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quoted 8 lines somehow my last post got screwed up...i was wondering how much the

>somehow my last post got screwed up...i was wondering how much the >equipment costs to press a record...i imagine there's one to do the first >then another to mold copies...do labels all have their own equipment or >do they send their masters somewhere to be pressed? how much does it all >cost? > >if i wanted to start my own label what would i do? (of course it would be >to produce intelligent dance music so this is the perfect list to ask :)

you don't want to buy your own record pressing plant. you're talking about a large industrial operation costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. here's how the process works: you record your award-winning future Mixmag chart topping track. put it on a DAT since that's very portable and cheap. send the DAT to a mastering house. you could also go to a mastering studio if you like to help out with some final tweaks. once the product has been mastered, you create the plates (for vinyl) or the 1630 tape (for CD). you then send this piece to the pressing plant which turns your lovely track into a slab of vinyl or aluminum oh, and don't forget about the artwork - that needs to get printed somewhere else. have the printing place ship the art to the pressing plant. some plants will do the art for you but it usually costs more. you need to synchronize this, because the pressing plant won't start producing your item until all the pieces are at the plant. for vinyl you need to worry about the label and sleeve art. blank sleeves are OK for singles, but color printing can give your product that extra lift that makes it leap out of the rack at the store. or you could go for the underground appeal and just use a white label and a rubber stamp. for CD you need a disk silkscreen, a jewel booklet and a tray card. unless you wanted to pull an Aphex Twin and put out an entirely blank disc in an unlabeled box... before i got into this business i used to think making music was the hard part. now i realize that making music is the easy part - it's everything afterwards that's hard. (well, it's not hard, but it takes time and energy that i'd rather put into making more music.) Jon Drukman jdrukman%dlsun87@oracle.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.