How much do you make each year playing your guitar?

Rezamatix":1ikxez3t said:
I have been doing ok selling my music for film and tv placements.

Anyone who can work on recording tracks should and get a songtradr.com account and throw the hooks into the water!
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Pretty cool. Do a lot of publishers and buyers use that site?

I've really wanted to do something like that for a long time but my problem is the audio quality. I do think I have some pretty awesome jingles or catch riffs that someone would want but I can't produce pro level recordings to save my life.

I also did not want to pay for an expensive mix every time just to throw it out there and cross my fingers.

With that said I make negative money playing music but I think if I could get good recordings and knew the right people I could sell a few riffs here and there.
 
I use to gig some but nothing serious and probably made $5K-$6K a year from it. Now playing guitar is just my hobby that I love. I still break out and stand in occasionally with some friends but do it more for the enjoyment than the money.
 
Around $1500-3000 depending how many shows we play but I spend more than that in advertising and promotion.
 
eecamichael":3kbn80ig said:
So after the sobering thread of how much you have into your gear and adding up what is in my gear room, I started to wonder how much do you guys actually make annually gigging, recording etc.

I have a ton of nice gear, PRS, Boogie, Gibson, Fender, Musicman etc, however I gig exclusively now with my Takamine acoustic. Ironic.

I will start - I make $5-6k annually playing, playing 40-50 times each year, however I really do it for fun and for a guys night out. I have my "real job" with supports my family and my expensive gear habits.

You?
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i no longer play live but at my max i could play 2-3x a week and that would translate into $6k/yr which i roughly made off and on for 15 yrs, so enough to pay for cool stuff over the years and throw a few extra in-n-out cheeseburgers on the family table :rock:



and everything i have purchased in my electric guitar rig i have extensively used live and bought to refine my live tones.

since moving to hawaii i have been spending more free time in the surf and try to boogie board at my favorite place on earth sandy beach every morning before work.

here is a little gopro video i shot of the waves there
 
A couple of beers...that I would get for free anyway.
My current band is just a bunch of brewers from different local craft breweries and we get asked to play a few craft-beer-centric events. They sometimes offer to pay a small amount but we usually don't take it. We promote our breweries (or maybe we don't? :LOL: :LOL: ) and get to punish people with our atrocious set list. Soon as we get paid...I fear everything would change.

When I was gigging a lot I used to deduct a bunch of music gear (and mileage) during tax time which helped a tiny bit but only for a few years.
 
mentoneman":1j89fr5j said:
eecamichael":1j89fr5j said:
So after the sobering thread of how much you have into your gear and adding up what is in my gear room, I started to wonder how much do you guys actually make annually gigging, recording etc.

I have a ton of nice gear, PRS, Boogie, Gibson, Fender, Musicman etc, however I gig exclusively now with my Takamine acoustic. Ironic.

I will start - I make $5-6k annually playing, playing 40-50 times each year, however I really do it for fun and for a guys night out. I have my "real job" with supports my family and my expensive gear habits.

You?
Click to expand...

i no longer play live but at my max i could play 2-3x a week and that would translate into $6k/yr which i roughly made off and on for 15 yrs, so enough to pay for cool stuff over the years and throw a few extra in-n-out cheeseburgers on the family table :rock:



and everything i have purchased in my electric guitar rig i have extensively used live and bought to refine my live tones.

since moving to hawaii i have been spending more free time in the surf and try to boogie board at my favorite place on earth sandy beach every morning before work.

here is a little gopro video i shot of the waves there
Click to expand...

I don't want to derail this thread, but man, that is a sweet rig!! I've watched a couple of clips you've posted, and I really like what I hear. What bridge humbucker is in that guitar?
 
littleguitars":1eidrb3f said:
mentoneman":1eidrb3f said:
eecamichael":1eidrb3f said:
So after the sobering thread of how much you have into your gear and adding up what is in my gear room, I started to wonder how much do you guys actually make annually gigging, recording etc.

I have a ton of nice gear, PRS, Boogie, Gibson, Fender, Musicman etc, however I gig exclusively now with my Takamine acoustic. Ironic.

I will start - I make $5-6k annually playing, playing 40-50 times each year, however I really do it for fun and for a guys night out. I have my "real job" with supports my family and my expensive gear habits.

You?
Click to expand...

i no longer play live but at my max i could play 2-3x a week and that would translate into $6k/yr which i roughly made off and on for 15 yrs, so enough to pay for cool stuff over the years and throw a few extra in-n-out cheeseburgers on the family table :rock:



and everything i have purchased in my electric guitar rig i have extensively used live and bought to refine my live tones.

since moving to hawaii i have been spending more free time in the surf and try to boogie board at my favorite place on earth sandy beach every morning before work.

here is a little gopro video i shot of the waves there
Click to expand...

I don't want to derail this thread, but man, that is a sweet rig!! I've watched a couple of clips you've posted, and I really like what I hear. What bridge humbucker is in that guitar?
Click to expand...

thanks man--it's a very PAF sounding tom holmes 450 which he normally recommends for the neck, but at the time that was all he had in stock so i went with it. one of those fortuitous destiny things. he did tell me that if it was too low he would rewind it for me to either an 453 or 455 spec (8.0 or 8.3-5k respectively) but i was happy as is. currently it has a 7.8k output which is very low by today's standards, but it mates nicely with my suhr fletcher-landau singles, and is more expressive to me than hot pickups. it does the elastic robben ford thing versus the chainsaw dragonforce thing :doh:

i noticed on the recent ac/dc rig rundown that angus prefers about the same output from his pickups. more dynamics.
 
When we were actively booking, I made about $2,500/year for the two years that the last band stayed together. Nearly every local venue has killed live music and it's not worth it to me at this stage to drive 90 minutes to play for $100/night.
 
Average about 24 shows a year and take home 5 to 6k. Oddly enough, I don't get paid on the biggest show we do every year. Its worth it for the 5,000 strong crowd though and the proceeds from this particular 2 day music festival goes to a local childrens hospital so its a feel good opportunity all around.
 
Nothing, I play P&W at church. When I did gig out at bars, I never made much anyway. I don't think most get into music to make money, at least that was never a goal of mine.

I am doing amp, pedal and guitar repairs to give me extra gear spending money for gear. Before that I dabbled in giving lessons. Once kids came into the picture the extra money available for gear really went down, so I have to generate my own to at least fund new strings and tubes. :)
 
The most money that I've made, with the least amount of work, was acoustic gigs. My singer and I would play dumbed down rock tunes around the local bar scene. There was a need for simple low key entertainment for happy hours and for the opening act for the larger venues that had full bands on the weekends. I never had to drive more than 20 minutes and only had to haul my guitar and a simple pedal board. We would each make between $100-200 cash for only 3 hours of play and would usually be finished by 7 or 8 PM. I would still have my entire night to myself. We would do this about 3 nights a week. Then having 3 kids (one with special needs) made me want to leave work and see them, not go to a bar and play Simple Man to a bunch of drunks for the 1000th time. I now play multiple modern, fairly rocking P&W services on Sunday's that my other singer got me into. There's no pay but I play for some of the largest crowds that I ever have and have a lot of freedom with the music. It's very professional and the PA equipment is better than most other venues I have played.
 
make about 10K a year, most is with a country band, so it's like work lol but those gigs pay great (only about 28 of those a year). working on getting instrumental stuff in movies and tv, but no luck so far :( But that is the next goal.
 
I get between $700 - 1200 per gig and we do about 5 a year. Wish we played more but I also double dip and do a lot of the advertising for these gigs as well so get $75/hr for the design work.
 
I do some private contract work every year for a soundbyte or score. That can net me anywhere from $500-2000 depending upon what my friend and I get to work on. He is a drummer and sets up all of this and thus it all depends upon how busy we both are with our main occupations. Some years are busier than others. The bonus of working at home during the summer on this stuff is great!

I play approx. 2xmonth at a few local places. That usually brings in about $3000/year. This is my gear money to get new things. I'm really looking at playing only once per month next year as my young family (my kids at least! LoL!) are starting to get very busy with sports and music lessons so time gets eaten up rather quickly.
 
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