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Putting Out Your Own CD
by
Kristin Thomson and Jenny
Toomey
Simple Machines Records
This paper is an excerpt from Simple Machines' fine
publication, An Introductory Guide
to Putting Out Records, Cassettes and CDs.
More info about the Guide can be
found at the bottom of this paper.
It's now 1996...distributors are ordering less and less
vinyl (or in some cases none at all), most groovy radio stations come equipped with
a CD player, and most chain stores are either cutting back or
eliminating their vinyl stock altogether. Why not consider releasing a CD? For
the most part, manufacturing 1000 CDs isn't that much more expensive than making
1000 12" albums.
Even if you never plan on putting out a CD, you might be
surprised to know that a package deal for 1000 CDs costs between $2500 and $4000.
When you break that down it comes to $2.50 to $4 per single CD. And this
is just 1000 CDs. The manufacturing price dips even lower when you get
to the major label level who make 10,000 CDs at a time (and in many cases also
own their own CDs pressing plants). This may get you thinking..then why are
CDs always at least $12 in the stores? That's a 400% profit margin! It's
not a short or easy answer and a lot of it has to do with the extra money
spent by major labels on expensive recording, videos, promotion, salaries, you
name it. It also has as much to do with your basic profit making forces (i.e.
how much will the consumer pay for this?) and the cumulative effect of a
music industry that's spent the past decade convincing the public that
CDs are a $12-$18 necessity, cajoling them to re-purchase all their
favorite albums in this new format so they can finally hear subtlties they had been
missing on vinyl and thus sucking everyone into the CD realm for good. We
don't deny that CDs sound great-it's the music industry that sucks. What's
ironic about the development of the CD is that two of the main features they
were trumpeted for - lasting forever and being able to hold twenty
more minutes of music - have not been realized. Most rock albums are still
about 50 minutes and everyone knows a scratch on a CD can result in those
annoying digital skips. When cool record labels like Dischord put out 2
albums and a single on one CD and sells it for $9, or when Homestead squeezes
70 Sebadoh songs on one CD, then they're really worth it.
Digital Mastering
The first thing you'll need is a finished
tape. Unlike
making an album, you could theoretically record a cheap cassette
in your
bathroom and turn it into a CD with hardly any loss of sound
quality. This
is because the first thing that's done with your tape is a
conversion to a
U-matic digital tape (also called a 1630), a big video
cassette-sized thing
that contains the digital transcript of your music, plus subcodes
used to
show the number of songs, times, etc. Once your music has been
"digitalized"
it can be transferred from DAT to DAT to CD and back without the
slightest
loss of fidelity.
The best format to master from is a DAT tape, which is already in
a digital
format, but a 15ips 1/4" stereo reel is good, too. Most places
that
manufacture CDs can do the conversion to the 1630 tape and the
actual
mastering, but there are folks who specialize in this (see list
in the back).
Current charges range from $150-$1000 for CD mastering and it
all depends on
length of album, and the engineer's expertise. Just like with
the records,
you will need to inform the conversion engineer which CD plant to
send the
1630 master to for manufacturing.
Glass Mastering
Glass mastering is similar to plating a
record. Once a 1630
is made, the CD plant creates a glass master, from which all the
discs are
printed. And, just like with vinyl, most plants offer everything
from a
"basic" glass mastering job, to super duper special custom jobs
where some
guy who had a platinum country hit in 1977 watches the dials or
something.
Once again, it's your choice, but remember that this is digital
transfer,
and not much can be lost in the process.
The latest wave in CD mastering is "direct to digital". This
means they make
the glass master directly from your DAT - no 1630 required. In
many cases,
this save a lot of money! We're not sure why 1630's existed in
the first
place, but it seems like their necessity is declining.
From Tape to Shiny Discs
CDs have definitely assumed the
prominent position
in the music world. While this may not be good news for those
vinyl
enthusiasts, the explosion of CDs has made manufacturing prices
fall
dramatically. We get our work done at Failsafe Media in Illinois
but we've
also used Skybow Records in Nashville, TN and KAO/American Helix
in
Lancaster, PA. They're pretty fast, very friendly, and
relatively
inexpensive. A lot of other labels we know use a company in
Canada called
Ameridisque, but we've also heard about a place in Maine called
US Optical
whose prices are pretty good. As with other formats, you can
either send the
plant the DAT for them to master (or tell the plant where the
1630 will be
coming from if it's being done by a specialist), and how many you
will need.
The plant will want a deposit of 50% or so. Most plants charge
about $300
for glass mastering (the process of making the CD stampers), then
about $1.10
per CD, based on a minimum order of 1000. You could do fewer,
but it
wouldn't necessarily cost you much less. One other small cost is
for the
printing on the CDs. In most cases it's free for orders over
1000, but some
places charge about $.05 per CD for this, or a flat set up
charge of about
$35 for creating negatives of any artwork you send them. You can
pick two
colors - it's best to do a layout with all the pertinent info to
be printed
in black ink over a solid background film of a lighter color.
You could get
fancy with lots of colors or weird patterns, but this will cost
extra.
Booklets
At this point you've got 1000 CDs that cost you
about $2000 to make and nothing to put them in. Here's where you can do a lot of
different things. The traditional CD jewel box packaging requires a
booklet and a backing card, not forgetting the actual jewel box. A lot of CD
pressing plants will take care of this step for you, as long as you send
camera ready artwork along with your DAT or 1630 master. But you may save
money by having the booklets and backing cards made by a printer (see list in
back) and having them ship the booklets to the CD plant for assembly. A set of
1000 4-panel (that's one piece of paper folded over) booklets and cards cost a
little over $350, and it doesn't cost much more to print in full color. But
here's the catch-they expect you to send them final film negatives ready for
printing. If you just send them rough artwork, they'll charge you more
than you make in a year. It's always cheaper to call around and find someone
to in your hometown to do filmwork, but even this can run you $250-$500 for
full-color composite negatives and a color match print. This is a huge
topic that we can barely scratch the surface of in this booklet, so PLEASE call
someone who has experience in this for advice before you find yourself in a
situation that's going to cost you a bijillion dollars. Another thing -- as
with the record jackets, if you pay a little extra you can get a lot more
covers or booklets. A paltry $100 with the original order will get you a
full 1000 extra booklets/backing cards. We really want to stress that this
is one time when it's best avoiding learning the truth the hard way -- refer to
the Artwork article done by Barefoot Press for the basics,
but always refer to the art specifications from the place you've chosen to
do your printing because everyone is slightly different and it's very
important to get it right and avoid extra charges.
Packaging
Now you've got the paper stuff and the CDs. For
about $.15 a
piece, the CD plant will ship out the jewel boxes with your
order. For
another $.15 a piece, they'll assemble the CD, booklet and jewel
box for you.
John Henderson spent over a week putting together by hand copies
of the Beat
Happening 1983-85 CD to save $150, and it wasn't worth it.
Unless you have a
lot of able hands ready to do this task, have the booklet
printers send the
booklets directly to the CD plant for assembly. For about $.05
extra,
they'll shrinkwrap them.
There are at least two other common methods of packaging - the
Digipak system
and Eco-Paks - and more creative stuff appearing every day.
Digipaks are
like the old-fashioned double album sleeves shrunk down to the
size of a CD
package. The have a wide spine and look like little books. When
you open up
the package, there's a piece of plastic on the inner right-hand
side that
keeps the CD in place. These are very cool, but they're
expensive and
there's usually a minimum order of 2500. There's one place that
we know of
that makes these - AGI (708/344-9100). Call them up and see what
their
current rates are. An Eco-Pack is almost identical, but they
avoid the
plastic part in the center all together by sliding the CD into a
small slit.
We use a company called C-Case, but as we understand, there is
no "industry
standard" for eco-paks, so every CD plant may offer something
along these
lines but with a different name. Both are ecologically a lot
groovier than
jewel boxes, and it's an all-in-one deal (booklet/backing
card/jewel
box/assembly), so it's not as expensive as it seem when you add
it all up.
We don't see why you can't silkscreen a little box, include a
xeroxed
booklet with your CD, or even put it in a little envelope with a
groovy
sticker. Not only would it cost a lot less, but CDs are a lot
harder to
mangle than albums, so you wouldn't have to worry as much about
damage in shipping and storage. We've found some neat white cardboard CD
jackets through Bags Unlimited for about 20c each that could be
silkscreened or printed on. It's going to take a concerted effort to break the
jewel box habit, so let's not be afraid to try different packaging schemes.
Notes:This paper is an excerpt from Simple
Machines Records'
publication An
Introductory Mechanics Guide to Putting Out Records, Cassettes
and CDs. Its
widely regarded by the Indie community as one of the most
valuable info sources around, and it receives a big huge thumbs
up from Outer Sound.
You can find more info from the Guide in other Outer Sound
University papers.
However, to get a real learnin',
we recommend that you check out the whole thing. You can do this
in one of two ways:
- Outer Sound has posted a handy text-only version of the
guide which you can
easily print up. Follow the link and hit print!
- Of course, a text-only version is pretty boring. To enjoy the
wonders of Simple Machines' desktop publishing skills, you can
get
the print version by sending a check for $4 (what a bargain!) to:
Simple Machines / P.O. Box 10290 / Arlington, VA 22210-1290
Besides putting out great info for the indie community, Simple
Machines also happens
to put out quite a few great records by bands like Tsunami, Sea
Saw, The Raymond Brake
and Danielle Howle.
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