Inlays and Covers

  • Thread starter Thread starter sjaguar13
  • Start date Start date
S

sjaguar13

New member
Once you get done recording your CD, what do you do for covers and inlays? My friend's band spent $1,000 on a 7 song CD with no inlays, covers, or cases, just a spindle of 200 Fuji CD-rs. That's a bunch of crap. I want covers and stuff. Stickers seem a bit too cheap, I was looking at thermal CD printers. What do you guys do?
 
Shop around. I thought about $1200-1500 was the going rate for 500CD's with a one sided cover and at the very least a printed CD.
 
So you don't cover the CDs yourself? You record the CD, mix it and everything, then send it away?
 
Your friend's band got ripped off. Next time you see him, point at him and laugh. Whoever made him those 200 CD-Rs probably made about 900$ profit... after the cost of 200 blanks and maybe half the cost of eventual replacement of the CD-R drive.

My last album we got 500 copies for less than $1000 US, with 2 color printing on the CD and a CMYK front and back, b&w inside, 4-panel cd booklet, plus a CMYK back panel and shipping, shrinkwrapped. I just submitted a request for quote again, and it's now $959 for this package.

The key is to get your discs manufactured in Canada, where everything's cheap. (www.cdman.com)
 
I thought it sounded like a bad idea. For a grand, they could of got a good soundcard and just done it themselves. You sent away for the stuff, too? I want to get a little home studio set up and I was looking into CD printers. My friend's band could use it, and I know a few other bands. I thought if I get it set up, they would all come to me because I know them and no one else has a CD printer. Is it worth the $1,500? With three bands using it and my side project, we could all split the cost, or would it be better if everyone just sent away?
 
See, the thing is, if you send your master off to one of these duplication services (that also provide the cover, printing, etc.), they send you back pressed CDs rather than burned ones. Pressed CDs are better in every way--they last longer and will hold up better to scratches. They're basically identical to the CDs you buy in a store. So if you're serious about your album, send it off for duplication.
 
Can you buy a cd presser, or is it like a billlion dollar thing?
 
I've no idea how much they cost. I'm pretty sure any duplicating service sends its order out to a huge pressing plant, so there probably aren't that many places actually pressing CDs in the world. This suggests that it's seriously expensive hardware.
 
What if I wasn't that serious about the CDs, not that I don't really care, but just something to sell at local shows. Maybe a $5 CD that sells no more than $200. The places I seen that press say it cost more for pressing CDs if the quanity is under 500. Also, the CD-rs have a 150 year life thing written on the side. I found a Signature IV for $850 and am thinking really hard about buying it. The only thing I'm wondering about is how much does ink cost? Also, the Signature can print on the whole entire CD right, not just the title like those cheap printers do?
 
Dude, you don't want to get into pressing CDs. Note that any system you buy is going to use CD-Rs, and not the seriosu pressed ones you can get from a plant. The amount of money it will cost you to buy a CD duplicating machine and press 500 CDs is much more than it would cost you to buy the 500 CDs professionally produced. And your quality would be nowhere near as good. On a real CD, ink is silk-screened onto the disc. Just to by a silkscreen capable of doing this would cost you thousands of dollars. And a four-color printed sleeve cannot be simulated on your deskjet printer. You are looking at a really huge investment for questionable or no gain.
 
How good is the Signature IV cd printer? Is that professional quality or is that cheap ink jet quality?
 
It's an inkjet, not a silkscreen. I'm sure it will look decent, but it's still inkjet ink, meaning it will smear, run, fade, and it's in no way permanent. Plus, you're talking 1200 bucks right there. Add to that the extremely high price of replacement inkjet ink, say every 200 CDs you replace the Cyan, Magenta, and yellow, and every 400 you replace the black cartridge. After 200 CDs you will have to spend an extra $174, and after the next 200 you will have to spend another $232... based on a price of 58$ for each cartridge, which seems to be the going rate for this model...

I will reiterate my original statement. The best way to go is through a professional CD duplication house. Period, end of story.
 
Don't forget that your local Printing places can do CD booklets and backpanel. You may have to insert them yourself, but that would only take a few hours. They will not be able to print on a CD though. Sometimes you can find local printers that charge very low prices for something like that, especially if you go up there saying something like "Well I know 3 other bands that would use you too."

Beezoboy
 
You're starting to obsess a little too much about "Do It Yourself". Even if you were building a car from scratch, you still buy some of the parts pre-manufactured. You aren't going to go out and mine iron ore and smelt it into steel and tap rubber plants for sap, etc. It just gets ridiculous.

For an unbelievably low amount of money you can get totally professional packages of pressed CD's that include silkscreening, barcodes, color booklets, j-cards, shrink-wrap, etc. If you limit the colors or even go black&white they are even cheaper. Just look at the back pages (classified) ads in any of a number of music related magazines: EQ, Keyboard, Recording, Mix, Electronic Musician, and many others - they're jammed with companies offering starting packages as low as $300 for limited runs. It just doesn't make sense not to take advantage of a professional service that can do a far better job at a far lower price. And with no expense of your time or energy either.
 
Yeah, what Littledog said!! FYI, there are reportedly only four CD pressing plants in the US - Even relatively large outfits like DiscMakers send their CD pressing out. The only time it makes sense to do what you're talking about is if you're doing really small batches for small organizations locally, and then it would take a while to pay for a printer. For demos and gimme's, a label printer is fine - put the money into a good mic or preamp, you,ll be happier... Steve
 
We will be giving the CDs away for free. When I looked at www.cdman.com, it was $2.75 a CD with a minimum order of 500. I guess the $2.75 isn't bad, but I'm sure we won't give out 500 CDs. we'd be lucky if we gave out half. I was thinking if we had a printer, then we could only print as many as we need, when we needed them, and the price per CD would be cheaper.

Also, I found a CD silkscreen printer for $40,000.
 
I do a lot of short run production on the side and will make up to 100 CD-R's for a client. Anything beyond that I advise them to have them manufactured, mainly cause it gets to be an 'artsy-craftsy' pain in the ass for me. Anyway, I'll record and master the songs, shoot some photos, come up with a layout, and package the product. I use a Super Image ink jet printer to print directly to ink jet printable CD-R's while duping and use a second computer for cover graphics. It all comes together fairly quick and my unit cost for all the steps (cd, jewel case, good paper, ink, shrink wrap) is a bit over $1.
 
Philboyd, that's what I want to do, print 100 CDs. Couple of questions about the equipment, first of all, what Super Image printer do you use, and how do you like it? Do you use the same printer for the inlays? Do you print on paper and cut it down to fit the case? Is there CDs that are printable and pure silver on the bottom? Where do you get those CDs and jewel cases? Do you just use a little shrink wrap bag sealer thing? How much do you charge for the whole package?

Anyone know how well that thermal printer from Primera is?
 
You can also look at sfmusician.com

I don't know what they charge but what the hell...it's worth looking into. Pretty cool site also.
RF
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top