So you love music and have been thinking of turning something you love into a profitable venture. But, you do not know where to start and as well you want to work from home, and are not sure of your options.

Well there is a few types of music related businesses that you can do. The majority you can do totally from the comfort of your home, and there is a couple you may need to do partially outside your home.

First things first, you will need a good computer. I actually suggest for anyone doing a traditional business that you have two computers. One computer that you use strictly for the administration of your business (customer databases, client contact information, emails, billing, website development) and then a seperate computer that you use for all your music needs, whether it is playback, production, post production etc.

Why I suggest using 2 computers, is this lessens the chances of you losing a project you may have dedicated hours to, as well as losing your business customer data, emails and billing records. I actually use 3 computers as my third computer is a back-up unit for both of my other computers and I run backups daily.

Now, sit down and access your own individual skills. Can you play a instrument? If you are able to play a instument, are you proficient enough to be able to instruct other people on how to learn to play the instrument.

Can you mix or remix music either digitally or using analog mixers? Do you know how to set-up and operate professional sound equipment? Are you looking to become a Disc Jockey and if so, are you looking to earn online, or by contracting your services.

Once you access your skills, you will have to work out what your budget will be to get started. This is very important step now as you will have to look at Incorporation, licensing and other legal costs, accounting, insurance, purchase of equipment, computers, software and advertising costs as well.

As well, you need to plan your budget based on whether you are going to be doing a business which you can do totally from home, or one where you need to go outside the home to complete contracts.

If you have to go outside the home to honor contracts, then you will also have to factor in the vehicle you will need as well as commercial insurance, not private vehicle use insurance. You have to get commericial insurance on your vehicle to ensure your equipment is covered while in the vehicle and private policies will not cover equipment that is damaged or stolen while in your commercial vehicle.

The most common types of home based businesses in the music business are as follows;

• Music Instruction - Offering music lessons in your home
• Instrument & Speaker Repair
• Home Recording Studio - Recording of small bands, voice overs for commercials, recording of demo tapes, and personal recordings of clients for use as gifts
• Transferring of Analog Recordings to Digital
• Online/Internet Radio Station
• Mobile Disc Jockey Services
• Provision of Live Public Address (PA) systems to venues and events

In my next modules, I will dwelve deeper into what it takes to start a successful, music related business, first doing contract music services, and then I will look at music services you can do entirely from your home.

One of the most common home based, music related businesses to start up, is undoubtedly the business of providing mobile disc jockey entertainment and sound services to events such as weddings, company parties and school dances. A Mobile Disc Jockey Service can be highly profitable and very inexpensive to start.

To get going, one needs a business name, lots of music to draw from and some advertising. Kijiji and Craigslist are very popular places to list your business. As well, setting up a website which talks about your service, and sells your service to potential clients is also very important.

Many new DJ company start-ups, will begin with nothing more than a laptop loaded with their music, a concerted ad campaign, and when they have a booking, the new DJ will generally rent the equipment they need to get started.

All this can cost a new start-up DJ on average, around $1,000.00 to get going. And with a potential return of as much as $1,500 per event, it is a small price to pay.

But, you do have to invest a lot of time into your business as well. Time doing sales, customer service follow-ups, preparing music for each event as well as keeping your music library current. For each wedding I DJ for, I put in at least 20 hours in pre-show preparations, not including the time I am at the event.

I myself have run a successful mobile disc jockey (DJ) service for almost 20 years now, and I still find it fun, rewarding and as well challenging. But I now run more than a mobile DJ service, as I have expanded my services to include provision of public address systems, photography, and videography of events, wedding and event planning and even the provision of crews for settting up larger events such as concerts.

Earlier in this article, I said one can start a DJ service for as little as $1,000.00, but a more realistic amount for a start-up cost would be $5,000.00 and that is just to purchase sound and lighting equipment. Powered Speakers and LED effects lighting is now quite affordable, as well as lighter than the speaker systems I started out using back in 1979.

You will also need a vehicle to haul your equipment. At a minimum you will need a SUV, minivan or a full sized cargo van. But you may need to invest in a 1 ton High Cube van should you offer larger sound systems.

The biggest expenses, once you have your own sound & lighting equipment and the vehicle(s) to haul it in, will be building a music library. Please DO NOT download your music. You are being paid to provide a professional service, so do your client a favor and BUY your music.

There are a few services available for Professional DJ’s to get music from. Promo Only and Promo Only Canada, ERG Music and Top Hits USA, all have a subscription service where you can get your music from and the best part is that the quality is excellent and in many cases you are getting the newest hits at the same time as the radio stations are. The cost is minimal and you can download new songs for as little as $0.99 cents each.

Now that you have your system, music and vehicles in place, register your business name with your local authority. Incorporating a business will provide to you, as an individual, a layer of protection as well as protects your name from someone else registering it. Obtain your business license, insurance and retain your legal and financial advisors.

Now it is time to market your business. Get a website built and get it online. Ensure you have good content that describes your services as well as keywords which match to your content. These factors will help your placement on Google and the other search engines.

Advertise locally. Enter into bridal trade shows. This costs money initially, but at one bridal show I did, I booked 243 weddings for the coming 12 months, which allowed me to grow my company. Advertise on Kijiji, Craigslist, bridal websites, community newspapers (generally costs less than major newspapers) and even explore advertising on community or university radio stations.

Be relentless. Set a price that is within your market average. Do not underprice your services as if you set your price too low initially, it will be harder to raise it and sustain your client base later. I suggest setting your base price no lower than 20% than the local average, and then raise your price over the next 2 years so that you are at least the average price for your area, if not slightly higher. Be careful not to price yourself out of the market you are in as well. It can happen.

Once you begin getting bookings, do not stop marketing, as well as improving not just your company, but yourself. YOU are the company even if you hire other DJ’s in the end it will be YOU that the people who book YOUR company will identify with.

So what are a couple of other contract music business options? One that could be connected to the DJ service, or done seperately, is the rental of sound and lighting equipment to people who are having a “do it yourself” type wedding. Many times, people will use their own iPods but do not have access to professional sound or lighting equipment, and cannot set it up or tear it down themselves.

This is where you come in. You can provide a service, where for a fee, you will deliver a system, set it up, and provide instruction on how to use it, to wedding clients, small corporate clients, charity clients or anyone in need of a sound and/or lighting system.

This kind of business does come with a certain amount of risk, as well as a substantial investment. But once established, you can easily make $100 per unit rented.

The risks include intentional or unintentional damage to your equipment you are renting or theft of the equipment. I operated this type of business for 1 year, and was lucky as I took measures to ensure that the equipment was as protected as possible, as well as I also implemented a secure set-up where if someone did try to disconnect a piece of gear, I would receive a notification.

You will also have to ensure you have a merchant credit card account so that you can take a rental/security deposit, and if necessary, use that credit card to recover any damages/late fees there could be.

The equipment investment is substantial. You can plan on investing upwards to $5000 per rental system which means setting a rental rate where you can see a ROI within 1 year.

A similar business, is the provision of sound services for bands, and this could be as simple as audio mixing to full rental of the sound gear, lighting systems as well as the audio mix.

The capital investment is as high as the rental PA service, but you could potentially earn more ($250 for 4 to 5 hours actual work) and be working with both new up and coming bands, or even those who have been around the block a few times.

A harder business to start, and your success is based 100% on the referrals you receive. This is probably the riskiest business to enter into.

One of the most common, and least expensive start-ups available in the music business, is the provision of music lessons for beginners. All that is needed is a lot of patience, an advanced understanding of the instrument, or instruments you wish to instruct in, and the ability to explain to beginners how to play the instrument in a way they can understand.

Starting a Music School from home does not take too much of an investment, as you can have your students bring their own instruments (if they are instruments that people can transport easily..ie not a piano or drum kit). If you are instructing in something like piano or drums, it is a good idea to have one available, and in the case of the drum kit, possibly 2 available should a skin be damaged.

Once you set a room or area of your home as your classroom, then you will have to get together a contract, billing system, and customer tracking system. Generally one can do that with a combination of Microsoft Word and Quickbooks.

Next it is a matter of advertising. Put of notices on the community boards at the local grocery store, advertise in the newspapers, post ads in you local Kijiji and Craigslist and be prepared to have inquiries coming in. Once you have the inquiries, you can work on your sales and closing the deal.

One local musician started teaching bass guitar and asked me when he was starting what to do to get going. He followed my suggestions, and within 2 weeks he had his first student. He now teaches full-time and has quit his day job.

The next most popular, and inexpensive, home based music business is a home based recording studio. But a home recording studio startup can quickly become a very expensive start-up depending on the type of studio you decide to start and the equipment you will need to purchase.

Initially for equipment you will need at least one computer which is as powerful as you can afford to purchase, It is actually better if you can use two computers. You will need a good mixing board. Avoid purchasing of inexpensive brands and stick to boards made by Mackie, Yamaha, Soundcraft, Allen & Heath, Tascam or Behringer (although Behringer should be your VERY last option if you want to produce quality results). I highly recommend either the Mackie or Yamaha both of which I use.

You will need to purchase a good studio monitor system. Studio Monitor speakers are also known as “near field” monitors and are usually the flatest sound you can find. Flat sound means it sounds as it was recorded. DO NOT use home audio speakers as they will not reproduce the sound you have just recorded accurately and home speakers are designed to make audio one hears pleasing to the ear, not to accurate reproduce the sounds/audio as it was recorded.

I recommend purchasing a professional amplifier such as a QSC, Crown or Electro Voice and then purchase 2 sets of Studio monitor speakers. You need 2 sets of speakers to get the ideal perspective on the sound you are recording. A set of good near field monitors will make a difference when you are doing your final mixdown. I use a set 220 watt monitors as well as a set of 85 watt monitors as each will give me different perspective and I will hear .

I use a pair of JBL LSR4328P 220 watt monitors which are evenly dispersed in my studio, as well as a set of JBL LSR2325P 85 watt monitors which are mounted on each corner of my mixer.

Now to keep you costs down, you can use computer software for your edits and mastering. One of the most popular choices for musicians is Pro Tools from DigiDesign. Some groups have totally recorded their CD’s using Pro Tools alone. With over 70 different effects, Midi Sequencing, support for up to 48 tracks and so much more, this could prove to be the only software you need.

Pro Tools is compatiable with both Mac and PC. You can expect to pay around $250-$700usd for the full program, or you can download the free version, albeit it is a older version and does have many features disabled. As well, the free version is now harder to find as DigiDesign has discontinued their official free version.

Another option for software is Adobe Audition. I use the pre-decessor to Audition, Cool Edit Pro 2, and love this program. Audition takes CEP and ramps it up with full support for multitrack recording, audio editing for video, 50 digital and DSP effects and much more.

This program is not available for free, and will run you $349 if you are buying the full package, or you can upgrade from a previous version of Adobe Audition for $99. BUT. If you have Cool Edit Pro, you will HAVE to buy the full version as there is no upgrade available for Cool Edit Pro users.

You must be thinking by now, this is all pretty expensive, is there no cheaper options? Well my friend, there is. It is a program I have tried and used and had decent results with. And best of all. It is free!! It is Audacity .

Now Audacity does not have all the features of Pro Tools 8 or Adobe Audition, but for starting out, it will do many of the things you will need it to do. Audacity supports 16 channels of recording (you do need multichannel hardware), includes a number of basic effects and allows you to export to a number of different formats.

Now depending on the type of studio work you choose to do (commercial production, voice overs for TV and film work, remixing of live recordings, etc) you may need to purchase additional hardware, but the above equipment will get you started for most basic studio work.

Another option for a home based music business it being a Online Disc Jockey for either your own internet radio station or for an established internet radio station. The advantage to starting your own station, is once you have developed a listener base, you can sell advertising on your website, as well as have Google Adsense and other related affiliate ads where you can make money.

My Gem SuperMix Radio Studio

To start this type of venture, you will need at least one computer, but if you can use two that will give you a more professional capability. Use of a program such as Audacity for producing station ID’s and your clients commercials, a good microphone (a good Shure SM58 or even a TOA D60 will do the job as long as you put a windscreen on it), a couple of CD players and a basic mixer (you will need no more than 4 to 6 channels).

Decide on your format. What kind of music will you be playing? What is your target demographic? Once you have decided on those elements, build your music library. For a good online radio station, you will need about 2500 tracks to begin with. I STRONGLY recommend AGAINST using music downloaded from places like Limewire, or bit torrents as you could open yourself up to legal problems as well as virus and malware infections.

If you are ripping your own CD’s, I suggest using at least a bit rate of 192kbps instead of the typical 128kbps most people use. Your music will have a fuller sound and more, and clearer, low and high frequency reproduction. I use 256 to 320 kbps for all my rips. All spoken word (comedy, classic radio shows, news and information) is done at 256kbps and all music is ripped at 320 kbps.

If you put your music on computer and want to stream using your computer files, you can get a good DJ program such as OtsAV, SAM, PCDJ Red and use that for your music playback. I use OtsAV as I found it was the best sounding, lowest latency, and tightest mixing software out there. As well it is easy to use.

The only downside for some people is that OtsAV uses a proprietary file format, but it also does use MP-3 files. But to get the most from the program, using the Ots Media file will give you tight mixes, excellent Beat Matching/mixing ability and nice tight segues.

There is a free trial version, and if you like the program, you have a choice of options from karaoke, to video abilities to full radio capability. For a beginner, the OtsAV Boombox is a good starting point and will give you all you need to begin with from a DJ program.

To get yourself on the internet, you will have to download Winamp and then get the Shoutcast DSP Plugin which will connect to the Shoutcast server and relay your stream.

The ONE suggestion I do have to make about streaming, is get a web hosting package which will allow you SSH access to install your server on. The advantage to this method is significant. On a basic home DSL or Cable connection, the most connections your station would be able to support at one time is at most ten. But with your server on a web server used for hosting, you can support 100 to 1000 connections. More connections, means more listeners and more listeners means more hits to your website.

Once your stream is up, keep it streaming 24/7 so that you can build a listener base. To keep your stream going, you can pre-plan some programming (music, comedy, news) and schedule your Station ID’s to run at a specified interval. As you build your audience, then you can start to solicit for advertisers. Start locally and then move online with Google Adspace and affiliate ads.

As you get advertisers, and start to set up relay streams, you can look at adding more DJ’s so that you have 24/7 live DJ’s. Live DJ’s will boost your listener base as people LIKE to hear a DJ and know it is not just a computer they are listening to.

It takes time, but there are many successful and profitable online radio stations online.

So now you have a summary of three ways you can make money from home in the music business. The next step is yours.

Music, hosting, marketing and money. Connected.