Industry information that you can actually use
December 2004
Moses Appears at The Hague, and the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel in LA.
Don't Get Duped by the Duper, Part 3: When a CD is Not Really a CD And Won't Play
This is a very short issue. As some of you know, I am on a deadline to finish my fourth (and probably final) book on the music industry by the beginning of the coming year.
DISCLAIMER: This is not news. News is allegedly objective. This is anything
but. This is about interpreting the news into information that you can use.
Facts may occasionally be exaggerated to make a point. The key to
predicting the future is in learning from our past. In real terms, this
means understanding how the big players evaluate their mistakes and their
recent acquisitions. Let's take a look. But first…
PEDANTIC KNOW-IT-ALL NEEDED
Are you the kind of person who is a walking encyclopedia of music business trivia? Do you bore your friends to death with minutia like why Aerosmith fired their second manager? Can you tell me, off the top of your head, things like: the top pop stars who have:
--divorced after working together?
--hired then fired their best friend?
--sued their label/manager/promoter/whatever over something trivial?
--broken up a band over copyright disputes?
If so, then I want you to help me finish off my next book. Respond to this e-mail with 50 or so words as to why you think you know more useless gossip about the music world than anyone else.
Include an example or two from your private stock.
We want funny and ironic. Not nasty or mean (unless it's nasty/mean in a funny/ironic way.).
We'll talk.
MOSES AT THE HAGUE
I know what you're thinking: it's starting to get a little scary. Three years ago I started a two-day music business workshop in LA. It was designed to help people in the business understand how to better protect their money.
We were not comfortable at the Musician's Union because they didn't like our politics (translation: we were being too honest) and then the Musician's Institute asked us to leave for being too much of a threat to their "music business program."
Instead, the workshop has been welcomed at places like Harvard and NYU Law. And now we have been invited to appear at The Hague.
Yes! On February 28 and March 1 of 2005 the Confessions of a Record Producer Workshop will be presented at the Royal Conservatoire (Koninklijke Conservatorium) in The Hague.
I'll be occupying the same stage as Henry Kissinger and Gandhi. When I return, I'll need a bigger office to hold my overly-inflated ego. Anyway, admission is only 250 Euros, (about $350) plus airfare, and I will be giving away some FREE TICKETS. Just e-mail me and let me know why I should give them to YOU. Hope to see you there.
Next stop - the United Nations.
NEW ROYALTIES FOR A NEW AGE: COLLECTING YOUR DUE
For those who don't want to fly to Europe or to pay $350 to see me speak I have a better idea. I'll be in LA on Monday, December 13, 2004 sitting in on a panel of very amazing and knowledgeable people (it will cost you only $15).
The topic: how to collect money from the emerging revenue streams created by new laws that effect composers, artists and songwriters.
Sharing the stage will be Ron Gertz, who knows far more than anyone on the planet (including me) about how mechanical and performance licenses will work in the future. As well as Dennis Dreith, President Emeritus, Recording Musicians Association (RMA).
I'll be contributing the new business models and career paths that currently surround these revenue streams.
This is a must-see if you're planning on being in the music business over the next five years, and it's worth one hundred times the door charge. It's pretty rare to have so many people who really know what the hell they're talking about all at one table (what am I doing there?).
Here's the info:
Monday, December 13, 2004
7:00 PM, Wyndham Bel Age Hotel
1020 N. San Vicente Blvd. @ Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, California
HOLIDAY PACKAGES
For those of you who want to give the gift of knowledge to a musical loved one, I've got a special book offer. As a package (if you order both Confessions of a Record Producer and Secrets of Negotiating a Record Contract from my site,www.MosesAvalon.com) I'll throw in a Royalty Calculations CHART for FREE! That's a $51.60 value for only $40.00, even w/ shipping (US only).
The CHART has been used by major artists and lawyers to easily track the financial value of any deal points in a recoding contract. This is the enlarged and expanded full-color version of the chart in the back of my Secrets of Negotiating a Record Contract book. It is intended for professional use, but can be used by anyone. Also makes a great placemat.
Go to confess_offer.htm#xmas.
DON'T GET DUPPED BY THE DUPPER, PART 3: WHEN A CD ISN'T A CD
This piece originally appeared in the September 2004 issue of Keyboard magazine.
I can think of no greater horror than finally hooking up with a person who can make a difference in your career, getting them to sit down for ten minutes to listen to your CD, and then putting it in the CD player only to find out . . . it doesn't work. What gives? You made it on your own computer with a high-quality CD burner; yet, it's stuttering like George Bush at a press conference.
It's one thing to blame yourself for cutting corners and making a CD on your PC, but it's another thing entirely when a professional manufacturing plant took your money and did the exact same thing. This is called "duplication" and it's different from "replication," which is the technical term for professional mass-production of CDs.
Bryan Kelly of Groove House Records, a replication plant in California, first educated me about this distinction. "Duplicated" CDs are made from a digital file that can be transferred from any computer onto a consumer CD burner. "Replicated" CDs are made from a glass master with a much more sophisticated transfer process, one that is a less prone to glitch. Also, the "replicated" CDs are made through individual injection molding of polycarbonate.
Kelly takes the time to educate his customers, but some CD manufacturers don't. One process costs about ten percent more than the other, yet many houses will charge the same amount for both, and won't specify which process is being employed (at least in their advertising). They rely on your assumption that a CD is a CD with claims such as "1,000 CDs for 90 cents each." Is there a difference in reliability and sound quality? It's open to debate, sometimes even within replication companies themselves.
Tony van Veen, VP of sales and marketing for Disc Makers, a company that advertises both replication and duplication processes, was surprised when I asked him about the perception of disparity. "I've been in the business since 1987 and I've heard many claims about CD-Rs," he said, "but the one that audio quality is inferior [with duplication] is news to me."
Disc Makers Chief Mastering Engineer, Paul Elliot, indicated that there are cases in which there can be audible differences between the two approaches. "I've heard differences, absolutely," he said, "if the brand of consumer burner is not compatible with the brand of CD-Rs you're using, you could end up with errors, such as if you use a Maxell burner with TDK CD-Rs." "And regardless of brand compatibility," Elliot adds, "if you start making [high-speed] 40X or 50X [real time] burns, you're going to hear a difference" compared to burns made at slower speeds.
John Vestman, a mastering engineer in California, explains the nature of the potential errors with a "duplicated" disk as timing errors that could create jitter, giving the music an "unnatural and brittle" quality. He indicated that stereo imaging could also suffer, saying, "Imagine that you normally hear music coming out of speakers that are about five feet apart. [With a bad transfer] it will sound more like four and a half." In some cases, duplicated CDs will flat-out not work at all in particular CD players, and in many DVD players, as well.
So how can you tell what you're getting? Does a higher price quote imply the use of a replication process, rather than duplication? Most of my interview subjects said that this assumption is not necessarily accurate, since a company could be padding the price elsewhere. According to Groove House, this can happen with the artwork, where the customer doesn't usually ask too many questions.
But van Veen gives us hope: "Quantity is more likely to be a giveaway. If someone is [advertising] 250 or fewer copies, it's very unlikely that you're getting replicated disks." Good tip.
The bottom line is this: when paying for the professional manufacturing of CDs, always ask if you're getting replication or duplication. If the answer is vague, run! If they give you a choice, always choose replication with a glass master, and make sure the price doesn't suddenly shift from what was originally advertised.
Next month we'll learn how to avoid another penny-pinching ruse that some companies will employ (even when you insist on replication), by simply using a glass master that may be no better than the one you can make off of your own PC. Read the entire Duped By the Duper series.
OBITUARIES
Cy Coleman, composer of the Broadway musicals "Sweet Charity'' and "City of Angels,'' as well as such pop standards as "Witchcraft'' and "The Best Is Yet to Come,'' has died of heart- failure. He was 75.
Happy Holidays,
Mo Out.
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