I'm trying to figure how much time and money it takes to record albums and videos. Michael and Prince were given $1 billion to record their albums. I hope that's with video and tours. Cause 1 billion is insane. Many unsigned artists can do hi quality work on a workers salary.

Michael would do an album every 4 years usually with no movie. Hw long would you say it would take 9 months... a year? Je'd spend extravagantly and make sure he pushed the envelope. His works were state of the art. A smaller artist can do an album in a week. That's how long it took to do just The Scream video. It was supposed to take 3 but ended up 7. In the making on Mtv I heard it took like a month or two supposedly. How long does a vid take?

Princ moreapporpritley is the artist. Hie's like a local resteraun focusing on authenticity and true underground sound. Compared to Michael he didn't spen extravagantly and was never into technology. His shpws never contained lasers, pyro, and all that much lighting. He didn't even pack video screens until Musicology. He would do small intemate shows instead of 100,00 seat stadiums which he could do. Prince would do an album per year accept '83 before PR. He's done several movies and never had high concept videos taking days or weeks. Despite being given a million dollars he was still quite mad at Warner Bros.

SO can nybody tell me a range of time and money it takes for the average artist to do albums and videos? It gets even moe hectic cause it's 90% business.

$ 1 billion? really?

that seems a bit extravagant. where did you read that?

Comparing the way Mj works 2 someone in their basement is a complete waste of time.

Mj worked with 100's if not 1000's of people from the beginning of a project until the end. Every step of the way has cost involved and 1000's of man hours.

Another Side of Bob Dylan was recorded in one evening. But that was in the acoustic days when all he had was a guitar and a harmonica. Still, Highway 61 Revisited, with band, was recorded within one week. Don't know how much it cost, but recording an album doesn't have to take a long time.

IstenSzek said:

$ 1 billion? really?

that seems a bit extravagant. where did you read that?

LOL! I didn't even read the billion...1 million yeah, but billion, damn, MJ really knew how to spend.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Another Side of Bob Dylan was recorded in one evening. But that was in the acoustic days when all he had was a guitar and a harmonica. Still, Highway 61 Revisited, with band, was recorded within one week. Don't know how much it cost, but recording an album doesn't have to take a long time.

In those days, they had no more than 4 tracks to record with, and some studios still had 2 tracks. So everything had to be recorded live. If someone messed up, everyone involved had to play over. Later, with multitrack consoles, people didn't even have to sing a song straight though. They could just sing one line at a time and then put it together later. If someone messed up, they could just do the flubbed part over and punch it in. It also made "one man band" records possible or singers doing their own backgrounds, which takes more time.

The most expensive record I ever worked on had a budget of about $80 grand. That was for 2 weeks tracking, 2 weeks mixing, enlisting a fairly known producer in a top-ranked studio, flying the band and our gear to New Orleans for recording and Memphis for mixing. The most fancy/ professional gig I ever had.

When I hear about bands spending 6 months in the studio I can imagine how they rack up big studio bills.

For us two weeks for tracking was luxurious, we'd made complete albums in 1 or 2 days before that with budgets of closer to $2000. Nicer studio costs more, and a name producer will cost a lot too, but the main thing is time. Figure ten or fifteen grand a week to block out a nice room, plus the cost of keeping all the musicians, engineers and such around for that period of time, and it starts to add up.

Yes it used to be more common to finish a major album in a few days or weeks. Today, you're missing two things: engineers that know shit about recording people in the same room, and musicians who are prepared to deliver an amazing first take. Every note has to be analyzed with a microscope. Any errant note will have it waveform re-drawn by a computer to put it in tune. Doesn't sound much like a band anymore but that's how you know you have a "modern" sound right?

Hell I was antsy by the end of that two weeks... I can hardly imagine going in there every day for six months!

[Edited 1/29/13 14:40pm]

To answer your question "what is the average" it varies a lot. I certainly knew lots of bands who made great records in less than a week for less than $5000.

As I mentioned my biggest deal recording took about 1 month and cost $80 thousand. The cheapest & shortest cost $180 - six hours in a $30/hour room, recorded live to 2-track. Walked out of the studio at 11pm with a finished album in our pocket.

Major label productions, I think 1-2 months is probably typical.

Michael Jackson was not typical. I think I read his recording cost on his last LP was around $1-2 million and took about a year. Somebody else here may have the exact numbers. (Not close to a billion.)

But not to be outdone, GNR's Chinese Democracy was supposedly around $5 Million over 10 years. That figure may include paying the "band members" salaries while they sat around and did nothing for much of that ten years, not just studio time.