Hi All

I was recommended this site via a good friend for advice.

I'm thinking of starting a web based mastering service and am curious to know is there a market for it, how many clients per week should one expect.

Not sure if anyone knows but any advice from this forum would be great.

Thank You
Reds

as with most services one can offer there will be a common set of factors.

*size of your network
*quality of your service
*speed of your service
*price of your service
*did i mention the network?

Spot on.

Ok cheers for your insight.

Am I looking at one client every a month? to start of with and what is the average some of you new starters and Pros get weekly.

I'm looking for a bit more details to work out if this mastering work is a good idea.

About the above two posts.

No network yet
Quality decent to really good.
Turnaround 1-3 days with same day at no extra charge.
Price £25 per track 1-5 6 or more £10

Cheers
Reds

One client every month sounds way too little, unless its a label with an extremely busy release schedule.
In this day and age of digital (and tons of younger producers who still learn audio) mastering services are popping out like mushrooms in the forest and its easy to see why. One gotta have something special to offer though, no one will like a random spammer on say Facebook offering their masterings services. Show what your ears can do and who / which / what artists & labels you've worked with before etc.

You should be able to master at least two songs a day (at least)!

For me the number one consideration is are you any good, followed by how much do you charge.
If you are very good, and are realistically priced, I think your service idea could work.
There is less and less money around the recording scene, so I would think one client a month would be uneconomical, unless you're a hobbyist.
One client a day seems about right, depending on if you are mastering individual songs, a whole EP, or an album.
But in the end, mastering requires a specific skill set and good experience is a plus. So the first thing I'd want to know (as a customer) would be can you cut it?

Well I'm still learning the trade and need to put more practice in but should get good at some point.

I charge £25 per track up to 5 then £15 after that.

Any tips on how to promote the service would be really great at the moment I am on Google Adwords though it is not cheap.

I can cut it maybe takes me longer than most to find that sound down to the tea.

Would also like to ask do Engineers really need Monitors to do the job or will a decent pair of PC speakers be any good or does all of come down to the persons ear no matter what setup.

Cheers
Reds

dear LORD , you want to start up a mastering business but don't even know if you need monitors?

this is sounding extremely dodgy!

Like I said I'm learning which is one of the main points of what a forum is.

My experience in Marketing may be able to help you here...

Google AdWords doesn't generate sales unless you have a reeeaallyy detailed plan. Especially for this niche market. I'd suggest not going down that route unless you have a perfect digital marketing strategy (not to mention analytical skills to actually see where your ads are being read and when etc).

You should first assess what stuff do you have? If it's only a cracked version of Ozone, some KRK's and EQ8 then I'd probably readdress that setup. Mastering engineers need the best audio products possible, with at least an outboard graphic EQ. And no, PC speakers will not be any good. If you start finding monitors anywhere past £700 then you may be on to something (Brian Sanhaji has £14,000 monitors...)

You next need to go to labels, showcasing your services. That is, do some EP's/Albums that get a ton of decent feedback and then use that to promote to them, showing how you can help get the same level of support for their releases. This should take months (it's not a quick buck...)

Going straight to artists isn't advisory. I get at least 2 of these adverts a month and I bin them pretty much immediately. You might want to check out Sleaze Records who use BCR's Jo McGeechan. That could also be a possible route to go down.

Hope this helps.