5 ms·

According to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/, $1,009.75 in 1969 is equivalent to $7,547.26 in 2021. My guess for t

According to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/, $1,009.75 in 1969 is equivalent to $7,547.26 in 2021. My guess for the cost of recording two studio songs these days would be about an order of magnitude higher than that. (If you tell me it costs ~$40k to record a studio song, I would not be even slightly surprised.)

wodenokoto 5y ago
That's 480usd/hour for studio time. Asking Google, a studio runs "30-200+" an hour, which doesn't say a lot, but says that todays prices easily undercut what The Rolling Stones chose to pay.
basisword 5y ago
On the other hand these days you can record a number 1 single at home with a laptop for pretty much no cost. That wasn’t a possibility at all back then.
- asdff 5y ago
  Plenty of bands recorded their albums on cheap multitrack recorders in their garage.
- vidanay 5y ago
  Boston Boston is probably as close as you could get to that "back in the day".
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    Yep, but that was only really possible because Scholz was an MIT-trained engineer. Without that (or equivalent knowledge from other sources) it would have been tough. Nowadays you can buy the technology off the shelf.
    - anamax 5y ago
      And, it wasn't Scholz' first rodeo.
  - jawilson2 5y ago
    McCartney? He probably had above-average home resources available though
    - vidanay 5y ago
      The band Boston and their debut album "Boston" is famous for having been recorded in Tom Scholz' basement. (Paul?) McCartney was not involved as far as I know.
      - pstuart 5y ago
        Referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCartney_(album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCartney_(album) -- home recording in 1970.
quesera 5y ago
Depends on the studio and staff (recording engineers, producer, etc). If either or both are famous -- instead of merely excellent -- you will pay a much higher rate. But the most important question is time. You can pay less than $1k for a full studio day with great equipment and great staff, but it adds up if you're slow, or your players are learning the song (or even writing it!) in the studio. And of course, you can do a lot at home with a couple thousand dollars of hardware today.
axegon_ 5y ago
I checked several calculators and it seems about right. To be completely honest I would have imagined that the price would have been much higher. Then again the Rolling Stones are at the top of my list so I am likely incredibly biased.
kop316 5y ago
A band I used to play with recorded/mixed five songs with a fairly reputable producer (he produced Avenged Sevenfold and several other national US acts), and the cost came out to be about $2,000/song (2015). We also had all of our songs fully written out, and everyone knew their part, so the procuder really only tweaked things. However, for the amount of time we got with the producer/studio, it seemed like a bargain to me. Recording/mixing just varies incredibly widely, and it varies by reputation of the producer, how much time, effort they put into your song, time in studio, things like that. That being said, ~$40k seems REALLY high to me (but I suppose if you are an act like the Rolling Stones, that is comparitively low).
- d883kd8 5y ago
  Sounds like a song costs about the same as a website
- letitbeirie 5y ago
  $2000/track sounds about right for that. I played with a regionally popular band around the same time and we were able to record a 5-song EP for $7500; it sounds like we got a similar level of attention from our producer (who had a few "oh yeah I know them" acts on his resume but none as popular as Avenged Sevenfold). $40k would be extortionate for what we got, but there are producers out there who are worth it. The Beatles got a good deal no matter what they paid George Martin.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    $40k a song would be for a full orchestra from a smaller state college or conservatory recorded in a million dollar venue. I'm making this up obviously, my point is recording technology has increased vastly in quality and decreased vastly in cost, so for a single song to cost $40k just to record (assuming that mixing and mastering is done elsewhere) there has to be a LOT of moving parts and unique considerations ramping up the cost. $40k should be enough for your average band to record a full medium to high quality album and have it mixed and roughly mastered. Not necessarily by the best in the business at any level, but you should still have a high quality, release worthy result at that price if you are not being taken advantage of.
rectang 5y ago
Then and now, studio time varies wildly depending on production approach, arrangement, the number of takes required to get a "keeper", and the opinions of stakeholders who may wish to keep working. So estimates are hard to make. Many artists basically craft tracks in the studio these days. That really started in earnest with Sgt. Pepper's but it's much more common because of democratizing technological changes. You can spend unbounded amounts of time in the studio if you have the budget.
S_A_P 5y ago
The answer is it depends. A lot of pre-production early recording can be done outside of the studio or at a home studio these days. Certain styles of music have little need for a 'professional' studio anymore. Unless you are an established and or well funded musician that depends on good playing and acoustics for your sound most records can be made on the cheap. In the Houston area where I live there are few studios that can and do record professional and big names. Most of those have rates around 150-250 bucks per hour. Recording to tape is rarely done anymore but these days 2" tape will run between 100-300 a reel. Depending on tape speed that will capture around 10-15 minutes of multi track music. If the band is tight and arrangements are worked out you can fit 2 songs on that. Big name producers can range from a percentage of pre-recoup sales, to a flat fee to a mix of both. In the early 2000s I think Dr Dre quoted a friends and family price as a flat fee of 50k per song. I think that would balloon to 150k for those outside his circle. Also note- this receipt for the Rolling Stones is only for studio time and materials. That may include engineering time and producer fees, but I would hazard a guess that it does not. I would also bet that Jimmy Miller(the producer of Sticky Fingers) had a separate fee so the 1000 bucks was not really the all in cost.
- dsizzle 5y ago
  That was only the initial tracking too, not the mixing, and probably some of the overdubs.
laumars 5y ago
I’d say the opposite is true. These days studio quality equipment is affordable so often when you pay for studio time what you’re paying for is more the producers talent. So it really depends on the style of music and how prepared you are going into the studio / how much work the produce needs to do. I see can’t the cost running into tens of thousands unless your basically using the studio time to compose your track.

wodenokoto 5y ago

That's 480usd/hour for studio time. Asking Google, a studio runs "30-200+" an hour, which doesn't say a lot, but says that todays prices easily undercut what The Rolling Stones chose to pay.

basisword 5y ago

On the other hand these days you can record a number 1 single at home with a laptop for pretty much no cost. That wasn’t a possibility at all back then.

asdff 5y ago
Plenty of bands recorded their albums on cheap multitrack recorders in their garage.
vidanay 5y ago
Boston Boston is probably as close as you could get to that "back in the day".
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  Yep, but that was only really possible because Scholz was an MIT-trained engineer. Without that (or equivalent knowledge from other sources) it would have been tough. Nowadays you can buy the technology off the shelf.
  - anamax 5y ago
    And, it wasn't Scholz' first rodeo.
- jawilson2 5y ago
  McCartney? He probably had above-average home resources available though
  - vidanay 5y ago
    The band Boston and their debut album "Boston" is famous for having been recorded in Tom Scholz' basement. (Paul?) McCartney was not involved as far as I know.
    - pstuart 5y ago
      Referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCartney_(album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCartney_(album) -- home recording in 1970.

quesera 5y ago

Depends on the studio and staff (recording engineers, producer, etc). If either or both are famous -- instead of merely excellent -- you will pay a much higher rate. But the most important question is time. You can pay less than $1k for a full studio day with great equipment and great staff, but it adds up if you're slow, or your players are learning the song (or even writing it!) in the studio. And of course, you can do a lot at home with a couple thousand dollars of hardware today.

axegon_ 5y ago

I checked several calculators and it seems about right. To be completely honest I would have imagined that the price would have been much higher. Then again the Rolling Stones are at the top of my list so I am likely incredibly biased.

kop316 5y ago

A band I used to play with recorded/mixed five songs with a fairly reputable producer (he produced Avenged Sevenfold and several other national US acts), and the cost came out to be about $2,000/song (2015). We also had all of our songs fully written out, and everyone knew their part, so the procuder really only tweaked things. However, for the amount of time we got with the producer/studio, it seemed like a bargain to me. Recording/mixing just varies incredibly widely, and it varies by reputation of the producer, how much time, effort they put into your song, time in studio, things like that. That being said, ~$40k seems REALLY high to me (but I suppose if you are an act like the Rolling Stones, that is comparitively low).

d883kd8 5y ago
Sounds like a song costs about the same as a website
letitbeirie 5y ago
$2000/track sounds about right for that. I played with a regionally popular band around the same time and we were able to record a 5-song EP for $7500; it sounds like we got a similar level of attention from our producer (who had a few "oh yeah I know them" acts on his resume but none as popular as Avenged Sevenfold). $40k would be extortionate for what we got, but there are producers out there who are worth it. The Beatles got a good deal no matter what they paid George Martin.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  $40k a song would be for a full orchestra from a smaller state college or conservatory recorded in a million dollar venue. I'm making this up obviously, my point is recording technology has increased vastly in quality and decreased vastly in cost, so for a single song to cost $40k just to record (assuming that mixing and mastering is done elsewhere) there has to be a LOT of moving parts and unique considerations ramping up the cost. $40k should be enough for your average band to record a full medium to high quality album and have it mixed and roughly mastered. Not necessarily by the best in the business at any level, but you should still have a high quality, release worthy result at that price if you are not being taken advantage of.

rectang 5y ago

Then and now, studio time varies wildly depending on production approach, arrangement, the number of takes required to get a "keeper", and the opinions of stakeholders who may wish to keep working. So estimates are hard to make. Many artists basically craft tracks in the studio these days. That really started in earnest with Sgt. Pepper's but it's much more common because of democratizing technological changes. You can spend unbounded amounts of time in the studio if you have the budget.

S_A_P 5y ago

The answer is it depends. A lot of pre-production early recording can be done outside of the studio or at a home studio these days. Certain styles of music have little need for a 'professional' studio anymore. Unless you are an established and or well funded musician that depends on good playing and acoustics for your sound most records can be made on the cheap. In the Houston area where I live there are few studios that can and do record professional and big names. Most of those have rates around 150-250 bucks per hour. Recording to tape is rarely done anymore but these days 2" tape will run between 100-300 a reel. Depending on tape speed that will capture around 10-15 minutes of multi track music. If the band is tight and arrangements are worked out you can fit 2 songs on that. Big name producers can range from a percentage of pre-recoup sales, to a flat fee to a mix of both. In the early 2000s I think Dr Dre quoted a friends and family price as a flat fee of 50k per song. I think that would balloon to 150k for those outside his circle. Also note- this receipt for the Rolling Stones is only for studio time and materials. That may include engineering time and producer fees, but I would hazard a guess that it does not. I would also bet that Jimmy Miller(the producer of Sticky Fingers) had a separate fee so the 1000 bucks was not really the all in cost.

dsizzle 5y ago
That was only the initial tracking too, not the mixing, and probably some of the overdubs.

laumars 5y ago

I’d say the opposite is true. These days studio quality equipment is affordable so often when you pay for studio time what you’re paying for is more the producers talent. So it really depends on the style of music and how prepared you are going into the studio / how much work the produce needs to do. I see can’t the cost running into tens of thousands unless your basically using the studio time to compose your track.