Affiliate Partner Indie Connect | Filling Dead Time In The Studio

By Vinny Ribas, Indie Connect CEO 

On July 5, 2013 © 2013 Vinny Ribas

If you own a studio and record other artists in it, there will inevitably be down time, It doesn’t matter if you have a small home recording setup or a full blown, high-end studio. People cancel. The economy tightens so business slows down. More and more people have home studios and are recording their own projects. Here are some ways to fill or take advantage of the slower times. If you are a musician yourself, and you are creative, you can really benefit from the down time!

• Record your own projects. Down time is perfect for creating demos of your songs, working on your own CD etc.

• Develop commercial projects. For example, you can create karaoke tracks of popular songs and selling them. You can record a Christmas CD and sell it (people buy all kinds of Christmas music). You might record new versions of great ‘driving down the highway’ songs to sell at truck stops everywhere. Or, you can just license the original songs and create a compilation to sell. Get creative!

• Record a third party project that you really believe in on spec. This could end up making you more money than the studio time itself.

• Record jingles on spec. Listen to the radio for advertisers who don’t have jingles. Write and record one for each one and then offer to sell it to them. This could be a very lucrative business during off-time.

• Record songs and music beds that are appropriate for film and TV. Market them through online libraries such as MusicSupervisor.com or  CrucialMusic.com. Eventually you may have enough recordings to create your own library to shop.

• Create a calendar showing ‘sale dates’ – times when you expect to be slow and post it on your website, social networks etc.

• Create a ‘last minute sale’ calendar’ and post it on your website and social networks.

• Teach classes or hold workshops in your studio. It gets people familiar with it and sets you up as the expert.

• Create a program similar to a ‘Christmas Club’ Let people make pre-payments on their projects over several months. Keep the money in escrow. You’ll get more projects this way.

• Create a membership program for your most consistent customers. Your offer would be  ’X amount of dollars per month for ‘X’ amount of hours of studio time, accruable over a maximum of ‘X’ number of months. This keeps people from spending their recording budget elsewhere.

• Have a mailing list and a newsletter that gives tips on production, preparing for the studio, hiring the right producer etc. This also sets you up as the expert, and people want to do business with experts.

• Put together a team of writers, singers and musicians that are willing to play on each other’s projects. That way the only cost to them is your studio time. You’ll end up with more projects.

• Offer your services as a producer/engineer to home studios to help them get the best sound. There are countless people who own studios but don’t know how to use all the bells and whistles that make a recording pop.

• Find a few people who do voiceovers (e.g. many actors and radio personalities), then market your studio to authors who want audio books made of their works.

• Market the studio to speakers and trainers who want to put out audio training.

• Develop a targeted mailing list for people who have large or ongoing projects and are on a tight budget.  Offer them a discount for booking the studio during down time.

 

Please use the comment section to tell us other creative ways you’ve filled empty studio time!

Vinny Ribas is the founder of the IC Virtual Songwriter Showcase – the world’s only international songwriter showcase to be held exclusively online in a virtual environment.  He is also CEO of Indie Connect, a global business club for up-and-coming artists, songwriters, musicians and music professionals. Indie Connect helps its members increase their chances of success by providing practical career direction and education, combined with live and online industry networking opportunities. During his 40+ year career, Vinny has been a full time musician, artist manager, booking agent, songwriter and the Entertainment Director for the NV State Fair. He is a published author, a consultant to start-up businesses and a popular speaker at music industry conferences.