Volume #3: Making Your Short-Run CDs for little money -

The reason everyone making CDs should learn to make "Short-Run" CDs is to insure that your final run CDs (factory made large quantities of 1000 or more) will be the best possible product. You can "tweak in" short run CDs by changing every or any aspect as often as you want. Make five, ten, twenty or ??? and change the song titles, cover or anything you desire. When you make your final factory run of CDs - they had better be right. If you are serious about the CD you are making, don't pass up this important step.

Short run CDs is a very involved subject. I will give you the basics of my thirty years of experience in this area. If you need more information you can call me for support. NYMC support is $50 per session, up to one hour, no minimum. Please have all your questions written down and ready to discuss.

Support: 503-884-9600 (Oregon)

Let us recap some of the rules for the physical CD:

  1. Always have your picture on the cover.

  2. The musical content must be homogenous, or sound like the tracks belong together.

  3. Switch keys and tempos with each track.

  4. Do not follow a ballad with a ballad, an up tempo piece with another up-tempo piece, etc.

  5. Fancy and expensive packaging never sells more CDs.

  6. Do not shrink-wrap your CDs if you are just going to open them to autograph them in your live performances.

  7. Shrink-wrapping is good for shipping CDs because it keep the jewel case from getting scratched.

Here is some of the equipment you should consider purchasing to do short-run CDs:

CD Jewel Cases - They usually come in boxes of 100. The snap-in trays will sometimes come complete with the jewel cases. Shop around for the best price. I have seen them as low as $0.25 each with the trays (08/15/2010). You may have to buy them in larger quantities to get the lowest price. Call the largest CD\DVD duplication companies in your city.

An ink-jet printer that will also print CDs. I have used the Epson Photo 320 or the Photo 340 printers. You do have to learn their quirks. Ink Jet CD printers usually come with software to print your discs.

You can also find stand-alone CD printers. Some of the best one are the Thermal CD Printers, such as the ones made by Rimage. Check this out on eBay or CraigsList.

Ink Jet printable CDs or CDRs - You can easily find them in white, I prefer the silver coated ones. I get mine from National Audio in Springfield Missouri. You can also check eBay.

CD Tower or multiple CD burner. My tower is a five off burner. It cost around $400 about two years ago (2008). The master disk goes in the top CD bay and the five CDs to copy go in the five bays (drives) under the Master drive.

A word of caution concerning CD towers - You can actually burn at 40 times speed. This is really not a good idea. Let me explain:

  1. When a CD is made, the pits are burned into the information side at a certain depth.

  2. A Master CD is usually made from your computer. Burn this CD at a slow rate (4x or 8x). You really need it to have a strong pits depth to copy from.

  3. When making copies from your CD Tower you should set the speed lower than the fastest speeds, especially for any DVDs you may be copying.

  4. Many older CD players will skip or stick on a portion of a track if the pits are too shallow from being burned at a high speed.

  5. Purchase several older CD players at your local thrift store. You can use them to test Tower CD copies every ten or twenty copies, or so. Monitoring you copy run CDs is also a good idea so you can find and fix problems with the recording. You will find the right speed to use when copying CD with you CD Tower.

  6. If one of you CD Tower drives (bays) keeps rejecting or not burning CDs, it is probably time to replace that drive. They usually are simple CDR drives and can be purchased at most any computer store.

  7. A CD Tower is like a computer. Be gentle with it at all times.

Acquire and learn a good type-setting and photo program. I use an older version of Adobe PhotoShop (5.5). It works just fine and I see no need for a newer one. Check out the templates I have provided to set up your CD pages.

 

 

 

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