'A Glittering Career In Music'

[12stringbassist]

I've released an album this week on vinyl and CD using ElasticStage.

 

 

Sound clips can be heard on their website. Available now at https://elasticstage.com/ianedmundson/releases/a-glittering-career-in-music-album

Edited Thursday at 23:41 by 12stringbassist

[12stringbassist]

 

[BigRedX]

My band is looking at this for our debut album, so can I please pick your brains on the process as the website is very light on actual production specifications?

 

1. Since this appears to be essentially print on demand I assume the CD version is CDR rather than glass-mastered. Can you confirm this?

 

2. Did Elastic Stage offer any advice for the running order and side length for the vinyl version?

 

3. Can the vinyl version have a different track order to the CD? I see that your CD version has additional tracks on the end but what I'm interested in is having a different running order for the tracks that are common to both formats to make the most of the strengths and weakness of each format.

 

4. Can I have different artwork for the CD and Vinyl versions? Or are they just scaled versions of each other? I don't want completely different designs but I would like the "small print" to be at an appropriate size for each size of cover.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[12stringbassist]

On 13/02/2026 at 09:13, BigRedX said:

My band is looking at this for our debut album, so can I please pick your brains on the process as the website is very light on actual production specifications?

 

1. Since this appears to be essentially print on demand I assume the CD version is CDR rather than glass-mastered. Can you confirm this?

 

2. Did Elastic Stage offer any advice for the running order and side length for the vinyl version?

 

3. Can the vinyl version have a different track order to the CD? I see that your CD version has additional tracks on the end but what I'm interested in is having a different running order for the tracks that are common to both formats to make the most of the strengths and weakness of each format.

 

4. Can I have different artwork for the CD and Vinyl versions? Or are they just scaled versions of each other? I don't want completely different designs but I would like the "small print" to be at an appropriate size for each size of cover.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

I haven't had my CD / vinyl back yet, so I can't confirm the format of the CD.

As you upload .wav files for your tracks it will tell you how you are doing for space on each side of the vinyl album. I recall mine having a minute or so plus some seconds left on each side.
Guidance: https://elasticstage.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb/articles/29846764606097-My-album-is-slightly-longer-than-your-23-minutes-limit-per-side-Is-there-anything-you-can-do

You can have different running orders on vinyl and CD. You click and drag in a menu whenyou've finished uploading. My CD has two bonus tracks.

You need to use their templates (and Adobe Illustrator) or upload separate .jpgs for the front and rear covers and the vinyl inner sleeve (which equates to the gatefold on the CD. You do get a preview of the final artwork. Don't put any text near the egdes.

Not my video: 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by 12stringbassist

[BigRedX]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

7 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

I haven't had my CD / vinyl back yet, so I can't confirm the format of the CD.

 

The lead times are one of the things that worry me. For your release it's currently 3 weeks for the CD and almost 6 weeks for vinyl, which seems somewhat excessive, when I consider that in the days when I used to do this myself at home for promo copies for my band, each CD took less than 30 minutes to produce and would have been even quicker if I had a separate printers for the on-body and the wallet. Maybe these long lead times are a result of the service being more popular than the company can comfortably deal with?

 

7 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

Guidance: https://elasticstage.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb/articles/29846764606097-My-album-is-slightly-longer-than-your-23-minutes-limit-per-side-Is-there-anything-you-can-do

 

I had a look through these and some of the information directly contradicts what I was told the last time I had any vinyl commercially produced which was for the best audio quality I should aim for no more than 12 minutes a side and cut at 45rpm. This is why many current vinyl album releases are in the form of two 12" "singles" even though the music would comfortably fit on a standard single 33rpm disc. I suppose if they only offer 33rpm discs then they are going to downplay this information. However that means that giving some guidance on the running order of tracks, and why it is good idea to put all the fast/loud/energetic songs at start of each side and put something more laid-back as the closing track, should be paramount, but I have seen nothing. Of course there's nothing stopping you from having whatever track order you want, but from experience putting something loud and energetic at the end of a 20 minute side makes it sound less impressive than it should. There are ways around this, but they involve a sympathetic cutting engineer and several test cuts to achieve and are not really within the scope of an on-demand service.

 

The big advantage though is that because this is an on-demand service I could do several of my own "tests" with different running orders under the guise of different releases at £27.90 a go before settling on the version I think is the best compromise for the official release.

 

I think also we'll probably do the CD version the traditional way as there are plenty of services offering proper glass mastered CD runs of 250 minimum at very competitive prices with a lead time of around 2 weeks for the complete production run, and from experience actually having physical product on the merch table is always more lucrative. However I think PoD makes sense for 12" vinyl formats as IME they are too unwieldy to sell at gigs and too easy to get damaged if the same copies go for too long without being sold. We'll probably get 5-10 copies ourselves just so we've got some on display, but I certainly don't want to end up with 350 unsold copies of an album on vinyl again.