Is a CD Duplication business still a viable option for a small studio?

**dvdhawk** · 03-28-2012, 07:55 AM

Frank, you are correct. I did misinterpret that sentence. I'm glad to be wrong on that one, I still think short-run CD duplication is viable.

Here is the complete 2011 RIAA report in pdf form with a stat table.

**Franktierno** · 03-28-2012, 08:01 AM

Thanks for the report!!

**Franktierno** · 03-28-2012, 08:10 AM

My next question is how do you guys feel about the recording biz in general? But I think that should be a new thread??

**dvdhawk** · 03-28-2012, 08:22 AM

If you want more responses, you should start a new thread with an appropriate title.

I posted the PC Mag link in this Recording Connection thread that has been going on for several months. It's turned into a discussion along those lines.

But bear in mind, things like the RIAA reports don't represent the indie market most of us would serve.

**Thomas W. Bethel** · 03-28-2012, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by RemyRAD

Yes but bands still like to be able to sell some product at their gigs. Many churches present a fair amount of concerts where CDs can be used for fundraising and such. And those that also get CDs have fun converting them for their personal listening devices like iPods, MP3 players. You're certainly not going to get rich. You can also get kind of wacky going to large rock 'n roll concerts with a solid-state recorder. At the end of the concert, if you get a DC to AC inverter for your car, you could run a duplicator in the parking lot right after the show. Not 100% legal, mind you, so maybe you would have to just confine that to Grateful Dead concerts?

I'm a recordist not a taper
Mx. Remy Ann David

More and more churches and schools have their own AV departments along with their own CD and DVD printing and duplication facilities. It is getting harder and harder IMHO to try and get CD and DVD burning and printing business. Also a lot of places are getting really really sticky about having cables on the floor and a couple of churches we work at have a "no cable on the floor" policy which can make recording audio and video almost impossible for anyone outside the church or school

FWIW and YMMV.

**nalaing** · 08-07-2012, 04:27 AM

Well i think its still worth the effort. Although some does not go into cd replication anymore, there are still some people like me who prefers it. For cd replication I have always been using doadisc. They duplicate both cds and dvds. They are pretty affordable too and the quality is very great.

**Thomas W. Bethel** · 08-13-2012, 04:43 AM

Right now we have two duplication towers one for CDs and one for DVDs. We have a on CD printer and a sealer and a shrink wrap tunnel. We do a lot of jobs in the 20 to 200 range. One problem today is that everyone wants the ultimate quality but no one wants to pay for it. We recently did a job for a client. She was very nice but did not want inkjet printing done on her CDs as they were designed for use by children and she was afraid that the inks would come off on their hands. So we contacted a local CD publishing company and they quoted us $1.00 each for using a dye sublimation printer instead of the on CD printer we currently use. She would not pay the extra $1.00 per CD. Catch 22 all over again.

We have a job in house now that is somewhat troublesome. The client is working though another person so the communications back and forth are somewhat confused. The "real" client gave us a .pdf of their CD face but when we attempted to print it it did not come out as the client wanted. We have reprinted the trial three times now and non of the attempts has been to the client's liking. The CD is almost all black with some very fancy artwork in the upper left part of the CD. The client wants the black to be jet black but the artwork he has given us is grey. We have asked for the original art work and will see if we can do as he wants.

We get a lot of people who want us to do the duplication, the on CD printing, and in some cases the authoring and the graphic's design and want to pay us less than $1.00 per disk. It is mpossible for us to do what they want for the price they want to pay. In one case the client wanted all their stuff done with a "gold" overlay (a picture of the rap artist with his bling and the bling was suppose to be done in real gold leaf) I refused to do the project since we are no equipted to do gold leaf overlays and when we checked into the price for someone to do it it was over $5.00 per disk and they would not guarantee the results. Of course the artist wanted this done for nothing and he wanted it done ASAP.

Big places like Disk Makers have very strict standard for what they can and will do but many artist don't want to spend the money they charge or be limited in what they can do.

If you can please the artist and do what they want to do and can do it for a price they are willing to pay then I say go for it. Otherwise it is very expensive to get into the duplication business and to maintain the equipment.

FWIW

Good Luck!