So you want to become as indie as possible and create everything on your own from writing the lyrics of your music down to reproducing your CDs? Why freakin’ not? With today’s technology, CD duplication is as easy as making French toast. And besides, you are already an artist. It would not be that hard to awaken your designing skills.
Good Quality CD burners can now easily be bought with the prices going significantly lower. Home printers have the ability to print on CD labels and there are computer programs that make CD album art fairly easy to create. You would have total artistic freedom and you would most definitely save a lot of money since you no longer need to hire a graphic designer and a CD manufacturing house. Right? I have to quote National Geographic on this advise I’m about to give you… THINK AGAIN. It is certainly a lot easier and cheaper (and a whole lot better!) if you let a CD manufacturing company do the job for you. The CD manufacturing people know exactly what they are doing from start to finish. They’ve been doing the same process for years. So instead of using up all your time and energy researching and learning how to produce a CD from scratch, focus on hunting for a good CD manufacturing company in your area that offers the best deals. This way, you are more confident that the CDs have good quality. Another thing is that these CD Manufacturing companies have high-end facilities that ensure good quality. You do not have the luxury to experiment or totally D-I-Y your album. If you want to make your CD art as personal as possible, no problem. Come up with a concept that’s totally yours. But you need help in technical aspects and the actual CD reproduction. With the CD packaging, most home printers are ink-jet printers which have far lesser visual appeal compared to those made by professionals. If you want to achieve the quality of the album covers of your favorite bands, then you can either gather lots of dollars and purchase really good quality printers which you will not likely use afterward or have them done by a CD manufacturing company at a lesser price. You might also know that reproducing your own album is very, very, very time-consuming. The CD burning process alone could take 20 minutes each disc. Now multiply that to say 500 discs? That’s 166 hours or 7 days without stopping. Phew. I can just imagine how boring it could get. And that’s just with burning alone. Now how about album art printing with home printers? Oh my! Wait, what about the time you need for album art conceptualization, for buying CDs and CD cases, for looking for the right paper, for researching on copyrights and other legal requirements, oh what a pain! You should also erase the notion that reproducing CDs on your own is cheaper. It is not cheap at all! Big, high-end machines are needed in order to make a decent-looking CD- the kind that you’ll not be shy to show-off and sell. It also requires lots of skills and know-how. You may be an artist but you are an artist of a different kind. Graphic design has rules and standards that you cannot learn in a snap. It takes a whole course to even get a grasp of CD art design. So you see, it’s not as easy as it seems. Let the CD manufacturers do it and just focus on your music;-) photo credit: www.amstore.co.uk _________________________________________________________________ Unified Manufacturing is a custom CD/DVD and Vinyl Manufacturing facility based on both sides of the US. Our clients range from indie artists to major label artists such as Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, and Ringo Starr. If you need an Instant Quote on a project AND you want FREE SHIPPING ( free shipping on all quotes from the blog) – Then CLICK HERE. ]]>
