# Mockup costs



## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

This just a preliminary inquiry about the cost of mockup services. I have a violinist who wants to perform my violin concerto with a digital mockup. This would have to be a high-quality mockup using some of the finer libraries. (I make no bones about it, I prefer OT libraries in general, though the final product is the main concern.) I could do it myself, but frankly, I don't want to, and there are lots of people on this forum who are much much better at mockups than I am.

What would something like this cost? It is a 45-minute piece for a full romantic orchestra. Feel free to reply here or DM me with a quote and an example of something you've mocked up.

I am just trying to get a feel for what this should cost. I have no idea how this sort of thing is billed. Thank you.


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## AMas (Mar 18, 2021)

I’ve heard anything between 100 and 500 per minute for this kind of stuff, I’m not sure quoting per minute is the right approach though, specially for a large project like this one


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## Christoph Pawlowski (Mar 18, 2021)

AMas said:


> I’ve heard anything between 100 and 500 per minute for this kind of stuff, I’m not sure quoting per minute is the right approach though, specially for a large project like this one


It took me some time to recognise that you don't talk about work minutes


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## Jonathan Moray (Mar 18, 2021)

It's very dependent on the size of the project.


45min
Romantic Orchestra
Strings // Violins 1, Violins 2, Violas, Cellos (Celli), Contrabrass
Woodwinds // Piccolo and Flutes, Oboes, Clarinets, Bassoon, Contrabassoon(?)
Brass // Trumpets, Trombones, French Horns, Tuba(?)
Percussion // Full Percussion Section
Piano

Any other instruments added to the standard lineup?
How dense is the orchestration and what does the arrangement look like?
Are there lots of divisi?

There are more questions that need to be answered before one can give a good estimate of the price. The best would be to have a look at the score to understand how complex the project would be.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

AMas said:


> I’ve heard anything between 100 and 500 per minute for this kind of stuff, I’m not sure quoting per minute is the right approach though, specially for a large project like this one


Thank you. I have heard that, too. It wouldn't take very many dollars per minute, however, before you would just hire an orchestra in Budapest to record a music-minus-one.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> It's very dependent on the size of the project.
> 
> 
> 45min
> ...


The orchestration is:

*Woodwinds*

1 Piccolo (doubling on flute 3)
2 Flutes
1 Oboe
1 English Horn
2 Clarinets
1 Bass Clarinet (doubling on clarinet 3)
2 Bassoons

*Brass*

4 French Horns
3 Trumpets
2 Trombones
Tuba

*Percussion*

Chimes
Crash Cymbals
Marimba (soft mallets)
Maracas (medium-fine)
Piano
Sandpaper Blocks
Snare
Splash Cymbal
Suspended Cymbal
Tam-tam
Timpani
Woodblock
Glockenspiel
Celesta

*String Section*

Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Double Bass

The orchestration is pretty dense. This is as much a symphony for violin and orchestra as it is a violin concerto.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

I will also add here that the first movement has a lot of composite meters such as 3/4+3/8, which is a real pain in the butt in a DAW.


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## Jonathan Moray (Mar 18, 2021)

That won't be cheap; being a symphony with such a variety of instruments paired with being 45 minutes and the dense orchestration means there will be a lot of meticulous work to get it right and get the interplay between instruments correct.

Is it done in a DAW(midi) or in notation(where it can be rendered as midi) or will one have to transfer it from a PDF score to midi?


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> That won't be cheap; being a symphony with such a variety of instruments paired with being 45 minutes and the dense orchestration means there will be a lot of meticulous work to get it right and get the interplay between instruments correct.
> 
> Is it done in a DAW(midi) or in notation(where it can be rendered as midi) or will one have to transfer it from a PDF score to midi?


I have Finale files.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

I really didn't want to post this because--well I don't know why, but given the comments here and in DMs, here is the work in question, all 45 minutes of it.


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## Jonathan Moray (Mar 18, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I really didn't want to post this because--well I don't know why, but given the comments here and in DMs, here is the work in question, all 45 minutes of it.



I was about to say that it sounds amazing and I don't think anyone here can do better... Then I saw that this is a real recording.

I've only listened to the first few minutes and it's great! Beautiful work!


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## Composerbell (Mar 18, 2021)

I think there is SOME value in bulk work, so I don’t think it really makes sense to charge $500/min for this. But even at $200 (which is maybe a bit to generous, even then), this comes out to $9,000.

Considering the length, I would recommend getting Note Performer. If you render that out per section, then you can hire someone to replace the weaker parts with higher quality sample programming, while leaving the parts that sound fine alone. A bit of mixing and it would sound pretty decent. If a decent amount is acceptable in Note Performer, then it could make more sense to be down at $100/min and getting a decent final product comes out to $4,500, which I think is much more sensible.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> I've only listened to the first few minutes and it's great! Beautiful work!


Thank you.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

Composerbell said:


> I think there is SOME value in bulk work, so I don’t think it really makes sense to charge $500/min for this. But even at $200 (which is maybe a bit to generous, even then), this comes out to $9,000.
> 
> Considering the length, I would recommend getting Note Performer. If you render that out per section, then you can hire someone to replace the weaker parts with higher quality sample programming, while leaving the parts that sound fine alone. A bit of mixing and it would sound pretty decent. If a decent amount is acceptable in Note Performer, then it could make more sense to be down at $100/min and getting a decent final product comes out to $4,500, which I think is much more sensible.


Thank you. I am getting the information I needed here. Honestly, I'd used StaffPad before Noteperformer, but I was looking for something higher quality than StaffPad.


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## Composerbell (Mar 18, 2021)

I too have just listened to the first couple minutes, and it really is very nice! I wish I had the time to try and mock it up myself, having a nice reference track like that to work with.


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## Composerbell (Mar 18, 2021)

Note Performer is impressive considering what it is. I don’t know how it compares to StaffPad though - isn’t the one that was in collaboration with Cinesamples?
Anyways, I HAVE done the combo approach before, and I remember being surprised how much was usable with just a bit of EQ and reverb work.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

Composerbell said:


> Note Performer is impressive considering what it is. I don’t know how it compares to StaffPad though - isn’t the one that was in collaboration with Cinesamples?
> Anyways, I HAVE done the combo approach before, and I remember being surprised how much was usable with just a bit of EQ and reverb work.


I have Noteperformer, but StaffPad stands a head and shoulders above it. Go to the StaffPad section here on the forum and listen to the mockups. It is pretty amazing what it will do. Unfortunately, there is just a dimension of the sound that is missing in the pared down samples.


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## Composerbell (Mar 18, 2021)

Ahhhhh gotcha. Interesting. I generally don’t care about the notational sample quality so long as I get right pitches and percussion isn’t playing piano samples, so I haven’t followed the NP vs SP developments closely.




Jett Hitt said:


> I will also add here that the first movement has a lot of composite meters such as 3/4+3/8, which is a real pain in the butt in a DAW.


FYI If you export the finale file to midi, all those meer changes should import into the daw, so it’s pretty much a non issue. Although I guess I’m not sure how composite meters actually translate....I still wouldn’t have expect it to be a nightmare though.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Mar 18, 2021)

I skipped around the track and nothing I heard seemed like it would be too challenging to mock up. If you're providing the midi, it shouldn't take too long for anyone who has a decent workflow to get through it. I'd charge around $60 per minute for the basic mockup and then an additional fee for the mixing. 

To put things into perspective, there's a Star Wars mockup on my website that you can check out. It's a little over 1 minute long (I believe I mocked up a total of 2 minutes from that). Pretty complicated writing with many different articulations. For that I had no midi. I was working off of the score. From score to finished mix that took 6 hours. At $60/hour that would've cost the client $360. If you subtract all of the note entry and the mixing then it doesn't take too long. If you're paying over $100 for this then either they're over charging you or they're very inefficient with their time. Should be roughly 1 minute per hour of work. Considering the classical nature of this, mixing shouldn't take too long either.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 18, 2021)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I skipped around the track and nothing I heard seemed like it would be too challenging to mock up. If you're providing the midi, it shouldn't take too long for anyone who has a decent workflow to get through it. I'd charge around $60 per minute for the basic mockup and then an additional fee for the mixing.
> 
> To put things into perspective, there's a Star Wars mockup on my website that you can check out. It's a little over 1 minute long (I believe I mocked up a total of 2 minutes from that). Pretty complicated writing with many different articulations. For that I had no midi. I was working off of the score. From score to finished mix that took 6 hours. At $60/hour that would've cost the client $360. If you subtract all of the note entry and the mixing then it doesn't take too long. If you're paying over $100 for this then either they're over charging you or they're very inefficient with their time. Should be roughly 1 minute per hour of work. Considering the classical nature of this, mixing shouldn't take too long either.


I will be in touch with the client. That is 1/6 the price that I have been quoted.


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## Composerbell (Mar 18, 2021)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> If you're paying over $100 for this then either they're over charging you or they're very inefficient with their time.


I think there's a couple ways of approaching this Gerhard. You're assuming this is based on an hourly rate, and they're taking a long time - or that doing it faster means you should charge less. The value isn't in how long it takes to do the job (faster is a benefit to you, not to them, if all they care about is delivery by the deadline). 

Flipping burgers is an hourly job, because you're paying for someone's time - to be availible to flip the burgers all day. Doing a mockup is not a time based job, they're not paying for your hours - they're paying for your product.

Trying to calculate value based on how long it takes you presumes that you have a certain cost of living, and you're only charging what you need to maintain that. But that has issues too, because different people have different costs of living, for doing the same job. Or if you're a trust fund baby, you could just do stuff dirt cheap because you don't actually need the money at all!

If you can do the job fast, that's great - you charge more for speed because you're providing greater value with quicker turnaround. That's why a rush job is more expensive, not less!


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## Composerbell (Mar 18, 2021)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Should be roughly 1 minute per hour of work. Considering the classical nature of this, mixing shouldn't take too long either.


I would also caution that you should always assume work will take longer than you anticipate. Better to underpromise and overperform than the other way around. That also needs to be factored into your quote, so when something inevitably takes longer than planned, you're not feeling pressure to cut corners for the work to still be worth your time. Your example of Star Wars was 6 hours for 2 minutes, and as you say, you had to do note input - which means as an estimate of time, it's already apples to oranges. How long has it taken you to mockup something for which you had midi import? Oftentimes, you'll want to re-perform parts in again anyways, even with midi import, especially getting CC data in. Of course, if you're a really good sight reader and keyboardist, note input might be much less time consuming than it is for someone who is weaker in that regard. Should they be more expensive because it takes them longer to do the job, and thus they "need" to be paid more for the effort to be worth it?


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## rudi (Mar 19, 2021)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> If you're paying over $100 for this then either they're over charging you or they're very inefficient with their time. Should be roughly 1 minute per hour of work. Considering the classical nature of this, mixing shouldn't take too long either.


I must have missed something here. Assuming you produce one minute of music per hour, and the piece is 45 minutes long, if you charge around $100 for 45 hours of work, that would work out at around $2.22 per minute of music / hour of work. Did I misunderstand?


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## Markrs (Mar 19, 2021)

rudi said:


> I must have missed something here. Assuming you produce one minute of music per hour, and the piece is 45 minutes long, if you charge around $100 for 45 hours of work, that would work out at around $2.22 per minute of music / hour of work. Did I misunderstand?


I think he is quoting $60 per minute of music so 45 X $60


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## rudi (Mar 19, 2021)

Ah, that makes so much more sense!!! My bad. Thanks for clarifying


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## I like music (Mar 19, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I really didn't want to post this because--well I don't know why, but given the comments here and in DMs, here is the work in question, all 45 minutes of it.



I have nothing to add about your main question. I just want to say how bloody good this music is!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for sharing!

EDIT: I travelled from the UK to Utah, and then drove up to Yellowstone. Have wanted to visit it all my life. And it was better than I could have imagined.


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## Jonathan Moray (Mar 19, 2021)

@Jett Hitt, I just wanted to butt in again and say that I listened to the whole symphony - it's _very _good! At times it gives me the same feeling I get from some of my favourite movie scores. Thank you very much for sharing.

For me personally, I don't see too much of a problem mocking this up, except for the strings, which would in my option be the hardest to get right. I've not heard any library capable of the expressive range of something like this. Something lesser might suffice but it would be a shame for such a dramatic and emotional piece. (It's a blessing that you don't want the solo strings mocked-up as well) Other than that it doesn't seem too hard but it will still be quite time-consuming.

I would almost be willing to take it on just so that I can listen to the music again together with the conductor's score.

Price-wise I would say $250-500/min seems quite steep for something like this considering the MIDI is available and it's not an overly complex symphony, while $60/min could be a bit on the cheaper side and you might get what you pay for. But if someone is willing to do it for $60/min and they do good work then it's of course up to them to decide what they think their time is worth.

I wish you luck and hope you find someone that will do the music justice in their mock-up.


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## sinkd (Mar 19, 2021)

I would be curious to hear what this sounds like rendered with Noteperformer in Finale. The idea of using NP stems and then enhancing/replacing where needed is a good suggestion, I think.


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## Franco (Mar 19, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I really didn't want to post this because--well I don't know why, but given the comments here and in DMs, here is the work in question, all 45 minutes of it.



Congratulations Jett, I listened to the whole concert and I have to tell you that I found it very good. Excellent orchestration and the part of the violin soloist that is never too over the top, with unnecessary virtuosity but blends perfectly with the entire orchestration.
Greetings
/Franco


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 19, 2021)

I like music said:


> I have nothing to add about your main question. I just want to say how bloody good this music is!!!!!!!!!


Thank you so much @I like music , @Jonathan Moray, and @Franco It really was not my intention to come here and say, "Hey look what I wrote." Initially, I had thought that I could just post a "help wanted" ad, and some of these library junkies would leap at the opportunity to get out of debtor prison. After the questions started to roll in, however, I quickly realized that what I had done was the equivalent of posting on a dating app and not including a picture. So I posted the piece. This piece has done very well for me over the years on some classical radio stations around the US. It has been in the Top 40 on multiple stations, and it continues to sell a few copies here and there. 

Many of the comments here have shed light on why my own mockups leave me so cold. There is a layer of emotion and espressivity that samples just can't capture. I am sure that adding a few live instruments to the mix would greatly enhance the overall sound, but I am not certain that there is the budget for that. Even if there is, there isn't time. The client needs this for a performance in July and then another in September.

I have received multiple offers. Thank you to everyone who submitted an offer, whether here or privately. (I am still taking offers.) Ultimately, this is not my decision. I am simply passing the offers on to the client.


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## Composerbell (Mar 19, 2021)

@Jett Hitt The violinist is the client, correct?
And yeah, there are some very good mockup artists, but trying to match a well recorded, well performed 45 minute piece....I don’t think anyone will beat that. But this scenario isn’t actually about beating the live recording (unlike, say, a high school band recording and a composer just wants to hear the music better), this is about creating something good enough to practice to.


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## Jett Hitt (Mar 19, 2021)

Composerbell said:


> @Jett Hitt The violinist is the client, correct?
> And yeah, there are some very good mockup artists, but trying to match a well recorded, well performed 45 minute piece....I don’t think anyone will beat that. But this scenario isn’t actually about beating the live recording (unlike, say, a high school band recording and a composer just wants to hear the music better), this is about creating something good enough to practice to.


For the sake of simplicity, I implied above that the violinist was the client. But this is not the case. Without saying too much, I will simply say that this is for a large, very posh, outdoor event. Personally, I don't think that there is anything posh about a performer playing with a digital mockup while the onlookers swill free wine. But I am not calling the shots. It is most definitely not about having something good enough to practice with.


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## Composerbell (Mar 19, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> It is most definitely not about having something good enough to practice with.


Ah gotcha. Yeah, then I very much see why NP or SP as a basis isn’t really worth it then.
Good luck!


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## Saxer (Apr 2, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> It really was not my intention to come here and say, "Hey look what I wrote."


You should! This is great work! Thanks for sharing!


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## iaink (May 18, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I really didn't want to post this because--well I don't know why, but given the comments here and in DMs, here is the work in question, all 45 minutes of it.



I have had this in my itunes for a few years since hearing of you and your story over at FSM.

Fantastic work and I am pleased to hear that it will get some more exposure. Good luck with the mocking-up and performance.


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## Jett Hitt (May 18, 2021)

iaink said:


> I have had this in my itunes for a few years since hearing of you and your story over at FSM.
> 
> Fantastic work and I am pleased to hear that it will get some more exposure. Good luck with the mocking-up and performance.


Thank you so much. I am sorry to say that this project has been put on hold because of Covid concerns, though I remain perplexed about why they are more concerned about this now than they were back in March when they embarked on this adventure. Hopefully it will get back on track now that the country is starting to open up.


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## Cideboy (Jan 8, 2022)

To the folks bidding on projects don’t race to the bottom! Know your worth and stick to it. People will pay for a good product. Projects come and go.


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## liquidlino (Jan 8, 2022)

Did this ever get mocked up? Is the mock-up available to hear? The original recording and composition is amazing, I'm sitting listening to it now... totally engrossing.


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## Jett Hitt (Jan 8, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> Did this ever get mocked up? Is the mock-up available to hear? The original recording and composition is amazing, I'm sitting listening to it now... totally engrossing.


Thanks. No, the gig was totally quashed by the Delta variant, so no mockup was done. I will probably do one myself to sell as a music-minus-one at some point, but I have other things on the burner at the moment.


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## liquidlino (Jan 8, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Thanks. No, the gig was totally quashed by the Delta variant, so no mockup was done. I will probably do one myself to sell as a music-minus-one at some point, but I have other things on the burner at the moment.


I saw on your website, the new recording upcoming using spitfire Bbcso. Look forward to hearing it!


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