I love that they spoke about money, straight to the point. Often times, people tend to keep it secret for whatever reason.

Thanks for including me in this, Nick! I love your channel and all that you do🙌

Shoutout to Paul Third! Hes a sweetheart

When I first started, I did live sound at clubs and bars. This gave me the ability to earn trust by directly working for and with bands hands on. I would pass out business cards that linked to my website where I had pics, samples, contact info, so on. Nearly every show I would get follow ups to do studio tours, many of which resulted in bookings. Within less than a year I was booked solid, sometimes where bands would have to wait 1-4 months to get in. In 3-4 years time I recorded, edited and mixed over 700 songs averaging about $25k a year. (Then Hurricane Irene hit and I lost my studio, but that's another conversation)

Amazing thank you! Im currently scratching my head about this issue at the moment so this helps with clarity on how to move forward!

This content is perfect for me right now, appreciate this a lot, cheers bro💪

I know my situation isn't a normal one so let me start by saying that. For one, I've worked in the music industry in one way or another my whole adult life. I started as a session/touring drummer right out of college. Then I was playing the pits and doing lighting/sound design/operation on and off Broadway. For the last 4 years tho I have been mixing full time. I mix between 150 and 200 projects a year at this point. All my clients come to me lol. Seriously! I freelance on several websites and that's where I find a majority of my clients. Some word of mouth as well as Facebook and Instagram but they always contact me first. I also have a live sound business that brings me quite a bit of work too. I would say 6 or 7 out of 10 become regular clients after that. On one of the websites I work on I'm the #1 most recommended engineer in pop, rock, hard rock, country, and metal. #2 in hip - hop. #3 of all the engineers across all genres and #13 most recommended provider on the entire platform (they also have session players, singers, promotion, etc... for sale on the website). I know my story in not common. That's why I figured I would share it. There are MANY ways to go about getting clients. Keeping them once you find them is what's important! I wish everyone reading this luck and success in their journey!

Really valuable insight!

Trust me to get tonselitis the week you needed this recorded 🙈

A lot of value here, makes me realise that actually, it is possible and it is just building that snowball. Time, patience and consistency.

Great video👍

More of these videos , grazie

Thank you for all the Contant!

Thats crazy to me that one way was through streaming services. I cold message roughly 250 artists using that method and for me I discovered it was a great way to get some testimonials and build a portfolio, but not a great way to find returning and paying clients. Perhaps my approach was wrong, but that was my experience

When reaching out to offer to mix there stuff, where are these clients getting their music recorded first? Are most doing both?

Yes - please persevere with content from Paul Third ... he's funny, true to himself and tenacious

he heard stuff on Spotify and reached out to them to get a mixing job? how does work?

Talking about reaching, money and stuff is the best for new comers engineers. Thank you all of 4 sharing experience. Hopefully this will open some eyes to the reality of the business. Will share a bit of my experience, maybe some are in the same situation as I was. I've been on for quite a few years (started as a side job then tried to get it as main job) but had to stop/break because I was feeling in bad health condition due to the amount of work I've put it with just for a few incomes. I was despite, depressed (let's say the word), worked too much to get to clients with almost 0 feedbacks to my reaches. I could not live properly, so had to find a full time job to pay rent and such, now putting money on a side and hopefully will be able to open back in the near future. Music business is really hard to start and get trust online, especially if you do not have the pro look. I started online, making mastering for my techno label, got my first clients when they heard the job and "quality" for the time beeing. Was in 2013, people did not care much about the pro look, I think this was the best time to start something. Now, my setup is very basic, even though my work is great (according to artists that worked with me after trying out some "pro" studios), I have knowledges and skills, but I get laughed at because of my setup. I feel in 2023 artists tend more to go at someone that has a super classy, light, shiny, whatevery setup even with low skill, more than going to where the engineer's experience is. My advice to new comers : Don't let others laugh at you, don't be afraid to work for free to get a nice and clean portfolio. Create a portfolio, be on social media and so, but not too much cause over work is the next door and you don't want to open that door. Most important take care of yourself, find the right balance, get some money to invest in a room slowly but surely and you'll get your dream job. Sorry long one, but experience is always great to share. take care everyone.

I must say this video was very frustrating to watch lol. I need to make 2k out of this to make a living

That's great. Believe it or not, every one of my paying clients comes from forums. I don't mean facebook, instagram, or discord, I mean I make accounts on forums about music/gear, interact with people on there, share my work when it's relevant to the conversation, and people have seen that and PMed me to ask for me to work with them on their projects. Most of that is mastering work, but I have one client who also has the budget and prefers my mixes to his own.

I thought about mixing and mastering for clients recently. Maybe just give it a bash