why are distributions keep going broke?

OK. somewhat off topic but still very relevant -

How many of us are TRUE businessmen?

How many up us have 4, 6 or 8 year degrees in finance or eceonomics?

I just wonder how qualified any of us are to make real forecasting desicions about the music industry.

just because we all have record labels, shops and distro's doesnt automatically make us credible sources.

I know this may be a bit offensive, but I find some sense of reassurance in the fact that we maybe all be a bit more glum about our outlooks because we just dont know the real deal about what we are talking about.

Last Saturday i had a great discussion about this topic in my local record shop. The guy i was chatting with was the one who sold me my frist records, and that i lost contact once he stopped working at the shop… So 5 years after here is the situation :

The loop based techno has not evolved, the tracks have the same sounds, the same sequencing. Jeff Mills is an example, Ben Sims another. Whatever they try to do, they may succeed in convincing a few people like me who like thie rmusic anyways, but obviously they will bore more and more people that will never see the evolution, becasue its not perceptible.

SO instead of being democratized, techno got stuck into this nerds wold, who are the only ones that can tolerate this non-evolution, because they are too much passionate for that. Obviously the spectrum of potential buyers has seriously narrowed.

And among all these nerds, remove the ones that download and dont buy. Remove the ones that find more interesting to produce than to DJ (the guy who posted about « Bedroom producer » made a really goos statement).

1st conclusion : the techno records DEMAND has seriously gone down.

So, what about the OFFER ? Well, instead of going down, like in every market (we’re talking about sales, so why not about market ?) where the demand is reducing, it has risen up in an expected way. WHY ?

Because the people prefer to produce than to DJ. Because the DJs, even the good ones, need to release a record to get gigs, even if most of the time their production skills are not realted to their DJ skills. Because distributors, to keep their activity, accepted to issue crappy records that sell few.

Less demand, too much offer : it just seems techno world has not enouch read history books about what happened in 1929.

But i think we can find some good solution, who will come from people suffering from this situation. As Im among them, here are a few ideas :

- as shops do not deliver us the good stuff we expect from them (the unknown good producers, the not yet recognized newcommers, the unexpected stuff), then dont buy there. If there is a real demand for that stuff, after the successive collpasing of crappy shit dstributors and shops, then the real quality companies will emerge again. OF course that needs some years where u will die to get your stuff, but you need that to « clean » this situation. The « good » shops sell anyways the « same all the time stuff » anyways so get it there if u like, the « good » guys desserve more to earn money even with that stuff.

- If u want to start producing and expose your music, here is my personnal technique. Send it to established labels, the ones that have good tastes, whatver they’re new of old. If u are good enough, they will release you, if not that means you have to improve your sound. After having done this for some years im sure youll succeed. The other way is to distribute for free your music through internet (ex : by creating some netlabel). If your stuff is good, youll be heard, if not , at least you did not lose money and did not pollute the regular record market.

- If u are DJ and produce to get gigs, well, do the same as above. But first it means you have done all your best to expose your DJ talent. Put sets to download on the net, broadcast radio shows on FM / internet, send CD to promoters, DJ contests, whopever, youll never know who else will listen to it ! ! !

- Imagine other solutions, im sure your imagination is better than mine !!!

Was just my two cents... In conclusion i would to hear all your solutions. I dont care anymore about WHY were in such a crap, we all know we are in it. SO we need to know HOW to get out of this, and fast ....

Waiting for your ideas

re// loop techno - go to Juno, listen to ten clips, the nine clips that sound the same for the length of the minute long sample - THAT is loop based techno.[/quote]


thats exactly what i mean, by loop based techno, i love techno but a lot of it is far too repatative.

craig, i think you could have been refering to a point that i had a big part in making on the previous page.. let me clarify a little for you..

Im not for a minute saying anyone should 'leave it to the professionals' or not start labels - i just think there needs to be less in total as there arent the buyers to support it.
If we had it so there was less labels and less releases then each release would sell more. Therefore more money would go to the artists so they wouldnt have to release so many records (and lower the quality by rushing things). Also less records but selling more of each release means less money is leaving the scene via prodcution costs. We need to keep the relativly small amount of money there is circulating within techno.
I also personally think it wise for new artists to take a policy of trying to get music released on established labels rather than doing thier own label (at the moment anyway) its better for everyone - and much better for the artist themselves as thier music will get noticed much quicker on established labels. And if it is good music someone WILL pick up on it.
There is no way in the world i would ever start another label myself and i probably shouldnt have started humanoid.
Ideally i would like to see labels go back to how they used to be when there was a much more diverse selection of music on each label rather than all these 'sister' labels for all these silly subgenres.
And obviously labels need to put out less music and be much more selective about what goes out. Trouble is it wont make a difference untill everybody does it at the same time.

interesting :eh:

2 Internal Error Records:

I found found some tekst from Paul edge explaining the distribution scenario a recordlabel has to deal with. Really an outstanding piece of reading:

Rethinking Music Distribution in an Global Online Marketplace

Ok...So you`re a label..You`ve got your product. You`re happy with it. The DJs are playing it, the dancefloor is dancing to it. Magazines are reviewing it favourably, your website is getting great hits, its getting Radio support, the message boards around the world are praising your release and your artists are getting booked out on the strength of the release. No problem, you`re set... Oh I forgot to mention one thing, you`re a dance label.

Now quite why Dance Labels differ from every other commercially available product out there still remains a mystery to many people, but apparently, the rules of economics, as defined by the economist Adam Smith, and rules that apply to every other business from porn to religious artifact sales, just do not apply to Dance Music. No one can explain why this is the case, no one can counter the argument that these basic economic rules apply to the DJs who play your records, to the promoters who throw events around your music and similar labels, to the magazines who sell their issues on DJ and music etc. But you`re a label, so what do you know?

If, and this is a big if, you are lucky enough (if you can call it lucky) to be deemed important enough to be picked up by a "distributor", you will logically think, hey, I`ll sell some records..I mean look at the actual facts about costs;

To press, promote, pay advances, office expenses we`ll allow 2500.00 GBP. So assuming you get 2.00 a record, you only have to sell 1250 units to break even. Lets break that down further. Assuming your artist is international and playing in the major countries; UK, USA, Germany, Holland, Austria, Australia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Spain, Eastern Europe (I`m giving distributors a break here), Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Portugal.

1250 units / 17 Countries = 73.52 units per country.

Assuming that each event your artist plays has an average of 600 people in attendance to see him DJ/Perform that is a potential marketplace of 600 - 73.52.. So, the reality is that a minimum of 600 people will pay to see your artist perform, but 73 of them won`t buy his work..Try telling Eminem that of all the people who go to see him perform, one in seven people won`t buy his record.

Starting to get a little pissed off..You should be. As should every label out there.

Here are some of the excuses you will hear when you suddenly realise all your work and that of your artists have produced a paltry 1000 sales;

1) You`re an unknown label, so people don`t want to pick you up.

2) Dance music is suffering.

3) What DJs play isn`t what people want (yes I have heard this one too many times it ceased being ludicrous after the first time.)

4) Radio and press exposure doesn`t matter (Try telling this one to Sony)

5) Noone wants....(insert generic music term here)

6) Noone is buying records when they can download them for free.

7) My dog, bit my neighbours horse, who then talked, and he slagged off (insert generic music term) so noone wants it now...

Time to tear your hair out? Welcome to the bald label owner club, the quickest growing community in the world - no wonder all these DJs have shaved heads..

About this time you will also start to notice a worrying trend. Your artists will start bitching at you that wherever they play out at least 10 people ask them where can they get their records, as noone is carrying stock. Furthermore, the email will start coming from your website confirming this. Irate, you will phone up your distributor and ask him what is going on...He will respond with;

1) Shops only buy 1 or 2 copies...

Now far be it from me to point out the obvious, (but having worked in retail for 6 years), as a shop, if a product sells, you get as much stock as you possibly can...This is what shops rely on..Big selling products...Its how they make their money. Go to any retail outlet, ask the manager what their big sellers are, and they will point out shelves and shelves of the stuff..

So where do you go from here? Consumers want the product, but they aren`t getting it. As a result you have your staff, artists, bank manager etc on your back. Shops are bitching that they aren`t making any money so they are closing down. The clubbers and wannabee djs are moaning they can`t find any original music..There is only one common thread here, the middleman, the distributor. The technic 1210 for the last 10 years has outsold the guitar in retail sales. What are people playing on these? Pancakes...??.

For the last few years distributors have blamed everything from the gulf war to 911 as an excuse for not selling records..The reality is that record labels have allowed a bunch of untrained salesmen to sell their product and sold every label short. I will give you a personal example. When we released Metamorphosis Of Narcotics in 1996, it was rejected by every distributor known to man. Why, noone wanted trance apparently. What did we do, we hired a van and drove around Europe visiting every shop we could find with 4500 records in the back. We sold out within 3 weeks. 6 months later, Nitric licensed the track and ended up selling over 30,000 through the very same distributors who had rejected the record only 6 months earlier.

The sales process is a complicated thing. Every sales orientated industry spends thousands of pounds training their salesforce. They don`t allow their product to be sold by amateurs. They would go out of business. Ask your distributor what sales training their employees go through...I will guarantee you, that no distributor invests in the people that your livelihood relies on. You as a label don`t stand a chance in hell of succeeding..The law of averages states that put an infinite amount of monkeys in front of an infinite amount of computers, in time one will write war and peace. Of course the sheer talent out there will result in successful labels selling 4000 units, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the distributors.

Instead they make excuses, and more excuses, whilst driving surprisingly nice cars, being in surprisingly nice offices. Then again they make their money no matter how many the sell or don`t sell. They have no risk. They don`t need to sell 5000 units of your records, they just need to sell 5000 units..If it takes them 500 labels, they still make their money. Interesting point to note, compare your sales with the inhouse labels sales, when they do actually have some financial risk. You`ll probably get even angrier then.

So, you`re a label..What options do you have? Well you have to realise that in fact distributors are unnecessary. You have been blagged. Control of sales has to be assumed by the labels. Now this may seem somewhat daunting, and I understand why, being a label owner myself.

The benefits of controlling sales;

1) You control the market price

2) You get paid more money, bringing your break even point down.

3) You deal directly with the retailers, so you can see how the demand is going.

4) You control supply, and can divert it to where is necessary.

PHX Distribution - Rethinking Music Distribution in an Online Marketplace

Imagaine an global multilingual online community, all with their own personal state of the art personal flash websites. Imagine this community being based around dance music. Imagine being a label and being able to access this community, directly, with a 30 second flash movie promoting your product, with sound samples, straight onto their home pages. Imagine being able to sell your vinyl for 3.00, in either a digital/cd/vinyl medium. Imagine being able to deal directly with the shops, allowing them to hear your whole record online instead of hearing snippets down a telephone line? Imagine monthly generating valuable extra income through customisable cd sales. Imagine getting your money with 7 days of someone buying the record. And all this can be controlled from one central computer, eliminating 90% of all overheads for you as a business

The internet is becoming the most important marketplace for music distribution. The generation prepared to spend money online is now in a position to do so. The sociological changes that were always going to take 10 - 15 years to implement are now starting to happen.

Regards

Paul Edge
http://www.djpauledge.com

this is just my personal opinion, but i find that techno has, by and large, lost its edge. not that there aren't a lot of people making great music out there (there are), but that very little new stuff i hear gives me that same exhilarated feeling i used to get when hearing a new red planet, plus 8 or hybrid record. there are some exceptions...i absolutely loved secret cinema's revenge of a nerd, but without that spark, newbies may not find techno to be the same breath of fresh air us veterans once did...and without new blood, as people have pointed out...who is going to keep buying all those records?

also clubs seem to be stopping doing techno nights, probally because cash, can make more with cheesy club nights more on bar etc. Less clubs less vibe less records sold. Birmingham hardly has any techno compared to 3-5 years ago. Have seen the crowds get less too. Also noise regulations are a problem has stopped us doing a night back home (Ludlow) which has been going for over 3 years. Unless we use the in house shit rig which ain't gonna happen.
So less scene, less records sold.
Roll on the summer and the great outdoors...

i think everyone should just listen to slayer. its all about the thrash metal, then no one would worry about labels and stuff. (and before i get a tirade of abuse, i'm just a bit pissed and having a bit of a laugh. but seriously, slayer are well good and they'e got nothing to do with techno. did anyone recently see them blow away slipknot??)

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Originally Posted by eviled303

i think everyone should just listen to slayer. its all about the thrash metal, then no one would worry about labels and stuff. (and before i get a tirade of abuse, i'm just a bit pissed and having a bit of a laugh. but seriously, slayer are well good and they'e got nothing to do with techno. did anyone recently see them blow away slipknot??)

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Let me quote Wayne Campell (from Waynes World)

"Led Zepplin didn't want to impress everybody, they left that to the Bee Gee's"

IMO thats a common techno mentallity. In other words you do techno cause you love it, not because you are after easy cash.

on the subject of importing records to countries with high import taxes, has anyone investigated the possibility of doing local manufacture in those countries? instead of pressing 2500 copies at one plant and trying to distribute them to the whole world, press 500 copies each in 5 countries? i know you would lose out on your volume discount for pressing, but would the reduced import tax and shipping costs make up for it or not?

and re: what dirty bass said about teaching the kids that techno has that rebelious counter culture thing going for it, i wonder about the negative impact of hippies. when i first got into the scene, i did so because of the counter culture, temporary autonomous zone, yadda yadd, more so than the music. at first it was being preached by solid people who knew what they were talking about. but eventually, those people got jaded and tired, and now the ones doing the preaching are unrealistic hippies who make fools of themsevles every time they open their mouths. (that's how it went were i live at least). so people hearing about rave culture for the first time are turned off and think it's stupid and childish. maybe we need to take control of our own PR more?

i think you have great idea there, pressing tunes in other countries is something that could easily be done. :clap:

I cant see how that would save money though.. the first 500 copies are by far the most expensive.. let alone the hassle factor and cost in time.

That is, if you are selling 2500 copies.. you'll be lucky to do half that right now..

I think you'd have to worry about the integrity of the final product varying from pressing plant to pressing plant... thus US or UK records will more than likely end up higher quality than the couterparts..

Do labels and artists want to risk this quality loss for more exposure?

i dunno. if you are currently selling zero copies in brazil, pressing a few hundred there and having them shipped directly to a distributor there might be worth it, even if the margin is low.

unofrtunatly i think the margin on a couple of hundred copies is 0 :(
plus i doubt you would sell that many there anyway.. :gutted:

I see what you mean Jim (about the previous page post) and my comments weren't directed totally to you.....

It's just fecking tough to get label recognition, I'm sure you know what I mean. Sometimes doing your own is the only way. But I do see what you're saying.....

i know at least one label on this forum that presses vinyl in both US and in England :-)

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

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Originally Posted by Komplex

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

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WORD.

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Originally Posted by Komplex

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

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great words,
but try to manage this in the real world.
(I don't want to sound negative)

Hey Dirty Bass .... I would appreciate your releases here in Brazil .... I would buy almost all ... I´m here cause I love Techno music :love: and whatever I can do help your distributions here , surely I will ...... Techno is going on all over the country .... Every month more and more djs are comming and more and more people are getting interested in Techno music ...... There aren´t many stores , we can count it in hand ...... The labels and the independent could use that !!!!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Komplex

In my oppinion you shouldn't be starting a label for your own music just because labels knock you back. It should be because you want total control and complete freedom of expression...

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great words,
but try to manage this in the real world.
(I don't want to sound negative)

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talk about the real world? ok! TECHNO AIN'T SHIT man, making records WILL NOT get you fat paid. jumping through hoops and licking ass might get you gigs, then you might get paid, but making little techno records ain't gonna bring home the bacon anymore. being a good producer is only 30 percent of the battle. i learned that the hard way. f*ck man, i wish i could do it all over, but i cant so i try to take it day by day... techno will never be the industry it should, and the countries where techno is the at forefront of popularity, like in eastern europe etc, cant even pay flights for gigs most of the time. whats left? the UK?? yeah right if your dave clark. spain? i suppose so, if you got the balls to get away with it. tokyo? if you still play user records and have tons of connects. the germans cant keep up and the usa is a joke for techno, so what the f*ck are we supposed to do?????? why do distributers keep going broke? because techno is a slapstick and the artists are the butt of the jokes.

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Originally Posted by fatcollective

not sure who can answer this but is it only the techno scene that is feeling the effects or is it trance, hardhouse..pop even...or just the more underground market? .... i mean are the big trance labels and hardhouse labels going under aswel :?: :?: :?: :?:

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from talking to peoplein more scenes than just even dance or electronic music, it seems all music is suffering regurgatation. shame really.

i liked someones idea of a website where all distributors advertise what out and it becomes a focal point for fans to see what is really out there. it would be nice to say that the site wouldnt have to run a profit, but it could sell copies of the tracks to survive.
but isnt that what shops are supposed to do anyway, if not stock everything, then at least advertise it and give people chance to see the full spectrum.

also, downloading IS KILLING MUSIC SALES.!!!!!!! to say its not is to say 'i didnt kill that guy, he was stabbed a hundred times, i only stabbed him once'. britney and kylie can afford to loose a percentage of their sales, but your average electronic music producer cannot survive that dent to their sales. you are literally taking food out of their mouths.

yea man, but what the f*ck can we do about downloading? the question is making the music more accessable, commercially. folks need to be able to go down to the shop and pick up our shit, in every spot.

but, as an artist, without cross marketing like afx twin or richie, no one stands a chance of breaking away from the pack. where is the power to get the music to all of the folks who actually buy it? money, big label contracts like luke slater or ken ishii, shit like this? where the f*ck is the money in techno?


regurgitation indeed.
in many senses of the word!

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Originally Posted by deafmosaic

the music more accessable, commercially.

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and i am not talking about compromising the music i am talking about making the paper to back your shit up and expand. it's like a constant bug out because you gotta be like walking the line all the time and there is nobody to believe in you. **** it what did jay say? the whole industry could hate me i'll thug my way through.

As a label owner this is a mad time we live in ..... one of the main problems i can see is local record shops are on there last legs! its always been a realy hard thing to keep a shop going... but now with internet shoping people tend to search the net spending there cash at only a few of the big name online stores who tend to have the cash and high number of sales to aford getting all many many diffrent labels ... unlike you local store who find it hard to get a tune in in less they know for shure it aint gonna sit on the shelf for 10 years! Also how many of us put a bag of tunes aside to buy later and then dont get um for ages! thats normaly in small shops cash they are needing to pay the distributors. SO buy ya bags on time :rambo:.
I hear you say "yeh but if there still buying the tunes online why are distributors going under?" well I got into dance music years ago and the the local record shop was the place that help point me in the right direction and show me new labels and kept me buying tunes. and they helped push local nights and keep djs networking in there local area.
I know this is just one factor that is hurting sales. but if we start by sorting out one thing at a time then the scene will get bigger!

kinda whent off on one there :oops: and i hope i made some kind of sense?

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Originally Posted by Mucky Beats

and they helped push local nights and keep djs networking in there local area.

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thats a good point actually..

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Originally Posted by deafmosaic

yea man, but what the f*ck can we do about downloading?

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this'll be a very unpopular thing to say, though you all know it makes sense.
BAN SOULSEEK!

it doesnt seem like its a malevolent entity. i'm sure it doesnt mean the artists harm, and i'm sure the people who run it are very much into their music. but when stuff just hits promo, but then its straight onto soulseek, thats undeniably got to hurt sales. if anything this attitude of 'i d/l a track to see if i like it' makes people so much more blase about their music. if it was on vinyl on a platter in a shop i think you would have a different perspective on it, but skipping through an mp3 is such a disposable way of treating something that took time and effort on someone elses part to create (not allowing for shit music here). and then you'll prob keep the mp3s anyway, go on, admit it!

i know something else would appear to replace soulseek, but for right now i do think soulseek is heftily kicking every electronic music scene, and many other aspects of media based information, squarely in the nuts.

downloads dont put music on vinyl.

[/url]http://www.groovegate.com

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Originally Posted by Internal Error Records

downloads dont put music on vinyl.

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Sounds like a Bruce Lee statement:
"Boards don't hit back!"


:lol:



But even when downloads are not on vinyl,
you can still make some benefit as the owner of your music.
The only problem is that people still didn't think out a system,
where we all can survive from this....


Poeple should elaborate.
Not repeating, pissing and moaning about the problems again and again.
That's what i was hopig opening this topic. So we maybe could find out what's going on firstly. And secondly if we can solve problems. :)

technically speaking every time you publicly spin a record you are stealing from the artist/label.

retail purchased music is legally intended for private use.

there is no difference between publicly spinning a piece of vinyl or an illegal download because the artist isnt being compensated.


you might as well sue the makers of Final Scratch if you are going to try and shoot down illegal download sites. they are all part of the same market.

the only answer is to adjust your business strategy to include these new factors.

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Originally Posted by Internal Error Records

there is no difference between publicly spinning a piece of vinyl or an illegal download because the artist isnt being compensated.

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In Holland we're just doing a testcase with a system where you can give your repertoire to the Buma Stemra. Each party, club, shops where music is used; these people have to pay a percentage or amount for using music. Each time the artists can warn the Buma Stemra their music is played by delivering a repertoire...

This system is not really perfect yet, because not everyone delivers a repertoire. So it's still difficult to calculate a kind of compensation.

Don't you have an organisation in the US yourself where they keep hold of this?

Maybe there is: But then people are not yet well informed how to use it.

theft is theft is theft.

in the underground you simply cant survive without getting comfortable with it.

i know for a fact that all the clubs in Disney Worlds resorts keep play logs and once a month the club managers sent money to the publisher of the records that were spun in the venue.

back in the early 90's techno dj's were obcessed with telling the capitalist music industry to **** off. now there is alot of us sweating profit margins. yes i am one of them too. maybe we have strayed a little too far from the path.

i think we all may as well start practising our live sets, to perfofm that way ? or is there a chance for vynyl and distribution to servive, well i think there is and im confident, wot distributers and every 1 in the vynyl indusrtry needs to look at is, a new market approach, mabey the vynyl its self ,jaz it up a bit, develope new vynyl, witch can hold more tracks without sound reduction etc, the vynyl its self, i no we have picture discs etc we have had for years, but anyone will tell ya the sound quality is normaly crap, also expensive to stamp,or mabey find a new material witch can hold diffrent file formats and still be played like a vynyl will speicial needles developed etc, as for the distribution you wont be able to stop online shopping,. also another big blow to small record shops was hmv and virgin , they also have had a big inpact on the destruction of small outlets.but its this day and age doods like all small shops grocerys etc ,they are all taken out by the big wallmarts and superstores.

personaly i dont want to see vynyl go under, we are all righting it off to quick, manufactures need to modernise the vynyl,i dont mean cd mixing ill scream if someone says that i regard that as swearing. ;) no wot i want is to see a development in the vynyl itsself, if we start here it might be a good start. lets just look at it, people just want more for there money these days. playing decks is not just playing music its an artform when perfected,. digital generation is well and truly here even the multy million pound record industries are feeling it to,its not just the underground. well any way thats my point of view personaly i think the vynyl industry is due for a shake up, development is needed, but again that begs the question who is willing to pay for it, if i won the lottery i certainly would be launching a load of cash in to the development, but we can only dream ! :eh:

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personaly i dont want to see vynyl go under, we are all righting it off to quick, manufactures need to modernise the vynyl,i dont mean cd mixing ill scream if someone says that i regard that as swearing

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Vinyl is shit, as a medium it is old.
In terms of manipulation, the new next generation CD players are spot on.
No one is going to invest money to try to develope the phonographic disc, as it is s destructive medium and not the best way to record sound.
Every time you play it, you damage the vinyl, and the needle, little by little.
The problem then is, moving releases to CD format. Much cheaper to produce, much better quality masters, smaller, lighter, reducing costs and increasing margins across the board.
If the price of the high end CD players would only come down I personally would gladly embrace the death of vinyl and the beginning of a change in the way our products work.

2 dirty bass:

I still have some difficulties trying to image you walk into a recordshop;
and only seeying releases on CD.

And is it really true that the production costs for doing CD's is cheaper??
Do you have any price references?

Yeah, it`s hard to imagine a record shop full of CD`s, but we can`t hang on to the past, this is TECHNOlogy Music after all.

Current prices I have been quoted.

For 1000 CD`s
Including
Mastering from production ready DAT
Test CD
Glass Mastering
The printing of all paper parts
Jewel boxes/trays
On body 2 colour printing
Shrink wrapping

£795

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Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee

And is it really true that the production costs for doing CD's is cheaper??
Do you have any price references?

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pressing cds is infinitely cheaper than pressing vinyl...think about it...a little piece of optical plastic versus a hulking mass of black vinyl...a little paper cover inside a dinky plastic cover versus a massive cardboard sleeve...one weighs close to nothing, the other is heavy as sh*t...

...if your margins are tight, and people one day are willing to exclusively spin cds instead of vinyl, it would makes financial sense for labels and distributors to scrap vinyl, sad as that would be.

personally, i love vinyl, but i'm a nerdy collector and like all kinds of anachronistic sh*t.

And these CD's;
It should be nice if there is a coded system,
where it's not possible to strip it down on harddisk directly.
So only people with really advanced equipment can do this.
For reducing the risk of illegal copying.

Anyway what's the point for illegal copying if you can get the CD's for a really cheap retail price. £3,- or something.

the entire information age from 1920 until now the world has embraced vinyl.

the djs who love vinyl dont love it because its cheaper.

you cant put a price on quality or love.

its cost cutting and people who arent committed to vinyl that switch to cds.

god bless them, let them go. no loss to the vinyl people.

true vinyl sales havent changed in 20 years. its a medium for people who obcess it.

its time to accept that we live in a world of 'cd dj's and 'vinyl dj's and neither is a threat to, insult to the other.

don`t be a fool. Vinyl needs to die.
Do we still plough the land with ox?
do you communicate via smoke signals or with a telephone (or the internet?)
do you listen to music on an old 1950`s mono, radio with single speaker output, no tone control? or a stereo?
??
Let the past go, it`s ok, it won`t hurt really.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

don`t be a fool. Vinyl needs to die.
Do we still plough the land with ox?
do you communicate via smoke signals or with a telephone (or the internet?)
do you listen to music on an old 1950`s mono, radio with single speaker output, no tone control? or a stereo?
??
Let the past go, it`s ok, it won`t hurt really.

---

i suppose its asking to much for to see a quality such as FAITH in a man whose location is 'london the big shit hole'

good luck in all you do.

[quote="dirty_bass"]don`t be a fool. Vinyl needs to die.
Do we still plough the land with ox?
do you communicate via smoke signals or with a telephone (or the internet?)
do you listen to music on an old 1950`s mono, radio with single speaker output, no tone control? or a stereo?
??
Let the past go, it`s ok, it won`t hurt really.[/quotyes

yes it bloody well will. :protest: your takeing away the raw skill and art work of a proper dj, ive used cd j`s etc ok for my own tracks yes, but they are s.h.i.t compared to mixing vynyl. your taking away the whole concept of dj performance. wot raw skill can you do with a cd, ummm could it be the on board effects ? oh s.h.i.t weve got a good beat counter so any joe bloggs can use and mix. im a hardcore vynyl lover take it away and i wont be playing cds or useing cdjs i will be using final scratch or just playing live instead, i will not serender to cdjs. :rambo: only time i will use 1 is for along side the decks when i want to give 1 of my new tracks a test drive.

in any case vynyl has a dirty more grity sound and thats underground.and i no dirty bass you will say no its not digital is etc etc, but i had a course on this in collage and im going to dig it out, about how vynyl is diffrent to cd. do a test your self guys like i did in collage on a rig over 5 k. get the same track on cd, and vynyl play them each, then cum back and tell me wot sounds better. i already no coz anologue kicks digitals ass in sound quality. ;)

this is killing me i will have nighmares tonight about the death of vynyl :cry: there like jewelry to me to preisious. :pray:

I have put more of my life into techno than most, and during my free party years, risked arrest, inprisonment, the destruction of my soundsystem, and when the gangs muscled in, my life.
I have more faith than most probably.
But I also accept and embrace change, and always live in the now, and look to the future.

haha, vinyl has a smaller frequency range than CD. Bad stereo imaging and the list goes on, it is in no way "better" on a 5k rig in comparison.
My live PA is generated digitally, and the audio quality is always so much fuller and clearer in comparison to the DJ`s I have just followed.

RAW dj skill is in the mixing and eqing.
The actual beatmatching isn`t a skill, it`s a mechanical process that gets in the way of making a good mix.
Personally if I could have a tune instantly qued up and beatmatched with some magic piece of kit, I would buy it straight away, because I know and accept it would give me more time to do the important and skillful and artistic part of DJing, ie, the eqing, sorting the mix point, tricks etc.

Anyone and their gran can beatmatch, and a good DJ it does not make.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

risked arrest,

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youve never been arrested for techno? aweeeee... once you get arrested come back to the conversation.


dood. just let it go. you are coming in swing shit to people who love vinyl. vinyl is dead preaching is unwanted. you qualify as a flame starter for no reason other than to hear yourself.

once you get arrested for techno, do loose 5 grand in sound gear, do have a few guns pointed at you, and then invest 5 grand more into a VINYL record label, than maybe you will be qualified to participate.

dont get me wrong I LOVE VINYL, but technology will always progress, and for those who arn't willing to progress and change with the times will get left behind.

For example as much as we all hate mp3's i've just sorted out mp3 distribution for my label through trackitdown.net. Bear in mind there are no set up costs, and if someone buys all four tunes of a release i still get the same amount that i would of my distributor.

If techno is too survive we cant live in the past, we've got too move forward and embrace new technologies.