Being Prepared for Outsourcing Work

At certain points, for example when a project becomes just too big to be pulled off only by yourself in the time given, you will not get around outsourcing certain parts of the work to someone else.

Usually things like score/part preparation for sessions etc. is outsourced as the first option as it is a highly time consuming task which can be outsourced at quite resonable rates. The next option would be (depending on your workflow) either outsourcing the mock-ups (when you’re more of the score writer) or the orchestrations (when you feel more comfortable with working in a DAW). Rates for these jobs vary greatly.

Quite often, also jobs like synth programmer (in case you need synths) is outsourced as this might also become a quite time consuming task. As the last resort you might want to outsource even parts of the composition which of course is a very tricky situation as in such cases you also need to take the responsibility of bringing everything together.

The important thing is to be prepared for such cases before they happen. You can’t just go ahead and get an orchestrator while you’re in the middle of a project so it is important to network with people who work in the position that you might need to outsource at one day when you’re not neck-deep in a project and see whether they can pull off the quality that you want.

And even if you’re doing everything on your own by now and don’t expect any project to hit you that might need such things, remember that quite often such projects come out of the blue, so be prepared better sooner than later for such cases.