The CD vs. Streaming

[teamsaint]

Every time I'm involved in a CD release I think "ok, that really is the last one this time", but there's still a sense that releasing a "physical product" has something that digital ones don't, particularly as concerns gaining publicity through reviews - it still seems that journalists or the outlets they work for take more seriously a recording that arrives in a padded envelope as opposed to one that comes in the form of a download code in an email. Despite the fact that the magazine or journal itself may exist only in online form! But this will change I think. And maybe my next CD really will be the last one. If Spotify disappeared, its place would rapidly be taken by something else. As concerns less commercial music being produced now, the best deal for everyone is to be had on Bandcamp. If someone downloads an album on my label there and pays 8 euros, less than 20% of that is retained by Bandcamp, alongside the subscription costs; this means that listeners are much more directly supporting the artists whose work they want to hear, creating in turn a more direct relationship between artist and audience than is generally the case now that so much of our life is lived online, certainly much more direct than is the case with Spotify and similar platforms. Of course most people aren't particularly concerned with having a more direct relationship with the artists whose work they listen to, and that's up to them.

I’m just trying to recall how many times the death of physical media have been “announced.” Let’s just say lots.

There are very good commercial reasons why physical media are a significant part of the mix, not least the ability for artists to supplement their often modest appearance fees with a decent mark up on signed CDs etc sold at concerts. Same in book publishing.
And of course their are plenty of good reasons why the public (and reviewers ) continue to have an attachment to physical media. And certainly in book publishing , and I guess in music, the publishers and record companies need all the revenue streams available, to make any money at all on the vast majority of releases.

( just picking up on your thread Richard, I realise you will know all of this !)

[hmvman]

Nipper knows best!

He certainly does!

I don't think I or anyone else is suggesting that people don't enjoy obsolete media, just that they aren't the future (as a response to the article linked in the OP).

No, I realise that, I was just teasing, hence the wink emoji!

...The vinyl resurgence defies belief....

I don't think it is that unbelievable. It's rather like the resurgence of using film in photography. It's probably a reaction to digital media being so immediate and easily available so that some feel the need to go back to media that requires a bit of effort to achieve a result. I accept, though, that it will be confined to a small percentage of enthusiasts. An LP in good condition, played on a good turntable with a good pickup can sound superb - a very musical experience.

[teamsaint]

He certainly does!



No, I realise that, I was just teasing, hence the wink emoji!



I don't think it is that unbelievable. It's rather like the resurgence of using film in photography. It's probably a reaction to digital media being so immediate and easily available so that some feel the need to go back to media that requires a bit of effort to achieve a result. I accept, though, that it will be confined to a small percentage of enthusiasts. An LP in good condition, played on a good turntable with a good pickup can sound superb - a very musical experience.

And there is much more to the experience of recorded music than perfect reproduction.

Just to add to my last post, I’d love to see some data on costs, sales expectations etc for any classical CDs.

For comparison, I work for a small reputable ( obvs !) non fiction publisher. We can ,on many titles, turn a decent profit on sales of maybe 2k hardbacks at say £20 followed by 1000 paperbacks @£12.99 plus say £1k in value of ebook sales. Nobody gets rich on that, but those numbers are not untypical of what big publishers might sell on mid-list titles.

[RichardB]

We can ,on many titles, turn a decent profit on sales of maybe 2k hardbacks at say £20 followed by 1000 paperbacks @£12.99 plus say £1k in value of ebook sales. Nobody gets rich on that, but those numbers are not untypical of what big publishers might sell on mid-list titles.

I don't have actual data to hand, but I would imagine the figures are broadly comparable. The difference is of course that a classical CD is typically quite an expensive thing to produce in comparison with a book. A project I'm currently working on for what will be a double CD if and when it gets done has a budget of more than £50k, which obviously isn't going to be recouped from sales!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I listen to CDs, LPs, cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, shellac discs, and cylinders, and enjoy them all. Sorry, Richard!

Yea and each one provides a distinct listening experience. Worked in a LP transfer area once. Something peculiarly satisfying about 78’s .Is my memory deceiving me but Didn’t the “needles” disintegrate from time to time creating a rather interesting audio effect ? I think on the rarer singe copy discs you only used wooden (? ) because of the risk of scratches from metal ones.

[gradus]

Yea and each one provides a distinct listening experience. Worked in a LP transfer area once. Something peculiarly satisfying about 78’s .Is my memory deceiving me but Didn’t the “needles” disintegrate from time to time creating a rather interesting audio effect ? I think on the rarer singe copy discs you only used wooden (? ) because of the risk of scratches from metal ones.

Wood of a type - thorns.

[teamsaint]

I don't have actual data to hand, but I would imagine the figures are broadly comparable. The difference is of course that a classical CD is typically quite an expensive thing to produce in comparison with a book. A project I'm currently working on for what will be a double CD if and when it gets done has a budget of more than £50k, which obviously isn't going to be recouped from sales!

One factor of course is how quickly costs can be covered. We typically do a costing to at least break even by the end of year two on a project, though a successful one can do that in a couple of months.
I take your point about costs, but I wonder what the costings look like for other, more “mainstream “ projects. Most classical musicians won’t need weeks in the studio or half a dozen takes , I would assume. I bet Naxos have this down to a fine art.
I hope Lordgeous pops by, he will have useful info….

( off topic I guess, but so it goes….)

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't have actual data to hand, but I would imagine the figures are broadly comparable. The difference is of course that a classical CD is typically quite an expensive thing to produce in comparison with a book. A project I'm currently working on for what will be a double CD if and when it gets done has a budget of more than £50k, which obviously isn't going to be recouped from sales!

Interesting that is more than I would have estimated - of the £50 K. What percentage is talent costs - composer , musicians , rights ? and what percentage production ie producer (if there is a seperate one ) and technical staff and studio hire ? Does the budget exclude the physical CD production cost and marketing ? As a comparison in factual film making the talent costs would be under 10 percent of the budget . In drama they could be 50 percent or higher.

[hmvman]

Yea and each one provides a distinct listening experience. Worked in a LP transfer area once. Something peculiarly satisfying about 78’s .Is my memory deceiving me but Didn’t the “needles” disintegrate from time to time creating a rather interesting audio effect ? I think on the rarer singe copy discs you only used wooden (? ) because of the risk of scratches from metal ones.

Yes, thorn or fibre needles often lose their point before the end of a side, especially in heavily-modulated passages, causing a horribly distorted sound. Thorns are made, I think, of some sort of wood composition and are round in profile. They're sharpened with an abrasive material. Fibre needles are made of bamboo and are triangular in profile. They're sharpened with a special cutting tool. There is a school of thought that thorns and fibres do more damage to records because of friction heat and that a good quality steel needle, used once, does less damage.

All of that assumes records are being played on gramophones with heavy soundboxes, rather than turntables, like the Garrard 301 that Gradus mentioned, with lightweight pickups and diamond styli. I play my shellacs on wind-up machines and I tend to use steel needles, but I don't have any really rare and precious records.

[Bryn]

Yes, thorn or fibre needles often lose their point before the end of a side, especially in heavily-modulated passages, causing a horribly distorted sound. Thorns are made, I think, of some sort of wood composition and are round in profile. They're sharpened with an abrasive material. Fibre needles are made of bamboo and are triangular in profile. They're sharpened with a special cutting tool. There is a school of thought that thorns and fibres do more damage to records because of friction heat and that a good quality steel needle, used once, does less damage.

All of that assumes records are being played on gramophones with heavy soundboxes, rather than turntables, like the Garrard 301 that Gradus mentioned, with lightweight pickups and diamond styli. I play my shellacs on wind-up machines and I tend to use steel needles, but I don't have any really rare and precious records.

My father used Imhof 'thorns' and had a proprietary sharpener for them. I seem to recall they were said to be made from rose 'thorns'. so strictly speaking, they were prickles, not thorns. My understanding was that whereas vinyl was itself far more plastic (as in malleable) than Shellac, It needed a very hard, non-malleable stylus, Shellac, on the other hand, is very hard, so the stylus must be the malleable partner, with even mild steel causing more damage than a freshly sharpened thorn'.

[gradus]

I seem to recall that EMG thorns were much favoured.

[Ein Heldenleben]

My father used Imhof 'thorns' and had a proprietary sharpener for them. I seem to recall they were said to be made from rose 'thorns'. so strictly speaking, they were prickles, not thorns. My understanding was that whereas vinyl was itself far more plastic (as in malleable) than Shellac, It needed a very hard, non-malleable stylus, Shellac, on the other hand, is very hard, so the stylus must be the malleable partner, with even mild steel causing more damage than a freshly sharpened thorn'.

I seem to remember some one saying that when you can see bits of shellac emerging you’ve got the wrong tracking weight and the wrong stylus.

[Bryn]

I seem to remember some one saying that when you can see bits of shellac emerging you’ve got the wrong tracking weight and the wrong stylus.

Yes, I should have mentioned that Shellac was not only hard but brittle. Better that the stylus suffered than the disc.

[Lordgeous]

One factor of course is how quickly costs can be covered. We typically do a costing to at least break even by the end of year two on a project, though a successful one can do that in a couple of months.
I take your point about costs, but I wonder what the costings look like for other, more “mainstream “ projects. Most classical musicians won’t need weeks in the studio or half a dozen takes , I would assume. I bet Naxos have this down to a fine art.
I hope Lordgeous pops by, he will have useful info….

( off topic I guess, but so it goes….)

Not sure I can help. What were you lookingh for?

[teamsaint]

Not sure I can help. What were you lookingh for?

Just an idea of what sales numbers might look these days like for a classical release, in the very approximate way that I did for our book sales.