| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: What makes People buy the cd?
by Liana | 06/06/01 at 05:51:45
If you can download the Mp3 from MP3.com what makes people go out and buy it? Do you buy anything you hear at mp3? Just interested :P
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Crippled_Rich | 06/07/01 at 07:26:04
WEll if you like someone's music enough . . . you might be inclinded to buy the CD so you can play it on your home stereo and in the car. Not many people have or can afford those cute little mp3 players & can only play mp3's on their computer, nor have a CD burner.
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by JR#97 | 06/07/01 at 09:07:03
A girl I went to HS with was the number one $$$ winner a couple years ago at mp3.com. I think what really helped her CD's move was that they were professional packages. i.e. not inkjetted inserts and labels on CD-R's. She also promotes her stuff quite a bit elsewhere and gets out on the road.
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Tedster | 06/07/01 at 21:10:08
JR's right...
A pretty package is an invaluable asset. Marketers have known this for years. Think of it this way...go into a Denny's and look at the menu. Look at the pictures on the menu. Now, when your order arrives, does it look like the picture on the menu? Perhaps not, but that picture had a lot to do with you ordering it.
I used to work in radio. One of my first stations was a small, beantown country station. We'd get HUNDREDS of singles...from both major labels and hopefuls. I had to listen to a lot of it. If it came in a junky looking package, label that looked like someone's two year old drew it, it got tossed with no listen. A slick package might have gotten it listened to. Ultimately, it's the music that sells the product...but you've gotta get them to that point, and it's the packaging that does that.
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by ds | 06/08/01 at 11:54:43
I definitely agree with the posts about packaging. Our band just released a cd, and instead of a jewel case we put it in a miniature "double album" sleeve that opens up. It came out really nice. The lyrics and other info. are on the inside, and the cd slides into a pocket.
As far as online music goes, we have a site on mp3.com, and people download the songs every day, but no one has ever bought a cd through there or even contacted us. It's kind of weird but I guess that's how it goes with the internet. We always sell cd's at shows though.
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by DanS | 06/11/01 at 10:20:53
I've bought 1 cd as a result of listening to mp3. I would've bought another 1, but the artist is from the UK, and it would cost too much to have it shipped over.
It seems a lot of people are not interested in paying for music anymore either. Packaging is nice, but the band also has to have a plan in order to make things work, which we don't! ;)
Our disc has been available on the net for 8 months, shrinkwrapped & all, haven't sold 1 yet. ::)
Not concerned though, it's better than watching the tube.
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by JR#97 | 06/11/01 at 11:14:57
I was looking at doing the mp3.com thing, but now that they've switched to paying to get payed, I decided it might not be worth the trouble right now. From talking with people that make money on mp3.com, they all pretty much say the same thing.... Promote yourself everywhere, especially at gigs! Basically use mp3.com as your distribution source and not necessarilly your primary marketing vehicle. Gigs get people excited and in the buy now while they're having fun and drinking mode. I can't count how many CD''s I've bought at live shows that I thought sucked the next day. ;D But there are those that if I could get online, I would instead of waiting for the next live show. Also, use mp3.com as a teaser. Don't put it all up there for grabs. Make people want to know what the rest of your stuff sounds like. That's my untested opinion anyway. :P
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Liana | 06/11/01 at 20:24:33
hey guys, this is getting more interesting, another question then, if it costs you to be on mp3 and you think its good publicity..then how can you establish whether statistically its worthwhile monetry wise? And is there any credit in going up in their charts..how does that work?
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by DanS | 06/12/01 at 07:51:03
It doesn't cost anything to post your music there, but they no longer will send you your earnings every quarter unless you sign up for their "Premier Artist Service" for $20US/month.
They are implimenting a lot of "pay for" type services to pay for their $25mil lawsuit with Universal. Instead of charging the people who download the music, they are charging the artists who make the music, cool eh?
This is why I removed the download feature at our site.
Still, for the publicity, they can keep the measley amount of dough we've made so far. Check out Lindi Heart (another Aussie) when she first contacted me in November of 2000, she had made $700. Check her stats now. You can make dough if you are REALLY prepared to push yourself. ;)
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Liana | 06/12/01 at 08:12:25
I knew it!!! BOOB FEVER!!!
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by DanS | 06/12/01 at 10:51:14
HA! Yes, she's very cheesey, and the "music" ,well, if you like that sort of thing.
The bottom line is she's the Quincy Jones of Aussie town. ;D ;D ;D ;D
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Tedster | 06/12/01 at 15:59:16
Well, sex has always sold. everything from toothpaste to music. Go to an old flea market sometime and look at those old instrumental albums from the fifties and sixties. A huge percentage had gorgeous women on the covers...they had nothing whatsoever to do with the music...
"Mantovani Plays Perry Como's Greatest Hits". No picture of Mantovani or his orchestra. No picture of Perry Como. Some bikini clad babe lounging on a couch holding a champagne bottle.
So why shouldn't this Aussie lass show some cleavage, eh? :D
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Tedster | 06/12/01 at 16:04:17
Whoa...dudes...this Lindi Heart has some very nice...uh, er...attributes...
She's even got a song called "Feel My Breasts"...YIKES!!!! She says "because the track is bouncy"...
(Curly voice) Woop woop woop nyahahahahah...woof, woof...
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Jim Abbiati | 06/20/01 at 07:04:30
Wow! I didn't know about the pay-to-be-paid thing at MP3.com. I was planning on putting some stuff up there soon too! :(:(
OK, here's a question for you all, sort of on the same topic:
I'm in a metal band, and we have a contract in Europe to re-release the band's debut CD from 1985. The label paid us to record 4 new bonus songs (which I did, - I'm the new singer). So we have these 4 studio tracks that we could do something with in either the U.S. or Japan. Because we are in the midst of writing material for a new CD, we were thinking about just selling 'home-made' CD-R's of the 4 songs in the U.S. only. No initial investment, just pure profit (minus the burn/print cost). The question is, what would you pay for a 4 song EP on a CD-R?
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by JR#97 | 06/20/01 at 08:16:22
Hey Jim,
How are going to market it? If I was at a live show, I'd probably drop some jack and buy one. I know some bands that make more money selling CD's at their shows than they do at the door and bar combined.
Subject: Re: What makes People buy the cd?
by Jim Abbiati | 06/20/01 at 09:33:04
My guess will be word-of-mouth, and online sources. I joined the band in October, and went right into the studio to do these 4 tracks. Now we are writing new material, and don't expect to be finished until the end of the summer. So getting a live set ready isn't going to happen soon...