Concept

Once your CD is mastered it is time to begin the process of mass production. Earlier we had set goals to determine what the final product should be, so now the biggest part of the thought process will be about getting the tasks done. Here are a couple of scenarios that will allow a means of efficent mass production.

Scenario 1. Your group has software mastered a three song demo and it is now time to get it out. There will be promo disks to be given away for free and some will be sold at $3 a peice. Youve decided to get a small amount burned initally, around 100 demos. Afterwards, youll press 1000 demos pending income from the first pressing. (gigs, sales, etc)

Scenario 2. You have just completed hardware mastering of your next full length record. You will sell these, give some away, distrubte some to stores etc... You have a limited budget but you want to get an acceptable amount of bang for your bucks. Youll press 1000 cds with full packaging.

The big decision here is whether or not the discs should be pressed or burned. A pressed CD is mass produced by pressing the data onto the disc. A burned cd is made by cutting a specially plated CD-recordabe with a laser.

You should note that most duplication houses that press discs are not very economical for short run disc printings. To press cds, its better to work with quantities around 1000 units or higher. The reason is because the machines have a long setup time. They require a technician to setup the disc and then the machine runs until the job is done. Since they charge by the disc, if the pressing machine is not running, they are not making money. So they have minimum orders of around 300 usually, where the order of 300 cds is only $120 less than the pressing of 1000 cds.

You will find that small studios have a device that burns CD-Recordables a few discs at a time. You can get prices pretty cheap through this means, but remember that you will not get a lot of the benefits of the pressed disc. You are likely to have problems with the CD-R not playing in all machines. The disc may not have an attractive coat of paint. Another issue with burning is that the spacing between the songs and the beginnings of the tracks are hard to get right. However, burning CDs are a good feasable way to get up and running when budgets are tight. You can order 10 cds instead of 300, thus being well in budget. Ive seen recent prices at around $2.25 - $3.00 per CD.

Design

Sometime during the whole recording process you need to start making decisions about the design aspects of your product. There are thousands of CDs out there and they are all different. The process of design is to come up with a concept for the artwork on the cd and get a rough idea of what the disc will be like.

The first thing I recomend is that you go to a cd store ( preferably used CDs ) and check out some of the packages of the CDs they sell. This will help refine your ball park ideas to decide what media you will be using. Pictures, Artwork, Alternate packaging etc. are things you should be considering early on. Pictures never look good the first time. I highly recomend you use a high quality camera for your pictures. Youll need to arrange for lighting and backdrops if you plan to photograph your band. (though i dont recomend that unless youre the spice girls) I also highly recomend that you have a graphics shop use their drum scanner to get the highest quality scans possible.

Try to jot your ideas on paper. Use your computers graphics programs to develop the discs concept over a period of time. Remember that things get better with time. The more you think out this process the happier you will be with the final results.

CD layouts are written on illustration programs. The most popular is Quark Xpress, a commercially available program that is designed for printing graphics to film or directly to the plates of the press. This program is not for the novice. I highly recommend using Quark to design your cd cover. Another respectable and accepted application is Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is more about the design, the lines and colors that make up the cd. Sometimes I use both programs to get the effects that I need. Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard photo editing application. The use of these programs to design your CD will ensure the most compatable and useful transition to the place who will be printing the disc.

There are a few things you will want your CD to include to add to it's perceivable worth when selling the disc. A bar code is necescary. This is the thing on the back of the disc with the numbers and the lines. There is a company called Soundscan who monitors CD bar code sales in record stores. Larger Record Companies subscribe to reports from the company to get information about up and coming bands. This is a viable back door method to getting into large record companies. A bar code also adds a professional appearance to the CD. People see the bar code and suddenly you're legitimate. Then there's that annoying sticker on the disc. It's called a top spine label. Top spine labels can really push the product over the professional edge.