How Much do Music Producers Make a Year?

How Much do Music Producers Make a Year?

How much do music producers make a year?

The job of a music producer is quite challenging and dynamic. He is responsible for identifying new talent and honing the same. Every budding artist’s dream is to join hands with a respected music producer so that he can lay a strong foundation for his musical career.

In this article, we will tell you briefly about a music producer’s job profile and how much he makes a year on an average.

Even before we get into this article, here is a disclaimer that we would like to tell you – the numbers mentioned below are not fixed. They vary according to different geographies, job requirements, experience and the like.

What does it take to become a music producer?

In today’s world, there is stiff competition in all the fields, including music. You cannot become a music producer only with talent. You need three important factors along with talent – luck, marketing skills, and communication skills to get a chance to prove your mettle.

When you make the right use of the chance that you get at the right moment, you will start getting work in this field. You can around $50,000 to $51,000 per year as a music producer if you get work regularly.

What are the roles & responsibilities of a music producer?

If you want to become a music producer, you should know what you are expected to do in the musical field. Your job doesn’t end with making music. There is more to this than what meets the naked eye. Though a music producer’s role is quite exhaustive, here, we have given you some of the basic roles of this profile in a nutshell.

• Producing and arranging music for new and experienced artistes
• Preparing the studio where the artist is going to perform
• Getting all the sound equipment ready and in place
• Recording the music of the artiste & fine-tuning it to perfection
• Collating all the sounds using sophisticated technology and making it ready for the final output
• Coordinating among the singers, music arrangers, music-producing labels, sound technicians and all other stakeholders
• Looking for new talent in the music industry and classifying each talent into different categories such as commercial hits, album voices, devotional, rap, etc.
• Mixing the sounds of the artistes & instruments to ensure that there is no clashing
• Reviewing the music and making the necessary edits before presenting it to the potential clients

Salaries of music producers

We already told you that the job of a music producer is very dynamic. The ways in which they are paid, too, are quite different from other professions. They don’t get a fixed paycheck after every music they record, Instead, they get paid in many forms such as the following:

Royalties

This is one of the most common ways in which music producers earn money. Royalties are percentages of the total sales of the artistes’ songs that they produce.

An experienced music producer, who deals with many artistes at the same time, can, therefore, earn quite a lot of sum through royalties. Currently, a music producer is paid around 3 to 4% of the total sales value of an artist.

Some reputed music producers also earn money in the form of “record one royalties.” This means, they get paid a certain percentage on every album that is sold of the artiste, whom they manage.

Advances

This is one of the common ways, in which, a music producer can earn money even before he starts his work. If he is experienced, he gets a certain amount as advances from the music label for which he is producing the song.

These advances depend on various factors such as the credibility of the music producer, reputation of the music label, popularity of the artiste who is recording the song and more.

Different skillsets demand different payments

The term, music producer, is very subjective. There are quite a lot of other job profiles that are included in this. If you want to become a music producer, you have to have these skill sets.

Depending on the technical knowledge each of these skill set demands from you, the pay that you get will vary. Here are some of the common skill sets of a music producer and how much each skill is worth annually:

• If you specialize in music production engineering, you can earn close to $51,500 annually
• If you specialize in editing sounds, you can earn around $57,000 per year; this job pays the most because it involves a lot of work such as mixing sounds, instruments, deleting overlapping sounds, making the music presentable and more
• If you are an expert in using the sophisticated technology that is involved in operating audio and visual devices, you can earn around $52,500 per year
• If you are a part of the music production support or management team, you can make anywhere between $50,000 and $52,000 per year

The average annual income of a music producer that we mentioned at the beginning of this article (around $51,000) applies to a beginner. You can expect to earn close to this amount if you are just starting out your music production career.

However, the sad part is that most of the music producers get a very minimal increase in their annual salaries even when they are in this profession for over a decade.

According to studies, the average annual salary of a music producer with around 20 years of experience is approximately $59,000 per year, which isn’t a great jump from $51,000. You can expect to earn more than $60k per year only if you have more than 25 years of experience in this sector.

If you are looking at ways to improve your earning capacity as a music producer, you can try the following simple but effective tips:

1. Partner with Professionals

If you want to earn proper royalties for your work, you need to ensure that you join hands with the professionals in your country. You need to register yourself a music producer at an authorized agency in your country so that they will monitor your performance and pay you accordingly, every time your track is played or downloaded.

Registering with professional and individual distributors’ network is very important. Without these, you will never know if your music is streamed on any app or played at any club! You will lose out on a large amount of royalty payment when you don’t keep track of your music.

2. Synchronize your tracks

This is the process, where you license your track for use when being used on any type of medium.  Ensure that you create a particular category of music and sell it for a license on authorized music libraries.

When a music company is looking for a particular theme of the track, it will first approach these authorized libraries. When they find your music there, they will have to pay a certain amount to you before they get to use your track.

3. Market your tracks well

How do you ensure that big music labels reach out to you when they are on the lookout for some fresh music? This is where promoting your sample packs is a great idea. Create a music pack and label the tracks in it in full detail. By reading the label, one should be able to understand what kind of track one can expect from the track.

Sell these royalty-free samples to attract your potential clients. Initially, these labels may partner with you on a small profit-sharing basis. You need to accept the terms and move forward to get a standing in the industry before you start demanding a higher percentage ratio.

4. Producing music for new and established artists

One of the most stable ways to earn income for a music producer is to create music for new and established artists. You might get pure lucky if you get to strike a deal with a reputed artiste.

All it takes is one track with a popular artiste to take you to great heights. Use your tracks to the best possible extent and connect with people, who are looking out to connect with a producer.

Connect with aspiring artists on social media platforms to reach out to s many people as possible. On average, you can make around $500 to $600 per track when you connect with slightly popular artistes and produce music for them.

5. Ghost-producing music

If you don’t mind giving up your name, this is a good source of income for you, if you are a music producer. This is a method, where you produce music for a company or a person. In the final output, this company or person’s name is mentioned as the music producer and not yours. You only sell your skills for a price but not your name.

Regardless of the option you choose, you need to remember that you need to have a good networking skill to earn a decent sum of money every year as a music producer. The more people you meet and the more original tracks you produce, the more success & money you will get in this field.