In LA, 80 grand on top session guys is easy to do. Figure a grand a day on guys like Jim Keltner or Dean Parks. On a record I worked on last year, they spent 50 grand on strings, and the guy at the label liked the sound of the "Analog Velvet" patch on the Triton that was laid down for scratch better, so they didn't use the strings. Typical record biz idiocy.
50 grand on strings they didn't use, and do you know how long I had to wait to get paid for my engineering fee? Took like five fucking months. The record was already double platinum by the time I got paid. Unbelievable.
My favorite part is that the artist (already a multi-millionaire) bitched several times to the producer about all the receipts for Italian Food and Pizza, that were used to feed the musicians and engineers. He was still complaining about that after the record was double platinum. What happened to the days at the Record Plant when you could get blow from the runner and tag it on your studio bill as "tape"? (Personally, I'm glad that shit is over.)
Oh, a few years ago, I engineered and co-produced this one record. I left it up to the other co-producer to deal with the session contracts because we were in Nashville on his turf. Big mistake. He gave all the musicians double scale per song, and this was an indy label record. There was almost nothing left to pay us, and I did the mixes practically for free. Since I only got a point and a half on the record, I kinda did mind.