A friend, who has a studio locally wants to rent a few MD421's and my Neve Portico 5012 from me for about a month. How much should I rent them out for?

Whatever you both feel is OK.

Personally, I don't loan mics or outboard out to ANYONE but very close trusted friends and then its usually just for a couple three days or maybe a week at a time.

I used to do it more frequently but stuff would come back with all kinds of crap...dents in grilles, grease pencil marks & tape goo because they were too cheap to spring for real artists tape or gaff that doesn't leave residue behind.

Now I'm happy to keep the stuff here so it stays in good conditon.

I wouldn't rent them out at all. I do it sometimes, but for free - just to help out if it's an important project. I tell em straight, replaced brand new if mucked up - if you rent them your screwed in that regard. Just last week Justin Neibank was in town and really need some pres - I was glad to help and could care less about a few hundred bux - rentals isn't my business. I'm sure I might need a favor in the future.

I've done it. If you have a merchant credit card account you can run their card for the replacement cost of the gear, and when they return it, you can do a return minus the rental fee.

So basically, they're buying it and I'm buying it back when they're done.

I based that model on they way the pro photo gear rental places work if you're not working with a client who can set up a PO for you. When you rent with a PO, they also require an insurance binder that names them as loss payee and additionally insured, so for a lot of people the credit card collateral thing at least gets them the gear they need to work.

It's a toss-up. Rental gear gets a little bit of wear and tear on it, but it's working when you're not. I don't mind that. Especially with things like converters that have an expiration date. Things like API mic preamps are pretty hard to destroy. Unless they're using them for jack stands.

Between $200-$400 ??

We do pretty well with the local Central/West Florida rental biz (we only rent out gear in Florida). We use everything in the studio that we rent out, and vice versa (90% anyway, the 2" machine and console aren't going anywhere!). We usually base our rental rates on 3% of the street value of the item (for the daily rate) and charge for a 5 day week. We don't have anything on the scope of Blackbird in quantity, etc but we do have a decent range of the good stuff, boutique and vintage. If anyone is going to rent anything, make sure you have renters insurance, and enough to cover the entire cost of the item(s) on your credit card in case of theft or damage.

There's more trouble at stake than you might realize when you rent or loan stuff out to your friends. It's your equipment, friendship, or whatever so the risk is what you make it. I guess that's true when you run a pro rental business as well now that I mentioned it.

Everything we own is protected in so many ways but that doesn't always assure us that it will return in one piece or exactly as it was when it left the building. That's the chance we take.

Hopefully, anyone that does rent our equipment is respectful enough and also has intentions of renting from us again. We do occasionally have to refuse business when there's a return abuser (if they have the balls to return).

Our reputation for technical maintenance and upkeep is second to none and we plan to remain that way.

Rock on!
Rolff

Neither a borrower or a lender be. That's my philsophy most of the time.

Everyone knows that I'll usually say no unless they have something I want to trade for (ie. someone recently needed my silverface blue badge 1176 for a couple of weeks and I exchanged for a couple of days of studio time in his big studio with huge Neve console and live room and a friend borrowed my Neve 1073 for a weekend in exchange for a weekend of his U47 at some point).

But most of the time, the answer is NO. I bought the gear so *I* can use it, not so I can lend it to people or even rent it out.