Working for free

[Clayford]

there will always be fly-by-night hacks with poor business plans and low labor rates,

Why do I get dragged into this...

[GermanCdn]

All right, now that I've finished my $9 grilled cheese sandwich from Chachi's (seriously, what's the world coming to when fast food grilled cheese is $9, and I don't even like grilled cheese sandwiches, pretty sure that jmk guy had some backwards masking in his post that made me eat a grilled cheese sandwich), back to the point of the matter.

The question - how do you put a $ value on your time.  For me it's simple.  I sell my time to my employer at X amount of dollars, and do so for between 50 and 80 hours a week, depending on how insane the workload is or how big a machine I have to have built.  Generally, said job takes me away from my home and my wife for an average of four months a year, and as such, any and all time I spend not at work is valued at at least X amount of dollars.  Does that price me out of the range of doing pedal work/guitar repair for others?  In almost every cases, yes, and for me that's OK because it's fun for when I do it myself, and I'm pretty sure it would become less fun if it became a job, as most jobs do, that is their nature.

[gordo]

I'm too old to be current but this was a similar complaint in the 80's when live music started to disappear.  The only way to make a buck in Canada was to leave, so that's what the band I played for did and spent 6 years hashing it out on the road for 50 weeks a year in the States.  Nice hotel and club circuit gigs that lasted a month at a pop but a deadly mixture of making "just" enough money and having too many vices within easy reach.  For anyone that could avoid those pitfalls it was perfect.  I burned out on playing so bad that I put away all my gear and got a "real" job and didn't touch it for about 16 years.  I started playing again when asked to play at my church and probably average about 8 hours a week rehearsing and performing.  It's a rotating line up but for the most part is one of the better bands I've been in and I get way more satisfaction out of those 8 hours than pretty much anything else I do.

It's a steep commitment given that there are no percs but it beats the crap out of playing bars for whatever it pays.  I should mention that I also run sound for a killer band from time to time, and while I'd make more money on a paper route, it does give me a bit of artistic freedom.  Other than knowing the tunes inside and out to hit solos and get the effects right it's a fairly low pressure situation other than dealing with the nimrods that "know" more than you do (in the audience).  The up-side is that the band knows I have it covered and 95% of the audience thinks the band sounds crazy good.  The downside is that I don't get to play solos and still have to deal with the other 5% 

[derevaun]

I would add that these topics of the value of work, and of its devaluation, are what Marx's reasoning is about. Unions (and chambers of commerce) get a lot of criticism these days partly because the problems of work, valuation, and livelihood do not have easy answers. The simple answers, like medieval patronage or payola, left out large categories of people in order to work at all.

[Thomas_H]

This is quite interesting in more than one way. Here's my two cents:

The below should be true for musicians, pedal geeks and other people doing things that have to do with art or knowledge.

On one side there are the hobbyists that have fun doing what they do and sometimes jump on the occasion to earn little money for having fun offering their service to others, just from time to time.

Then there are the semi professionals who know what they invested to get where they are and they now almost could make a living from what they love to do. Those are the ones who really need to think about value and false friends. This is something that needs to stabilize over time as it will turn one way or the other (back to hobbyist or on to profession)

And then there are professionals of every color. Usually they already have made their mind and just dont have time to do things for free. And they are pretty clear about that.
But especially those who do not have time - and that is the interesting point - sometimes will do things for free to support others or enjoy themselves. And this is something that cannot be valued high enough.

[juansolo]

with the exception of church stuff, that was ministry

Playing Ministry at a church. That's pretty hardcore dude!

[Rockhorst]

I used to be an aspiring comic creator. There was a trend in the newspapers here a few years back to have a competitions for the comic sections of the paper. At the end somebody would 'get the job', but up to that point they had months of free content from people their submissions. All the pro comic people I know where very angry about that...Still, most of them sent in their submissions anyway. We hate the system, but still get fooled by the promise of something bigger...which is why it works.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Whenever I do work for a fee (as infrequent as that is) and I run into someone that asks me why I charge what I do OR complains that they can get something for less I tell them....

" I am sure someone could probably do YOUR job for less money too!" 

I believe it all comes down to the value of time. We can all build a TS clone for a few dollars BUT.... it is the TIME put into it that drives us to charge what we charge. I personally do not ask for much when doing work. Don't get me wrong... I value my time and I put a price on it BUT, I do not go overboard like some "boutique" builder do. Also, people do not consider that we often tailor the build for THEIR sound. Anyone can go out and get a DS-1 off the shelf but.... When I build a pedal, I ask what the customer is looking for in their sound and tailor it to them. You can't get that from a big box store.

[culturejam]

The value of one's time is indeed a rich topic for discussion.

I believe it all comes down to the value of time. We can all build a TS clone for a few dollars BUT.... it is the TIME put into it that drives us to charge what we charge.

It's really hard, though, to calculate how much time goes into a given product. You can easily time yourself for how long it takes to build a pedal. You can even time yourself on drawing the schematic and layout, and even probably run a clock for how long you spent tweaking on the breadboard. You can probably come up with an average for how long it takes to order parts. But how far can you go? How much of your time can you reasonably expect to bill to your potentional customers? Do they owe you for the time you spent learning electronics? How about the hours you spent struggling against the super-unituitive Eagle CAD user interface? How about all the time you spent combing through internet forums looking for inspiration or reading up on constant-current biasing? At what point does the billing stop? How do your spread that calculation over hundreds or thousands of units of a product?

I think you have to draw the line somewhere, but I've seen musicians suggest that their pricing includes (or should include) the years of lessons/practice that led up to them being good enough to play a gig. That's not something I would have ever considering in pricing, but then again I'm not rich, so maybe I'm just naive. 

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Good points. I suppose you could figure in breadboard time, Eagle learning, etc. into an R&D or development cost. However, I do not think that a musician's time spent "learning his/her craft" is an acceptable charge. Your knowledge as a musician is why you were hired.... not why you are charging what you want.

A 14 y/o kid could be a phenom on the guitar and draw in 1,000 people into an event. On the other hand... a 40 y/o could have spent their entire adult life honing their craft but only draw in 500 people. Who gets paid more?

[Gledison]

Im totally new on this hobby/addiction. Probably if someone one day would be interested in one of my pedals, depending on the reason/person, i would give for free or for the parts price.
Considering that the we are talking about the time spending on it, My pedals would be the most expensive of them
ehehhe! Sorry guys, just to break a bit the serious conversation!
cheers