[sdiy] making 2 or 3 dollars an hour on synth building?

[David G. Dixon]

I, for one, am definitely not offended, since we all (us noobies, I mean)
learned a lot from Dan's tribulations. 


David G. Dixon
Professor
Department of Materials Engineering
University of British Columbia
309-6350 Stores Road
Vancouver, B.C.  V6T 1Z4
Canada
 
Tel 1-604-822-3679
Fax 1-604-822-3619
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
[mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of rdrake
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 6:52 AM
To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: RE: [sdiy] making 2 or 3 dollars an hour on synth building?

and yr take would be even less if you compensated all the folks on this list
who helped you thruout the process.  no offense, but you might want to let
folks know in advance if you're asking for help on a commercial endeavor,
rather than sdiy... 

b

>----- ------- Original Message ------- -----
>From: subjectivity at hotmail.com
>To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>Sent: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 13:18:36
>
>
>
>well i installed the audio ark this weekend at a
>beautiful estate in northern new york. i was
>terrified the person paying for the box was going
>to hate it but luckily that was not the case. it
>sounded great and looked good in his rack sitting
>above two eventide boxes and an MPRESSOR.
>
>HOWEVER
>
> i am quickly starting to see that making a living,
>or supplementing my income from audio electronics
>may be a bit of a 
>ridiculous idea. for the amount of hours i put into
>the audio ark, i probably ended up making about 61
>dollars a week (for
>36 weeks)
>
>this is NOT practical. especially when many of
>those weeks, i was working so much on the ark that
>i had no time for my REAL job of being a recording
>guy in nyc. If i was working 40 or more hours a
>week on the ark (which was often the case) i was
>making around 2 or 3 dollars an hour. (or even
>less) 
>
>(AND I STILL HAVE TO WRITE THE MANUAL)
>
>maybe due to the size or the amount of work that
>went into figuring out a good method of tracking,
>or due to the time of soldering and wiring..i dont
>know...but if this is the most one can make
>building a box of that size...well i dont think i
>would ever do it again! and this isnt meant as an
>angry statement. far from it. But it was a TON of
>work. late nights...early mornings...technical
>hurdles...hand burns....and I think for that amount
>of work, there has to be a payoff. (which there
>always is when you are building it for YOURSELF)
>
>at least the parts were paid for as i was building
>it. but lets stop and think about if they were
>NOT...then i would have had to put about 2000
>dollars of my OWN money into the box, which would
>not have been recouped till the very end. which
>seems very risky (if you arent even sure there are
>buyers)
>
>wow.
>
>
>
>so i am interested in knowing
>
>1. is it really THAT hard to do better than
>breaking even when  building synth related stuff
>for people (even just one offs)
>2. how does anyone make a real living doing it?
>3. is it any better with small boxes? (fx,etc)
>4. what are some good ways of estimating a cost at
>the start? (i estimated waaaay too low and hurt
>myself because of it. an agreed upon price is an
>agreed upon price no matter how wrong i might have
>been.)
>
>
>granted...i will be doing synth diy for myself no
>matter what. and i am proud of the 
>monster that i built.
>
>but maybe stompbox style synth creations are a bit
>more realistic than giant machines?
>
>i would love to hear of your experiences with this.
>
>
>thanks so much
>
>
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