CD Baby - thoughts?

andrushkiwt

andrushkiwt

Well-known member
Decided on using CD Baby for putting up an album. Songs are all set, though I might give them all a once-over and readjust some things, for continuity's sake. For any of you that have used this site, do you have any thoughts or recommendations for the process? Anything I should know, anything you'd do differently?
 
It worked smoothly for me. The biggest hastle turned out to be the name of our project, River/Men. They did not like the slash. But they dealt with it in the end.
 
Robus said:
It worked smoothly for me. The biggest hastle turned out to be the name of our project, River/Men. They did not like the slash. But they dealt with it in the end.
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I'm looking into getting it on iTunes. I see something about "approved mastering engineers" or something like that. CD Baby alone won't cut it, I need a larger access point. But otherwise it seems pretty cool so far. I need to finish the artwork, which'll be that picture I use on SC but with the album title on it. Guessing I'll need a photo-editing program.

Are you set up places other than the CD Baby store?

edit: from iTunes page, "Content Requirements:

At least 20 albums in your catalog" ... wtf. who has 20 albums worth of content?! I'm not understanding how this works. Sorry, I jumped from CDB to iTunes
 
You know CD baby can be the middle-man to iTunes for you? It's one of their options.
I used them before, for that reason, with issue.

They were also pretty good in terms of support. I had to contact them about having some youtube channels whitelisted for use of our music and they sorted it out.

If you don't want to shell for image editing software, try GIMP.
It's covered my basic needs for years.
 
Steenamaroo said:
You know CD baby can be the middle-man to iTunes for you? It's one of their options.
I used them before, for that reason, with issue.

They were also pretty good in terms of support. I had to contact them about having some youtube channels whitelisted for use of our music and they sorted it out.

If you don't want to shell for image editing software, try GIMP.
It's covered my basic needs for years.
Click to expand...

Ah ok, so I'll just bypass iTunes directly and work through CDB then. Sounds good, thanks. I don't have any Apple products, so that worried me as well... I needed an Apple ID and all that, which I don't have.

CDB rocks, so far. [MENTION=43272]Steenamaroo[/MENTION] and [MENTION=185561]Robus[/MENTION], did you end up using a single image for each track, which also served as the album cover? Were there other images at any point for a single album?
 
Honestly, I don't recall,
although I feel like needing several images would have stuck in my mind?!
My gut says just one single front-image was required.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Honestly, I don't recall,
although I feel like needing several images would have stuck in my mind?!
My gut says just one single front-image was required.
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So anybody that pays through CDB can have their music on iTunes, regardless of quality? When doing it through iTunes, having a certified ME obv means that it will be of a decent quality... but if anyone can pay the cash and use CDB, isn't iTunes losing control in that regard? Anyone can do it, then.
 
That's how it was when I did it, yeah.
I don't remember there being any quality control mentioned, although I guess there's something?
I recorded, mixed, and "mastered" our releases so, on second thoughts, no; There's no quality control! :p

Jokes aside, it's been a while. Things could certainly have changed.
 
Steenamaroo said:
That's how it was when I did it, yeah.
I don't remember there being any quality control mentioned, although I guess there's something?
I recorded, mixed, and "mastered" our releases so, on second thoughts, no; There's no quality control! :p
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I'm just saying, their own form for uploading music on iTunes is pretty strict. CDB doesn't require any of that, so it's kinda weird iTunes allows it. I don't know, I'm still figuring this all out.
 
Yeah, I remember thinking it was odd at the time.
To get to iTunes directly was more or less impossible, whereas Cdbaby would do it in a few clicks? That was the case, for sure.

From their homepage - "once your music is approved for distribution and all the product information complies with Apple’s standards, it will be available on iTunes"
 
Steenamaroo said:
"once your music is approved for distribution and all the product information complies with Apple’s standards, it will be available on iTunes"
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Yeah. Maybe CDB gives a cut of sales to Apple or something for letting them put whatever they want on their site, aside from the fee Apple would normally take.
 
I've used CDBaby for my last 2 albums plus the upcoming one. Some people prefer Tunecore, but you have to pay an annual fee to keep you music live with them. CDBaby puts the music EVERYWHERE - places you never heard of - plus Spotify.
iTunes mastering is supposed to be different, optimizing the sound for their compression algorithm, or something.

Note - you just missed out on the $20 sale at CDBaby, they usually offer another discount close to Thanksgiving.
 
mjbphotos said:
iTunes mastering is supposed to be different, optimizing the sound for their compression algorithm, or something.
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I'm still trying to figure out how that works. If you work directly with iTunes, and don't go through CDB, than it appears to be pretty rigorous standards, which makes sense. But uploading to iTunes THROUGH CDB doesn't seem to require as many technical specs. However, obviously I haven't progressed all the way through the process yet. I've just started the track list, writers share, etc, but not to the part where I'm uploading the songs for the album. Perhaps it'll bring up those technical mastering things later. Guess I'll find out.
 
Talk to your mastering engineer. Massive mentioned that he does some procedure to make the master itunes compatible.
 
Sorry, kinda skipped through the thread. Are you using CDBaby for mastering? I used CDBaby for distributing my three albums; not for mastering or duplication. I have either done it myself or went with a mastering studio.

CDBaby put your tunes everywhere including iTunes. For me, not having to deal with signing up, uploading, etc, all over the web is well worth whatever CDB is charging. One place, they take care of it all. Plus they'll store a few CDs for ya just in case someone (like me) might want to buy a physical copy.

Side note: After a few years of not selling, they ask if you want your CDs back or to trash them. I was in the area for work so stopped in to pick mine up. The place was pretty cool. Big-Ass warehouse full of shelves with 4 CDs in every slot.
 
Are you doing just digital downloads with them...or doing a physical "CD" for distribution through CD Baby...?
 
I doesn't seem like physical distribution on a very large scale is going to work through CD Baby. They ask you to send them like 5 or 7 copies if you want to sell the physical CD through them. I didn't check to see if there's some way to get them to increase their stock.
 
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