Low-volume CD manufacturers?
metlay
>I've noticed that Electronic Musician (and I believe Keyboard)
>magazine has lately been getting a lot of ads for CD (and cassette)
>manufacturers that will cut small quantities (500-1000) copies of your
>album for you. Complete packages, including jewel boxes and color
>inserts (one even offered "nationwide advertising"!). Some will also
>cut single or very small-quantity copies for you (and a premium, of
>course, around $50 a pop).
>
>Has anyone had any experience with any of these dealers? Which are
>reputable and give good results, and are any really to be avoided?
For BANDWIDTH, we used Optical Media International, the people who
burn Emu's CD-ROM libraries for them. It cost a fortune, partly because
we had to find our own graphic artist and print broker and got goosed
pretty hard, but they were courteous and patient with us and produced
a DAMN fine sounding disc. I plan to use them again whenever feasible.
Other folks here have used other vendors; Diskmakers in Philly are
cheap, but some people have been very unhappy with their results
(while others have been satisfied). Hummingbird in Florida does good
work.
>Also, I presume you would use a service like this to release your own
>album independently... has anyone done this? How do you advertise or
>otherwise let people know about your album? Do people actually buy
>them? etc etc etc...
Oh man, there's too much to go into here. You advertise on the net,
you buy ads in the magazines and send out a ton of free copies for
review and airplay, and you pray. We haven't gotten a major deal
(or even a minor one) yet, but several of the larger emusic shops
are now carrying our disc. Look for it in Wayside and Eurock soon.
>I must say some of these places offer what seem to be pretty good
>deals... A 500 CD and 500 cassette combo for around $2,500, for
>example. If you could actually sell these things for say $10/$7 a pop
>you'd be making on the order of $6000. Anyone think they'd actually
>sell? :)
Don't forget to throw away about 20% of your units as promos. And
the above deal assumes you're happy with the in-house art people,
who can make a royal mess of things if not watched carefully. It
gets a lot pricier if you want to do anything fancy, artwise.
--
mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * met...@netcom.com
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Please buy my CD. You would make me very happy, and wouldn't that be nice?
robert.w.neumann
>I've noticed that Electronic Musician (and I believe Keyboard)
>magazine has lately been getting a lot of ads for CD (and cassette)
>manufacturers that will cut small quantities (500-1000) copies of your
>album for you. Complete packages, including jewel boxes and color
>inserts (one even offered "nationwide advertising"!). Some will also
>cut single or very small-quantity copies for you (and a premium, of
>course, around $50 a pop).
>
>Has anyone had any experience with any of these dealers? Which are
>reputable and give good results, and are any really to be avoided?
For our techno/house CD "BEATBOX-D" which I put together with
vocalist Roz Baker, we used WMG (World Music Group) Inc. out of
Indianapolis, Indiana for a run of 1,000 copies of the album.
I researched prices and reputation of many manufacturers,
and for us WMG Inc. came out on top. We worked almost daily
with our "project leader" at WMG to finalise artwork,
photograph placement, CD disc artwork on the CD itself, color schemes,
and typesetting. If you can provide all liner notes and photographs
camera-ready with color-separation plates already done locally,
this will save you a lot of time AND money.
Another important step in any album development project, whether your
final product is CD, vinyl, or cassette, is the mastering step.
Many artists and independant bands just send their master tapes
in to the mastering facility and let the mastering engineer do
the work by himself, and then they wonder why their CD doesn't
sound like their original studio mixes. Since "BEATBOX-D" is keyboard
intensive, we wanted the album mastered by an organisation that
was had a lot of experience doing dance and pop music. We used
SAE Mastering in Phoenix, Arizona. Roger Seibel, the owner and
Head engineer for the firm, came highly recommended by many peers
in his field. He has worked on the "Hot Tracks" dance compilations,
and is suncontracted by many major labels and CD manufacturers to
master major and independant releases. When we had our album mastered,
had just finshed Mariah Carey's single remixes and (Hammond organist)
Joey D. Francesco's album. With all of Roger's expertise and references,
his mastering rates were competitive if not better than other mastering
houses we had checked out.
I worked with Roger during the mastering session and many decisions
were made in the process with my input, and his advice. I highly
recommend that artists participate in the mastering stage. It is a
great learning experience.
>Also, I presume you would use a service like this to release your own
>album independently... has anyone done this? How do you advertise or
>otherwise let people know about your album? Do people actually buy
>them? etc etc etc...
There are unlimited resources available for promoting and advertising
your album, all dependant on time and budget, and of course,
musical style.
I was considering putting together a series of articles for
the net on "The Making of BEATBOX-D". Included would be experiences
with composition, pre-production, mixing, CD manufacturing and
marketing. Does this sound like something you folks would be
interested in reading ? Send me e-mail and lend your support if
you are interested.
Also, if you are interested in a copy of our CD, contact me and I
will send you pricing information, etc.
Thanks, and I hope my experiences will help.
Bob Neumann
Neu Electro Productions
P.O. Box 1582
Bridgeview, Illinois
60455 USA
Phone 708-257-6289