All label owners please read

[TechMouse]

meanwhile i was also looking into cd burners - print them ourselves to get the costs right down. can someone answer me a question? is there a cd burner out there that prints to shop style cd's rather than the green backed cd-r crappy things? preferably one that does in bulk (perhaps 20 a time or something).

Think you'd be wanting something like this, Mark.

[TechMouse]

Really like the idea , but surely , all that it would take is one asshole to buy a cd , stick it on soulseek or whateva , then everyone would download it for free ? Or am i missing somat ?

good point locked .

Hmmm, well, it's only marginally less effor than recording your vinyl onto the PC through a half-decent A/D converter and then doing the same...

I think the point is that if the music is available at competitive prices in an easy format then people will be more prepared to buy it.

I noticed that recent statistics published by independant researchers made the point that people who admit to illegally downloading music, on average actually spend more on legal music than people who don't download illegally... by the way.

[pablo_sonic_terrorist]

Why can't we have recordings of records, maintaining the sound and analog warmth, whilst being in a handy format?

Don't get me wrong i :love: my vinyl but if there is going to be no-one left who can afford to make it in 5 years, for the sake of underground music in the future we need to act now.

[wrong]

Everything sounds right and in theory its a very good idea (and maybe in practice too).. but am i the only person here whose every instinct is screaming NO NO NO NO... I can't explain why.. but i'm getting random words flashing through my brain, accompanied with an irrational feeling of panic:

I love everything about vinyl except maybe the price, but if everyone switched to cd's i don't think they'd be much cheaper.. what about the weight of the vinyl in your hand, the smell of a dusty box of old gems, the tradition and the history associated with vinyl, the satisfaction of pulling the disc out from a virgin inner sleeve, the gloss on the vinyl winking at you as you draw it from it's sheath, the warm crackle as you apply the needle, the horror of realising your favourite tune is scratched, and then the thrill of the hunt for a replacement, getting out of bed to play the other side.. i know , the word dinosaur will spring to mind but i ****ing hate cd's... feels like you don't actually own it for real.

come on people... hehe i know i'm not alone here


No, mark... it really is a great idea , but i'd just feel wrong to be pressing my label onto cd's,although maybe a vinyl run AND a small cd run wouldn't hurt.. i know lots of people who are into the music who just buy cd's...... but then , they usually buy mix cd's hmmmmmm . **** i'm feeling all confused now

[Dustin Zahn]

The reason I haven't done anything with CDs thus far is because I haven't found a place with prices I am happy with. For such a cheap and easy to produce medium, the bulk rates for producing CDs are still too high.

[TechMouse]

I love everything about vinyl except maybe the price, but if everyone switched to cd's i don't think they'd be much cheaper.. what about the weight of the vinyl in your hand, the smell of a dusty box of old gems, the tradition and the history associated with vinyl, the satisfaction of pulling the disc out from a virgin inner sleeve, the gloss on the vinyl winking at you as you draw it from it's sheath, the warm crackle as you apply the needle, the horror of realising your favourite tune is scratched, and then the thrill of the hunt for a replacement, getting out of bed to play the other side..

The feeling of dread when you realise your most beloved record has been scratched to buggery under your recordbox...

The general ugliness of a warped record, however it happened...

The horror of finding that your copy of "Out of Space" has developed a really nasty regular "popping" sound over the last minute or so...

The jaw-grinding sound of the needle jumping out of the groove when the decks at BluePrint get slightly more of a nudge than they should have done, and your two records spinning wildly out of control...

[Jay Pace]

Mark, I respect what you are doing but I think you are missing the point.

Its not about format. Its about content.

The main conclusion from the whole vinyl/mp3 piracy debacle was that people stopped caring as much about what format their music came on.
People were happy to listen to crappy bitrate MP3s because they were convienient, and very cheap if not free. Whilst people love vinyl, they care more about having the music thats on it. CDs are just another format. A distribution medium for the music that lives inside it.

CDs will be replaced by something else in a few years time, rendering all the CDJs redundant.

Hands up who owns a "state of the art" tape deck? Old skool 8 track?
Minidisc seperates & walkman?

Formats will always evolve, and associated technology will die with it.

The beauty of digital is that music is for the first time format independent. People can do whatever they want with it. By all means sell CDs, but sell it digitally as well. Else you run the risk of ending up right back where you started a few years down the line.

[Internal Error Records]

Im happy to see the enthusiasm and comradery of Black Out Audio. But another reality besides cds, is that the 1000 or so performing dj's on this forum can not force the sales-base into converting to cdj's.

although djs maybe lo0king at cd's, the vast majority (all of the) promoters i have seen, dont even book cd-djs' because its just another technical hastle that has gotten easy to avoid by booking a vinyl dj instead.

the hidden control of the dj industry is the event promoter.

you might get a club to buy cd-decks. good luck getting the little fish to invest in more gear.

(all respect due, the little fish are where most of my gigs come from)

[Will]

That's a good point, at least if people play mp3's off a laptop they can just take a laptop instead of a record bag, a laptop's not much hassle, but having to take or sort CD decks, a lot of people and clubs don't have them. It's a good idea catering for people into CD's, but mp3's would be better, especially for a shop on the net.

Bass heavy music are selling their stuff on mp4, I think you can only play them with itunes and they're only 128kbps, but it's an interesting idea. They only cost 99 cents per track, which isn't much at all, but it'd be pure profit and negates all the shipping hassles etc if you live in another country, which is a major advantage. And there'd be no running out/re-run malarkey!

[dan the acid man]

That's a good point, at least if people play mp3's off a laptop they can just take a laptop instead of a record bag, a laptop's not much hassle, but having to take or sort CD decks, a lot of people and clubs don't have them. It's a good idea catering for people into CD's, but mp3's would be better, especially for a shop on the net.

Bass heavy music are selling their stuff on mp4, I think you can only play them with itunes and they're only 128kbps, but it's an interesting idea. They only cost 99 cents per track, which isn't much at all, but it'd be pure profit and negates all the shipping hassles etc if you live in another country, which is a major advantage. And there'd be no running out/re-run malarkey!

well im sure people will buy cd's and rip them to mp3 themselves and play them on their laptops, id much rather do this, at least then ive got an audio cd and mp3 for my money.

like i said earlier, i will continue to buy vinyl, but i'd also like to buy a cd version of my favourite tracks too, as a good back up

[Will]

You could always burn them to cd though, probably be more cost effective for everyone involved. Plus you could get hold of them straight away and not have to worry about shipping and customs if it's from another country... I mean with vinyl, once you take postage into account I may as well catch a train to manchester and buy them from a shop, rather than over the internet.

[Komplex]

You could always burn them to cd though, probably be more cost effective for everyone involved. Plus you could get hold of them straight away and not have to worry about shipping and customs if it's from another country... I mean with vinyl, once you take postage into account I may as well catch a train to manchester and buy them from a shop, rather than over the internet.

But with the internet you've gotta take bandwidth and download time into account too. Add to that time to burn off the cd's and add to that the fact that its still mp3 and not uncompressed audio (even after you decompress it and burn it). CD is much better in this situation and you have a physical backup for when your hard drive sh!ts itself and you haven't backed up your collection. And you can have artwork, info and stuff. MP3 REALLY sucks for getting the whole idea across.

Best solution is to offer both, the customer gets to choose, the customer is always right when it comes to what they want. You can tell them what you want them to want but they can just as easily say "fuk you, I don't want your crappy music on your crapy -insert choice of media-".

[The Divide]

Its a great idea, as mentioned earlier I do think you should look into both CD's and selling online lossless audio.

[Internal Error Records]

i dunno about all this back and forth on the topic. sure its good philosophy, but its all this laptop and mp3 and mp4 and being a damn data librarian.....


being a dj is about instant gratification and rocking a party..... not about showing how you can find another use for your Information Technology degree.


drop the technology, and focus on the techno!

[Mike Wazowski]

I sure like the idea, but still have my thoughts.
I see our market divided in two: vinyl and mp3
Cd fits at the mp3 side of the market.
Then why would you create extra costs by burning cds and send them
by post if you have the possibilities of downloading the music?

I think that cds are a step in the process that has already been taken or skipped in the market from vinyl and mp3 because of the arguments mentioned above.

But as far as I know there isn't yet anything as your idea, and there is a market for it, but it's get smaller as there are more and more people get fast acces to the internet.

[wrong]

i dunno about all this back and forth on the topic. sure its good philosophy, but its all this laptop and mp3 and mp4 and being a damn data librarian.....


being a dj is about instant gratification and rocking a party..... not about showing how you can find another use for your Information Technology degree.


drop the technology, and focus on the techno!

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

[TechMouse]

drop the technology, and focus on the techno!

Right... lets see you knock together some tunes without any Technology.

That 909 can go back to the shop for a start.

In fact, lets f*ck off your 1210s as well.

Come on, I want full on acousti-Techno all the way.

What do you mean Microphone?

[Internal Error Records]

drop the technology, and focus on the techno!

Right... lets see you knock together some tunes without any Technology.

That 909 can go back to the shop for a start.

In fact, lets f*ck off your 1210s as well.

Come on, I want full on acousti-Techno all the way.

What do you mean Microphone?

easy there trigger.

i dont think i need to back up the idea that techno and technology are not the same thing.

[The Divide]

drop the technology, and focus on the techno!

Right... lets see you knock together some tunes without any Technology.

That 909 can go back to the shop for a start.

In fact, lets f*ck off your 1210s as well.

Come on, I want full on acousti-Techno all the way.

What do you mean Microphone?

To be honest I didn't much sense in that statement too. Whats the difference between a 'data library' and a box of records if at the end of the day its all about whats coming out of the speakers? Well apart from the sound of vinyl warmth (which I'm sure can be digitally recreated in an age when we can put a man on the moon)

Also, I think we should be thinking beyond mp3 now, the Internet's getting pretty fast and lossless audio will/is becoming more popular. Infact maybe somewhere down the line music will go beyond 16bit 44.1khz CD audio, well its a possibility.

But even if it doesn't setting all that aside a big bonus here for me is one simple thing. People can make music and not really give a shit about what labels going to take it up as via the www more possibilities have arisen. I'm hoping thats going to bring more positive change withing not just techno music, but all genres. Theres not enough people taking risks. Its all about 'will this sell, work on the dance floor, will someone take this up, is it an A side B side or whatever'.

As for the people worried about money as a result of piracy, well I'm sure there wasn't really any money in electronic music when it first started up and for most people there never really was. Back then it was just people passionate about music, getting a club going, etc. People should just appreciate the fact that their music is getting around which should be the main reason they got into music production in the first place.

[Internal Error Records]

my point is that this forum is a skewed demographic because everyone here is computer literate.

in the rest of the techno/dance world - - - its not shocking to see many djs at any party in particular that have not finished high school or college and just dont have the interest in 'playing' music on a laptop.

that fact is - there is an impenetrable demographic that will not budge from vinyl.

and after all that, i'll say it again - i spin vinyl because i like it. its fun. laptops are not fun.

(of course that last is my opinion. but you get my gest).