Behind the Space Bar

How much should you charge to program a set, build a rig, or run tracks on the road?

It's the question I get asked most, and the honest answer is "it depends." This episode is about what it depends on: the three different jobs hiding inside "playback engineer," the flat fee that had me working 14-hour days for a number I'd quoted up front, and the rates I actually charge. Then: how to discount a gig without lowering your rate, how to price your first gigs, and how to raise your prices without losing clients.

Become a Certified Playback Engineer: fromstudiotostage.com/bootcamp

Try Pliris free for 14 days (listener exclusive): fromstudiotostage.com/pliris/friend

My earlier episode on rates: share.transistor.fm/s/a3fed329

Seth (rig design and builds): sethbuildsrigs.com

Chapters

00:00 How much should you charge?

1:58 The three roles of a playback engineer

3:26 What are you being asked to do?

4:39 Why one flat fee backfired

5:54 Charging per song and per day

8:44 "Is that the guy here to fix our lights?"

11:42 Where are you in your journey?

12:41 The magic words for discounting your rate

15:11 Just getting started?

17:38 Raise your prices

20:03 Charge for 10x the value

22:22 Over-deliver

22:53 What do you charge?

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Do you have to become a Dante engineer to put your tracks on a Dante network?

After my PlayAUDIO2D walkthrough, the pushback came from both directions. Some of you said MIDI redundancy was never that hard. Others said that if you can't patch Dante Controller, you shouldn't be running playback. I take on both. Then I cover whether an iPad belongs on a Dante rig, what sample rate I run, and where vocal processing fits.

And the question I get asked most: has my A computer ever really failed mid-show? It has, on almost every song of a twelve-song set. I'll tell you what still broke, and the step I skipped that caused it.

The full PlayAUDIO2D walkthrough: PlayAUDIO2D Walkthrough: 30+ Shows and Counting

Get the PlayAUDIO2D: Sweetwater (affiliate link)

Try Pliris free for 14 days (listener exclusive): fromstudiotostage.com/pliris/friend

Chapters

00:00 Your questions, and the pushback

01:03 What the PlayAUDIO2D actually does

04:35 "MIDI redundancy was never that hard"

08:02 Where it fits in a Dante rig

09:50 Do playback engineers have to learn Dante Controller?

13:13 RTP-MIDI and the second network port

14:53 Tracks from an iPad, straight to Dante?

15:26 What sample rate should you run?

17:06 Vocal processing and latency

21:30 Has my A computer ever actually failed?

26:08 Why run redundant at all

28:00 What's next

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I took a folder of raw stems and turned it into a show-ready Ableton Live set — routed, clicked, cued, timecoded, with lyrics — without programming any of it by hand. This episode is the full Pliris workflow, start to finish: upload raw stems, let it analyze key, tempo, and sections, add songs from existing Ableton files, build the setlist, and export a complete Ableton set with samples. Then I play it live with AbleSet to prove it works.

Everything I show (other than the Pro template) works on the free account. The listener-only 14-day trial lives at https://fromstudiotostage.com/pliris/friend — it's not linked anywhere on the site.

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Eight years ago today I left a good job, built a membership platform from scratch in two weeks, and hit publish on a one-minute launch video.
This one is a look back — the first digital products and the moment on a roller coaster that rewired how I thought about work. It's also the parts that don't make the highlight reel including wondering if it's still worth all this.
Then I get into where the company actually is now. What it means to run all of this as one person, why every support ticket is becoming an agent instead of a reply, and a walk through the Pliris features I haven't shown publicly anywhere — including the one that took a month to build and is still the hardest thing I've shipped.
Our first-ever Certified Playback Engineer bootcamp starts next week. Five spots, and one is already gone.
Certification bootcamp — fromstudiotostage.com/bootcamp
Listener-only 14-day Pliris trial — fromstudiotostage.com/pliris/friend
Eight years of thanks to the partners who backed this from day one: Oyen Digital, Alclair, Digital Audio Labs, iConnectivity and Ableton.

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Last week I revisited the most controversial video I've ever made and said what I should have said the first time: it isn't can you run everything on one computer — it's should you. This week pays that off. This is the most practical episode we've ever done.

Two listeners asked the same question from opposite ends of it. Jonny said the idea left him feeling "sort of doomed, stuck with my setup." Logan's maxed-out MacBook Pro currently runs the entire show — tracks, vocal tuning, keys, guitar patch changes — and he wants to know whether a powerful computer makes division of labor unnecessary. It doesn't, because the question was never if that computer crashes.

So we walk the diagrams: what actually stops working when one machine does everything and goes down, where to start when the budget is real, which splits cost nothing, and the one question that decides what deserves a backup at all.

Last week's episode: The in-ears video I got wrong — and the one I should have made

Listener-exclusive: a 14-day free trial of a full paid Pliris account — fromstudiotostage.com/pliris/friend. It isn't linked or advertised anywhere on the site; it's for people who listen.

Chapters

0:00 Where we left off last week

1:34 "I run everything on one computer"

2:44 So what happens when it goes down?

3:17 Division of labor, in one diagram

4:10 Redundancy — and what it buys you

5:17 "I feel sort of doomed and stuck"

5:52 Logan's email

7:03 How do you apply this without endless budget?

11:39 "Just play your damn instruments, kids"

12:35 What if you lose autotune?

14:22 Be honest about what your show needs

16:35 What you can split for free

17:26 Split as far as budget allows

18:37 Step one — division of labor

20:46 Step two — redundancy for playback

21:49 It used to be expensive. It isn't now.

24:10 Step three — redundancy for what's crucial

27:24 "What must stay on for the show to go on"

28:25 Zero budget? Start anyway

30:16 Free trial + the annual commitment

31:07 Only you are in charge of your destiny

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