CD Production... Use a company like Discmakers? Or do it myself with my computer?

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pisces7378

pisces7378

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When I put the finishing touches on my full length home recorded CD, is it cheaper to send a copy to a huge company and have then burn 500 copies and do the art work or is it cheaper to do the art work myself and buy some home "Cd printing kit" to make the CD inserts and cover? Keep in mind I want a sticker that puts graphics on the CD itself. Now in the beginning I do not actually want 500 coppies of the damn thing. If it is a "dud" then I don't want 450 lying around. And I know that it is cheaper "the more you print, the cheaper it is," but I don't need 10,000 copies. Does anyone know a GOOD quality "kit" type deal that I can buy? I want GLOSSY paper. Not dull flat "normal" paper. Also, I don't even have a printer. I will have to buy one, so do I need a WONDERFUL $3,000 printer to make OK CD inserts? Any suggestions within a very slim budget?

Thanks guys,
Mike
 
They may not be the best in quality, but the company NEATO seems to be the best at getting their name out. They do make CD stickers and tray cards in gloss finish and should be available at any office supply store. I have a cheap HP printer and would be inclined to have covers printed rather than to do it all in-house if I wanted a semi-pro looking product. I can't really recommend a printer.

I generally think that the CD stickers look kinda cheap. I've been thinking that I'm gonna make some kind of template and actually silk screen the cd's themselves. I don't think it would be too hard to do 2 color and it would certainly look better than stickers.

Of course you can do it at home and probably get a fairly good result. But do you think of your time as money? Lets look into this.

Materials:
CDR's with cases-$.50/ea.
Insert and tray card-$.50/ea. (yeah, the prices I've seen are pretty steep)

Equipment costs:
Wear and tear on your CD burner
Add cost of new printer in your case

Labor:
Time it takes do create, print, and insert all artwork into cases and affix onto CD's

Time it takes to burn all of these CD's (including the obligatory 5% coasters).

Things you still won't have:
Fully professional looking package
Bar codes
Shrink wrap
On CD printing

When you get a run of 1000 from discmakers, they charge about $2/CD right? More per CD if you order less. If you're apprehensive about doing all of that work youself for little return, professional printing is actually a pretty good deal, especially if you're proud of the recording and want to push it around as something more than a demo tape.

In short, each has its advantages. For me it would depend on the recording. Maybe I'd have 1000 printed just to force myself to get out and move some of them. Big commitment

Somebody else talk about home printing, I've written too much:)
 
Thanks

Damn,
That has to be the most informative reply I have ever gotten. Thanks a million Lazy Boy... as far as I am concerned, you have graduated to being a lazy MAN. Nah, honestly thanks. I have decided that I WILL go ahead and go with the home pressing solution in the beginning. I have to buy a printer anyway, just for home use other than CD's. And the solution which involves burning the CD's at home seems to be appealing IN THE BEGGINING of a project just because I am too "scared" to plunk down the big dollars in the beginning because I am living in Munich Germany and have NO IDEA how my stuff will do around here. In Athens, GA (my "hometown") I would sport my stuff as if it were made of gold because I KNOW the scene there. Here it seems to be MUCH more superficial, and all about which DJ does a guest spot on your CD or which pair of extra baggy NEON GREEN jeans you are sportin on the cover. I play creative rock music. Not boring 3 Chord chump music, but deffinitly not, neon glow stick, extacy, acid, techno, house music either.
When I move back to Athens in a year and a half then I will deffinitly make the move to Discmakers.

In the mean time....
- I was wondering if you know which CD blanks are good? Are they all the same?

- Also, do you know of any that are the same, or at least close to the same, color as regular CD's underneath?

What I mean is... the CD Blanks that I have always gotten from friends, have been that sickening Carribean Sea Blue color. Are there any that do not have that Blue color and look just like pressed CD's from the factory? Once I saw a CD blank that was only a little tint of another color? It was made by BASF I think. Is that a good Blank? Anyway, I think you know what I am getting at... any suggestions?

Thanks again man,
Mike
 
CD-Rs come in all kinds of colors. You can get the plain silver ones if you look around. I too hate the stupid blue CD-R.. it makes your CD just say "home-made!!!" all over it!
There are thermal printers available if you really want to print designs directly on the CDs. They are expensive, but worth checking out. Go to http://www.pricewatch.com and search for silver/silver CD-R. I'm sure it'll find lots of good deals for ya.

Isaiah
 
pisces7378,

I really would not recommend doing it yourself. I've been down that road before with my very first project. At the time, it was the best that we could do, so I was content. But it was a very big difference in quality the next time when I got my material professionally duplicated. I'm not saying spend all your money at Disc Makers or anything. All that I am saying is that the level of quality in a professionally printed and duplicated project is dramically better than what can be done at home.

I'd suggest devoting your time to recording and mixing the best project that you can. Use a graphics program to design the artwork for your booklet and then let an outside company take it from there and give you a professional product. It will speak volumes of your level of professionalism.

Rev E
 
Suggestions

Thanks guys,

RevE... can you recomend the BEST graphics program that you know of? And then recomend one that is within reason of price and learning curve.

Thanks for the advice,
Mike
 
Hallo Pisces, Gruesse aus Schotland, habt ihr schoen schnee gehabt in Muenchen?

Back to business, Graphics programs I can recomend the ADOBE range. Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Freehand. They are professional packages used by at least 99.9% of all printers and Grafix companies. They might be a bit complicated at first but its a complete solution.

For a cheaper and less complicated solution maybe try the CorelDraw product.

Oder nutze meine dienste, lol, ich bin billich.
http://www.mp3.com/spunkonnancy
 
I agree with Rev, I think it would be well worth the money to get your CD printed professionally. DiscMakers are just one of the many companies that supply great work. There are some companies that supply great work at reasonable prices, especially if you are pressing 1000 or more. It is cheaper to get 1000 than it is 500, because you will only have to spend an extra couple of hundred dollars. I went thru Digidoc my first time out and I supplied all graphics ready for print and that saved a hell of a lot of money. Go into some of the search engines and do some searches or go to http://www.indie~music.com and look around. You will gt a better end project if you get it done professionally..Neato is good but you can see the preforated edges, so keep that in mind when looking at public attention.
 
I wouldn't suggest doing it on your own.

Your time is worth something, so that is a major consideration, but you also want something that looks great. You need everything you can get to stand out among all the discs out there.

--
David Hooper
Kathode Ray Music
http://www.indiebiz.com/
 
By the way, Discmakers is great, but you can probably do better on price. In fact, I'm sure you can.

Email jim@ursodum.com and ask him about CD packages. He can handle the graphics and everything.

--
David Hooper
Kathode Ray Music
http://www.indiebiz.com/
 
Try checking out these guys.....

http://www.oasiscd.com

They did a run of 1,000 CD's for us and did a great job at a very reasonable price.
Also, when you duplicate with Oasis you get one year's free membership with "The Orchard".... which is a very large distribution company. You'll need to get hooked up with a distributor if you plan on selling CD's on-line. I mean, you don't personally have the ability to process orders by check or credit card, right?
The Orchard can do that for you.
You can check out The Orchard right here...

http://www.theorchard.com

One last thing...
Oasis puts out "Sampler" discs of music of several different genres. The songs featured are all hand-picked by the president on the company and are by independent artists and bands. Only "the best" out of thousands of songs make it to the sampler discs. But, if your tunes are good, you have a great shot. One of the songs from our CD is featured on "Oasis Country".
All of these sampler discs are distributed to radio stations, A & R people, and other important people in the music business across North America.
If you'd like to hear a sample of the song of ours that's on the sampler disc, you can check it out here...

http://go.to/macbrothers

Click on the green LifeSaver... the song is called "Little Pink Drink".

Best of luck to you!
Buck



[Edited by Buck62 on 02-19-2001 at 00:39]
 
pisces7378,

Someone earlier mention Adobe products (Illustrator). I also agree. Adobe Illustrator is used very commonly in the professional graphics design industry. Of the programs that I am aware of, it is regarded as the best. It is a bit expensive. If you are a student or have a friend who has access to a university computer lab, you may find Illustrator there (I've seen it in university computer labs before). But to tell the truth, many programs can do a reasonably good job.

A friend of mine is designing his CD booklet on Sonic Foundry's "Viscosity" program and I was very impressed with the quality and that programs' abilities. Viscosity is available from http://www.sonicfoundry.com for about $80 if I remember correctly. You won't be missing very much from a quality standpoint compared to Illustrator. If you don't have a graphics program, I would recommend Viscosity. Corel also makes a reasoble (pricewise and learning curve-wise) program (Corel Draw). You may already have a reasonable graphics program on your computer. Like audio, you should concern yourself with the audio to digital transer. If you are using pictures, use the best scanner possible (use a professional company if you can afford it).

To find duplication companies, take a look in the back pages (classifieds) of any audio/recording/music magazine, like EQ, Keyboard, Mix, Electronic Musician, Musician, etc... You will find 30 to 40 different companies vying for your business. My last project, I used a company called QCA (www.go-qca.com). They did an excellent job and delivered on time and with little effort from me other than in providing directions and paying the bill of course. They can even do mastering for you if you desire. If you are doing the artwork yourself, then your life will be even easier, because all you'll have to do is send the audio and art files to them on a CD and you're good to go. There are many other companies that can do the same for you, so check you recording mags or buy a latest issue and go from there.

Much Success to You,
Rev E
 
Here's what I can offer

I'm a graphic designer/ musician. I'm not soliciting my services, just giving some advice.
I've done many CD covers. I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. If you can use only one, use Photoshop. It is more useful for rasterized images (photos), whereas Illustrator is for vector images (cartoon drawings and solid color illustrations).
However any graphics program will work as long as it can save your image in a format that is usable by the company producing the cover. Here is what they will most likely need:
A .tif file that is 300 dpi. It will need to be in CMYK format. For a CD cover size image, that's going to be a huge file; around 20 mb.
Any program that can save your image to those specs will work.
If you decide to print them at home, you should still do it from the specs mentioned above.
If you would like to see some of the covers I have done w/ these programs, visit my site and go to the page titled "The Talk", and then "Orbit".
Best of luck
Aaron
http://www.aaroncheney.com
 
Can everyone that gets thsi thread e-mailed to them, please go read the questions asked in my other thread... "Record Label News Letter..."

Thanks a million guys,
Mike
 
I know a guy who did a home-made run of CDs of his band and then got shafted by Trading Standards. Not all CD players can handle CD-R discs and so people were buying them and couldn't play them. It caused all kinds of hassle.

If you get them professionally made your CDs are gonna work for anyone who buys em. Can you think of worse publicity than people perceiving your discs as duds?
 
It isn't often that one thread seems to wrap a whole topic pretty much right up, but I think this one did it. I still don't trust this new star-ranking system, but I'm giving this one a fiver.
 
Just When You Thought it Was Over....

Sorry to re-open this thread. I will however be changing the subject. And seeing as not sooooo many people seem to visit this catagory, when compared to something like "Sound cards etc..." I will post this here so that it will get e-mailed to all that have been so helpful up until now. And I really mean that.

Anyway here is the question:

I have designed a new logo for a record label, and I am wondering if it will violate American/International Trademark Laws. Here in Germany, the largest passenger railroad is named "Die Deutsche Bahn" which translates into "The German Train." Anyway, the Trademark for Die Deutsche Bahn is simply a red letter "D" and a red letter "B" surrounded by a red square with rounded off courners. And the Initials of this record label are, instead of "DB" for Deutsche Bahn,
they are "DR". And I think that the trademark is a little bit tongue in cheek and catchy to the eye over here, as well as simple and professional looking to someone that is not familiar with the Deutsche Bahn. My question is...

If someone took the Coca-Cola trademark, and for example had a company called Coca-Rola, is it legal to have a VERY VERY similar trademark, to where they look identical except the word has changed?

Please answer if you know? Or better yet suggest a book on Music Laws, or promotion laws. Etc...

Question 2:
How many independent bands does anyone know that actually claims weekend gigs on their tax forms. I come from Athens, GA and I never heard of an unsigned gig-band having to be filed under a new tax bracket and having to fill out another tspe of form in tax season, just because they play a gig or two a month. I guess the real question is.... At what point should a band actually start to pay taxes on the income of their band?

Thanks,
Mike
 
Mike, you're not reopening a thread, you're starting a new one on the tailend of this one. I'll start a new thread with your message.
 
Re: Glass master

littmuze said:
What is the standard when it comes to getting your glass master back from a cd manufacturer? I recently had a problem with a cd house. I asked for all the parts for manufacture back (Films,zip disc,cdr, & glass master)
They responded with "the factory does not ship the glassmaster as it is thier property...."
To me that sounds like a lie, can any body advise
www.edlittman.com
Click to expand...

Ed,

The glass master issue does not sound out of line. From the perspective of the manufacturing house, they are only obligated to give you back what you gave them to begin with. So if you didn't give them a glass master, they don't owe it to you. The glass master is usually billed at between $100 - $200 to make. So by giving it back to you, they would be giving one of their competitors (the next place that you went to) an easier road to making the final product. Even though I agree with you that ANY master with your recordings on it belongs to you, the reality is that you probably did not sign any agreement with them that specifies that the glass master is yours.

A lot also depends on what they have charged you. If you were simply dissatisfied and wanted a refund then that would make my point above even more likely (that you will not get back the glass master, since it costs them to make it). If they forced you to pay some of the costs for the time that they put into it, them you may have a case for getting it back. If this senario is true then you may want to see a lawyer.

Rev E
 
What happened to the discussion about cows? I want to talk about the cows!
 
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