Jarkko Mattheiszen
The FU guy.
Hey, welcome buddy! This place is great, especially when I'm in ideal imagination land
Fucking fell off my chair laughing
CD Prices - what the fuck, honestly...
- Thread starter Metaltastic
- Start date
Fucking fell off my chair laughing
dan weapon
Planet Smasher
I'm not getting into any arguments, but I LOVE the price of CDs these days.
I buy a lot of stuff from CaimanUSA, (the Amazon market place seller) - I get all CD's brand new for about $13-14 (£6-7) including postage and packaging. That to me seems cheap as fuck, because about 12 years ago when I started buying CDs (bought tapes up til '1996) CD's were fucking expensive. I remember buying Deliverance and Wiseblood by COC in one of the usual UK music stores.... it cost me £33 for both of them! (about $65). And at that time I was only 13 so didn't have any money at all.
I buy a lot of stuff from CaimanUSA, (the Amazon market place seller) - I get all CD's brand new for about $13-14 (£6-7) including postage and packaging. That to me seems cheap as fuck, because about 12 years ago when I started buying CDs (bought tapes up til '1996) CD's were fucking expensive. I remember buying Deliverance and Wiseblood by COC in one of the usual UK music stores.... it cost me £33 for both of them! (about $65). And at that time I was only 13 so didn't have any money at all.
GeertSamuel
Member
The following CD's are some of which I've bought in the last few months:
Soulfly - Conquer + DVD = 19.99 euro = 27.32 US dollar
Gojira - The Way of All Flesh = 19.95 euro = 27.26 US dollar
Slipknot - All Hope is Gone + DVD = 21.99 = 30.05 US dollar
When I see a CD that's on sale for around 15 euro's (20 US dollars) I consider that CHEAP!
Then calculate that sometimes I buy up to 4 CD's a month. That's around 80 euro's. Which might not sound much, but I think it's to much for a CD!
Soulfly - Conquer + DVD = 19.99 euro = 27.32 US dollar
Gojira - The Way of All Flesh = 19.95 euro = 27.26 US dollar
Slipknot - All Hope is Gone + DVD = 21.99 = 30.05 US dollar
When I see a CD that's on sale for around 15 euro's (20 US dollars) I consider that CHEAP!
Then calculate that sometimes I buy up to 4 CD's a month. That's around 80 euro's. Which might not sound much, but I think it's to much for a CD!
smy1
Member
Egan has a good point with the distro bullshit.
Example:
I was trying to sell my newest album to a big italian distributor who services indie recordstores all over the world. The distro was really interested because they had a lot of requests for the album from Mexico to Hong Kong already. BUT they refused to deal directly with my label, because we don't have enough different CDs in our catalog and the organizational hassle would be to big for them. So they suggest that we go with a german label that packages a lot of small indies and then sells those to the distributor.
Of course the german label wants a share, so instead of me selling the CD for 7 Euro to the distro who then sells it for 10,85 to the dealers, I have to sell it to the middleman-label for 5 Euro who then sells it for 7 Euro to the distributor. The dealers buy it for 10,85 and add whatever they want to add.
Let's say you are a local cd store and buy 100 different records for 10 Euros at the same time, you add postage of 20 Euros and sales tax per CD, you end up with maybe 12 Euros cost per CD. Add rent and other costs, then the local dealers have to sell the CD for 15-16 Euro at minimum to make a small profit.
On the other hand: we made a direct deal with an english mailorder and agreed on 7,50 Euros per CD which they then sell for 9,99 British Pounds. That CD has been their biggest seller for weeks now, maybe partly because it is below the 10 pound mark?? All the German retailers sell the album for 12,99 Euros because we cut them good deals and agreed on a price. They are all happy with the sales ...
Then again: I sold 60 full album mp3 downloads at 5,99 Euros in the first 4 days of that offer. I was suprised that it worked so well. It isn't a big number, but this is only direct sales from my website. Not from iTunes or any other retailer.
I wish I knew an answer to the dilemma, but there will always be middlemen who shave off money.
I am just glad I get 7,50 out of every 7,50 we make per CD now ... instead of 0,75
Example:
I was trying to sell my newest album to a big italian distributor who services indie recordstores all over the world. The distro was really interested because they had a lot of requests for the album from Mexico to Hong Kong already. BUT they refused to deal directly with my label, because we don't have enough different CDs in our catalog and the organizational hassle would be to big for them. So they suggest that we go with a german label that packages a lot of small indies and then sells those to the distributor.
Of course the german label wants a share, so instead of me selling the CD for 7 Euro to the distro who then sells it for 10,85 to the dealers, I have to sell it to the middleman-label for 5 Euro who then sells it for 7 Euro to the distributor. The dealers buy it for 10,85 and add whatever they want to add.
Let's say you are a local cd store and buy 100 different records for 10 Euros at the same time, you add postage of 20 Euros and sales tax per CD, you end up with maybe 12 Euros cost per CD. Add rent and other costs, then the local dealers have to sell the CD for 15-16 Euro at minimum to make a small profit.
On the other hand: we made a direct deal with an english mailorder and agreed on 7,50 Euros per CD which they then sell for 9,99 British Pounds. That CD has been their biggest seller for weeks now, maybe partly because it is below the 10 pound mark?? All the German retailers sell the album for 12,99 Euros because we cut them good deals and agreed on a price. They are all happy with the sales ...
Then again: I sold 60 full album mp3 downloads at 5,99 Euros in the first 4 days of that offer. I was suprised that it worked so well. It isn't a big number, but this is only direct sales from my website. Not from iTunes or any other retailer.
I wish I knew an answer to the dilemma, but there will always be middlemen who shave off money.
I am just glad I get 7,50 out of every 7,50 we make per CD now ... instead of 0,75
Executioner213
Ultimate Meatbag
Century Media Online seems to beat everyones prices, even with shipping.
Buy the discs from the artists at the shows, then you know there is more going to them.
Buy the discs from the artists at the shows, then you know there is more going to them.
Executioner213
Ultimate Meatbag
Movies also already made millions in theaters, whereas CD's aren't making any money off of a pre-release mass session with admission charged.
Torniojaws
They call me Juha
Congratulations. I've sold a grand total of three (3) albums in mp3 format at 3,99 EUR end-user price during the last 5 months
One of each release. For some reason, there was a lot of interest in FLAC format releases, but so far I've sold none at the same 3,99 EUR price CDs have sold the best so far 12 euros per CD, with 70 % of it going directly to me and 30 % to the store (though, counting international shipping costs, I get more than I would selling them by myself). But I still feel the CDs would sell best at gigs. I'll see what happens soon though, planning a few gigs for the end of the year.I'm presuming you buy one or 2 CDs at a time, so's to avoid the customs charges? Sounds like a nice plan to me. I came back from New York last year with about 17 CDs, spend about £100 on them all. It was amazing.
In an off way they kinda do because most popular (ie: Hollywood) movies get world wide releases
hoehlentroll
Member
steve.h
New Guy
To support the artists making the music that makes life worth living.
Next question?
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
That's uncalled for & we don't put up with that sort of thing here. Feel free to disagree, but don't make it personal.
steve.h
New Guy
Fair enough, I'm (obviously) new on this forum, and was unaware of the particular policies. I'll read the FAQ right now to get familiar, as I really do love metal and am quite passionate (again, obviously) about independent music.
I humbly apologize!
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
I don't even know if it's in the faq, but we do try to behave ourselves on here. You'll find a great many people will help you out if you're civil.
Loren Littlejohn
Lover of all boobage.
And if your not quite literally everyone one here will verbally beat the fuck out of you till you get civil again
.
steve.h
New Guy
Hah, again that's fair. I have been civil in every post since, and will continue to do so.And if your not quite literally everyone one here will verbally beat the fuck out of you till you get civil again
Anyway, back on topic we go!
hoehlentroll
Member
good music can be done with a low budget. I don't need to pay an artist a new car or mansion. I know it's possible to stay as low as 5000$ for a cd-production which can be paid by several live gigs selling shirts.
I have no issue to pay business man at a record company.
I know that this point of view is quit a hardlining one ...
steve.h
New Guy
A fair point, but from both a musician's and an engineer/producer's point of view, the lower and lower CD budgets that bands are getting, is killing some of the most inspiring, amazing-sounding studios, in favor of bedroom productions. While in some cases, this actually creates better albums, there's just something about recording in an enormous studio with ridiculously nice equipment that can be creatively inspiring in and of itself.
In addition, you may have noticed the general quality of commercial/major-studio musical productions dramatically decreasing. This is due to the iPod revolution: people just don't seem to care how good their CD's sound, as long as the idea is there. On the one hand, this can be a positive thing, as it really does level the playing field for incredibly small artists (such as myself). On the flip-side, as an avid music lover and budding semi-audiophile, CD's all sound like ass these days due to over-compression and mixing to make sure it sounds good on shitty headphones & car speakers, vs. really taking things to the next level with production.
Anyway, both points are valid: I just hate seeing/hearing about amazing old studios closing & being torn down
hoehlentroll
Member
if all the money would go into the production, I would certainly buy a CD. But I highly doubt it. I like buying cds of undergound bands on underground gigs though. but they're selling it for about 1/3rd of the "industrial" prices.
and we went into a real good studio (ok no big ass studio like avatar or sth like that) and paid some 1500 to 2000€ for one week. so it can be done without unbelievable high budgets. next thing is you can sell 1000 cds for 10€ and 500 cds for 20€ and still get the same amount of money ...
and we went into a real good studio (ok no big ass studio like avatar or sth like that) and paid some 1500 to 2000€ for one week. so it can be done without unbelievable high budgets. next thing is you can sell 1000 cds for 10€ and 500 cds for 20€ and still get the same amount of money ...
