a point of the value and impact that sounds and music have on a game and this is indeed reflected in my rates. Still, I know that especially start-ups mostly don't have big budgets, so here's what I do in these cases: I give discounts and explicitly mention them in my bids, in the contracts and in the invoices.

I think this is very important. In today's free everything economy it's important to tell clients, or even "educate" them that composing is work that takes time and is valuable. Music and sound adds so much the an overall feel and ambience in the background, but if it's not there, a game and movie feels totally empty and hollow.

I use the discount technique, as well. I created my sheet to know what I would need to charge to get a certain income. I then freely adapt the price from this guide value. For high profile projects in for industrial clients I charge more and I know I get a little extra something, for other projects I charge much less. But I always know what I do and can make an informed decision. If I like a project and I'm ready to take a risk, I'll discount it. But I always show the information how much I discounted, so clients get the impression that they got a discount on something valuable and not that a service costed 10$. It was 100$ but I really wanted to help out and was intrigued by the concept. And thus I granted a discount.

And it's easier getting the correct price next time. Clients don't ask "why is the same service now 100$ instead of 10$ as before?". They know it was discounted. They appreciate the help they got and will favorably think about you next time.

Quote from: MoritzPGKatz on October 23, 2012, 06:27:27 AM

so let's forget about the fact that we're competitors and help each other out the best way we can. :)

The world is big enough for everybody. I share knowledge where I can. Besides, many people fear that if they share too much information, they give other people the recipe to copy them and lose work. I think this is mostly untrue. If I give you all the information about how I work, what tools I use, you can't reproduce my life, my feelings, the way I work. Your music, your art, will be different from mine. So I don't see any reasons why we can't share knowledge. It helps you make the work you do better, more efficient and more fun for you. It doesn't help you copy my work. Everybody wins.

Quote from: MoritzPGKatz on October 23, 2012, 06:27:27 AM

Chris, may I quote some of your explanations for this? I'll provide a link to your website in the article in exchange.
In the meantime, I agree with my fellow-countryman Lauchsuppe: Go get Aaron Marks' book! It's a must-read for both audio people and game developer persons in general.

Sure Moritz, go ahead. If you tell me which parts you'd like to share I could adapt the wording a little as I wrote some things in a hurry and would maybe rephrase them now for clarity's sake.

Cheers
Chris

Quote from: sinoth on October 31, 2012, 01:25:44 PM

Quote from: ZackParrish on October 13, 2012, 07:16:47 AM

If you do music for $50-$100 per minute, do NOT give them full rights. Give them just enough rights to use the music in their game. If they want to pay for more rights, jack that price up. They are going to make bank on some projects, and they know they are. You don't want to give them the intellectual property rights for $50 a minute for a combined total of... let's say... $500 dollars for 10 minutes of music, and then sell the game and make about $50,000. Who's losing here?

Can you explain this? I'm a dev and looking into contract work for the first time, and I have no idea what kind of rights exist to negotiate. Specifically, what would keeping these rights gain you or the developer in the end? In your example, what is the ideal agreement to be in for a game that will make $50,000... does it involve both up-front cost and profit share?

Thanks for the post! It's been helpful to me as someone outside your field :)

It's pretty much a matter of limiting what the developer can and can't do with the music. Giving them basic distribution rights to use the music commercially in their game, but retaining the intellectual property rights and not giving them exclusivity so that you can reuse the tracks as stock music and album releases for additional compensation. If the developer wants full control by purchasing the intellectual property and exclusivity for their project, then hike the price. Think of it like... stock in a company. The more stock you have, the more of the company you own. But it costs more the more you try to control. If you want full control then you have to be willing to fork out the cash to do so. Composers that write music for between.... $800-$1200 per minute of music, sign over all the rights to the music. Basically, they no longer own any aspect of it. The developer can reuse it as they wish, when they wish, release it however and whenever they want, chop it up, slice it, dice it, remix it, arrange it, etc. Some composers really don't care that much about it and will take a huge loss in the end just to get a gig with no consideration for how much they might be losing. If a composer does music for a game, flat rate, like my example of $50/minute for a game like angry birds with no prior agreements for royalties or revenue sharing, and agrees to sign over all the rights... they will have been seriously ripped off.

Royalties are nice but high risk... because even some of the best looking games don't sell at all, and the %'s can and most often times are really low for the audio side of a game. Flat rate is a gauranteed payout. Royalties may or may not be.

Hope that helped you understand the tiered rates/rights ratio. More you pay, more you get.

Python - It depends on your target clientelle. Some pay, some don't. Find out a developer's budget before making an offer to them. Define the types of restrictions their budget would entail by hiring you. And as far as being ignored, you have to build a reputation to deliver. Peer influence has been the most effective means to get more gigs for me. I rarely post on forums, and NEVER send emails anymore. All the gigs I've received in the past 2 years have been from one dev recommending me to another. They will listen to each other loooooooong before they'll read the first sentence of an email from 1 out of 100s of emails they get from composers. They will listen to each other looooooong before they browse a forum looking for a composer, swimming in a sea of 100s of other composers. Build strong working relationships with the people you write for, so they'll be compelled to use you again. You could write the greatest soundtrack ever, but if they don't like your personality or the atmosphere through which your business is based on is not a pleasant one, they'll likely never come back to you, or recommend you to someone else.

And honestly, taking advice on how much to charge from someone else, especially set numbers, is bollocks. It's like selling collectibles, you only get what someone is willing to pay. And they should only expect to get what their payment is worth(in terms of rights, length, quality, etc).

Stay positive, stay strong. It's a tough industry.

Also, don't forget the marketing aspect of things. If a developer gets a composer that's widely known in the community, this composer will make some marketing for the game and have a huge community that follows him and suddenly gets interested in a game.

Why else would trailers for movies start with "From the Director Of XYZ". People will more likely flock to cinemas when they liked the other movie the guy/gal made. So getting rock stars on your project will boost your project automatically, if you can afford them. Teams nobody heard before suddenly get featured in the press because <insert known name here> does something for them.

So it's like Zack said. You probably have to work your ass off, get to know people, build a reputation until your fingers bleed and people start to know you via the many projects you worked on. Until you're that rockstar everybody wants to have on their project. :)

As far as the rights go. Great food for thought on how to modify your base prices to make them reflect what you're actually selling. Just the rights to this one game, for re-use in other games, exclusive license so they can even sell the OST and make money from that while you don't get anything? You have to consider what you sell wisely.

This is a real nice thread.

I hate to say it, but based on these "rates", I'm charging about a rock and a half.
For me, I get caught up in quality:

It doesn't sound very professional (vsts, virtual instruments, etc.), so I shouldn't ask for money that reflects music of a quality I don't have yet.

Personally, it takes me a bit of time to make a track. I'll start something and scrap it because it doesn't resonate with me or sound good; Completely re-mix everything because the balance isn't where I want it to be;

Not sure if that is everyone else's problem and I am simply inefficient, but I don't pump out tunes quickly. :/

When I couple those two faults together, with my novice sound library, I'm afraid to charge more than what I am!

I really do think I'm not half bad at writing compositions. Heck, I'd even go as far to say that I'm good at it! But...

I guess I am afraid to ask for a set amount and be turned down because it is outrageous or, better yet, I do not come off as "worthy" of pricing my work at that rate. Then, if I do set a price, I try and throw in a "if that is too much for you, then..." or "if that is a bit difficult...", for fear of losing a potential project.

I have gotten to the point where I am turning down particular projects. If I can't find at least one appeasing aspect, don't believe that it will challenge me, or looks like it would take a miracle and a shot of vodka to be anywhere close to finished, I won't bother.

Well, I'm speaking more in regards to "companies" regardless of how small they are at times that have a pretty solid foundation with the projects they release. $800/min is actually cheap compared to AAA work, but like I said... it's also giving them the music, 100% of the rights. In the mobile markets royalties can have a big payout, and flat rates can help alleviate the need to continuously pay someone after their job is done. I'm not suggesting someone MAKE their rates that high, just hinting at the high probability of landing a gig like that if you do a bit of digging for one. I get that a lot of indie developers lack the funding to invest that kind of money up front, but there are more that have the money than the ones that don't from what I've experienced. That's part of why there are so many composers that do have "insane" rates.

Still, I suppose you are probably right in regards to me saying "easily"... because it's not like you can just blink and have someone paying you that much. Especially with so many people willing to accept much much less...

Edit - Oh... and just for the heck of it... all live instruments... you're asking at least $1000-$1200/min, just to cover the costs of the performers and still make money aftewards. I know a few people that do session work and it is NOT cheap... takes a bite out of your wallet big time. o_o

Quote from: ZackParrish on October 07, 2013, 06:52:36 PM

Yeah it just seems a rather insane level of cost to me, when you have engineering rates often at around 50-100/hr and art rates lower than that, which include usually full rights to everything. I'm not saying it isn't possible to get it, as there are certainly programmers that can pull in 250+/hr for IOS development to the right companies, but its hardly the norm.

I could also be underestimating the hours involved in order to produce a decent quality piece of music, but from experience contracting out music, it rarely has seemed to take hours upon hours to produce a decent track. I mean a 4 minute track at 800/min works out to taking something like 32 hours to make if your billing essentially 100/hr.

Depends on how boring you want the music to be. If you feel like modulating the entire thing and just using copy/paste + transpose over and over again while barely changing anything... sure... that could be very feasible.

I don't compose that way, and prefer doing things one bar at a time, clicking every single note in with my mouse. I also have to draw controllers in the piano roll view to alter the expression of a note, change velocity of the notes to alter their timbre based on the sample library, modify the level of vibrato for additional expression, apply various effects and modify them as needed throughout the track, run EQ over the track.

Just setting up a project takes a long time, then you still have to change things over and over again as you proceed to write the music. Writing the music you might have a basis for the melody you want to use, maybe bases for the harmony, but you still have to write it out note for note(or at the very least play it in).

I've reused ideas within a track before, but I'm not copying and pasting it, and it's not always in the same key as I originally made it. Not to mention I don't charge for any runover amount, so if the request was for 2 minutes and I write 2:45, I waive the 45 seconds at my own expense. Valdis Story devs requested around 80-90 minutes of music(can't remember the exact number anymore) and I ended up writing over 120 total. I didn't charge them for that extra time added on there, and believe me... I spent a LOT of time working on this soundtrack.

Complexity of the music does play it's part though. If a developer asks for 5 second ditties for like... treasure discovery. I don't charge for that because I think it's stupid. And these little ditties can take up 1-2 hours of time, just for 5 seconds.

It's a hard life. :)

This is a great thread!!

For me the amount I charge depends on lots of things - if its a dev's first game or perhaps I look at their past work and don't feel inspired (this particular option hasn't happened yet fortunately) all the money is upfront. The amount I charge per minute has shot up surprisingly a lot since I started out, considering I only properly started out in May. However the amount per minute I charge is still totally not a livable wage unless I have guaranteed about 3 projects going on at the same time. I also live in Brighton in the UK, which is expensive (nearly as much so as London) so my living costs are high.

As someone's already said on here, if I really like a project I drop the up-front rate and go for some profit share. It important to work out whether the game will sell before doing this so you need to ask some questions. Would I play this game? How did the dev's last few games sell? Is the dev good at marketing/social network tarting/promotion? Those are just some examples but the last one I find really important. Devs that do lots of twittering/devlogging on multiple sites and attend conventions where you can showcase the game attract more people which equals more sales.

One thing that maybe is irrelevant to this topic (and I'm not even sure if it applies in the USA like it does here) but some people may find useful is to remember that you can write off 'business expenses' against your tax for purchases spanning up to about four years ago. Remember that expensive-ass sound library? Midi keyboard? Business Cards? website Domain? That ALL counts - so keep a tidy spreadsheet of all your in and outgoings and you can keep more of your money!

I'm really enjoying the whole freelance process at the moment though - I'm finding that I'm getting around one enquiry every week from devs - and although I have to turn he majority down due to money not being right or not having enough time this is a good indicator to me that things are picking up! :)

Again great topic - it's really good to get everyones experiences and learn from them!

Quote from: ZackParrish on October 07, 2013, 06:52:36 PM

$800/min

At this rate you would have to create just 5 minutes of music every month to receive a gross monthly revenue of $4000. I know that there are associated production costs, but let's suppose that's purely digital music (I'd expect more than $800/min for studio recording anyway), so in the case of digital music the cost must be low I suppose and most of that revenu would be yours.
As for the time required, for 5 minutes,I'd expect an intense week of work by a seasoned musician. That sounds reasonable to me.
If the 5 minutes are divided (let's say into 3 songs), that should still leaves some idle time.

While $800/min is acceptable if the indie dev has funding (like a kickstarter), most indies can't afford that. So what's a good price?
In my own estimation I think that $100/minutes seems like a fair entry indie rate for both parties.

Now I have seen many musicians offering $50/minutes (and sometimes much less) which is lower than my estimated "fair rate", but I can understand their logic. Because at $50/minutes it becomes almost an "impulse price". At this price it's difficult to justify NOT PAYING for a few minutes of music to kick your game prototype off the ground. Even if you have a low/no income, you can justify a couple hundred dollars of game music if you are serious about being a develloper.

As for copyright, I know that giving copyrights is a big thing, but devs need all the rights to protect their games. It would be unacceptable to ship a game on which you have licensing insecurities.
That said I would be perfectly fine with leaving the composer the option to sell the song by himself as a music album, for example in a compilation, as long as the name of the game is mentioned. That sounds like a good compromise IMO. They could also negociate a small percentage on the sales of the game, why not.

I have also seen musicians selling non-exclusive music at cheap rates and I think that this is also a good way to start earning money as a musician. I don't know how well this really works but I have heard that some of these guys do ship a lot of non-exclusive music for small games, cinematics (a cinematic should not require original music) or even TV/video production,etc...

I know that the prices I'm suggesting are not guaranteeing a living, and are far from what some profeszsional musicians are charging, but everybody is in the same sinking boat here and most indie games can't feed their devellopers.
As a dev, I'd prefer to pay a musician than to use free music, but the price should be affordable.
If every dev starts using some music in their game, maybe the industry will take off and solidify.

Note - Before you argue against something I said... please read the last paragraph of this post. :)

Again... I'm not suggesting anybody hike their rates to $800/minute. I clearly said you COULD pull in that much, not try to. That's one reason I tier my rates for the exact reasons you said... different people have different needs and budgets... so I try to scale things to fit.

Base rate - Basic distribution rights(one year grace period from date of release given to upgrade to 2nd level)

2nd level - Basic disbribution + Exclusivity to your project, with option to repurchase rights for additional projects at stock rates

3rd level - Full rights, you own the music

That's the vague way of putting it... because IE closed the tab I was replying in and I really don't feel like typing it again.

Everything about music production has a lot of costs involved, and they are never cheap. A good chunk of the money we make is spent to upgrade, maintain, expand, recouperate, etc. I think this past year I probably put about $3000 into my production... which is painful financially. The past ... 15 years, I've probably spent over $15,000. Totally guestimating that number since I don't feel like pulling out my tax records and adding all that crap up... but it wouldn't surprise me if that number was actually a lot higher in reality. I have gone through 5 computers since I started writing music, about 10 monitors(these things sure suck sometimes), lots of speakers, mixers, headphones, harddrives, different guitars, pedals, DSPs, keyboards, sample libraries, software, performance costs, god... guitar strings... -_-, blah blah blah etc.

All that and I'm merely doing this as a hobby outside of my real job. I can afford to be a cheap whore in comparison to most because my job doesn't suck and sustains me rather well. BUT, the couple of times I did decide to do music full time... boy it was rough, and it didn't matter how many low end gigs I had or how few big gigs I had... I was constantly having to work to keep my feet on the ground and it was not fun at all. If you remove the one thing that compells us to write music by putting us in a situation where we feel we HAVE to write in order to survive, it's crippling. My productivity not doing it full time is 100x what it was when it was all I was doing for money. I would take on any gig I could find regardless of the connection I'd have with the project just to make ends meet, and could go a month or two without making a dime. And that 5 minute gig you mentioned might very well have been the nectar that kept me going until the next one.

I need to stop typing now... IE is about to crash again and I think I've rambled on enough.

Please understand yet again, I'm not suggesting $800/minute, that's just a number I have been offered before and a few friends of mine have been offered by indie companies(not individual persons). They are usually a lot pickier than an individual would be, and will request the full rights of the music every single time...

Of course, maybe one day we'll all get lucky like Hans Zimmer and make it big and can get paid $150,000 to have blaring brass for 2 hours with the occasional subtle violin solo to express sincere drama or tension within a scene between two characters that we can hardly relate to. :]

Quick recap(I'm using notepad to type this now) before I go:

$800/min - Great to get but not to ask for in most indie situations

$100/min - I've heard a lot of people bark this number out as their rate so it seems as though you are in agreement with the lot of them. Though I have heard other developers say that price might be a tad high for them depending on the rights they get.

In the end, what's it really matter? The developers will choose the composers they like the most, figure out how much they'll cost and how much music they want/need... and then make a choice from that. If they love Calum Bowen's music over the rest with no contest, and are willing to pay him $500/minute... by God they are most likely going to do it. :)

In that scenario, we're getting into economics and I would rather sleep than get into that like my senior year of highschool.

To that end... once again, I'm going to repeat myself... I AM NOT RECOMMENDING PEOPLE CHARGE $800/MINUTE TO INDIE DEVELOPERS, PARTICULARLY INDIVIDUALS. :) Never opening my mouth again about the potential to be found when one goes on the hunt...

Quote from: ZackParrish on October 09, 2013, 04:07:53 PM

If they love Calum Bowen's music over the rest with no contest, and are willing to pay him $500/minute... by God they are most likely going to do it. :)

:-[ don't make me blushhh zack!

I'd just like to throw my hat into the ring [disclaimer: this is all based on my experience which is by no means definitive!]. Initially I was a little shocked at the $800 p/min but if that's to completely sell the rights then I personally would shoot for that kind of price. That said, I've never worked with a deal where i've sold the rights to my music, only the use. It might just be a personal preference or being a big ego who never wants to lose control of his music. I've pretty much only ever done exclusive use deals. I would think that's the most common set-up that devs and composers are after. That said, I have a feeling the higher up you go and the bigger companies you work for, the more they expect to own the music completely - and, as big companies, they generally have the money to pay you more in order to completely own it.

I'd probably throw in the number $350 p/min for someone who's living off just music (indie games) and is doing really well and is pretty well known (NOTE: THIS IS NOT ME!). In the past I've worked for a variety of prices and deals. I think, as people have said before, until you have the demand and recognition from people who are making real money from games, you have to take each person as they come, see what they can offer and decide whether it's something that would work for you or not. Generally, from the start of my career, with each commission or project i'd try to increase my rate even if just by $10 p/min, but it really just depends on the project - I've worked for free on something because it was a small amount of work and was with a friend, only to find out that it would get sponsored and I was receiving 30% of that money which, in the end, led to more money than if i had charged for it in the first place. That was kinda luck and I was happy to do it for free but it goes to show that there are definitely worthwhile things to be done even if your rate can't be matched. Right now I don't really have a fixed rate but i strive for $350 p/min and probably work down from there given that, in all honesty, I don't yet have demand enough to refuse something just because it's below what I want to be paid. Also, I might give a different answer in a few weeks because tomorrow i'm finally moving out of my parents' house :handshakeL: ;D :handshakeR: and having to rely on game music to pay the rent.

I think the sad thing is that, for the first year or two of your career, quality doesn't make a huge difference to how much you can charge, only attention/recognition/demand matters. The upside is that quality leads to attention and as zack said before your fellow composers are your best friends, definitely not your competition. Fellow composers can recommend you to people they've worked with before or get you on board on a game they're currently working on or get their fans to be fans of you! I've had a bunch of work come from fellow composers! Give it time, always enjoy yourself and keep a clear head when deciding which projects to go with and not to go with!

Quote from: Majestic on October 15, 2013, 02:38:50 PM

Damn so much wall of text lol.

I really prefer to keep it simple. I know most indie devs are not rich and Im not going to beat them in the head on the rates.

I usually charge by the track. Usually $60 - $100 per non-exclusive track seems fair on both ends for the small indie dev. Where I'm from getting paid close to $100 for composing one track is damn good

I think to be charging $800 a minute :lol: you really need to have your brand established.

Like i said, I don't want to be rich. If i can make enough to pay rent, food, travel, etc. Im nice and content

non-exclusivity is a whole different matter in my mind. Seems on your site you charge $19.95 for non-exclusive tracks. Is $60-100 for a specific commission which is used non-exclusively rather than something form your library? This is from my very limited knowledge of library-music but, places like audiojungle tend to price non-exclusive tracks at around $10-20.

I guess there's a difference between non-exclusive commissions and music libraries.

Do you find doing mostly non-exclusive stuff to be fairly lucrative? I guess it all depends on volume! I've often considered doing non-exclusive stuff but mostly for money reasons, never got round to setting anything up though.

Yea non-exclusive licensing ( same thing libraries like audiojungle are doing ) is a different matter. I never really got into composing stuff exclusive cause it just wasn't worth it for the average person's budget.

With non-exclusive licensing you can sell the same track over and over unlimited amount of times..and to different markets at that so its a good deal.

The $60-$100 a track I charge is for custom tracks tailored for your game project. I usually drop the track into my library after that.

I hear some guys are really eating good off of the licensing tip though. For me the income from licensing is really passive right now, but I think it will speed up especially this upcoming year.

Here's the testimonials from audiojungle

Quote

I get full creative freedom to release the type of work that I’m passionate about; there are no deadlines to meet, no client meetings, and no mandates to create work that I’m not interested in. Put simply, I get to share my own creative ideas with an entire marketplace of buyers who respect and appreciate my work.” – Epicera

“I’ve gained more exposure and clients in the past year than I have in the previous six years of my professional career. I’m making enough passive income a month to cover my mortgage and it’s afforded me to buy a new BMW M3. This is only the tip of the iceberg, the skies the limit to how much you can make!” – Contempoinc

“Joining the Envato community was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Being able to earn money with what I love most is awesome of course, but having complete creative control over my projects makes it even better.” – Kriesi

I'll probably compose free of charge for projects that I'm interested if I can survive off licensing.

Hello, here's my 2 cents, from the perspective of a music composer and sound designer with about 1 year of experience specifically doing music/sound for games.

I landed a nice LITTLE contract after about 5 months of VIGOROUS job searching. It does not pay a lot of money (I have a day job besides music, these days, unfortunately, sigh), but it pays about $1000 per game, with about 1 game per month. The requirements for the game are usually 3 or 4 music tracks around 30 seconds each, and usually between 30-60 sound effects per game. Genres/styles include orchestral, historical, ethnic/world, rock, etc.

Make no mistake, I feel VERY LUCKY to have landed this contract. Even though it doesn't pay all my bills, it does pay a nice chunk of bills, and it's stead MONTHLY. I am extremely grateful to have this, especially starting out, as my first game composing gig.

I can complete a 30 second track/loop with moderate-complex orchestration in about 5 hours. This usually includes: 1 hour of research/noodling/rough composition, 3 hours of sequencing the virtual instruments and/or recording live instruments, 1 hour of editing, mixing, mastering, bouncing it down, making sure it loops properly, etc (very tedious stuff!). For sound effects, it usually takes me 10 to 30 minutes for 1 single sound effect. Multiply that by 30 or 40 or 50+ sound effects, and that adds up to a lot of time. Keep in mind, I do not have to implement any of these assets. I just create the assets.

I value my time at $35 per hour (this is quite low, but reasonable for someone just starting out, in my opinion. I have actually seen many people charging this rate). Each project usually takes me 25-30 hours to complete. Usually that equals out to around $800-$1000 per game, if I'm lucky.

I have been pushing hard to attach myself to indie projects, looking for that next good gig. After 10 months of building my portfolio up with somewhat legit credits (not really that legit), I feel somewhat optimistic about trying to get more contracts. It's tough, and it helps to have people around you that support you while you pursue your pipe dream! :P

5 hours for a 30 second track doesn't sound ludicrous to me at all. Not a dig at anyone, but I've found that the people that tend to make the best stuff (not just in music) are the people that pay attention to detail and paying attention to detail takes time; whereas amateurs tend to spend less time and give less attention to the small parts of their track. I think many people are capable of making a 30 second track in probably half an hour but that'd probably be a pretty shoddy and tiresome track. I think it's absolutely vital to pay attention to detail when you're working with loops as well because the more complex and the more intricate your track is, the less tiresome it'll be, the more small details people will notice upon repeat listens! That's just my theory. Anyway, that's kinda off-topic I guess.

I would imagine licensing doesn't really give you the same relationship as creating new stuff for people. I think it allows people to come across you but if i was a developer, I'd probably be more likely to suggest someone i've personally worked with in a creative way than someone I purchased stock music from. I guess it depends on what kinda project it is. I think licensing can suppliment your earnings nicely but the only indie game... or non-indie game I know of that is even moderately-successful and used licensed music was Braid (that was some really bloody nice music as well!). Pretty much every other title has been a combination of an active working composer and a dev making some wonderful dreams come true! Hahaha, i guess i'm just not that fond of the licensing route.

wait... what was the topic again?

Quote from: Majestic on October 16, 2013, 05:48:16 PM

I hear some guys are really eating good off of the licensing tip though. For me the income from licensing is really passive right now, but I think it will speed up especially this upcoming year.

Here's the testimonials from audiojungle

Quote

I'd probably be a little careful of over-exaggerate'y testimonials like this. I just googled all these people and none of them seem to exist. I think there are a FEW people that may make okay money from it but they're just a few swimming in seas of tracks that are unknown and don't get bought. The whole thing kinda seems centred around generic'ness - making what is most generally desired in the least specific way that it could apply to as many clients as possible - that's the secret to success with it and it's kinda not that exhilarating in my view. All this said, I think I'd probably consider having a few tracks that i kinda make for fun and see how they do on various licensing sites.

Yes, for the type of music that I do, it takes typically about 5 hours to complete a 30-45 second music loop with around 6-10 instrument tracks.

I understand that for SOME composers it can take as little as 30 minutes to produce 30 seconds of music, but I would question the quality, complexity, and appropriateness of such a track. I can produce 30 seconds of music in 30 minutes if I wanted to. Any composer could. Loop a simple drum loop over and over, come up with a simple melody, simple backing chords, duplicate it a few times. Don't edit it. Don't automate it. Don't mix it. Voila. 30 seconds of generic under-produced music that does nothing to improve my reputation as a composer, and barely meets my client's needs. I don't know about any other composers here, but that is not my approach!

Here are just a few hurdles that may factor in to your 30 seconds of music taking MUCH longer than 30 minutes to conceive, execute, and deliver:

- The client requires the song to loop in on itself seamlessly. Problem? This immediately restricts what kind of track you can make (suddenly your ideas for a frilly fantastic open-ended intro and ending are SHOT, because they don't conform to a seamless looping structure). Now you have to scrap your idea that took you 15 minutes to come up with, and start from scratch.

- The clients requires music that is for a specific genre, let's say Pirate music. What kind of pirate music? Happy? Serious? Epic? Comedic? Neutral? Ok, now I need to come up with a melody that is ORIGINAL (ie, not a Pirates of the Caribbean rip-off), but still awesome, and has all the signifiers of a pirate song. These signifiers include: What historically and thematically appropriate instrumentation should I use? What key should it be in, and what intervals, chord changes, and groove should I emphasize to signify to the listener that this is indeed a Pirate-specific song, and not some generic orchestral stuff? All of these decisions take time, research, and planning in order to execute properly and at a high-quality.

- The client requires historical ancient chinese music fused with modern electronic elements, and orchestral elements as well. Hoo boy! Ok, I need to come up with a NON-annoying, NON-generic ancient Chinese melody, and then somehow fuse that with a fast electronic track, and then layer on some epic orchestral stuff on top. And make it sound good. Since I'm not a super-expert on ancient chinese music, rather than pick the first cheesy cliche melody that comes to my head and run with it, I would instead take 30 to 60 minutes and research the theme thoroughly, see what my options are for production style references, and THEN start composing. Simply taking the extra time and effort to research or plan your approach is super important in my opinion, whether you bill your client for this time or not (I do).

- The client wants a very complex, active, and fast-paced orchestral arrangement to suit the battle scenes in his game. Problems? Very simply put, it simply takes MORE TIME to sequence MORE NOTES. Duh! A 30 second music loop consisting of 4 instruments, all playing whole note, half note, and quarter note melodies (yawn) IS NOT THE SAME AS a 30 second music loop consisting of 10 instruments, all playing 8th, 16th, and 32nd note melodies. And that's just SEQUENCING the notes, I'm not even talking about automating/editing the velocities, and other MIDI parameters, of EVERY NOTE in your track, so that your track breathes and isn't stale and lifeless.

- The client wants the SFX in the game to harmonize or be in the same key at least, as the music. The SFX have to be harmonious with the music and not jarring in any way. Problem? Depending on how 'harmonious' the client wants these two elements to be, it can be something of a minor struggle to compose music with this restriction. Suddenly your amazing composition doesn't quite jive as well as you want with the sound effects you've created.

Just based on those observations alone, I am still struggling to see how a typical music composer can compose/perform/edit/mix/master a high-quality, moderately complex 30 second music loop in 30 minutes, from conception, to delivery. Music can be a complex beast. Different key signatures, tempos, time signatures. Multiply that by the operations carried out by your DAW (every click, every drag, every slide, every render, every playback, every record pass, every thing!). And this is all assuming that your brain is pumping out ideas at the same speed that your hands can execute those ideas on screen (which rarely happens). That's a lot of mouse-clicks, folks. You can only click your mouse so many times in 30 minutes.

Am I alone here? Or is every music composer except myself capable of making 30 seconds of awesome music in 30 minutes? Am I missing something? Is there a speed-composing book I should be reading? :P

This thread has so much great info in it, and thank you Chris for sharing your awesome spread sheet! I love how transparent everyone has been with their info.

As a practical matter, I was wondering how some of the composers/sound designers actually draw up their contracts on here. Do you just look at other examples and copy and paste with minor alterations, do you type it up from scratch in notepad, do you have a template you downloaded somewhere, do you have a lawyer/accountant? I recently discovered ShakeLaw (http://) but am unable to utilize it as it's only on iPad/iPhone currently; it's said to be a solid source for us freelancers.

There are some great example contracts in Aaron Mark's book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240810740/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER) and some great practical advice in Winifred Phillips's book (http://www.amazon.com/Composers-Guide-Game-Music/dp/0262026643/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415044355&sr=1-1&keywords=a+composers+guide+to+game+music). One of my takeaways from Aaron's book was to not be so timid about negotiating money with clients, something I still constantly fail at. I can't remember the exact phrase, but there was a quote in it I loved, something along the lines of "Don't you want to be able to make enough money to buy the tools that will help you craft the beautiful music you know you can make. That music deserves to be heard."

of course i give an estimate beforehand; it would be ridiculous not to do that! it's not impractical in the least for a client, either, as i keep very detailed timesheets with screencaps of my work files attached whenever possible. i also work to a budget ceiling; say, for instance, that a client wants to pay no more than 200 dollars. i'd work ten hours, finish out what i could as best as possible (meaning the full skeleton of the work even if there are production tweaks i'd rather add) and send them that, with their own option to pay more if they want more polish. before that point, i'd send a draft every two hours so that they know the time is being spent well.

this method is the best one for the simple reason that it treats everything i make equally. charging per minute/second is problematic because some minutes/seconds take longer to make than other ones (an ambient synth trail for ten seconds is nothing but a detailed drum break could be an hour or more depending); this means it's fairer to both me and the client as there's no chance of me artificially ballooning the length and there's no chance of me being underpaid for complicated short work. it also means that revisions are zero percent an issue.

i occasionally do a a flat rate if the client insists; when i do it's based on an estimate from my hourly. I take that estimate, charge less than that, and ask for a revenue share in addition; that will work out, in the end, to the same deal.

TIGSource Forums

Developer => Audio => Topic started by: Chris Polus on October 12, 2012, 04:33:02 AM