When I'm dancing at an event and I like the band, I make an effort to get their CD if they have one.
I'm finding more and more frequently that I end up buying shrink-wrapped, home-made CDRs with inkjet labels, rather than pressed CDs.
I feel like I've been cheated to pay $15 or $20 for something of significantly less quality.
Can anyone help me understand the advantages of one over the other? How much more does it cost to make a pressed CD, or is it just an issue of having to do a certain amount up front as opposed to a make them as you go kind of thing?
Thanks,
Titus
Pressed vs CDR?
Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy
From the musicians standpoint, the difference is in cost per CD and how easy it is to make a small run. I don't know the exact ratio where the cost per "pressed" CD is less than burning CD-Rs (and it will vary from studio to studio), but I think its around 5,000-10,000 (depending on how much a studio charges you for the "pressed" CD). Anything below that, it costs less per CD to do it on a home burner. Plus, they can burn them on demand (as they sell), instead of incurring all the cost at once for a "pressed" CD and having a closet full of unsold CDs that hang around for a few years.
"Pressed" CDs last a lot longer and do not scratch as easily (the data side, not the underside), so you are right about getting a worse-quality CD by getting a CD-R. "Pressed" CDs require a special burning machine, obviously, which is fairly expensive, but which records each individual CD in seconds instead of minutes. There are also set-up costs and a sound engineer's time to pay for in setting up a run of "pressed" CDs, so typically it is not financially worth "pressing" a manufactured CD unless you make and sell several hundred or several thousand CDs. The cost per CD goes down with every extra CD you press and sell because the set-up costs get spread out more.
Because of the costs involved, the access to manufacturing "pressed" CDs was limited to record labels. Thus, only bands who signed with the label got their CDs pressed. There now are non-label services associated with recordiing studios that will do a run for a band without signing it. I think there's one in Nashville that will even provide solo songwriters with session musicians for a few hundred dollars. But it is still generally expensive, and then the band/musician is on its own to sell them.
CD-Rs are very easy to burn, by contrast. Anyone can do it at home. All you need is a recording. More importantly, the cost per CD is exactly the same if you burn 1 or 100 CDs. But they are impractical for large manufacturing runs: too time consuming to burn 10,000 CDs on your home computer.
"Pressed" CDs last a lot longer and do not scratch as easily (the data side, not the underside), so you are right about getting a worse-quality CD by getting a CD-R. "Pressed" CDs require a special burning machine, obviously, which is fairly expensive, but which records each individual CD in seconds instead of minutes. There are also set-up costs and a sound engineer's time to pay for in setting up a run of "pressed" CDs, so typically it is not financially worth "pressing" a manufactured CD unless you make and sell several hundred or several thousand CDs. The cost per CD goes down with every extra CD you press and sell because the set-up costs get spread out more.
Because of the costs involved, the access to manufacturing "pressed" CDs was limited to record labels. Thus, only bands who signed with the label got their CDs pressed. There now are non-label services associated with recordiing studios that will do a run for a band without signing it. I think there's one in Nashville that will even provide solo songwriters with session musicians for a few hundred dollars. But it is still generally expensive, and then the band/musician is on its own to sell them.
CD-Rs are very easy to burn, by contrast. Anyone can do it at home. All you need is a recording. More importantly, the cost per CD is exactly the same if you burn 1 or 100 CDs. But they are impractical for large manufacturing runs: too time consuming to burn 10,000 CDs on your home computer.
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Mr Awesomer
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Having recently being involved in getting a CD professionally pressed, Lawrence's post is quite amusing.
Without getting into specifics, if a musician/band is serious about being available on CD, there is no excuse for not doing it professionally. If a musician/band is using CDRs they should be strictly for demo or quick promo purposes only... charging 15 to 20 dollars for some homemade CDR crap is recockulous (yes, I meant to spell it that way.)
Without getting into specifics, if a musician/band is serious about being available on CD, there is no excuse for not doing it professionally. If a musician/band is using CDRs they should be strictly for demo or quick promo purposes only... charging 15 to 20 dollars for some homemade CDR crap is recockulous (yes, I meant to spell it that way.)
Reuben Brown
Southern California
Southern California
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Toon Town Dave
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Last time I got a quote from a non-basement CD duplicator, it was about CAD$3.50/ea for qty 500, including two-color silkscreening, jewel case and shring wrap. That was about 6 years ago. It's undoubtendly cheaper now.
The quality of pressed media is also superior. A band flogging burned CD's is definitely not very professional although the price may still be worth it if the music is really good.
The quality of pressed media is also superior. A band flogging burned CD's is definitely not very professional although the price may still be worth it if the music is really good.