How Much Do Studio Musicians ACTUALLY Get Paid?

Have you ever wondered how much studio musicians actually get paid? In this video, we'll break down the reality of the music industry and discuss how much studio musicians make per gig or session. If you're interested in pursuing a career as a studio musician, or just curious about the business side of music, then this video is for you. Find out the truth about studio musicians and the money they make in this eye-opening discussion.

Video Chapters
00:00 | Start of Video
00:48 | How Studio Pay Works
02:19 | Pay Rates
04:50 | Musician Credits
06:09 | At Home vs Studio Rates
07:52 | Finding Studio Sessions
08:50 | Main Takeaway
10:04 | Outro

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[reidrollins]

As a musician who is upcoming to get into the industry, PLEASE keep this type of content rolling. It clears up SO much confusion and misinformation from the internet

[murrayrappel]

Finally someone willing to explain the seldom topic of money, keep in going, get behind the scene info

[mauricemusician]

I would absolutely love more of these. I'm rebuilding my career to move in this direction

[martyg]

Music is a great hobby. Used to be good job.

[jjbruzr]

TY Travis! I love how real you are. It’s work!

[youngprofessor]

It used to be standard practice for musicians to get a small percentage of the song if they did the artist a favor, did the session for less than scale.

We need to bring that back.

[nonotesnelson]

Thanks as always bro, I’ve been thinking of pursuing this myself

[derekdepina]

Bro I thought that was you playing on Chris Blue’s, Gaither special. This video confirmed it for me lol. You killed it bro.

[paulreilly]

Hello Travis. Another fine video that many artists overlook. Thanks. I saw a couple Charity Gayle vid's recently that you played on and I saw/heard you use different instruments on different songs. I think your decision process around that would be interesting and valuable for your audience. Active vs passive. Why? Five string vs four string. Why? Are these choices yours alone or is the lead artist or producer involved? I admire your work Travis.

[col]

You’d probably make more money busking. I make that much playing a 2 hour gig in my local pub. But hey good luck to ya 👏👏🎸

[noplacate]

Excellent video. Great information Travis.

[stereothrilla]

24+ year publisher and old school A&R here. It is very hard to make a living in the music industry these days. Sadly, the most money I’ve made in my whole music career has been writing really bad music to license for film/tv or doing really cheesy jingles. This has all been within the past 5 years. I consider it to be the worst music I’ve ever made yet it has made me the most.🫤

[MaTTheWish]

I just picked up the harmonica, I'm thinking about coming down to Nashville and just raking up some serious cash.

[spacecash]

You are not valuing yourself. You could harge 5x and also ALWAYS receive songwriting and production credits for ANYTHING you play on ANYONES record.

Musicians talking like this (afraid to lose work so I won't even bring up the idea of getting royalties) is a very scarcity mindset. I guess it's different because I have a much more lucrative passive source of income so I don't NEED to do session work I do it for fun even with big label artists. $2, 500/hr lowest I would do session work and after the session depending on what I provided, I will negotiate with MANAGEMENT (not the artist) about getting points aka royalties for the work I did. I've almost never been turned down.

-"In life you get what you ask for, not a penny less not a penny more." Just another viewpoint for everyone out there.

[AlmadenJeff]

I work at non-union shop churches. So pay is low to non-existent. There are only two churches that are union shops that I know of. Out here though for label studio musicians, one has to have a union card. I suspect Nashville is the same way.

[THEFEEL]

Great content and presentation thank you

[prestigerider]

I imagine most of the A-list players do ok. A friend of mine who sided in the 80's and 90's (who now produces) in L.A said they were always working. But as RIchard Page once said you dont want to take more than one day off at a time because your clients might start to disappear.". Get a few big sessions under your belt then the calls and texts start to roll in more evenly. Reputation is everything and the big players always are on their best performance. !

[jpsmusicandmore]

Nashville should be union and scale is what it is and depending where you are in the pecking order you get double or triple scale... Labels use them because they dont make mistakes and they lay down the tune. Lots also charge rate for blocks of time.

[logantodd]

Thank you for the great information Travis. Curious to know your opinion on the distinction between day rate and song rate?

Almost all the sessions I do here in Nashville are day rate. I feel like song rate has only come up for me when recording from home or while doing indies. Typical day rate for label stuff is $500/750 and $350/500 for indies…at least in my experience. How often do you go to studios and work a song rate?

[PiotrSilver]

@TravisDykes is it true that Pbass is the best for studio work? Also which fretboard to choose? Maple or rosewood?