Members AVisme Posted January 21, 2011 Members Share Posted January 21, 2011 Let's say your band wanted to put out only 4-5 song EPs from now on. You want to make the price as low as possible but still make it profitable and worth your time and effort. Your best songs would be on there, no fluff/filler at all. How much would you charge? I ask because the biggest reason I hear for not buying records is the complaint of only getting one or two good songs on an album and having the rest be crap. Then they're out $15 bucks for 2 songs and they feel ripped off. Guys like Billy Corgan and Rob Zombie are talking about going back to a single-only format like in the old days, but I don't see how that is going to be profitable. Under that model, your whole product is eaten up with the marketing. How many people are going to buy the single when they get the whole thing in a music video or on the radio (B-sides aren't worth mentioning)? You have to hold something substantial back. I think EPs are the way to go. If you could offer them for $4.99 (or lower?) with cost-cutting methods like extremely cheap packaging as well as cheaper recording methods, I think this could be successful. Wouldn't you be more willing to drop $5 on a CD, especially if you knew the material was probably going to be stronger (I'm giving the artists the benefit of a doubt that they can come up with at least 4 good songs)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JonChorba Posted January 22, 2011 Members Share Posted January 22, 2011 I think $4.99 would be the lowest I'd go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted January 22, 2011 Moderators Share Posted January 22, 2011 well, still, the cost of hard copy production and packaging are going to be essentially the same as a full length CD...so you need to calculate in the entire cost to the end user before arbitrarily deciding on a price point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AVisme Posted January 23, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 well, still, the cost of hard copy production and packaging are going to be essentially the same as a full length CDI'm thinking just a cardboard sleeve with shrink wrap around it, no jewel case. Artwork and photography, if any, has to be free or real cheap. Reading around through threads here, I see members say production of the actual music is the biggest cost in making a CD. Producing 4 songs has to be cheaper than 10-12. I don't know how it would be done, but the cost of producing each song has to be brought down. Every company out there has streamlined and become lean and mean during the recession. They're getting the same results with less. Music production shouldn't be any different. Maybe my perception is wrong, but I have visions of bands hiring super-expensive producers and wasting lots of time in the studio. Even then, the bands still get crappy production that fans complain about, such as the case of Metallica's "St. Anger". There has to be a middle ground between that and a kid in his bedroom with a mic and a computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khem1cal Posted January 23, 2011 Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 How about taking a few years between albums so it's good, instead of releasing new ones every damn year not aimed at anyone here, I don't know how often you release stuff. But the most solid albums I have that I enjoy, took 2-4yrs between albums. All of these fly by night, one hit wonders on the radio, release an album a year or sometimes 2 in one year some bands could pull it off if they have a bunch of material, but most bands do not, and it's really obvious when a band is grasping at straws and are releasing an album, just to release an album. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khem1cal Posted January 23, 2011 Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 I'm thinking just a cardboard sleeve with shrink wrap around it, no jewel case. Artwork and photography, if any, has to be free or real cheap. Reading around through threads here, I see members say production of the actual music is the biggest cost in making a CD. Producing 4 songs has to be cheaper than 10-12. I don't know how it would be done, but the cost of producing each song has to be brought down. Every company out there has streamlined and become lean and mean during the recession. They're getting the same results with less. Music production shouldn't be any different. Maybe my perception is wrong, but I have visions of bands hiring super-expensive producers and wasting lots of time in the studio. Even then, the bands still get crappy production that fans complain about, such as the case of Metallica's "St. Anger". There has to be a middle ground between that and a kid in his bedroom with a mic and a computer. You need to factor in time. Not everyone rights great songs one after the other, seconds apart. Some songs get crafted of the course of several years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AVisme Posted January 23, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 You need to factor in time. Not everyone rights great songs one after the other, seconds apart. Some songs get crafted of the course of several years.Well, when I say "production", I was thinking more of a producer who oversees the recording of the music in the studio, not one who (substantially) participates in writing it. I would prefer if musicians took time to write their own songs, played them on the road, gave them time to age and develop, before recording and releasing them. I hear stories of bands going into the studio with half-written songs, or just a riff or a lyric, and I don't know how they can work that way. Trying to rush creativity like that can't be conducive to good material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted January 24, 2011 Moderators Share Posted January 24, 2011 Okay, but I'm thinking since this is an EP, with a release count probably under 500 units, so, basically, you are not going to pay for replication (glass master, stampers, etc.), and if these are duplicated, the cost of the physical media is a constant whether you put on 1 song, 4 songs, 10 songs...so that was my point. Same with the artwork...when you make artwork, you pay by the unit, not by the letter... so the cost is not lowered by having less songs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AVisme Posted January 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 24, 2011 I realize that. I'm talking about the costs before ever reaching the point of manufacturing a physical product -- the content -- and how that can be cut so the finished EP's price is less. Just be be clear, this isn't for myself. This is an idea I had for recording artists in general. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Inazone Posted January 24, 2011 Members Share Posted January 24, 2011 Not that this would fly in the retail world, but for my own band, we put out our EP on CD-R to keep the costs down. It contained five songs that we were playing live regularly, two being remixes from a previous album and three being early versions of what would be going on our next album, so it served to promote the albums and also gave us an inexpensive physical product to sell at shows. The front and back covers had full color artwork, but the interior and disc were just B&W, nothing fancy. Since we'd already paid for the actual production of the songs as part of the album sessions, the only added expense was the cost of CD-R duplication, so we priced them at $3 and made back our duplication costs fairly quickly. They also doubled as promo/demo material. If we weren't in need of something to sell for less than the cost of a full-length album or t-shirt, or didn't need promo material anyway, we probably wouldn't have bothered with the EP format at all, but it has worked out well for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted January 24, 2011 Moderators Share Posted January 24, 2011 Cutting the cost of content...well...sure, rehearse the crap out of the material, record the tracks live with one microphone; four songs...you are out of the studio in an hour or less...you can rent the cheapest studio you can find, since you don't need any fancy mixing or editing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AVisme Posted January 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 24, 2011 I was looking through the Best Buy ad insert last night, and David Guetta is releasing an 8 song CD tomorrow for $3.99. It looks like a "best of" his "One Love" LP. The full record is 15 tracks and sells for $14.99, and he's distilled it down into this low-cost CD titled "One More Love". So, it appears people have already thought of a similar idea and are testing it out. I also saw that several artists, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Deadmau5, Far East Movement, et. al. are offering their CDs for $6.99. Hopefully, people will respond to this resulting in a boost in sales and we'll see more of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AVisme Posted January 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 24, 2011 Cutting the cost of content...well...sure, rehearse the crap out of the material, record the tracks live with one microphone; four songs...you are out of the studio in an hour or less...you can rent the cheapest studio you can find, since you don't need any fancy mixing or editing... Sounds simple, doesn't it? So why aren't established acts doing that and passing savings onto the customer, in response to lesser demand? The worst case scenario is the listeners hate the sound quality, at which point you could offer a "remastered version" which they'd probably do down the road anyway. I've seen lots of people complaining about the sound of new records as it is, so there's not much to lose in trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted January 25, 2011 Moderators Share Posted January 25, 2011 this was how recordings were done before the advent of stereo and multitrack. We did our first CD this way (well, we used four mics, 3 spread out behind the main mic for 'ambience'). We knocked off ten + songs in an evening...but, they were well rehearsed. The hardest part was getting the primary mic placed correctly. One of the things we learned was the room we were using was too big.We have a couple of engineers here in L.A. interested in doing our next recording essentially this way, they see it as a challenge to be so 'retro'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members richardmac Posted January 25, 2011 Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 I don't even think a reasonable discussion about this can happen without details, because otherwise the answer is "it depends." Is the band touring? How many fans to they have? What style of music? How long since their last release? What are the demographics of their audience? How good is their live show? What is their biggest source of revenue? Do any of the guys in the band have a home studio? Or know someone who does? What experience has the band had in studios? How well rehearsed are the songs? How many songs are in good enough shape to record? On and on... Some genres thrive on singles (pop, dance), others not so much. Some audiences are willing to pay for CD's (older people) and some will just steal your music online (if your audience is younger and you have a large following.) For some people, $10 is in their "impulse buy" range, for others, it is not. But if I had to try to answer the original question, I might generalize and say that a 5 song, $5 EP is not a bad idea. I don't think a $5 ten song full CD is a bad idea, either, to be honest. But CD price is hotly debated here, though God knows why. In reality it's economics. A solo guy with a home studio can make a CD, get 100 copies made for $250, sell them for $5 each, and make $2.50 per CD. A band with 5 members would have to sell the same CD for $15 to make $2.50 for each member. That's why there are so many musicians who are trying to make a living who end up working solo. Because the solo guy, if he can sell that CD for $10, he just made $7.50. To make $7.50 each sale, the same 5 piece band would have to sell it for $40. LOL. There is a new theory about music promotion, and that is that because there's so much competition, you need to be making noise a lot more frequently to keep on fan's radar. If you subscribe to that theory, then putting out three EP's over the course of a year is definitely better than putting out one CD during the year. If you don't subscribe to that theory, then it doesn't matter. I personally am old skool - I like an artist to wait until they have a full CD, then hit me with it, and I'm willing to wait for it. But if you put any filler on it, I might just go to iTunes and only buy the songs I like, so you'd better have good songs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted January 25, 2011 Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 I was looking through the Best Buy ad insert last night, and David Guetta is releasing an 8 song CD tomorrow for $3.99. It looks like a "best of" his "One Love" LP. "Best of" CDs are almost pure profit, because the production costs are paid for (if not completely, then mostly) by the the original CD the songs appear on. That's a lot different than putting out an EP of unknown songs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Poker99 Posted January 25, 2011 Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 The best price? I think you should pay fans every time one gets a copy of your album. That would generate sales. Its the way of the future, accept it or die! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sventvkg Posted January 25, 2011 Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 Apparently a lot of musicians are having success with putting their CD's out and a tip jar. Just encouraging everyone to take a CD but also to leave a tip. This is working a lot better than trying to sell for a lot of artists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khem1cal Posted January 25, 2011 Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 Well, when I say "production", I was thinking more of a producer who oversees the recording of the music in the studio, not one who (substantially) participates in writing it.I would prefer if musicians took time to write their own songs, played them on the road, gave them time to age and develop, before recording and releasing them. I hear stories of bands going into the studio with half-written songs, or just a riff or a lyric, and I don't know how they can work that way. Trying to rush creativity like that can't be conducive to good material. I was talking about "labor" hours more so. For example would you work on someones car for 10hrs for $5? If it takes 6 months to write, refine, & finish a song, it's worth a helluva lot more than $1. Or you could what a lot of grindcore bands do, every song is the same with slight variations. Same tuning, same scale, same tone, etc. Can barely tell the difference from track 1 from track 5, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted January 25, 2011 Moderators Share Posted January 25, 2011 But if I had to try to answer the original question, I might generalize and say that a 5 song, $5 EP is not a bad idea. I don't think a $5 ten song full CD is a bad idea, either, to be honest. But CD price is hotly debated here, though God knows why. In reality it's economics. A solo guy with a home studio can make a CD, get 100 copies made for $250, sell them for $5 each, and make $2.50 per CD. What did the home studio cost him/her? All those mics, pres, monitors, software, mixer/DAW ad nauseum? What did the copyright registration cost him? Instruments? Richard, when you factor in all these front-end expenses, that $2.50 'profit' per disc evaporates into thin air... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Khem1cal Posted January 25, 2011 Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 What did the home studio cost him/her? ll those mics, pres, monitors, software, ad nauseum? What did the copyright registration cost him? Instruments? Richard, when you factor in all these front-end expenses, that $2.50 'profit' per disc evapoates into thin air... -$5 per sale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted January 25, 2011 Moderators Share Posted January 25, 2011 My point is it likely is even way more than that...'DIY' does not neccessarily mean profitable. Think about a guy who spends thousands of dollars on a ShopSmith (or worse, real woodworking equipment)...and makes a table...a table he could have gone to a furniture store and bought for $300...what did the table cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AVisme Posted January 25, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 25, 2011 I was talking about "labor" hours more so. For example would you work on someones car for 10hrs for $5?If it takes 6 months to write, refine, & finish a song, it's worth a helluva lot more than $1.Of course. I would think spending that much time on a song would generate more money, especially over the course of a songwriter's life. Great songs continue to pay long after the song's initial release. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted January 26, 2011 Members Share Posted January 26, 2011 The principle is the same: offer the best songs for a reduced price. . Not really. In a 'best of' compilation, the public has already decided which songs are the "best." In an unknown CD, it is the artist or producer who decides, and hopes they sell. I know what you're getting at, I just think using a 'best of' cd as an example will skew the results in a comparison. The again, wtf do I know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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