IDM Mailing Archive

"Big fuckin' surprise. Let me guess, they had pressing problems again." Perhaps, it's time for an explanation about how things work here on this release date thing that troubles you so much. The amount of time that it takes to properly setup a record for release in the US in about twice as long as it does in the UK. Our US distributor needs the finished copies almost a month earlier than our UK distributor. As you might imagine, a lot of this has to do with geography. Our sleeve printer is in California and our CD manufacturer is in Memphis, Tennessee. So, if something is unsatisfactory with a print or a test pressing or a CD master, the margins for error in relation to time are a lot slimmer here. Aesthetically, we'd rather get it out right than get it out early. And it works both ways... North America got Squarepusher's "My Red Hot Car" a week earlier than the UK. For those of you who don't want to wait for the US release date, there is always Warpmart... www.warprecords.com. Someone asked about Mira Calix release date: 7/10/01 (the 9th in the UK) KCG __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

yeah.. ok so warp are meant to be 'professionals'.. but setting and sticking to release dates, is actually an incredibly difficult task. i was even having a discussion about it yesterday afternoon with trevor jackon, founder of the OUTPUT label. when we release records, we both do not actually set release dates until we have the finished products in our hands, due to the many delays which can occur in manufacturing and any blips and problems which you might encounter. we're fed up with setting release dates which we never manage to keep. frankly, running a label the delays are very rarely your own fault. ok, so a label should be responsible enough to build in 'time barriers' or whatever so that when things do go wrong, the release date doesn't slip... but that's not too likely. especially if you are running a small label, like myself, finance is a big problem.. ie it is necessary to press a record which you must pay for in advance (with no help from distributers, PAUSE_2 is totally independnet of anybody else and currently is self-funded). once the copies have arrived, you then have to sit on them for 6-8 weeks, as the press / media in the UK have lead times this long... so the record can't hit the shops till, say, 8 weeks after you've received them.. probably 3 months after you paid for them. distributers then delay payment even more, by over a month.. and realistically we're talking 5 months of not seeing any money, before we see some again. now i realise that may not apply with warp, given that for something like prefuse73 they might not have to put their lives on hold temporarily to fund the release of the album, but nevertheless, cash flow is a serious issue... and they do can't spend too much time sitting on their hands, with 1000s of CDs/12"s in their offices .. because they want to sell them to you. at the end of the day, they are not pushing these dates back to spite you. there is no malicious reason behind it, just get used to it.. in ths business, release dates DO slip. and often. thanks.. tom [broadcasting from P2hq] x --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org