Market Research

[Alan Oldham]

OK, does it matter to you guys if an album is on CD-R or professionally manufactured? Like if I did a book with a CD in it, would it matter if it were pressed at a plant or done at home as long as the music was all-new?

[oldbugger]

quality of cd-r's are usually shit imo. mine all seem to **** up after a few weeks
but maybe because i buy cheap ones :roll:
but not sure what you mean. Do you mean would i buy an album on CD-R?

[SlavikSvensk]

OK, does it matter to you guys if an album is on CD-R or professionally manufactured? Like if I did a book with a CD in it, would it matter if it were pressed at a plant or done at home as long as the music was all-new?

most wouldn't notice if you put decent labels on...

[g]

if i'm buying a CD under the usual circumstances and at the usual price point, i expect it to be professionally mastered and manufactured.

if it's an adjunct to a book and the book is the main "thing" i'm buying, the above is probably but not necessarily automatically true. however unless you do a really good job preparing the CD at home there's a good chance that the home-madeness of it will cheapen the feel of the whole project. you might end up coloring people's opinions about the book or the main "thing" just by virtue of the fact that the package as a whole isn't the best it can be.

- speaking of, possibly the case with the Orietta CD? that really is a question; not an accusation masquerading as a question.

i think at the end of the day if you are presenting your work you want to do it in the best way you can. unfortunately the world is very small these days so you can't cut corners without someone instantly noticing. we already know how (not) expensive it is to manufacture a CD. on the flip side, i bet there is some creative way to present a CD-R such that the person buying it wouldn't care that it was a CD-R - it would just be cool.

[Martin Dust]

I'd buy a CD-R, got a few of artists like Coil/C93 on CD-R.

[dan the acid man]

i'd buy one if the music was good, but i'd prefer a better quality cd for my money, like oldbugger said, cdr's can be fussy on certain players.

[SlavikSvensk]

but this comes free with a book, right? so you'd probably buy the book for the book, and the CD would be an added bonus

[oldbugger]

where did yhr book come into it?

[SlavikSvensk]

where did yhr book come into it?

i figured he was going to package a CD with a book...from this...

Like if I did a book with a CD in it, would it matter if it were pressed at a plant or done at home as long as the music was all-new?

...did i get it wrong?

[dan the acid man]

i read it as he was going to put a normal booklet in there that you normally get with cd's.

but now im thinking what you thought, that its a book with a cd in there, im confused now

[JamieBall]

I don't know much about this sort of stuff but I'm wondering.... Can you simulate a 'factory' burn on Nero, or are CDRz that you buy for home use a different style to the ones plants have ? If so, can you get the ones that plants have and do this 'factory' style burn ?

Also, if you burn on the slowest setting you'll get the 'deepest' burn and thus the best quality data transfer. Apparently. Seems to work for DVDs, skipping problems = GONE.

I've bought a few albums from small net labels and most have come on CD-R. Haven't had a problem with them really aside from one that locks at the end of certain tracks, but that's only one and it's a Daniel Johnston CD so you can expect it'd be nutty in more ways than one.

Also, on the quality tip, you can buy CDRs that are guaranteed quality for 30 years, no ?
I mean, this presumes you don't score the underside with blades or melt 'em but then the same surely applies to tapes/vinyl too.

To be honest I usually buy real cheap CDs as I get through loads, and there's been loads of times I've got stuff off one that looks like it's been used as a beermat. I guess the ability to do this depends on the quality of your CD player/reader. Also, I've never noticed a difference in quality between cheap/expensive CDs. Maybe my ears are not good enough but I guess the difference must be pretty non-existant.

I reckon if the music or package is something I would like to have then I'd buy it, regardless of whether or not it was CDR.

In fact, to step back in time, I remember buying that 'mission-underground' thing on CD (GASP...) just cause it had a cool book with it, the cd wasn't in a case either, just a card thing attatched to the book. One listen to the first few seconds of each track and a flick through the book - SALE !

Those were the days... ;)

[Conan]

I'd have no problem as long as the quality was fine, but if the quality wasn't going to be one hundred percent I'd re-think it

[dan the acid man]

yes burning at lower speeds helps, i tend to stick to 4x, i dont see how you can simulate factory burning with nero, i think they're better as they have better equipment allround.

you can buy decent multi disc burners now though, alhtough your talking over £1,000 for those

[g]

i read it as he was going to put a normal booklet in there that you normally get with cd's.

but now im thinking what you thought, that its a book with a cd in there, im confused now

considering the source, he's probably talking about an actual book (or comic book, graphic novel, etc). his last comic book came with a CD soundtrack.

[Ritzi Lee]

I guess it would be a comic book right Alan?

2 Dan: 4 speed CD burners would take forever if you want to burn 100s of CD's. If I would say, to press it professionally and mastered is much cheaper then buying CD-R's and do it yourself.

[SlavikSvensk]

so i'm right then...there is an actual book, comic or text, that the CD goes with...right??

[Alan Oldham]

- speaking of, possibly the case with the Orietta CD? that really is a question; not an accusation masquerading as a question.

Please, that CD was mastered by myself and Ron Murphy at NSC and pressed in Montreal for a lot of money.

Thanks everyone for your responses, they pretty much are in line with what I already figured.

[Agent Orange NYC]

What's up Alan? I think the book would be more important than the cd, so a home cdr with a nice label would be fine by me.

[djshiva]

i was thinking perhaps he was referring to smaller runs where pressing houses actually use cd-r, but screenprint the labels and all that. if it's 1000 or more, most go with mass production methods, but under that, many houses will do cd-r runs.

still looks and sounds professional, just costs less for smaller runs...

[g]

- speaking of, possibly the case with the Orietta CD? that really is a question; not an accusation masquerading as a question.

Please, that CD was mastered by myself and Ron Murphy at NSC and pressed in Montreal for a lot of money.

right, like i said it was an actual question. i like that CD. bought it and the comic when they first came out.


btw, still laughing about "I guess as the bald black man at a techno party, I either a) have drugs, b) are the bouncer, or c) am Carl Cox." =)