Why the price is not a single number
People often ask for a day rate for sound advice and expect a single figure. The honest answer is that the work varies far more than the hours do. A morning spent choosing microphones for a two-person news desk is a different job from a week planning monitoring and audience sound for a multi-stage live event, even though both sit under the same service.
Our sound engineering support covers microphones, mixing desks and monitoring for speech, music and live audience sound. Each of those areas has its own questions, and the cost follows how many of them your production actually raises. We therefore quote in writing after reading your enquiry, rather than publishing one rate that would be wrong for most people.
This note explains what sits behind a quotation so you can judge it, and so you can prepare in ways that keep the scope sensible. The figures on our prices page give the starting points; here the aim is to show what pushes a job up or down from there.
Scope: speech, music or live audience
Speech is the simplest case. A presenter, a guest and a studio with reasonable acoustics need a clear microphone choice, sensible gain structure and a monitoring set-up the operator can trust. Advice here is usually short and quick to put right, and it is priced accordingly.
Music adds complexity quickly. Instruments change the choice of microphone and its placement, and a band needs separate monitor mixes so players can hear themselves without feeding back into the room. Balancing several sources against each other takes more of an engineer's time to plan and to explain.
Live audience sound is the heaviest. The microphones for a crowd, the reinforcement for the room and the broadcast mix all interact, and each can spoil the others if they are planned separately. When a brief covers all three, expect the quotation to reflect the extra planning, because the decisions depend on one another.
- Speech only: fewest decisions, shortest engagement
- Music: added monitor mixes and microphone placement
- Live audience: three mixes that must be planned together
Equipment you already own
A good deal of the cost depends on what you have in the building. If you already own a mixing desk and a set of microphones, the work is a review: we check what suits your programmes, what is being misused and what is simply worn out. That is a smaller job than specifying a room from nothing.
Starting from nothing means comparing desks by channel count, routing and how they connect to the rest of your signal chain. It also means thinking ahead about growth, so you do not buy a desk the show outgrows in a year. That research takes time and is part of what you pay for.
We do not sell equipment, so the advice carries no commission either way. What it costs you is our time, not a margin hidden in a product list, and a plain inventory sent with your enquiry lets us size that time accurately before we write the quotation.
The room and the number of locations
Acoustics can change the whole price. A treated studio gives predictable sound, and advice stays within microphones and mixing. A bare room, a hall with a long decay or a venue we have never seen asks for more thought, and sometimes a visit to listen and measure before any recommendation is made.
Visits are a real cost, in travel and in the hours on site, and we show them as a separate line so you can see them. Remote advice from drawings and recordings is cheaper, and it works well when you can send a few minutes of audio from the actual space.
Several locations multiply the effort even when the equipment is the same. A touring production, or a network with regional studios, needs the guidance checked against each room. We can often reuse the core of the advice, but each site still has its own quirks and the quotation allows time for them.
Timing, rehearsals and written output
The calendar affects what we charge. Advice given weeks before a broadcast can be planned around our other work. Advice needed within days, or during rehearsals when the crew is waiting, takes priority and is quoted with that in mind. Giving us notice is the single cheapest thing you can do.
What you want handed over matters too. A short written summary of recommendations is quick to produce. A full document with a channel list, monitoring plan and notes for the crew takes much longer to write well, and many clients find it worth having because it outlasts the project.
Attendance at rehearsal or on the day is a separate decision. Some producers want us in the room to listen and adjust; others are happy with the plan and run it themselves. Both are reasonable, and the quotation lists each so you pay only for what you choose.
- Notice period: more notice, easier scheduling
- Output: short summary or full written plan
- Attendance: remote, rehearsal or on the day
How ordering and payment work
You begin with an enquiry through the contact page, describing the programme, the room and what you already have. We read it, ask anything that is unclear, and send a written quotation that names the scope, the price and what is included. Nothing is charged until you have agreed it.
Once you confirm in writing, we issue an invoice, which is paid by bank transfer. There is no card payment and no checkout on the site; the arrangement stays between your organisation and ours, in writing at each step.
If plans change, cancellations and refunds follow the payment and refund policy, which sets out what applies and when. The best protection is a clear scope at the start, so spend a little time on your enquiry: the more precise it is, the closer the quotation will sit to the final cost.
The price of sound engineering support comes down to a few things you can see and influence: whether the work is speech, music or a live audience, what equipment and room you already have, how many sites are involved, how much notice you give and what written output you need. Send those details with your enquiry and the quotation will reflect your real situation rather than a guess, with every line explained.