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[Jeid]

My drummer made them at work. It's just plain white card with that tinted used sort of effect on it. He's just used a template, folded it together and voila!

I think it looks nice. I just need to get a printer to print onto the CD's.

I'm a big fan of release packaging (particularly first/early ones) being very home grown, having some human contact in them, giving a genuine idea of where the band/artist is instead of trying to impress with fancy artwork and cases. Plus i find 'professional' looking things makes me care less about hearing the actual music.

So i like cardboard slipcases or those plastic wallets.

Oh, and i always find them more 'pass-it-around' and 'something new' than jewel cases.

[Jeid]

TBH, we're not 100% bothered about recouping costs....

Is £3 a decent price for a Cd with 6 or 7 songs on it?

I'm of the opinion that, even if I was personally unsure of a band, ie, I'd seen them and thought they were ok, they had a Cd and it was £3, I'd buy it... if it was half a Pavarotti... I'd maybe think again.

[Jeid]

Originally Posted by batterypowpow

I'm a big fan of release packaging (particularly first/early ones) being very home grown, having some human contact in them, giving a genuine idea of where the band/artist is instead of trying to impress with fancy artwork and cases. Plus i find 'professional' looking things makes me care less about hearing the actual music.

So i like cardboard slipcases.

We did fancy artwork on our last CD, and it looked awesome, but it was just a CD in a case to me... we've already sorted out a production line for these

[Huw]

that looks pretty smart. always nice to see a wee bit of effort put in. Even if you make 80% back on the costs of the CDs i reckon it'd be worth it. For local bands i reckon its always the best policy to do everything as well as you can and sell it for as little as possible... door fees for shows, tee, albums. I think downloading is good, but a lot of people prefer something tangible... cd vinyl tape etc.

and i definetly agree with the point that if a band were even ok and there cd was £3 i'd probably buy it.

incedently... have you got tracks on a myspace... interested to hear what the byre sounds like

[Jeid]

Yeah, we do indeed. The first track from the Cd is on myspace...

MySpace.com - Astronot - UK - Rock / Punk - www.myspace.com/astronotmusic

if you check our website, there's another song on there if you click play

Astronot || Official Website

these are tracks were recorded last July at The Byre, they've not been properly mixed yet, we didn't have time. Ended up finishing our second day at 4am... nae good. Mark was good to work with.

[Old Gold]

If I liked the content, I would without a doubt pay three quid for that.

That's not to say I dislike you though!

[The Byre]

Here are some thoughts on CD-Rs - (health warning, some of this is just my opinion!)

1. If you do use CD-Rs, make sure that they pklay on things like car stereos and the old box in the kitchen. So only the best (Tayo Yuden, Sony) and burn slowly, x4 or x8 max.

2. No shop or distributor will accept CD-Rs.

3. Pukka CDs cost about £1 each for 500 and it's all done for you - no stress and all nicely packed in a cellophane wrapper etc. and delivered to your door. There are literally hundreds of CD manufacturers nowadays, so prices may even be much lower than that!

4. There is pretty much little or no money in CDs now anyway. The record companies blame cheap imports, pirating, downloads, you name it - anything and everything except themselves and the crap product they produce! The money and career is all in live performance. But a good CD is something worth selling at gigs and if someone likes a band, they will pay £7 - £10 for a full one-hour CD and £3 - £5 for an EP of four or five songs.

5. The coming product is live concert DVDs in 5.1 and hi-def. The sooner all in the industry realise that, the sooner we can go back to earning some real money and engaging the fans with great shows!

[Stupot]

Originally Posted by The Byre

Here are some thoughts on CD-Rs - (health warning, some of this is just my opinion!)

1. If you do use CD-Rs, make sure that they pklay on things like car stereos and the old box in the kitchen. So only the best (Tayo Yuden, Sony) and burn slowly, x4 or x8 max.

2. No shop or distributor will accept CD-Rs.

3. Pukka CDs cost about £1 each for 500 and it's all done for you - no stress and all nicely packed in a cellophane wrapper etc. and delivered to your door. There are literally hundreds of CD manufacturers nowadays, so prices may even be much lower than that!

4. There is pretty much little or no money in CDs now anyway. The record companies blame cheap imports, pirating, downloads, you name it - anything and everything except themselves and the crap product they produce! The money and career is all in live performance. But a good CD is something worth selling at gigs and if someone likes a band, they will pay £7 - £10 for a full one-hour CD and £3 - £5 for an EP of four or five songs.

5. The coming product is live concert DVDs in 5.1 and hi-def. The sooner all in the industry realise that, the sooner we can go back to earning some real money and engaging the fans with great shows!

So right.

Burning them slow is a must unless you've got them in a dedicated duplicator and even then x16 is usually the fastest.
Some shops will take CDRs but be prepared to replace duff ones.
We can do 1000 pukka pressed CDs with the works for 72p each and I'm sure we ain't the cheapest.

[Sam L4]

Originally Posted by Stripey

How many people on this site, along with the general public, buy CD's by local artists? How often, and where from?

It would be interesting to see some stats because I suspect it is hard to find a band in this city who has "released" a cd like this and broken even.

Yeah that's a very good point. Trying to think back to what local releases i have bought. Copy Haho 7", Dedalus/Politik Split EP, PVH album. I think that is about it.

What we did we a while back was;

• Buy a bunch of CDRs for as cheap as we could find
• Stick two songs on them
• Print the track names and band name on them
• Give them out at shows/put them in record shops to give out for free

It is a bit of a bastards copying all the CDs ect, but if you all chip in its not too bad. We stuck them in plastic wallets that were well cheap. I think we gave out like 150 CDs across 2 gigs.