HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR HOME STUDIO
To make money with your home recording studio you can perform activities like:
- Selling beats
- Writing jingles
- Mixing
- Mastering
- Editing
- Sound Design
- Recording Artists
- Voice Over
- Karaoke Projects
- Renting Gear
- Renting Rehearsal space
- And many more
SELL BEATS
Selling beats is the most obvious way for beatmakers to generate income through a home recording studio. There are many ways to do so. The first option is to create a website for your beatstore. Having your own website means starting a business and therefore being an entrepreneur. For this purpose its valid to use your producer name or developing a brand name.
It is always a good idea to support a website with social media. This will help bring traffic to your website, establish an online presence and ultimately an audience. Creating a mailing list is a great way to retain that audience.
The second option is to sell beats on a market place like Soundclick, Beatstars, etc. This platforms are great because they already have highly targeted traffic. The disadvantage is that the competition is high and users might land on your profile just to end up on someone else’s.
In my personal experience the best way to sell beats is a combination of all of the above.
WRITE JINGLES
Writing jingles for TV and radio commercials is a great way to make money with your gear and also one that pays well. There are many applications for original music.
Unlike many up and coming artists, Tv and Radio already have budget. It is not uncommon to make $1,000 dollars for a 60 second music bed and I say this from personal experience.
Cracking the jingle industry is not easy but definitely achievable. The key is to work closely with advertising agencies who will outsource music composition to you. If you have a decent music catalog you can approach ad agencies and leave your contact info.
After a while calls will start to come in. Make sure to do a great job every time and communicate well with your clients cause in the jingle scene word of mouth is the best publicity.
An alternate way to sell or licence original music is to sign up as a seller with stock music platforms. Do your research and evaluate what works better for you.
MIXING
Selling online mixing services is a great way to generate an additional income with your equipment. If you have a pair of pro studio monitors and a good plug in suite you can easily pump out a bunch of mixes every week.
Online mixing services can be sold on freelance digital services platforms such as Soundbetter, Fiverr and Upwork. Remember to charge fairly and be honest about your services.
Going the extra mile each time pays a long way. Returning customers are a common occurrence if you deliver quality work and have great communication with clients.
MASTERING
Online mastering is also a great way to monetize your home studio. However, this might require a bit more knowledge in the audio field, having better equipment and perhaps a treated room.
As a result of the rise of algorithm mastering the competition is huge. Along with this, the price of online mastering has been reduced considerably. But this has also opened doors for engineers with competitive prices.
Some people are still skeptical of services like LANDR, e-Mastered and MasteringBox. This is where the window of opportunity opens for engineers who work from home. Remember to be honest about the services you are offering. Creating relationships is a key element to success.
EDITING
Audio editing is a production stage that is often overlooked, but it’s a very important factor of any professional production. There are many ways to make money by editing. This can range from editing podcasts, tuning vocals, quantizing drums, editing midi tracks, etc.
Editing podcasts is a great way to do so, the demand is high and the work is not difficult or time consuming. This can include tasks such as adding intros and outros, audio effects, background music, editing dialogs to remove background noise, static and making the audio consistent with eq, compression and limiting.
Tuning vocals is an obvious one in the hip hop scene. If you have access to Auto-tune or Melodyne and have a basic understanding of music theory this is something you can easily do.
Make sure to state if you are performing automatic pitch correction or manual work and charge accordingly. Always ask your clients if they want pitch correction or artificial autotune effect. In my personal experience this will save your from doing the work twice.
RECORDING ARTISTS
Recording local artists is an easy way to earn income. For this you will need a condenser mic, a pop filter, audio interface and a DAW. You can create packages for singles, mixtapes, and albums. Many artists don’t have a booth at home and this is where you come in. This is also a great way to showcase your beats to new artists.
RECORDING VOICE OVER
Recording voice over for online Ads, TV and Radio commercials, Documentaries, Dialog replacement and Podcasts can generate a decent amount of income. Much like writing jingles the key is to team up with marketing agencies to create a steady flow of work.
SOUND DESIGN
In the hip hop scene sound design has a strong presence. Creating and selling drum kits, loops, melodies and midi tracks is really common nowadays and many producers are cashing in on this. Sound design also comes in the form of audio logos, post-production, sound effects, foley, etc.
KARAOKE PROJECTS
Recording karaoke songs for amateur singers is something that I discovered by chance. You’ll be amazed to know how many people of all ages want to have recorded song. After discovering this many years ago, I posted an ad in my local newspaper and received a number of calls.
This projects don’t take much time considering that the music is already recorded and you can upsell services like vocal tuning, mixing, mastering and even selling instrumentals for original productions.
RENT GEAR
Renting your gear is a great way to make it pay for itself. Renting microphones, mixers, instruments and amplifiers is a common practice. The downside of renting gear is the risk involved.
Audio equipment is very delicate and can easily be damaged. I rented gear in the past and never had a negative experience but I would recommend that both parties sign an agreement. You can find agreements online for a small fee or even for free.
CONCLUSION
Buying audio equipment is a great investment. In my past experience I learned that the return on investment is super high. One gig alone can easily pay for set of studio speakers, a microphone or instruments.
However, building a steady flow of work requires effort. It is important to establish the channels for landing jobs and also to make a reputation for yourself delivering top notch work.
There is no excuse to not be making money with your home studio. Even if you live in an apartment complex, there are many jobs you can do without requiring many physical space or being loud.
Get started today and with some consistency it can evolve into a career. Audio work allowed me to leave my 9 to 5 many years ago and I’m sure it can do the same for you.
Photo by LiquidMolly [CC BY-SA 2.0]
