One thing that might be good for your paper...

You want to make sure that you have a minimum-bar of production quality from day 1.

Just to pick on one aspect, I hear a lot of demos with really poor sample-sets. A couple time's I've talked to them about it and they responded "well, something like East West is at least $500....". To that I usually respond that if they want to work, they need to invest in a minimum professional tool-set. You wouldn't build a house these days without a power screw-driver, and if you showed up for a construction job with only a manual one (or even a cheap electric one), you'd be sent home.

So although Nathan is correct that people build up their studios gradually, there is a minimum bar you need to be competitive.

As for "how they pay you" for what you're talking about, you set up an "Independent Contractor" status with the game company(s). Generally, you'll get a downpayment when you agree to do the game, and then future payments tied to delivery milestones. They don't take out taxes, Social Security, etc. It's up to you to take care of all that paperwork with the IRS yourself, typically by paying the IRS every 3 months in 'estimated tax payments."

Completely agree Brian! This is actually what I was trying to convey with the "- what exactly do I need to get the job done now?" bit but re-reading it now I see I should have been a bit more clear with "what exactly do I need to land the job and get it done on par with current tech right now?"

I think the core of my thinking and experience is there's always something else you can buy for your studio. Most of us cannot afford to get everything at once so start with the absolute essentials and then build up over time and as the need warrants it. Personally, I immediately begin to drool over a new product (hardware or software) but if I don't see an immediate need it would serve or a gap it would fill in my studio, I wait. If I'm still lusting after it for a while, I'll buy it if I've got some spare funds. If I've forgotten about it... then it was just shiny and cool (i.e. basically good advertising).

I don't have much experience with business loans but I've actually heard it's harder to get a loan under around 100K or so. For example to really get my studio off the ground, I'd probably only need about 20-30K if I wasn't doing an expensive studio construction and mainly just concerned with hardware/software. While talking with a mentor of mine he explained how he was actually turned down when seeking a lower loan amount and the bank explained they'd happily give him X more if he was willing to borrow it. He did and just didn't spend it, instead paying it right back.

That is so interesting, I had no idea it had to be that much. Your friend was smart to do it that way, but I can imagine it would be really scary while it was happening to all of a sudden be in debt that much. He must have really good credit now! Haha. Yeah I do find the premise of the paper to be a little backwards for me and how I might choose to do something, but dropping over 30K on a simple studio is a hella fun assignment now that I've actually gotten to that part of it.

I hear a lot of demos with really poor sample-sets. A couple time's I've talked to them about it and they responded "well, something like East West is at least $500....". To that I usually respond that if they want to work, they need to invest in a minimum professional tool-set.

if I don't see an immediate need it would serve or a gap it would fill in my studio, I wait. If I'm still lusting after it for a while, I'll buy it if I've got some spare funds. If I've forgotten about it... then it was just shiny and cool (i.e. basically good advertising).

Thanks so much for this advice guys. I don't know a lot about sample libraries yet but for this paper I am planning on "buying" some, so I will definitely keep in mind the quality aspect. I am pretty poor but $500 doesn't scare me (maybe that's why I'm poor...?)

As for "how they pay you" for what you're talking about, you set up an "Independent Contractor" status with the game company(s). Generally, you'll get a downpayment when you agree to do the game, and then future payments tied to delivery milestones. They don't take out taxes, Social Security, etc. It's up to you to take care of all that paperwork with the IRS yourself, typically by paying the IRS every 3 months in 'estimated tax payments."

I was actually thinking about this before and forgot to ask about it. In order to become freelance do you have to set yourself up as a business or anything? Or can you work as a contractor without having your own business? This is not something I've looked for online yet so there might be a handy forum post about it that I should look at.

Thanks again!

The assignment is to choose a career that requires a DAW and figure out how much you could make in a year, and then "build" a home studio with the budget based on your projected income. I am having a really hard time with this.

Do you need to pick freelance work as your chosen career? Plenty of jobs use DAWs on a more nine to five basis (meaning estimated income is a piece of cake), and you could build a fairly low-end 'home studio' for relatively small amounts of money. I'm wondering what the specifics of your assignment are, and what you study? Also, I apologize ,but I couldn't muster the will to read everything in the thread; it's a very warm day! If this doesn't help, you may disregard it.

In order to become freelance do you have to set yourself up as a business or anything? Or can you work as a contractor without having your own business? This is not something I've looked for online yet so there might be a handy forum post about it that I should look at.

In 2005 I started out just doing the job, seeing if I could land projects. I had minimal gear and no industry experience so I didn't become an LLC or do the whole s-corp thing until several years later. Setting up your business in the legal sense becomes more important when or if:

- you own a house

- you have a good deal of personal assets

- you have a family

- you're making a certain amount of cash (for example I've heard making about 70-80K or more is when an s-corp set up could work well for you)

- if you have customers/clients coming to your place of business you could need insurance to cover for accidents. I teach piano and saxophone lessons on the side (only two days a week) but since the students come to my place of business, I signed up for insurance to cover me and my business if someone tripped and broke an arm, etc.

Most folks seem to try it out first especially since the entry doesn't require that much (i.e. a computer, some sound hardware and software, etc). If things go well, they continue to grow their business. If not, they go into a different industry. Keep in mind, I'm not a lawyer so please seek professional advice before starting your own business. I'm just sharing what's happened and worked out for me.

Do you need to pick freelance work as your chosen career? Plenty of jobs use DAWs on a more nine to five basis (meaning estimated income is a piece of cake), and you could build a fairly low-end 'home studio' for relatively small amounts of money. I'm wondering what the specifics of your assignment are, and what you study? Also, I apologize ,but I couldn't muster the will to read everything in the thread; it's a very warm day! If this doesn't help, you may disregard it.

Blowing my mind over here! I would love to know the answer to this haha! So if you have a 9-5 job and have a DAW at work, do you still need a studio at home? I mean obviously you would want to work on stuff in your free time for yourself, but I sort of don't think the paper has that in mind (unfortunately). I suppose if I worked at a big game company with a cushy (sometimes) job I could still use the studio at home for recording and editing my own sound effects library (that's something I'm really interested in doing).

That's really something I need to think about. I kind of already wrote the paper with freelance in mind but I might start writing a second paper with this new idea. Still I'm not entirely sure that it fits the premise of building a DAW for a career... It would help to have the home studio in this case but it wouldn't be the main workstation...

And hey I fully think being too hot is an excuse for anything. Native San Franciscan here though, man do I hate the heat.

EDIT: I forgot to answer your other questions. This section could get long... The specifics of the paper are we have to explain our career, what we would be doing and with what equipment, our clientele, how we would find them and contact them and how much they pay and how, explain in detail our day to day work in and out of the studio, and then what we would plan to do after one year is up (in terms of expanding our business and our studio etc.). On top of the paper we have to use our estimated yearly income (deciding whether or not we would have a day job to pay our living expenses or whether we would use the money from our studio to support ourselves [if so break down what expenses we will need to cover with it]) to build, all at once, our "project studio". We have to create a shopping list with list prices as well as deals we can find, to match that income/budget. I hate even talking about this because I think my teacher is a genius for coming up with this paper and I hate to just give it all away, but at the same time I wish all of my teachers required a paper like this so I think it's maybe a worthwhile idea to steal/ spread around.

I am studying a generic "game development" certificate at the local junior college, I'm not looking to get my masters or really even complete the certificate. I just wanted to learn which area of games I'm most interested in. Still having a hard time deciding, but even though I don't WANT to do QA (playing buggy games is one of my least favorite things to do -- sometimes I wait a year after a game has come out to even buy it) I honestly think I would be really good at it (I love complaining about things! J/k). But I am studying art, audio, game design, a little programming, animation, storyboarding, everything I can think of. I have a variety of interests :)

Most folks seem to try it out first especially since the entry doesn't require that much (i.e. a computer, some sound hardware and software, etc). If things go well, they continue to grow their business. If not, they go into a different industry.

This makes a lot of sense to me, I didn't know for sure if you could legally work like that but it is good to know you can. I can see wanting to do it a bit further on like you said. Thanks so much! :)

It's less a question of if you can legally work that way and more if it's smart to work that way. Someone with few personal assets, working where they're not making a ton of cash has much less risk then someone who has more personal assets, a family and is working on high dollar projects and making a good living. It's like a good buddy/mentor told me once - you don't go after bad money. Early in my career, I sued a guy once who violated the contract, stole my work and didn't pay me. I've yet to see a dime, even though I won. If he had been a large company, I probably would have seen at least something but this was a young guy with little to no personal assets. It's all about potential risk.

It's all about potential risk.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense :/

Ugh that is so terrible about the lawsuit. Some people man...

Blowing my mind over here! I would love to know the answer to this haha! So if you have a 9-5 job and have a DAW at work, do you still need a studio at home?

The only reason I mentioned 9-5 jobs was so you didn't have to calculate in-calculable figures based on freelance work! If your project is going to based on hypothetical figures, then a little rounding off the numbers won't hurt, but basing figures on freelance might make your work more difficult than it needs to be. Okay, it doesn't seem like that advice helps with your specific project. When you say 'home studio', do you simply mean a setup for recording and producing audio, or do you mean the kind of thing Dave Grohl has in his house? 'Home studio' often refers to a very basic set up (pair of stereo monitors, computer w/DAW software, recording interface, and perhaps some microphones). You couldn't do freelance audio work without a basic set up such as that, and I imagine it would be rare for someone to get a nine to five DAW gig without previously owning a DAW, so yeah, they would have a 'home studio' too, in all probability.

Setting up a professional level home studio i.e a room built for that purpose, plus all equipment would be much more expensive. You'd need proper acoustic treatment for the room, which involves mathematics relating to the volume of the room, and the sound absorption properties of the surfaces in the room, sound proofing etc so you'd most likely be hypothetically hiring people (acoustic engineers) to do this work for you, meaning more hypothetical costs. Do we have an infinite hypothetical budget? If you had the nine to five job, costs of living would still seriously limit the amount of money you have left over for a home studio, at the end of the day. Based on a typical salary, you could estimate your MINIMUM income after a year, while adding a potential range of profits based on freelance, as well. I'm not sure how 'true to life' you need to be, mind you.

I'm also wondering if you have a word count, or anything indicative of the scale of this paper?

And hey I fully think being too hot is an excuse for anything. Native San Franciscan here though, man do I hate the heat.

I live in Scotland. Seeing the sun is as frequent here as a solar eclipse, so I fry very easily!

I'd like to let you know that I am a student too, studying sound production at a similar level to you, and have been tasked with somewhat similar projects/papers, and that's why I thought I might be able to relate to this. The other members of this forum who have been replying to you are top dogs though, so take everything I say with a pinch of salt! Their word is law. Speaking as an Asipe though, if it doesn't make sense to me, it doesn't make sense - period