Voyager Recordings & Publications

SO YOU WANT TO PUT OUT A CD! HERE'S WHATCHA GOTTA DO

By Vivian and Phil Williams

AUDIO

Plan the content, performers, etc. Keep in mind the time limitations - a CD can be no longer than 74 minutes (better keep it down to 70 minutes or less).

Record the project with the best equipment and under the best conditions available. You can record all the musicians at once, which may give more life to the performance, although the down side is that one person's flub can ruin a whole take. Or you can overdub, which makes it easier to re-do flawed individual performances and to adjust the balance. Many projects use a combination of these two techniques. Above all, if you do not have good equipment and/or are not well versed in recording techniques, find a good local recording studio to work with. There is now a lot of "stand alone" digital recording equipment combining all recording functions in a fairly small package, permitting several simultaneous tracks of recording, with mixdown facilities and signal processing built in, that even will burn a master CD when you have completed the mixdown. There are also a lot of good microphones available inexpensively. So, it is not too expensive now to set up your own recording facility, if you feel comfortable learning how to use the technology and have enough use of it to warrant its purchase.

Select the cuts to be used. It is fairly common to record several takes of a selection and chose the "best" to use in the production. Also, often a tune is recorded that you decide later not to use in the production.

Mix down the recording. This means getting the balance right between all the instruments and between the left and right channels and adding any effects you desire, such as reverb, compression, equalization. If you are not sure of what you are doing here, seek the services of a producer and recording engineer, and, possibly, a "mastering" engineer to get a recorded sound that is commercially acceptable, yet conveys the musical feeling you wish to convey.

Edit the recording. This includes cleaning up the beginnings and endings, and even fixing mistakes, a certain amount of which is possible with current digital technology in your computer.

Time each selection and add up the total time.

Determine the proper order. The first selection is often one that is strong and also typical of the production, so that a potential customer or reviewer will get an accurate first impression of what the production is all about. Weaker selections, if there are any, can be buried somewhere in the middle.

Make CDs of the master for the musicians and other people involved in the project to listen to. It gives them a feeling of satisfaction, plus it helps catch flaws that have to be corrected.

Prepare the master CD to the specifications required by the duplicating plant. CDs are duplicated from a master CD either by pressing or using recordable CD disks (CDR). Most large runs (500 or more) are pressed. The information on the master CD you furnish is transferred to a glass master used to press pits into an aluminum layer sandwiched between plastic to make the CD. In CDR manufacturing, the information on your master CD generally is loaded directly onto the hard drive of a CD duplicator, which then makes CDs that are exact clones of the CD you have furnished. A master CD which you prepare yourself should be made at a slow "burn" speed - 4x - 12x - and listened to very carefully on more than one CD players (and especially on a cheap portable player) to make sure it will play on all CD players. If you are unsure of this process, employ the services of a professional studio or mastering engineer to prepare the master CD.

Make a backup CD. If something disastrous happens to the original, you don't want to have to redo all that work. Make at least two copies of the "master" CD and keep one in a safe place. If your recording facility is computer based and can make data CD-ROMs of the audio, make a CD-R of the music files as data. Music data files are stored just like any other computer file, which is a different format from the way the music computer files are translated on a music CD to a format that can be read by a CD player. If you have such a data CDR, the music data files can be loaded back onto a computer easily by simply copying them, just like any other computer data.

DUPLICATING PLANT

Chose the duplicating plant. Voyager usually uses local businesses. You may get equally good service and better prices from a duplicator in some distant part of the country, but by the time you add postage, freight, long distance phone calls, and the general nuisance of operating at a distance, you may not be getting a better deal. When comparing prices, be sure that you are comparing equivalent services, and pay attention to minimum pressing requirements. We have experienced nightmare difficulties in working with non-local duplicating facilities, going clear back to phonograph record process in the 1960's, and involving some of the biggest names in the business. In many communities there are "short run" production facilities, often in connection with recording studios, that have CD duplicators and can make limited quantity production runs at a reasonable cost. We now have our own complete in-house production facilities, right up to shrink wrapping, which is the only way we can afford to issue many of the recordings we put out, considering the limited market for fiddle recordings and the difficulty in reaching this small market.

LINER NOTES

Write the text. This usually includes the following items:

Name of the production, production number, name and address of the record label or other entity to contact to buy more records, list of tunes, the time of each tune (important for radio dj's), names of the performers, copyright notice and date, whatever information about the tunes, performers, style of music, etc. seems appropriate.

Credits, which usually includes the producer, the engineer, the recording studio, the photographer, the artist, and the writer of the liner notes. I also like to list in the credits anyone who helped at all with the production, including running errands and supplying coffee! I put these folks under the category of "production assistance." The rationale is that they like to see their names in print, and might buy copies of the recording for presents for their relatives!

Figure out what will go on each panel. Keep in mind that CD's are usually shrink-wrapped, so that someone looking at them can see only what is on the outside. The most important or the most sales-producing information should be on the visible panels. On a CD, the exposed panels are the front, the back (called the "tray card"), and the two spines, which are part of the tray card. The tray card is where you put your best "pitch" convincing a person that they need to purchase the CD. The tray card generally also should include a tune list. I've been told that dj's like to have the times of the tunes listed on the tray card.

Decide how extensive the liner notes are going to be. CD's can have anything from two panels (front and back of the cover) to a multi-page booklet, plus the tray card. I usually go for four panels, that is, a card folded in half. You should try typesetting all the information in a reasonably readable type face, with the margins set to fit within the CD and/or cassette panels, to see how much room you actually will need. Of course, extra panels cost more money; you have to decide whether including the extra information is worth it.

If you think there's a chance that these records will be sold in large stores, and if you're associated with a record label that has a bar code, you will need to reserve a space 1 1/4" wide by 1/2" high on the CD tray card for the bar code. The graphic artist can create the actual code on a computer.

ART WORK

Decide who will do the artwork. The duplicating plant's price list now is usually based on the customer bringing in either raw data and images from which the plant's art department does the artwork, or a CDROM of the completed artwork done in a program like Quark, InDesign, Illustrator, or PageMaker, which either can be used as furnished to run the printing press, or form the basis for making film negatives for lithographic printing. Most duplicating plants have a graphics department that can help you complete the art work. Artwork preparation typically is charged for by the hour. Obviously you want to bring in the artwork in as complete a form as you can. If you know a graphic artist who has a computer that can furnish the completed art on CDROM in a computer program that can be used by the duplicating plant, and who is affordable, great. Make sure that the artist is familiar with the duplicating plant's specifications, and especially the computer format which they can handle. We have fought the ongoing battle between PC and Mac formats for many years, and this is not over yet. Some printers can run the presses and do all the printing directly from artwork CDRs we have prepared completely in-house on our PCs. Others are Mac based and do not use the "cross platform" graphics and publishing programs available the past few years. When we have to deal with this, we generally furnish a complete layout in a "cross platform" publishing program on CDR, and initial paper printout, and also include all the components (text, images) in formats that can be read by both PC and Mac computers. But even if you don't work with one of these geniuses, there's a lot you can do yourself to save money on the art work.

Set the type yourself, in a reasonably common word processing program, and submit it on disc. Save the text in several formats, including RTF, and burn it to CDR, along with the artwork and images. That way I don't have to pay them to set type, and I can proofread it at my leisure, before I bring it in.

Decide how many colors you want to use. Oddly enough, 4 colors are not necessarily more expensive than two or three colors, but they are more expensive than black and white.

Make a mock-up of the way you want the final results to look. Draw a template of the CD booklet and tray card. Sketch the artwork on the proper part of the template. Or make a photocopy of the art, reduced if necessary to the right size and colored with color pens or whatever, and paste it on the template. Paste in the text, set with the proper margins, so the duplicating plant's graphic artist can see what goes where. If you have any type face preferences, indicate them or bring a sample. They can complete the art work from whatever state you bring the material to them. If you have the computer resources to prepare a printed example of how you want the finished product to look, do it.

Prepare the artwork. The duplicator's graphics department can scan art work to any size necessary. If the picture you want to use is in the form of a slide, you should ask them if they can use it. Some graphics departments want prints rather than transparencies. For good quality prints from slides, go to a good professional photo lab. Get the print made close to the final size; a little larger is ok. If you have a good scanner and image processing software on your computer, you can make high resolution scans of the art and furnish these on CDR.

Figure out what should go on the CD label. I usually set the type for any lengthy text (such as the tune list), and make a rough sketch of where everything should go. A CD label usually has the title, production number, tune list with times, and the record company name and address. It's fun and not too expensive to add some art work, often a part of the cover art, in the background. I usually tell the graphic artist to come up with anything they want on this, since they have a lot more experience than I do.

Keep a photocopy of everything you bring in, so you can refer to it in case the duplicating plant calls with any questions. You will need to proof the art and text when they're finished. If you have a Fax machine, they can Fax you the text layout for approval. Read the text carefully, since sometimes computers do weird things during the text conversion or layout process. If there's any color work, printed proofs can be sent by mail, or you can go to the duplicating plant to proof either from a printout or on the computer screen. Some duplicating plants will put the artwork they finish on their Web site and give you instructions for accessing it from your computer. This greatly speeds up the process of proofing.

PAYMENT

Most duplicators require a 50% down payment when you bring the job in, the balance to be paid on completion.

SCHEDULING

Be sure to allow at least a month for getting your product completed. If you're doing it in the fall, watch out for the Christmas rush, which can cause considerable delay. There's also a Graduation rush in June, since a lot of school classes have CD projects to get out at that time.

CHECK LIST: WHAT TO BRING TO THE DUPLICATING PLANT

Master tape and/or CD

Tune list with total time

Mastering information supplied by the studio

Film negatives or:

The checkbook!!!

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