Airchair,

No one can tell you what you need to pay. I don't know your songs, I don't know your station in life. I know what I have to do and what most of the pros have to do.
You can buy gear all day until you are blue in the face. You are rarely going to have the same licks, the same nuances as the guys who do it all day long and who play on the major records you hear on the radio. That is what Nashville has.

A full up production demo is going to be from $450 on the low side to $1200 on the high side, with around $500 being the norm.Your competition, the hit writers pay around $1000 per song. The $200-$300 demos, sound like it. A factory, that songs come in, are done quickly and have very little extras to them. Not bad, but you do get what you pay for. Most people I have ever known, or most demos I have heard for those prices, sound just like that. They are blown away by the more involved demos.

There are multi instrumentalists who do a lot themselves and they are very good. For my money, they never have the same stuff that four or five guys playing live, reading each other, and knowing the inner language that those guys speak.

You hvae go to look at this as more than just a demo on some particular song. It is about your level as a writer. Your committment to your craft. Your desire to play on the same ball surface as everyone else does. It is never about one song. It is about many songs and an ongoing relationship with the other writers you encounter and your own songwriter's universe.

That is why you write a lot of songs, and why you only demo the best of the best. You have to look at it as if this was "the last money you were ever going to spend." How important is that to you? What do you want to play for your friends, family, people you don't know through My Space, Face Book? What would you want to be the first impression someone gets of you. Someone that might end up being the key to your career?

Answer those questions and you will know what to spend. There are dozens of studios, hundreds of choices. Ask other people who's songs you respect, where they did their demos, what they paid. Go to those web sites. Send e-mails to those studios. Take your time and learn what you are doing.

MAB