Rates
There are a wide variety of rates depending on options you choose. Unless you are a qualified engineer or are bringing a qualified engineer, most people will want to choose hourly or daily with Jacob Belser engineering.
The studio is available:
hourly or daily (minimum fees may apply for hourly work)
with or without head or assistant engineers
with or without piano tuning
with or without video services
For example, the most expensive booking you can come up with would a day with Jacob Belser engineering, adding a piano tuning, an assistant, and video. That would be a total of $1,020.
I don’t mind being transparent about rates. The studio costs about $5000/month to operate before paying the owner (me) anything. Nearly 30 years in business informs me that the studio can be booked about 4 full days a week or 200 days per year. To break even, I need to charge a minimum $250/day for the studio without an engineer (do the math). I’m pleased to break even and I hope to make my profit off of my engineering fees, not from the studio fees, but it can’t lose money…I believe the rates here are as fair as you can find anywhere.
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Base rate of $650/day or $75/hour. See Add-ons below for potential additional costs. This includes the studio fee.
Studio owner Jacob Belser is selected as your engineer. Jake built the studio, has engineered tens of thousands of recording sessions, and is generally highly experienced. You WILL get a good result with him engineering, though there are styles and genres where other engineers may be more appropriate. Jake will be honest with you about that.
There may be some sessions where you will need to hire an assistant, such as a single day big band session; it’s far too much work to be done by one engineer. Jake will discuss this with you.
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Base rate of $250/day or $25/hour. See Add-ons below for potential additional costs.
Whether you are an engineer or you’d like to work with an engineer you hire separately from the studio, you can choose this option. The engineer must be qualified and approved by Jacob Belser. Very few engineers could walk into a studio of this size and complexity and be successful without some assistance, but there are some out there. Check the Visiting Engineers page for resources. Training is offered from time to time for free for engineers who might like to work here, please inquire. Whoever books the time assumes full financial responsibility for the actions and damage the visiting engineer might cause to equipment and to people. Jacob Belser will aggressively pursue damages due to negligence or incompetence of the engineer. Hiring an assistant as an add-on will help to reduce possible damage, but will not absolve the head engineer of responsibility.
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Base rate of $500/day or $50/hour. See Add-ons below for potential additional costs.
This may not always be available and usually takes several days to confirm. A freelance engineer provided by the studio is someone who has experience working in the studio and efforts will be made to match the engineer’s skills to your session. The price is less than that of Jacob Belser engineering, but often you can get excellent results for less money. However, there are some circumstances where a session is too complicated for a freelancer, such as a jazz big band session, so feel free to email questions.
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There are 3 common add-ons that could apply to any of the 3 options above:
Piano tuning: $120. If you are booking multiple consecutive days, you may only need to choose this one time as the piano will stay tuned for many days in a row.
Video services: $10/hour plus $50 setup fee or $150/day. This does not include a video operator. If you are using Jacob Belser as the engineer, the daily fee for this is reduced to $100. Most of the time the head engineer can easily operate the video unless there is a live webcast or live video switch.
Assistant engineer/general assistant: $150/day or $15/hour, minimum $50. Availability not guaranteed until confirmed by Jacob Belser. You should choose this if you need qualified help and if you want to minimize your responsibility of tearing down equipment and returning it to it’s proper place at the end of the night. General assistants will be familiar with the studio and the equipment and can function in many roles. They are NOT head engineers and you should not choose this unless there is a head engineer running the session.
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This is often asked. Here is the most accurate and comprehensive answer I can give you:
A piano is a complex instrument that is easily affected by temperature and humidity. It has over 200 tuning pins that can slip tiny fractions of an inch and adversely affect tuning. For example, at the JSoM, the grand pianos are tuned before every performance, often multiple times a day. The same is true in the studio, you are not going to get a satisfactory recording if the piano is tuned once a year like “Grandma’s” piano. A tuning in Indiana (wild temperature swings) is likely to last 2 or 3 days for a professional recording quality sound. The piano here at the studio is tuned over 20 times per year. The truth is that the studio loses money even owning a piano, it will never pay for itself. Likewise, if I had to pay to have the piano tuned for a two-hour session, I’d be better off not opening the studio at all that day. You may say “oh, it’s ok if it is a little out of tune for my recording.” I understand why you’d say that, but I’ve found that even one recording released out to the world with an out of tune piano causes the studio to have the reuptation of having a “bad piano.” Therefore, I don’t allow that to happen and require the piano be tuned before any session.