Quoting Prof. Michael Enright: My first boss at the Library of Congress said that the best answer to most questions is either "not exactly" or "that depends." On the whole, the latter applies to yours.
Here are some points for you to ponder: Some orchestras, chiefly in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, often have "deals" for recording: a certain amount of time (say, 3 sessions over as many days), with producer, engineers, equipment, and hall thrown in for a certain price. I've heard $25,000 quoted. Of course, the soloist has to go to the orchestra. Figure on 20 minutes of master material per three hour session or four three hour sessons per CD. Yes, I know the math doesn't work out the same. It never does in real life, either. (I have 40+ years of making recordings to back up this assertion.) Some countries' unions and orchestras have a limit to the amount of master material that can come out of a single session. Twenty minutes is typical, and, frankly, to get much more than that, you either have to be lucky or not care how good the playing is. You can get 1000 pressed CD's in jewel boxes with four color inserts, bar coded, retail ready, for $1500. Probably some less if you shop around, but 1000 for $1500 is easy to find. There's no point in pressing fewer than 1000 copies. It's like business cards: 1000 doesn't cost twice 500; they just let the machines run longer. The cost is in the setup. A player who has practiced & worked up a sonata- or concerto-length piece that is appropriate for his skill level can generally record it as follows: Take 1: record the whole thing. Call break and listen to the playback, noting carefully what needs to be fixed/improved/changed. Takes 2 and 3: the whole piece again, attending to the points identified in take 1, with no playbacks at all. Remaining time on session: takes to fix short sections with minor glitches that remain. For a typical horn concerto, this is the scenario for a single session. Obviously, for a Mahler symphony, opera, Opus Clavicembalisticum, etc., it'll take more than one session. Will the soloist work for free? Probably if it's self-published. Otherwise probably not. <g> What about the conductor? Maybe he's included in the package deal with the orchestra mentioned above. Maybe not. Add in royalties to one and all. This gives you enough concrete information to do some back of the envelope figuring and come up with some estimated costs and the break even point. Quoting Debbie Schmidt: > > If Hans' numbers are not enough to dissuade you I would offer this, do it > right the first time. Fixing "stuff" afterwards is time consuming and > costly. Amen, sister! If the soloist has no business playing the piece and it has to be spliced together phrase by phrase from the random take when it came out right, all the above assumptions go out the window. Waaay out the window. > When the truck rumbles by the "pray house" and gets picked up on the > equipment and you don't realize it then you need to go in for another take > because that was the only good take you had. Those are additional dollars > wasted. Don't discount this factor. It is a HUGE problem in any urban area. Sanner's law of recording is that the truck will toot its horn or the cell phone will go off during the take where you're playing the piece better than you ever have--or ever will again--in your life. So you get to decide which is the lesser evil, the extraneous noise or the take that isn't the best performance. I used to make a lot of recordings at a church (superb acoustics & Moller organ!) that was right across the street from a fire house. Fortunately the fire siren never went off during a recording--and I assure you it was not because I had been living right! <VBG> I also have excellent recordings of the traffic on College Ave. in College Park, Md., and 17th St., N.W., in Washington, D.C. (among several other thoroughfares), accompanied by Bach, Poulenc, Schubert, and Bartok. There's a reason why most serious recording sessions start after midnight and end before dawn. Howard Sanner [email protected] _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
