Question on CD Text and ISRC

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slobizman

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My son has his first CD coming back from mastering Monday. It's not from a professional mastering studio, but someone who does this for many of his recording clients. We had to save money for this project, but the quality is very good.

BUT, it turns out that his software does not let him write CD Text to the songs. I was surprised as this seems like it must be a common thing--he uses Pro Tools TDM HD3.

Then, I just learned about ISRC today. Our mastering guy never heard of it. I was kind of shocked.

So, we were going to send everything off to Discmakers Monday. Not sure what to do. Discmakers charges $149 to insert the CD Text! Expensive. Plus, they don't even say anything on their site about ISRCs. I'm wondering since they are making a glass master if they can do this too? (I hear we can get the codes within a couple days from the RIAA).

Questions:

1. How important is the CD Text?

2. How important is the ISRC code? Our mastering guy says all his clients are find without it, but I've read it's required to be paid for online sales and for radio stations playing your music.

3. Any suggestions on other ways of getting these in if I need them in? Anyone know if Discmakers will do ISRC? Other recommendations of duplicators that do this? Any other ideas? Any free software to tell our masterer to download that will let him plug them in?

We're already way behind schedule and this (just learned this today) is really throwing me for a loop.
 
ISRC codes are important if you want to get paid, just like you said. Wavelab will let you put CD text and ISRC codes onto the CD.
CD text isn't that important. Most players don't read it anyway.
 
Farview said:
ISRC codes are important if you want to get paid, just like you said. Wavelab will let you put CD text and ISRC codes onto the CD.
CD text isn't that important. Most players don't read it anyway.
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Is it that people are ALWAYS not paid without ISRC, or just SOEMTIMES not paid? Are they required to sell MP3's in online digital download stores--will those stores encode them for you at that point?

Can a duplicator with a studio like Discmakers has insert the ISRC codes? (i'd ask them but can't connect with them until Monday morning,)
 
slobizman said:
Is it that people are ALWAYS not paid without ISRC, or just SOEMTIMES not paid? Are they required to sell MP3's in online digital download stores--will those stores encode them for you at that point?

Can a duplicator with a studio like Discmakers has insert the ISRC codes? (i'd ask them but can't connect with them until Monday morning,)
Click to expand...
The isrc codes are how you are identified, without them they won't know who to pay. Disc makers should be able to do it, in fact almost anyone with a 2-track editor that burns discs should be able to do it. I am suprised that the $20000 protools rig you studio has can't do it. Anyone with Wavelab or CD architect can do it. He might just not know how.
 
On the subject of ISRC codes, there are a limited number of them, so it may be worth it for those of us not doing large numbers of releases (the spec allows for... 99,999 songs per year, which is beyond absurd) to pool our usage under a single ISRC company code. We have an ISRC code (US-SV2, Silicon Valley Records) and a supporting database (web-based PHP/MySQL hack) that would make this relatively easy if anyone is interested.

Alternately, if you make your music available via CDBaby, ISRC codes are automatically assigned from their pool for tracks that don't have them, so that's another mechanism available.

Either way, at the end of the year, the year's releases get shoved upstream to the RIAA, and they make the information available to others. (There may be a way to update more frequently. I'm not sure.) For each track, it includes the primary artist contact info.
 
I have an ISRC block, if that's the question.
 
I was going to order an ISRC clode from the RIAA Monday morning. Takes up to 3 days. But, I see CD Baby will get them to you immediately (http://cdbaby.org/stories/03/10/06/2534677.html).

Does anyone know more about the CD Baby method? Wiill these codes have any reference to CD Baby at all, or will they function as if I got them myself?

It appears I just have to open an account with them. Then what? Anyone ever do it? Do I actually have to send them an album or upload songs to get the codes?

dgatwood said:
On the subject of ISRC codes, there are a limited number of them, so it may be worth it for those of us not doing large numbers of releases (the spec allows for... 99,999 songs per year, which is beyond absurd) to pool our usage under a single ISRC company code. We have an ISRC code (US-SV2, Silicon Valley Records) and a supporting database (web-based PHP/MySQL hack) that would make this relatively easy if anyone is interested.

Alternately, if you make your music available via CDBaby, ISRC codes are automatically assigned from their pool for tracks that don't have them, so that's another mechanism available.

Either way, at the end of the year, the year's releases get shoved upstream to the RIAA, and they make the information available to others. (There may be a way to update more frequently. I'm not sure.) For each track, it includes the primary artist contact info.
Click to expand...
 
The only CD duplicator I've found so far to reference ISRC codes on their site is Oasis CD (www.oasiscd.com). They charge $45 to embed ISRC codes and $145 to embed CD Text.
 
When we report ISRCs to the RIAA administrators, we typically report the primary artist name, track name, and ISRC code. Basically all you can find out from the RIAA is who the primary artist is, if memory serves. Otherwise, it is associated with the owner of the ISRC code, and the ISRC owner is expected to put any callers in touch with the right person. That's why I set up public read-only access to our database (not linked into our main site yet), which provides much more thorough info for folks under our code. You can see that at:

http://www.svrecords.com/isrcdb

If you're distributing through CDBaby, that's not a problem, as they are generally handling your money for those channels anyway, and are using it solely as an index mechanism in their own databases. Of course, in effect, by assigning an ISRC code, they will always be the point of contact for that track, since you aren't supposed to assign new ISRC codes to existing tracks. Small wrinkle.

Thankfully, outside of digital distribution, I haven't seen anybody actually use ISRC codes.... I wish we could just deprecate the whole system in favor of something with finer ownership granularity, but.... *sigh*
 
dgatwood said:
Thankfully, outside of digital distribution, I haven't seen anybody actually use ISRC codes.... I wish we could just deprecate the whole system in favor of something with finer ownership granularity, but.... *sigh*
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But, what about radio and satellite play? Aren't they used there?

If I duplicate my CD's without the ISRC codes, then get ISRC codes for the songs after that, an online merchant can still associate the codes to the songs they sell right? Maybe them encode the songs with it before seeling them online. (???).

Also, once I get my ISRC code, do I then submit a form per song to them with the full code I've assigned to the song?
 
Don't know anything about satellite radio, but I don't see how ISRC codes would be all that useful for tracking radio royalties. ISRCs are associated with a recorded track, while royalties are associated with the underlying composition, and don't depend on which particular performance was involved....

Radio stations don't pay royalties to artists. Airplay royalties are paid to the music publisher (as in sheet music), and are typically then split evenly between the publisher and composer. If there's no sheet music publisher, then the publisher is the composer, and all of the royalties go to that person.

Basically, once a year (I think), the radio stations fill out this exhaustive reporting form that includes the title and primary artist. ASCAP or BMI (as appropriate) look that up in their database and figure out the composer. The publisher sets up the composer/publisher info, and I'm not sure who is responsible for setting up the association with an actual release.... I haven't gotten that far.... :) The point is that it all lives in ASCAP's database, and searching is by artist/title or by ASCAP's "title code", not by ISRC.

Any composer should become a member of one of these organizations. It's pretty much the only way to get money from airplay. You get payment based on the number of airplays reported by reporting stations. As the composer, it is your responsibility to keep your contact info up-to-date with ASCAP or BMI and to report what artists and CDs include your songs. Membership is free (at least for ASCAP), so if you qualify, there is no reason not to be a member.
 
Apparently the problem is that without the ISRC codes, the stations may not aco**** for you airplay. Here is a comment from someone who really understand this:

"ISRCs are only used for the tracking of electronic performances of the copyrighted material by organizations who pay licensing fees to the PRO's (like radio station playlists/cuesheets, television EDL's or Edit Decision Lists, etc.). They are not in any way related to sales and should not affect income from sales at all.

"The absence of ISRC's doesn't imply that you won't get paid. It only implies that you probably won't get as much as you could if ISRC's were present. How much you get paid is determined by statistical models. Every instance of a performance is entered into this model. Without ISRC's, there are many instances that won't be entered into that model...potentially yielding a smaller share of the total monies collected for licensing fees.

"In other words, ISRC's help to guarantee that you get paid as much as possible."

dgatwood said:
Don't know anything about satellite radio, but I don't see how ISRC codes would be all that useful for tracking radio royalties. ISRCs are associated with a recorded track, while royalties are associated with the underlying composition, and don't depend on which particular performance was involved....

Radio stations don't pay royalties to artists. Airplay royalties are paid to the music publisher (as in sheet music), and are typically then split evenly between the publisher and composer. If there's no sheet music publisher, then the publisher is the composer, and all of the royalties go to that person.

Basically, once a year (I think), the radio stations fill out this exhaustive reporting form that includes the title and primary artist. ASCAP or BMI (as appropriate) look that up in their database and figure out the composer. The publisher sets up the composer/publisher info, and I'm not sure who is responsible for setting up the association with an actual release.... I haven't gotten that far.... :) The point is that it all lives in ASCAP's database, and searching is by artist/title or by ASCAP's "title code", not by ISRC.

Any composer should become a member of one of these organizations. It's pretty much the only way to get money from airplay. You get payment based on the number of airplays reported by reporting stations. As the composer, it is your responsibility to keep your contact info up-to-date with ASCAP or BMI and to report what artists and CDs include your songs. Membership is free (at least for ASCAP), so if you qualify, there is no reason not to be a member.
Click to expand...
 
so if you know that your cd won't get played on the radio its really not worth the effort of "buying" or asking for those isrc codes?
ehm..do you even have to pay to get that code?
and its not clear yet,,,i thought that its your LABEL that has to give you the code...who exactly gives the code? a company that hasn't got anything to do with the process of making "my" cd?
 
wow...i had no idea these things even existed... any other crazy things like this we should keep in mind when putting out a CD?
 
ISRCs are not required in order to distribute a CD through a non-online store, though I've read that it may be a requirement for some online. It is used for tracking royalty payments. Unless you plan to have some serious radio play I wouldn't worry too much about it. For a demo, would not be concerned at all.

Barcodes are used to track inventory in the store while SoundScan seems to be the most popular method for tracking sales (of the A&R and promo guys I've talked to) See:
http://ask.yahoo.com/20020215.html
 
slobizman said:
BUT, it turns out that his software does not let him write CD Text to the songs. I was surprised as this seems like it must be a common thing--he uses Pro Tools TDM HD3.
Click to expand...

Pro Tools does not burn CDs. He/she would have to use a seperate CD burning software. If they use a mac (like most PT users), Jam will write both ISRC numbers and CD Text easily. Pass it on.
 
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