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

[Aaron Lanterman]

On Dec 2, 2008, at 8:18 AM, Dan Snazelle wrote:

> 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)

If you consider the opportunity cost of other things you could have  
been doing with your time that would have made more than $2 per week  
(i.e. your recording gigs), you probably lost money.

So the way to look at it is to build the things YOU want to build and  
learn the things you want to learn. If other people else likes your  
work and wants to pay you make a few more, great. If you want to learn  
something, and while you're at it someone wants to pay you to use some  
of that new knowledge, great. But the last two sentences are gravy;  
the first is the potatoes.

> 1. is it really THAT hard to do better than breaking even when   
> building synth related stuff for people (even just one offs)

Breaking even or even making a $3 profit has to be easier when you are  
doing more than just one-offs.

> 2. how does anyone make a real living doing it?

I don't think anyone does, actually. Remember Paul Schreiber, who is  
probably the most successful "SDIY gone semipro" person on this list,  
has a full-time "day job." I don't know about Cynthia, John Blacet,  
etc., but I'm guessing they probably have day jobs too. I recall Paul  
saying his profit one year was something like $17,000. Or maybe that  
was his loss that he was writing off on his taxes. I can't remember.  
Anyway, either way, that ain't a living wage.

> granted...i will be doing synth diy for myself no matter what. and i  
> am proud of the monster that i built.

BINGO; that's the point. Do what you want to do. If you make a few  
extras and people want them, that's cool, but do it because you want to.

- Aaron