MAKE MONEY PRODUCING MUSIC
This article is intended for people who do not want to become artists/DJs themselves, but want to make a living producing electronic music.
As a music producer, there are plenty of opportunities to make money these days:
Royalties
Synchronization
Sale of beats
Producing for other artists (ghost productions)
Mixing & mastering
Recordings
Teaching
Youtube/Instagram
Sale of sample packs
Sales of merchandise
Below we discuss exactly how this works.
FIRST THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT HOW YOU WANT TO START
You can, of course, join a (game) studio, broadcaster, advertising/media agency or publisher, but we still see far more often that people start out on their own first.
There may be quite a lot of options, but the competition is great, and the bar is quite high: the quality of music productions these days is excellent. So you will have to somehow try to get in between. This means you'll have to level up your musical and technical skills anyway, and perhaps develop somewhat of a sound of your own.
There are comparatively not that many producers anyway who make sure they get really really good at what they do and then do their marketing smartly and also follow through. These are the basic skills of every self-employed entrepreneur (offering a good product, good/smart marketing, discipline and never giving up) Self-employment in any industry is not for everyone, but music is still often seen as a glorified hobby. This makes you more likely to give up if things get tough: it would have been better to get a "real" diploma. However, every successful entrepreneur knows that setbacks, if you deal with them well, offer opportunities.
BEFORE YOU START.
MAKE A PLAN
If you really want to achieve something make a business plan; this does not have to be a book, an A4 sheet with your product description, goal, target group, marketing plan and financial picture is enough to get started. It has been proven time and again that if you put an idea, plan or goal on paper, the chances of success are much greater.
REGISTER WITH THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Many people starting out in music do a little bit of everything: selling music, live sound, a little studio work and mixing or mastering from home etc. Normally you then first start as a self-employed person. You then have to register with the Chamber of Commerce. Registration at the tax office is automatic. You then have a Chamber of Commerce number and a VAT number. You will have to declare VAT every quarter, but this is not a big deal. You will have to file an annual income tax return; it is advisable to have this done by a good accountant so that no deductions are overlooked and it is done properly.
WEBSITE
Next, it's a good idea to start a website. Even that is not a big deal these days, although you should not underestimate the number of hours that go into it: good content is super important these days.
Tips:
Come up with a good domain name (not "mixstudiojoep.chimpmail.com or something similar)
Get a good logo right away (via Fiverr, for example: good and cheap)
Make sure you have some good photos or videos before you get started
Use Wordpress or Squarespace: with these you will have a nice site put together in no time and these are also well found by search engines
The quickest way to get customers is by using Google Adwords; this does cost a bit but if you do this a little smartly you will easily earn that back
Now you can officially get started! But what exactly are you going to do? Here are some well-known and lesser-known ways to make your money with music.
SOCIAL MEDIA
It is a good idea to start thinking about the fact that soon you will be dependent on social media in part to generate an income. So take a good look at what you do and don't put on social media right now. Political opinions, crazy photos and expressions about your favorite soccer team may not be very wise.
Make sure it all looks professional. If you really get going make sure you post something regularly. If you pay for promotion, make sure you post something fun soon after, otherwise you will soon lose your new "friends".
You can also outsource your social media. There are agencies like Your Media Wave that can organize this for you. This may seem excessive, but do you really feel like posting a different "emotion" every day?
WHAT CAN YOU MAKE MONEY WITH?
EARN ROYALTIES BY SELLING AND STREAMING MUSIC
Sale
Provided you become really famous you don't earn anything from selling music. You might be able to cover a little cost if you sell at gigs, but who plays CDs these days?
Streams
Of course, this is every artist's ideal image: you make a record, load it up and the money pours in! That's not entirely unrealistic. Just look at this chart:
Image is from www.informationisbeautiful.net
For example, you can see here that you earn 0.0044 dollar cents per stream on Spotify, and 0.0007 cents on Youtube. To earn a monthly salary of $1472 you need 366000 streams per month on Spotify, and 2.1 million on Youtube. (On Youtube, you can earn a lot more with your own channel)
HOW DO YOU GET THIS DONE?
Uploading a song is not that hard anymore; there are plenty of aggregates like CD Baby or Soundcloud Pro. But how do you get people to listen to your music, too?
Of course, this starts with a good song. And to get streams, the most logical way to do this is through a label: said have, if all goes well, the right connections or methods to get streams. You have to count on having to give up around 50% of your royalties.
2. SYNCHRONIZATION: USING YOUR MUSIC UNDER MOVING IMAGES
With sync licensing, you get paid because someone uses your music under a video. For example, for TV, film, Youtube, a game or app. The author (you) gets a share, and the owner of the rights to the song. That's you yourself if you haven't sold the rights, and otherwise it's the publisher/publisher.
You can make quite a bit of money this way, even with music you may have already made and wouldn't otherwise do anything with anyway.
Again, the first thing you need, of course, is music: about ten tracks is enough to make a good start. Next, you can join a company that will take care of licensing for you such as:
How much you get paid can vary greatly from project to project. It is not strange to get a few thousand euros for a few minutes of music. It's also not strange if that music is leased for a year for a few tens.
3. SELL BEATS OR ROYALTY-FREE MUSIC
In the last few years, there has been a wave of music producers and beat makers selling "beats" to independent singers, artists and rappers. Most of them sell instrumentals on their websites and other platforms, using social media to promote their products.
Beat prices range from €20 and up, depending on the quality of the beat, how big the customer base is and how famous you are as a producer. License types are also adjusted to price (non-exclusive lease versus exclusive lease or buy), but there is no set rule for this.
The best way to get started is to produce at least 10-20 beats/tracks to start with. This is doable; you probably already have a lot of everything lying around. You'll also ensure that you're not behind the times; there's no need to stress because the product is already ready to go.
You can create an online store to your own site, but it is also wise to do so through more well-known sites such as Beatstars and Airbit, Shutterstock or Epidemicsound (google for: stock music or buy beats and you will find many more)
4. PRODUCING MUSIC FOR OTHER ARTISTS
In other words, ghost productions. As a DJ/artist these days, you are expected to have your own tracks. However, producing tracks is very different from spinning records. Not everyone can do both. Not everyone has endless time. Hardly anyone has a studio in their private jet....
People like Maarten Vorwerk and Angerfist are known to make a lot of productions for others that don't always include their own names. However, there are many more ghost producers than you might think.
The artist/DJ then somehow buys a complete song from the producer. The producer can be paid a fixed higher amount where the copyrights are bought out (the artist becomes the owner), a somewhat lower amount where the producer keeps the copyrights (he then also gets paid when the song is played on radio/tv/youtube etc.), or nothing where a different deal is made. The producer can choose to get a percentage of the streaming royalties or a portion of the fee the artist gets for performing.
4. MIXING & MASTERING
If your music is good enough to sell, then apparently you are already good at mixing and mastering. You can offer this as a service; after all, you already have enough demo material. For a mix you can ask at least €50,- to €200,-, depending on how the song is delivered. If you're getting more famous it's not weird to ask a higher hourly or daily rate.
5. RECORDINGS
A good vocal recording seems very easy, but there is a bit more to it than meets the eye. Good equipment, acoustics and performance are essential. If you make sure that your equipment and acoustics are just that little bit better prepared than most others, you can offer this as a service. If you are also able to get a good performance out of the artist, you will see that there is certainly a lot of demand for this.
It is also not strange to make a good deal with and professional recording studio. You can offer yourself as an engineer and bill the price of the studio you are working with to the client. The studio owner then basically doesn't have to do anything himself, but still makes money.
6. YOUTUBE
Start a youtube channel! This is not for everyone, of course: you have to be the type and willing to do this in the first place. However, there is quite a bit of money to be made; at least if you handle your ads and affiliate marketing properly.
Subscribers are not directly the most important thing: what matters most is the number of streams you generate. The last example I came across was and channel with 30,000 subscribers that made $10,000 that year with 3.5 million streams. Those are achievable numbers with a nice idea or good product.
Good quality and persistence are a must though. Count on at least a day's work per video if you prepare, execute and edit it properly.
7. TEACHING
Perhaps it is an idea to transfer certain knowledge. Just make sure you actually have the right knowledge and experience. The market for beginning producers is very large, and there is nothing like teaching people something that will help them for the rest of their lives.
8. SELLING SAMPLE PACKS
Not a bad idea if you make your own sound anyway. You can start offering your sounds via Splice or Loopmasters, for example. If you become more famous, it might be a smarter idea to do this through your own website and social media. You can think about making:
Drum and instrument samples (one-shot or loops)
Construction Kits
Vocal packs
Presets for well-known synths
How much does that earn? Again, hard to say, but a top ten Splice Pack can earn between €5,000 and €10,000. Sometimes a company buys off the samples all at once; you get paid right away. It can be smarter to get paid in royalties (percentage of sales). It then takes longer for you to get paid, but this income continues.
Copyright Master The Mix Academy BV 2020