New album - recommendations (& costs) for recording CDs and printing sleeves

[Clarky]

Hi all, my band All The Queens Ravens will be releasing its first album around the end of this year or early next. It has fallen to me to find out who we should get to record the CDs and print the album covers and of course the costs involved. So:

1. Does anyone have any recommendations for a reliable cheap company that could record the CDs (we are thinking 500+, others in the band say 1,000 but it depends on cost). Nothing fancy like printed on graphics etc, just simple.We would supply the mastered music. What sort of cost per unit are we looking at?

2. Ditto for CD sleeves? We are thinking of cardboard sleeves, rather than plastic jewel cases, possibly gatefold depending on price. We would supply the cover art.

If either company (or maybe its one?) were London-based all the better as we could actually visit but its not vital

This is all new to me so any help or input would be gratefully appreciated. Cheers Clarky

[BobVbass]

Hi Clarky,

try Redeye print in Woking - run by one of my best mates (our guitarist) - His name's Simon Austin

[url="http://www.redeyeprint.co.uk/contact.htm"]http://www.redeyeprint.co.uk/contact.htm[/url]

Tell him I sent you and he'll probably double the price

[Clarky]

Cheers, I will drop him/them an email!

[tonyclaret]

I just had a 100 printed CD's done for my function band - Ruby And The Rogues and used a guy off eBay - disczone0921

We used a picture as background and it came out really well. He provided a template so you could line your artwork up correctly etc and provided advice and support along the way. Ordered and they arrived within 3 days! And here is the best bit for printed CD's in plastic wallet delivered - £38!!

I know, brilliant service.

Some photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/RubyAndTheRogues?refid=17&ref=stream

Hope this helps.

Tony

[Clarky]

Thanks Tony, will check it out

[Cat Burrito]

There is a lot to be said for pressing 1000, I'd vary quotes and get quotes for different batches. Double the amount is not double the cost and you'd be amazed how quickly the pile goes down. The card record sleeve style certainly is the cheapest way of doing the sleeve. I've heard good things about Redeye too - I can't remember who we used last time around but it was a digipack anyway which is the most expensive. Remember to get the thing on ITunes, Amazon MP3 and Bandcamp as digital sales really do aid massively these days

[Clarky]

Thanks Tim. Actually Redeye no longer do CD duplication but they put me on to another company (Hereandnow) and I await their response. Redeye did say though that a simple card sleeve (like you get on freebie giveaway CDs) comes out at £500-600 + VAT per 1,000 and that a gatefold would be way more expensive (thicker cardboard, specialised printing etc) so I think we will go down the simple route

[joeystrange]

Check out Key Production
[url="http://www.keyproduction.co.uk/"]http://www.keyproduction.co.uk/[/url]

500 CDs + full colour card wallet for £540.

Been using them for years and they've always been really good and usually the cheapest we can find too.

[Clarky]

Thanks Joey I have just dropped them an email too Hopefully should have a quote from them and from Hereandnow by end of today so I can get a feel for costs etc

[TheRev]

We use Farfield Records

[url="http://www.ambientmusic.co.uk/cdr_printing.html"]http://www.ambientmusic.co.uk/cdr_printing.html[/url]

And their sister company, Short Run for smaller orders

[url="http://www.short-run.co.uk/"]http://www.short-run.co.uk/[/url]

Excellent service and quality. I'm not 100% on the prices but they're not expensive otherwse we wouldn't be using them.....

[BigRedX]

I've used [url=http://www.discwizards.com/]Disk Wizards[/url] for an number of projects over the last couple of years.

IME unless your cardboard sleeves are very simple, jewel cases and 4-page booklet nearly always works out cheaper. The thing to watch is that nearly every supplier produces their cardboard sleeves in a different way so artwork produced for one supplier won't always fit the cutter guide of another so always get the template from the people who are actually going to make your CDs.

Also last time I looked up to 250 copies you are looking at CDR duplication. After that you might as well go for 500 and proper glass master manufacturing as the price difference is minimal and somewhere around the 300=350 mark CDRs become more expensive.

[Clarky]

Well I have had two quotes now for glass mastered CDs in cardboard sleeves, both about £950 for 1,000. Thats more than we had anticipated so may have to go plastic jewel case route. I have asked one of the two companies to re-quote for plastic jewel case just to see what the differential would be

[uncle psychosis]

We used Discwizards for our EP.

Really pleased with the result.

[Clarky]

Thanks Uncle P and BRX. Will drop Discwizards an email too

[Bloodaxe]

A +1 for Key Production here,

Mate of mine has used 'em for his last four albums with good results - Paul Edwards is a good chap to contact there, although he gets a bit lost if you talk graphic-speak at him (their design department are really helpful though).

A couple of caveats (irrespective of who you use, & apologies if I'm teaching you how to suck eggs)...

1: As they need CMYK artwork, watch what colours you use. RGB does a fantastic electric blue that converts into grey mud.
2: If your artwork is colour-critical, get a proper Chromalin Proof sent to you. Your screen & printer probably tell lies (especially if it's an LCD monitor).
3: If you go for a printed CD label, make sure any colours are specified as Pantone numbers.

[shameless_plug] This was the cover of his last album:



Got a bit adventurous with the packaging (8-page booklet this time) which was fun to lay out in Photoshop. He reckons the next one will be old-school Spirit-of-'77 B/W photocopier & typewriter mash-up... and vinyl! That should be interesting, never done a collage sleeve. [/shameless_plug]

P.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Bloodaxe

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Bloodaxe' timestamp='1345754415' post='1781359']
2: If your artwork is colour-critical, get a proper Chromalin Proof sent to you. Your screen & printer probably tell lies (especially if it's an LCD monitor).
3: If you go for a printed CD label, make sure any colours are specified as Pantone numbers.
[/quote]

Unfortunately in these days of direct to plate hardly anyone does real Chromalin proofs and certainly none of the budget CD brokers. The best you can hope for is a colour-calibrated injet proof that will be in the ball-park for the colours that are actually printed but still not 100% acurate.

Just about all the CD manufacturers offer CMYK on-body printing these days. I haven't come across anyone requiring spot-colour (Pantone) artwork for at least 5 years, and the last time I did it was more expensive than the full-colour CMYK option.

However don't forget if you do want full colour for your on-body (the print on the CD itself) you'll need a white base for accurate colours, because otherwise they'll print directly on the reflective surface of the CD.

Also at the sort of price point and quantities you are looking at, don't expect the colours of the paper parts (cardboard sleeve, jewel case booklet, tray insert) to exactly match the on-body print.

Finally if you do go for standard jewel cases don't forget to look at either a coloured CD tray, or a clear tray and printing both sides of the tray insert.

[Clarky]

FYI, got quote back from DiscWizards and its more than a third cheaper than every other quote I have had. £450 + VAT for 1000 glass-mastered CDs in a card sleeve. They also say they will beat any other quote (not that they don't already) so this is in pole position now

[BigRedX]

The only thing to watch with Disk Wizards is that they generally take longer than the other brokers. Last time I used them (earlier this year) it was 10-15 working days and it will be 15 working days from when you approve the proofs and pay. Also they had a problem with the shrink wrap so the original delivery was 200 discs short that took another week to arrive. However they are generally so much cheaper than all the other brokers that I can forgive them.

Also their templates for just about every item (including the on-body) is different to all the other brokers so make sure that use theirs when laying out your artwork otherwise you may be in for a nasty surprise!

[Clarky]

Thanks for the tips Mike. They are so much cheaper that a bit of extra time/hassle sounds worth it

[Big_Stu]

The big labels, Universal, Sony etc. get around such costs by mass printing different artists output on one sheet. Typically 16 or even 32 inlays or 10 booklets to one sheet. Once they're stripped down the unit cost is comparatively small.
Cardboard sleeves, while physically cheaper, add another process (an expensive one) when they get forme cut (stamped out) of the card.
The longer turnaround time may be that some of it is done abroad, some sites even get it done in China now.

Cheapest option, for print + finishing would be a 6pp (no more than 10, depending on the paper) roll-fold (like a swiss roll) into a CD single type thin jewel.

[WHUFC BASS]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1345744149' post='1781196']I've used [url="http://www.discwizards.com/"]Disk Wizards[/url] for an number of projects over the last couple of years.[/quote]

That's who we use. Never had any complaints and they do special offers if you like them on arsebook. The also do digipaks which look a lot better than just a carboard sleeve. Cheaper than 950 sheets too.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='WHUFC BASS' timestamp='1345818901' post='1781990']
That's who we use. Never had any complaints and they do special offers if you like them on arsebook. The also do digipaks which look a lot better than just a carboard sleeve. Cheaper than 950 sheets too.
[/quote]

The first time I used Disk Wizards was to do a Digipak - they were much cheaper than everyone else for them, but still quite a bit more money than Jewel Cases with a 4-page booklet and tray insert. Also the artwork template for their Digipaks were completely different to the ones form all the other brokers that I'd contacted so far so I had to re-do all the artwork to make it work to their layout.

[Mr. Foxen]

I've sent everyone here, not had any complaints, and lots of happy feedback: http://www.hificopies.com/

[BigRedX]

If cost wasn't a concern, I'd probably be using [url=http://www.breedmedia.co.uk/]Breed[/url]. Everything I've seen from them has been fantastic and they've always been mega-helpful when I've had them quote me on hugely complicated packaging designs. Unfortunately cost is nearly always a major deciding factor and Disk Wizards have been able to produce a perfectly acceptable job at considerably less cost every time.