JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Industry Message Forum Future of the CD??? Worth investing in physical CDs Anymore?

I'll concede the CD is dead when mine stop selling at my gigs.
Hasn't happened yet.

THEE bottom line is like i said, you and your music are LOST COMPLETELY to the world including your family, grand kids, kids kids... unless you have something laying around in a box somewhere for them to physically PICK UP and check out.

That's it! period.

The actual original questions were -

'Future of the CD???' and 'Worth investing in physical CDs Anymore?'

- and no matter what else anyone may feel on the matter, they will soon or later become very much a secondary music format. The quality isn't even that great (an issue which gets bandied about still, for some reason) as can be attested by anyone who ever hears the final 16 bit mixdown compared to the original higher quality recordings that even I can manage on my recording set up!

In the meantime, if you can sell them, then they are worth the investment.

Two very different questions really.

The best way to approach music, however, is to do it because you love doing it, then become better at it, and then get better again. It is for this reason that we should all encourage the culture of independent digital distribution amongst listeners and musicians because it frees people to be better artists. Or so it seems to me.

Anyway, it's always interesting to hear different opinions!

Dan

Hi

Actually the answer is the same no matter how you put the question.
Is it worth investing in? Well doesn't that depend on what your goals for you and you music are?

If the simplest goal you can have is just to have your music in the hands of another human being any human being,after your gone
then it's worth putting in on CD.

Now should you make a thousand copies? well if your gigging and trying to sell yourself, ah yes of course.
Should you go fancy or inexpensive and simple? Again it all depends on you and what your doing and how much your music is worth to YOU.

Besides all the obvious there is usually always a bottom line. Something that makes you finally make a decision on things.
That's what I'm getting at, Forget the music business and making money for a second, if it depended on that I would'nt spend a dime on CD's or anything else.
If your not sure to invest in some CD's think about whether you care that your kids and there kids know that you made music.
That CD is the only way there gonna about it..

Now back to technical, when the format of EVERYTHING stops being round shaped, silver and the exact same size as a CD then worry about it. When Playstation games aren't on CD/ CD/shapes when Blu Ray aren't and DVD's aren't and blanks of both aren't. When the computers we ALL have to not take the discs, then we'll know too change. Until then if you make music your alright making it to a CD. Nothing we can do about changing formats that haven't changed yet. So how we feel about is all that does matter.

Nothing else to think about - The End!

Quality? Most kids listen to crappy MP3 downloads through earplugs....and the chart music even heard as a 64 bit wav is not worth listening to anyway....
Yes the future of the Cd is limited......but there are a good few years left in them yet....Surely it is horses for courses and we all should use the best medium to suit our own needs. So we use downloads and Cds till it all changes and THEN we use the next invention they come up with.

Invest in the physical product. Don`t be fooled by todays wonderful technology of digital downloads; people still want something in their hands that can be autographed. Even if the CD is not autographed your fans will appreciate having a CD with graphics, and liner note information. I am not saying ignore digital downloads; no - of-couses not, but I am saying CDs are going to be with us for awhile.

Good luck with your project; I wish you the best, and continue doing what you are doing; asking questions.

I'd say go for Cd's if you play out and have the means to sell them that way. If you don't play out and your doing it just for the novelty of having your own cd go for it but understand at some point you'll probably have 872 cd's sitting in your closet collecting dust and if your ok being out the investment go for it.

Forget CD's. I can't keep up with all of this new-fangled technology. A while back, I found a cassette by a band that became popular back in the 80's called Maxell. I didn't remember hearing any of their music, so I thought I would give it a listen. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to play in my 8-track player. A friend told me I needed a special player called a "cassette player." Evidently these cassette players are in pretty high demand because I couldn't find one anywhere. Eventually, after months of searching I found one at a pawn shop a few cities away. Excited that I could finally see what all the fuss was about this Maxell band, I put the tape in and pressed "play". Guess what. Evidently either the player doesn't work or there is some problem with the tape. I couldn't hear a thing except a very low-level hiss. I'm giving up. Like I said, I can't keep up with this new technology.

You are dead right Kevin.........you cannot go wrong with the increasingly popular Mr Edison's tin foil cylinder with the needle scraping across it...BUT remember not to crank the handle too fast or hard as you will bust the spring.....OH and for the larger gigs get a bigger horn.

What in the world is tape?

Me with Keith--partly, anyway. For those who perform live (like me), audiences are going to want something tangible to take away as a memento of the event. The CD will be "merch," like Madonna said--just like the T-shirts, buttons or (in my case) thongs. It has the additional advantage of being able to be given to friends (which probably will not happen with the thongs). Downloads--digital anything, really--won't cut it. We're not selling a sound, we're selling a *memory*.

That said, I think CDs will go by the board--maybe not immediately, but after a while. They are, as one Far East music publisher told me, outdated technology (they have been around since 1985), and the New Thing Over There is to have your album on flash drive, not CD. (And flash drive makes sense, because of all that increased capacity. You can have every song be a music video.)

The lesson for the performing band or musician, therefore, is: yes, get CDs. Don't spend a lot of money, and order short runs. So I have ordered the Deathgrass album on CDs. But the album for Southern Pigfish (The Band That Doesn't Exist), when it comes out, will be on flash drive as an experiment, to see how it goes. And every song will be a music video. Again, to see how it goes.

Joe

I printed 1,000 CDs of "Antigravity" (http://www.cdbaby.com/zircon7) my third album of seven, and my most popular in my discography. It has since done very well in terms of sales and licensing, but I've only sold 400-500 physicals since it was released. On the other hand, digital sales have been going way, WAY up. I won't print 1k physicals again, maybe only 200-300.

Andrew do you play live gigs regularly?.....It is a diff scenario for live bands than for studio or non performing songwriters. I would not sell many hard copies if I did not play regular live gigs. I think that is why people have mixed feelings on CD V downloads

Nope, I don't perform live. I agree that if I did, I would print up more CDs.

Andrew,

Actually it's impressive you sold that many without playing live or doing dance parties of various types and sizes. But your music genre is always going to favor digital anyway. It has about as much in common with Country or even Singer-Songwriter sales opportunities/styles/formats as it does with mail order paper towels. (i.e. it has very little in common).

I think the tiny cost of 1000 CD's these days are a no brainer for even a mediocre live act. And frankly, you should be mediocre in the first place right? Being a good live act is about entertaining far more than great songwriting or even playing/singing. I've seen amazingly fun bar bands that were low on the talent scale but very high on the entertaining scale. Of course being good on all of it is best, but if you're a talented but boring live show, go out and watch the most popular acts in town and start with those ideas and then add your own. See how they get the audience involved. See how they move on stage. See if they are legitimately having a blast on stage because that is hard to fake and it helps everyone else have fun too. Don't take music so serious. Save that for when you're in the studio or writing songs in your bedroom.

Brian

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my experience applies to everyone else. I'm just sharing it as a point of reference. These days, I believe most people are discovering my music as a a result of (a) YouTube, where I've built up a decent following organically (eg. no viral videos), and (b) Pandora. And it seems to me that when people find my music through these sources, they would rather buy a digital copy than a physical one. I don't think that was the case before, since I was selling more physical copies before (I think.)

I do agree that this has a lot to do with genre. Still, I thought it would be interesting info to have out there.

Hi David:

Welcome to JPF. Sorry I'm chiming-in so late. To answer your question regarding CDs... I believe they will be here long after most of us have departed. My first albums with CDBaby were digital only. I did not want to have to create, reproduce and maintain large stocks of CDs. My primary focus is songwriting and I believed the "digital only" process would enhance sales through iTunes and similar avenues without the hassle of reproduction and mailing CDs.

I personally still want hard copy CDs but the kids who buy 95% of the music today want to download digital singles into their iPods, iPads or iPhones.

Who knows what tomorrow's technological advances will bring? No matter... the CD will still be around.

Best of luck with your music.

Dave

Kids don't buy 95% of the music by the way. Most music sales are still adults 30+ who are buying catalog material for their ipods and laptops. Kids do buy a little, but still get most of their music free... I know kids of people I know who trade hard drives around school with a terrabyte (costs 80 bucks) full of protection free music. File sharing sites are way down in usage by the way. But it's just that they are sharing copies directly, rather than through file sharing sites.

Brian

Hey Brian:

That just might depend upon your definition of a kid, eh? To me, anybody under 40 is a kid! LOL! Interesting point, though. Maybe I should redirect my marketing efforts... or not?

Best,

Dave