Chris Reitz dot Com

Aaaaaaannnnnnnd, Part 3. Releasing a CD. I’ve done 5 CDs for different people so far. Works pretty well.

All right, you finally have enough songs to make a CD! Now what?

First, you’ll need a name for the CD. If it’s your first, you might self-title it. That saves the work of coming up with a good name for the CD. Otherwise, a song name, recurring idea, song lyric, etc., might work.

Set a release date. If you have all your songs recorded, two months from now might be good. Three months would be even better. No rush that way. Don’t even think about releasing the CD until you have at least 3/4 of your songs recorded.

Next get permission for any songs you will have on the CD which aren’t yours. This can sometimes take some time and a bit of money. Usually, you’ll pay 9 cents per song per copy. You’ll have to decide how many CDs you will make. Make it reasonable. If you are Auntie Dot and the Comfortable Chair, it won’t be smart for you to make a run of 10 000 CDs. If you are the Black Eyed Peas, a run of a hundred won’t be too smart.

Either do your artwork yourself or get someone else to do it. Make sure that all the artwork has some sort of common theme. Our CD uses a photo of some neat clouds.

look at where to sell your CD. I highly recommend CDBaby. You’ll probably need a UPC code for your CD as well. CDBaby sells you one for about $60.

Get your CD manufactured. We used DiskFaktory, but there are many other manufacturers out there. If you followed these instructions, you will already know how many CDs you will be making, so I’ll skip explaining it here. However, here is one clarification. If you are getting a hundred CDs made, duplicate them. This means you will get CD-Rs from the factory which will run on 99% of CD players. If you are making a lot of CDs (1000 or more), replicate them. That way, you’ll get real audio CDs which will work in all CD players. Don’t replicate small runs. It’s too expensive. You’ll end up paying more than $5 per CD, when a duplicated CD would cost you about $3. A replicated CD from a large run will cost you about $1.

This is the first in a series of short articles I’d written while I was still back in school. When I graduated, I lost my web space, so I’m just re-posting them here. So here goes: How to perform music on a tight budget.

Who cares about recording? Your band wants to perform! You have seen the setups that big bands use, but there is no way you could ever afford them. Is there any way to perform without spending thousands of dollars?

The technically correct answer is no. My band managed to pull off a performance setup for about $2000. Which technically is thousands. But hey! it’s not $20 000.

The first thing to ask is how many instruments do you have and how many vocalists do you have? In my band, we have three instruments (plus an acoustic instrument) and two vocalists. So we need three mics (one for each vocalist plus one for the acoustic instrument), two guitar (mono) inputs and one keyboard (stereo) input. We also use a CD player for extra tracks that we can’t perform (like extra harmonies). That brings the total up to 3 mics, 2 stereo, and 2 mono. Mics usually run off XLR cable, and guitars and keyboards run off 1/4″ phone (or TRS) cable. CD players sometimes run TRS and sometimes run RCA. So, we needed 3 XLRs, 4 TRS and 1 stereo RCA. Go to your local audio dealer with these numbers and they will show you a mixer which might work for you.

Ask yourself (realistically) how large your typical audience would be. For us, we didn’t see catering to a crowd any bigger than 500 people. And that was an overestimate. We ended up needing two 15″ speakers. Tell your dealer this number too. They’ll show you a speaker/amp setup which will work.

Just a side note, there are two ways to amp your speakers. One is to buy an amplifier and run the output of your mixer into that. The other is to buy a power mixer, one with an amp built in. We used a power mixer. It works, but if you see your band ever needing to expand a bit, I’d suggest getting the amp separately. Either that or get active speakers (speakers with a built-in amp). These options cost more, but they are more expandable. If you’re planning for the day when you play the Astrodome, don’t get a power mixer.

What if you are in the situation my band is in? 2 vocalists and 6-part harmony? How the heck do you perform your music? What my band did is to burn a “Performance CD” which has all the tracks that you won’t perform. That way, you can’t be accused of lip-syncing, but you won’t have to figure out how to sing more than one note at once.

Get a good sound guy. This can be the toughest thing to do on this page. You have two options. 1) get a guy who is familiar with your music and knows what kind of sound you’re interested in, or 2) YOU do sound and write down all your settings and teach someone how to set up the mixer for your settings and how to fight feedback if it occurs. My band did #2. It works reasonably well, although, I suppose #1 is a bit better.