Turtlerock Forum

who's workin ? who's accumulating gear? who's commercial / project/ who's doing I.T/ A-frames/ teaching / during the day?

average rates ? > how much work ?? please send me a statement of your bank balance :) :)

what tyupe of work ? what type of clients ? is it word of mouth or are there marketing tricks ?

disclaimer: tonymite is in no way affiliated with bigbrother, census week or SAE. This conversation may be recorded for training purposes - batteries sold seperately.

Currently doing post-production/location sound with a Sydney based production company, as well as the occasional studio recordings...

Needed a 9-5 to keep buying the gear.

not as much as i'd like to be....

same old bitchin' most other dudes my age do, right before they buy a suit and get 'real job'




ps. got a brand spankin new P.A system today.... rockin the suburbs now!!

I've got one day a week at a community radio station producing ads and interviews, and my first paid recording job coming up next week (HSC compositions for a local high school). Java coding the rest of the time, but I'm just getting started in this business...

I'm doing a few spec projects. Trying to find a way ahead in this game.

Doing live sound, barely scraping by. I want to get more into recording but like I said, I'm just scraping by so big investments in gear are pretty much a pipe dream. I guess I'm a "project" PA ;)

I haven't advertised apart from the contact page in the local free music rag. The corporate market is very tidily stitched up by Staging Connections and a few others, most live venues here have in-house systems and "a guy"

There isn't much money to be made out of metal I'm afraid, lucky I love what I do! (most days)

Day Job:
Music Teacher to High School kids (most days)

Other Day (and Night) Job:
Photographer (www.sheerimage.com.au)

PT Audio:
Freelance Producing/Programming

Other:
- Recorded a few EP's this year and been involved in a few others, most notibly "up and comings" (aren't they all) 'AcidEyeliner'.
- Zillions of backing tracks for "tribute" bands.
- Made two albums last year, one for my own band "Speaking of Sarah", now defunct!
- Writing and recording a lot of original music, looking at possible publishing jobs/contracts.

Need a day job to pay the mortgage and have kids. Might look at doing the photography full time, but it's not quite there demand-wise. Like everything you've got to be willing to bite the bullet and put in as much as you want to get out, but I'm not that courageous just yet.... need studio photos done anyone??? :P

Dave.

Day Job: Sound Tech at a secondary school. Mainly AV but a decent amount of recording also involved, all good experiance etc.

Accumulating gear gradually ( usualy when i can find a bargain ). Got enough to do a propper job.

As extra part time income i do 3 or 4 CD projects a year, all self funded independant artists.
The last few years have included:

Steve Messer
Michael Paynter
Jeff Lang
Planet Shakers
Lloyd Spegal
Tracy Roberts
Chris Wilson
Lyndon Wesley
Michael Pizzey
Lobby Loyd
Kevin Borich
Becca and Butterfly Boucher
Jay Atwell
Mike Rudd and Bill Putt _ Spectrum
Chain

Was doing the audio editing for the quarterly surf DVD magazine iSurf, till the begining of this year. Lots of ok band tracs but mostly poorly recorded surfer interviews, car noise wind camera mic etc.

Also record my own guitar instrumentals etc and shop them around for
spots on movies and doccos.....still fishing in the hope of catching a big one.

i work three days per week in local government, in order to support my addiction. but at least it isn't a 'suit' job anymore.

this year has been a slow one for bookings, due to a huge project at my part-time job, selling one house and buying another.

now i'm setting up the new space in spotswood. double-glazing, building some LA2A clone's and JLM mic pre's and gobo's and stuff.
definately enjoying hitting the DIY path. already got four channels of 1176 clones, and two smooth opto compresor clones (and a faulty SSL mix bus clone)
8 tracks to 1/2" tape + 2 track 1/4" mixdown deck (very popular), 10ch's to protools @ 24/96.

i appreciate any form of music - worked with everything from solo pianists to world music ensembles to rock to an alien sex-funk opera (!!!)-
(some examples)
gabrielle sage
auraphobia
sweet revenge
whomp
munir omar
secunda
audio production for FSBS (skateboard dvd mag)
onhold message production

my new space is a large single room, and my learning curve is going to be figuring out how to make the most of spill (and how to track in the same room as the talent)

the last two years when i was in caulfield, i was pretty much booked for my available two days per week.

i'm focussed on the social equity side of things - providing studio access to those who otherwise would have to do without (or, horror of horrors, track via their soundblaster live!!!)
so that means my fees work on a sliding scale depending on their needs.
i choose to believe that no one takes advantage of my big dumb heart.

i'm expecting to be fully up and running and double-glazed (mmmmm) in three weeks. got a couple of my regular solo artists already clamouring for my attentions.

phew. and i pledged that i would keep my posts to a maximum of three paragraphs.
dammit.

chris.
(mfdu)

MFDU: For tracking in the same room, check out Direct Sounds Extreme Isolation Headphones...

Available from: www.frontendaudio.com.au

Working a treat for me, where I have no choice but to track/monitor in the same room, and also great for those long bus journeys when you want to block out the outside world and not destroy your ears

yeah - i'm waiting for the front end posse to get back to me. i reckon two pairs of those extreme isolation h/p's - one for drummers and one for me.

:)

mfdu

Just FYI - an online stockist on evilbay is currently selling these with hard case for US$99 + shipping (US)$22. Comes to about AU$160 delivered to your door. Do a quick search...

Dave

Full time painter/decorator... part time (twice a week) live engineer... when I have time: project studio wannabee.

Own a couple of ok items (Ta@#$% 16 track and a couple of noice akg mics)

Sang in a band for about 6 years

Now working on turning my 110 sq mtr shed into a noice studio, and thus given up buying audio gear for a while:)


Z

Mostly live sound in band work, organising set up, equipment lists, making sure everything is working & mixing, sometimes production stuff in volunteer roles. My day job is with a bank :evil: , would love to work in sound full time but have not found one that will pay the bills :( . I'm getting right into the DIY lately....pre's, DI's, eq's, building & learning as much as I can.

I've just started lecturing nights at an audio school in the city in addition to working at turtlerock, surprisingly good fun, not sure how long for just yet, not bad getting paid for telling stories, picking apart radiohead

Day job is as Senior Avid Editor for a Sydney post house.

Second 'job' is a small business placing indie artists on itunes etc. plus managing the Australian affairs of NZ band Mumsdollar. (www.myspace.com/mumsdollar) as well as freelance production management for album projects/live event recordings.

Weekends either in the work PT studio playing around or on my Logic rig as well as mixing at CCC Oxford Falls on the PM1D console or playing guitar in a service.

About to become a father for the first time in December which is awesome.

Still don't know how to solder a cable though.

i just spent all day soldering mic leads for a rig doing some caberet mixing gigs we got coming up with some of my new P.A gear... its not the best work but at least i get to take home the gear and the pay at the end of the night

Hmmm

During the day I masquerade as the "Audio Guy" for one of Sydney's busier
Apple stores. My Job description says that I provide professional sales and support to the companies pro client base - In reality I spend 80% of my time showwing people how to use their iPods - "What do you mean Limewire is illegal, it's on the Internet, isn't it?" Grrrr.

I am also trying to finish off a degree, and in my spare time I notch up as many hours as I possibly can recording, mixing, and assisting people who do the above better than me... which would be most people, LOL.

[quote="Kris"]
Still don't know how to solder a cable though.[/quote]

Same here - I don't roll my own spliffs either :)