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Are you considering, or have you ever printed your music on vinyl?


Abarus

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I'm not sure what else to say really. It's a completely self-financed project. We had label interest but after seeing how lengthy and complicated the whole ordeal was getting we just decided to take things into our own hands. I've held a number of music industry jobs so I've got a pretty good handle on how most areas work, but I'm not too arrogant to ask for advice from knowledgable people in the areas I'm not familiar with.

 

We're in the process of setting up digital distribution (all the usual suspects in the digital retail world, UK only for the moment) which will be handled by a third party. We did a limited run of vinyl so we're going to handle physical distribution ourselves through independent shops across the UK and our website, as well as some indie shops in NY, LA, San Francisco, basically anywhere we have friends who can haul a box to the shop and set up a sale-or-return thing for us.

 

We haven't made a formal announcement yet, but sold a few at our gig last Tuesday (everyone wanted us to sign them, aw). I put a paypal buy link up on our myspace page yesterday evening and have already had a few bites. They all want signed copies too, so I'm thinking that we'll sign a couple hundred that are going into the shops and through our website, to make them a bit limited.

 

We've set aside a chunk of vinyl to go to publications, but those will go to editors, journalists and radio DJs who are known vinyl enthusiasts. We are also doing a small run of promo-only CDs for the press / radio peeps who don't do vinyl. We had to get a slightly different master done for the CD but luckily the guy at the mastering studio cut us a deal and did that bit for free.

 

I having a blast writing, recording and gigging, but I'm very excited about the business side of the process too. We'll see what happens.

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Well, alot of underground, namely two that I know (Sunn O))) and Boris) bands exclusively print their albums on vinyl first (then to cd) or just on vinyl.

 

I want to eventually do the same.

 

By the way, a great web site that does great stuff is Pirate Press

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Our full-length will definitely be printed to vinyl if I have any say in it. It's all the rage where I live. CD's are fine for sending off to radio/press and getting into stores, but the local hipsters drool over bands who release vinyl. It's what they buy...

 

I keep trying to find good literature about the process; turns out it's pretty affordable. I probably won't do a run over 250, at first. The nice thing I've found out is that most will do small runs. All the pressing plants have been kept alive by the DJ's and definitely cater to that industry. Most of the companies I was able to find would even do sample runs...sheesh.

 

The packaging is what's bull{censored} expensive. The cardboard sleeves and full color printing cost way more per unit than they should...

 

Anyone care to share what they've paid, what they paid for, and how much it cost?

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I was on vinyl in the late 80s.It was a Ga State University Commercial Music project that Brendan OBrien was involved with.

 

Unfortunately I have zero anything I can contribute to this thread in terms of:

mastering,turnaround time,cost,packaging.

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7" vinyl is pretty popular in the UK, especially for indie, rock and electronic bands. It's very common for a band to do their first singles as a limited 7" and download and re-release later on CD. Even the major label acts do it, though it seems to be a very big thing with independent labels and boutique singles clubs. People tend to light up when they ask if they can buy something and we pull out the vinyl. We played a festival this weekend and shifted a bunch from the side of the stage. No one complained about the lack of CDs.

 

Re costs, I'll have to check our accounts because I can't remember offhand what our cost per unit was, but we got the vinyl pressed and the sleeves printed at the same place (on the European continent). I remember that the minimum run was 500, and that it was only a couple hundred pounds more to do 1000. If we sell 300 we'll break even and still have plenty left for promo and (hopefully) profit. IIRC, the cost per unit increased by about 40% due to the colored vinyl and 4-color sleeve. We opted for 1 color on the center labels which saved us a little bit.

 

Mastering was about

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If you're on a budget, it's prohibitively expensive, and you're not gonna make much money selling your vinyl, much less recouping your costs.

 

Unless you're making music for DJs to play at clubs, it's not worth it. And even then most of your copies will be given away as promos for record pools.

 

If you want something to play on turntables to make vinyl heads feel superior to the masses, then get an acetate pressing, they cost $50 or less per disc. Remember though that they wear out after 30-50 or so plays.

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SACD and DVD-audio are both pretty much considered dead formats. They were great sounding but too riddled with DRM and crippled by the format war. If the DVD fourm wasn't so scared that someone might rip a disc to their computer, then they would have just backed DTS encoded audio DVD's as the format of choice for DVD-A. Anyone who has a DVD player could listen then.

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If you're on a budget, it's prohibitively expensive, and you're not gonna make much money selling your vinyl, much less recouping your costs.


Unless you're making music for DJs to play at clubs, it's not worth it. And even then most of your copies will be given away as promos for record pools.


If you want something to play on turntables to make vinyl heads feel superior to the masses, then get an acetate pressing, they cost $50 or less per disc. Remember though that they wear out after 30-50 or so plays.

 

 

 

Care to elaborate on any of this?

 

I've never heard of a vinyl costing "$50" or more per unit. In fact, I've never heard of records costing more the $4 a unit, and that's like a colored 180-200 gram pressing.

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to say...

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SACD and DVD-audio are both pretty much considered dead formats. They were great sounding but too riddled with DRM and crippled by the format war. If the DVD fourm wasn't so scared that someone might rip a disc to their computer, then they would have just backed DTS encoded audio DVD's as the format of choice for DVD-A. Anyone who has a DVD player could listen then.

 

 

To me SACD sounds a lot better then DTS. DTS is cool for movies and all, but for music, nothing beats SACD and vynil for me. It's sad though. It's such an awesome medium.

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SACD and DVD-audio are both pretty much considered dead formats. They were great sounding but too riddled with DRM and crippled by the format war. If the DVD fourm wasn't so scared that someone might rip a disc to their computer, then they would have just backed DTS encoded audio DVD's as the format of choice for DVD-A. Anyone who has a DVD player could listen then.

 

 

A DVD is capable of 16-bit audio, period. That would completely defeat the purpose of switching formats.

 

DVD-A (true 24-bit) and SACD (1-bit, but a really long wordlength) failed because they didn't market the new format to young people. They were counting on the middle-aged public to repurchase The Police backcatelog and most of them were still enamored with "compact discs" 15 years after the fact. New technology isn't as appealing to someone with a couple of kids and a mortgage.

 

16 year olds buy albums and car stereos everyday. Had they put the new 50 Cent album on SACD, who knows what might have happened?

 

Notice how they're marketing the Blu-Ray disc? They put it in the Playstation 3...

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Care to elaborate on any of this?


I've never heard of a vinyl costing "$50" or more per unit. In fact, I've never heard of records costing more the $4 a unit, and that's like a colored 180-200 gram pressing.


I'm not sure what you're trying to say...

 

He's not talking about vinyl, he's talking about acetate, which is what was used to make test pressings of vinyl LP's and 45's. It's basically a one-off pressing that can be played on a turntable, but it wears out after a few plays. And yes, it's very expensive, being a one-off thing.

 

I think our friend was being facetious, in other words. ;)

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I want to do a vinyl record, when I have stuff worth recording, that is. Just for the hell of it. It'd be cool. I like viynl records better than CDs.... even though CDs are smaller, and err stuff.

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He's not talking about vinyl, he's talking about acetate, which is what was used to make test pressings of vinyl LP's and 45's. It's basically a one-off pressing that can be played on a turntable, but it wears out after a few plays. And yes, it's very expensive, being a one-off thing.


I think our friend was being facetious, in other words.
;)

 

 

That's what I thought. It's kind of hard to be sure sometimes, though :)

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