Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

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Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Arpangel »

I need an income, and I'd rather start a business myself than work for someone else. I've been self employed before, my own shop, so I'm not unfamiliar with it.
I'm going to be brief.
I'm thinking of two ideas, location recording of local musicians, or equipment hire. I'm based in the heart of Kent, not London, which I think may be a considerable obstacle, especially hiring, but I'm not sure.
I'm not looking to make this a full time occupation, but it depends, ideally it could provide me with a little bit of extra income. But I know how unpredictable business can be, and I just have to see how it goes. But I'd be interested in your views, as to whether it's just not worth bothering with, or maybe some positive pointers.
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Hugh Robjohns »

Equipment Hire requires a relatively large expenditure on said equipment before you can generate any income at all, and against that income you'll have all the ongoing costs of storage, PAT testing, maintenance, insurance, wear and tear replacement, delivery/collection, etc etc...

So probably not really a great way to make money -- and especially not in the short term.

Recording local musicians might be a better bet. Especially if you have the equipment already and don't mind taking it out and about. But this is generally a very competitive area to get into and expectations can be impractically high while standards depressingly low. Are you sure that's something you really want to do commercially? It's a very different thing from the occasional favour for a mate's mate...

A few hours a week as a floor assistant in the local B&Q would probably generate more income for a lot less hassle... :lol:
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Aural Reject »

Arpangel wrote:I'm thinking of two ideas..... equipment hire. .....

Like Hugh says, there are lots of obstacles to this. If you're actually looking for a proper income stream, in order to compete with others you'd need a large enough inventory to cope...hiring out a single synth for a week is one thing....but if you're looking to provide microphones, can you supply 8 Schoeps CMC6u plus the associated capsules? In addition to those, I need a U87 and a R84....?

It really depends what you'd be trying to achieve....but I suspect it wouldn't be especially lucrative.

Arpangel wrote:I'm thinking of two ideas, location recording of local musician...But I know how unpredictable business can be....

Hugh has already really covered this. There are lots of people vying for not much ''business' - you'd be in direct competition with lots of people from here, or Little Johnny who's got a dictaphone....

I do what I do as an addition to my day job. I have a fairly niche market, I've won awards and worked with some of the best artists and bands in my field, I use specialist producers, my mic list includes Schoeps and Neumanns etc etc....but as Hugh has already stated lots of people expect a solid gold service for free - especially if they're an amateur organisation. This can often go hand in hand with delusions of grandeur with respect to the level of their performance. The bottom line is that people (quite often) don't want to pay anything, let alone anything near 'commercial' rates....so they go elsewhere...YMMV, of course.

It's quite a depressing state of affairs, but sadly fairly real.
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Brian M Rose »

I would also add that running a rental company isn't going to make you any money unless you have a LOT to invest.
Premises, delivery vans, engineering, booking staff, and of course LOTS of equipment. And I suspect that the music business is going to be far worse than Broadcast Rental (which I worked in) when it comes to people wanting everything for nothing (we're a famous band, but we'll give you a credit if you give us the gear free).
Then there's the risk of not being paid, theft, damage.....
No, forget it... :-(
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Mike Stranks »

Concentrating on the 'local recording service for local bands' aspect, are you thinking of offering a 'record a performance/gig' service or 'come to your room and let's build an album' service?

If it's the latter then you'll have to factor in the setup time, the overdubs, waiting for the band to work out how they're going to record the next song etc.... even before you start to mix. And more of that anon... And then of course there's all the stands, cables, mics etc that you'll need.

If it's the former then there are other aspects to consider. Are you going to run splitters for your feeds or are you hoping to get feeds into a multitrack from their mixer? Do you have splitters? Will their mixer be able to provide the 'flat' (No EQ; No FX) feeds you'll need? Do you/they have enough sends/channels for what's required? Are their mics any good? If not, will they be prepared to use yours?

Over the years I've offered this service to lots of 'up and coming's and amateur groups. No-one expects to pay commercial rates and many don't even think that you'll want paying! Any suggestion that they'll have to pay and everything will go very quiet or you'll be given various flavours of sob-story.

... and if you do agree a fee don't expect that it'll be record, mix, job done. Almost always on these jobs (BBC excepted) I've had to do multi-mixes - sometimes running into double figures - before everyone's satisfied. And those mixes will include expectations of micro-adjusting levels on each track. Hours and hours of fun!

Could I ever have made money at this? No! I did it because I loved it (mostly)and regarded it as a hobby.

... and by the way... In latter years when I was providing a full OB production service for BBC Local Radio, guess what they paid me per recording? ZERO... They had no money... if I'd asked for it the choir/group/church service would never have been aired...

If you decide to press ahead, don't forget that you'll need public liability insurance if you're turning-up somewhere where there's an audience present. If they trip over your cables, mic stands whatever and are injured it's you who will be liable, not the venue.
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by hobbyist »

Renting gear takes a big capital investment and a lot of promotion and sales for imho too little return.

Live recording is feasible. I see posts on other fora describing that. But it may depend on the competition in your area. And their target market is not local musicians but churches and performers.

Studio type recording is possible but more studios are failing than are being started. Again not recommended for your needs.

The dirty little truth is that internet and digital have destroyed good income chances for musicians artists writers and photographers to make a decent income. A few do well, some break even, most are not covering expenses.

Just imho you would do better offering a service that you are specially skilled in not something that most musicians already have the gear and ability to do like recording.
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Arpangel »

hobbyist wrote:Just imho you would do better offering a service that you are specially skilled in not something that most musicians already have the gear and ability to do like recording.

Thanks everyone, you've all confirmed what I was thinking, but, I just wanted it confirmed! :)
"Hobbyist" that's a good point, but what am I skilled at?!!
I'm quite good at programming my Buchla, and playing free-improv piano, but theres not much call for those things in deepest Kent, I've been adversting for collaborators down here for 18 months, and I've had one viable reply!
Regarding local competition, there is a studio and a rehearsal room and they are obviously very protective about their business.
It's all pop cover bands, or Blues/Metal covers, no originnal material that I've heard since I've been hear. There is quite a boyant classical music scene, organ recitals, choral societies, a couple of respected local musicians, its of a high standard. So I would aim for that if I was going to do anything, and not in any way treat it like an income, just an extension of my interest in recording generally, something to do.
I'll leave the serious money earning potential to B&Q, and maybe Sainsbury's!

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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by ef37a »

If my circumstances (and eyes!) were different I am convinced I could make a decent few bob building special "boxes" for the ever growing Home Recording market.

Just few days ago a guy elsewhere was having bother feeding 8 group outs from RCAs at neg ten to a mixer that wanted +4dBu balanced. Two brace of NE5532s in a tin rat powered would sort that but I doubt any such thing exists or if it does it will be "top pro" and very expensive.

Then there are all sorts of breakout boxes and adaptors that peeps seem to want that they cannot find.

All can be done online will little investment and if you stck to passives, batteries or rats you avoid all the safety regs.

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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Hugh Robjohns »

ef37a wrote:...feeding 8 group outs from RCAs at neg ten to a mixer that wanted +4dBu balanced. Two brace of NE5532s in a tin rat powered would sort that....

You might do better with a handful of THAT1646 balanced line drivers. Better drive capability and fewer supporting components. Only 6dB of gain instead of the notional 11.8dB required... but we could call that protective headroom! ;-)
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by ef37a »

Hugh Robjohns wrote:
ef37a wrote:...feeding 8 group outs from RCAs at neg ten to a mixer that wanted +4dBu balanced. Two brace of NE5532s in a tin rat powered would sort that....

You might do better with a handful of THAT1646 balanced line drivers. Better drive capability and fewer supporting components. Only 6dB of gain instead of the notional 11.8dB required... but we could call that protective headroom! ;-)

I shall check that Hugh but I think that would put a zero on the bill? A 30V supply would still give over +20dBu and, IIRC the application was for an all analogue, tape based system so little need for massive headroom? Also one of the problems WAS lack of gain!

Yup, Farnell want £5.09 PER channel for the THAT whereas you get TWO channels (Z balanced) for 80p for the 5532. The LM4562 is even better and still nowhere near a fiver a pop!

Dave.

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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Drew Stephenson »

hobbyist wrote:The dirty little truth is that internet and digital have destroyed good income chances for musicians artists writers and photographers to make a decent income. A few do well, some break even, most are not covering expenses.

Just going to pick up on this; what the internet has done is changed the shape of the market and people are still reacting to it and figuring out viable business models. It's not some bleak apocalypse. A lot of old models are no longer profitable, it was ever thus.
hobbyist wrote:Just imho you would do better offering a service that you are specially skilled in not something that most musicians already have the gear and ability to do like recording.

This is thing - people will only pay for a scarcity. What market scarcity have you identified that you have the skills, equipment and passion to fill? What rate of return do you need to make it worthwhile? How prepared are you to walk away? And what happens if you do?
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Re: Equipment hire, business idea advice needed.

Post by Arpangel »

Real life is sometimes different from the common sense that l'm employing based on all the replies here. I hear of people who against all advice go blindly ahead with seemingly thin business ideas and come up trumps, I've seen this with a friends gardening business, lots of competition, but he made it work, another guy I knew actually went and did...wait for it.....an audio engineering course! and went on to engineer for a top name band, I mean, a real, top name band, after all of my negative advice about going on such courses he made that work too.
I think regarding location recording, classical especially, there is a new generation coming through, after all, the old guard won't be around for ever, and if there is going to be any sort of an industry left we need new blood. The future of music recording is still very uncertain, and music in general. Will there even be an "industry" in any of the arts in the future? It's impossible to say, but based on things we can do now that even educated industry music people thought were impossible say 30 years ago, are now possible, and way beyond.
Are there still people out there today that think building a commercial studio is a good idea? I haven't talked to or met any that's for sure. My one local studio has fingers in many pies, recording demos for bands who need a drum room, and need to play loud, but even that can be done at home if you're prepared to use electronic drums and a guitar preamp. There aern't many synmphony orchestras down here so that's not a problem! They have rehearsal rooms for the many pub bands, and they act as promotors and booking agents for local bands, also, they have a music shop, so between all these activities they do probably make some money to make it all worthwhile.
So as far as I go I guess I can forget about it, and actually thinking about it on reflection, it's all a bit too much bother to even think about, I'm slipping into old age a bit too easily, just sitting in our garden with my Tascam DR100 recording the birds does it for me these days.
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