Need Some Help With Producing Bands New EP...

[Pman]

My band, Sanhedrin (see sig) are intending to release our new EP in around May/June, but I have no idea about mass creating cd's etc.
We hope to have a full jewel case with artwork, and possibly short booklet if possible. So...Does anyone know:
1) any (cheap) artists they might want to recommend for producing our artwork?
2) anywhere in the UK that mass produces CD's, that can put artwork/write on the cd's etc.
3) what's the deal with mastering? do i need to take my mixes to a mastering place or can i just give the CD place a CD with personally 'mastered' songs

any help would be appreciated!

 

[aortizjr]

I did a google search for "uk disc duplication" and came up with a lot of hits.

Here in the US, almost all the major disc dupers have in-house artists and mastering, or at least they have very good referrals and partners.

For the artwork, if you are good with graphics programs, you can make them yourself. Just follow their templates and make sure all your artwork is 300 DPI and you have bleed if required. But a pro is much better since the learning curve can be pretty steep and the result will be much better with an artist at the helm.

Technically "Mastering" is producing the glass master for pressing the discs. This is typically only economical if you are getting 500-1000+ pressed. These will be real CD's and not burned CD's.

If you are getting less than that, then most places will just burn CD-R's.

So what commonly referred to as "Mastering" is really "Pre-Mastering" which is making the mixes loud, polished, translatable, and laying out the CD. If you don't care much about that, then you can limit yourself and then just use Nero or something to burn the CD which will put the default 2 seconds between tracks and such. But if you want fades or continuous or anything like that, then you will need more specialized software.

Of course going with a reputable pro is always a better deal. But there are lots of guys on here that are reputable. I would avoid the super cheap online places (not that online is bad, but good work costs good money), but they will still probably do a better job than you doing it yourself if you have never done it before or your acoustics and monitors are bad.

 

[Pman]

I did a google search for "uk disc duplication" and came up with a lot of hits.

Here in the US, almost all the major disc dupers have in-house artists and mastering, or at least they have very good referrals and partners.

For the artwork, if you are good with graphics programs, you can make them yourself. Just follow their templates and make sure all your artwork is 300 DPI and you have bleed if required. But a pro is much better since the learning curve can be pretty steep and the result will be much better with an artist at the helm.

Technically "Mastering" is producing the glass master for pressing the discs. This is typically only economical if you are getting 500-1000+ pressed. These will be real CD's and not burned CD's.

If you are getting less than that, then most places will just burn CD-R's.

So what commonly referred to as "Mastering" is really "Pre-Mastering" which is making the mixes loud, polished, translatable, and laying out the CD. If you don't care much about that, then you can limit yourself and then just use Nero or something to burn the CD which will put the default 2 seconds between tracks and such. But if you want fades or continuous or anything like that, then you will need more specialized software.

Of course going with a reputable pro is always a better deal. But there are lots of guys on here that are reputable. I would avoid the super cheap online places (not that online is bad, but good work costs good money), but they will still probably do a better job than you doing it yourself if you have never done it before or your acoustics and monitors are bad.

Cheers for all the info dude. I was just wondering if anyone here from the UK had any personal experience with any UK disc dupers, and had any to recommend etc. If anyone who reads this and does mastering, and is interested, post here or message me!