Recording Artists: Can we talk #'s & $$$ here for a sec

Pressing 100 0r 500 vinyls doesn't make a big difference. At that low numbers the price is mostly determined by the mastering, cutting and lithography costs. If you think in cost/record, 500 records are actually much cheaper than 100. How much things cost depends on what quality standards you want to have. I got mastering and cutting in London and Frankfurt. It's at least 200 Euros for a two track maxi single. Lithography, pressing of 500 copies, cover artwork licensing and the black&white sleeves than added about 1500 Euros. So we are talking about roughly 2000 Euros for 500 records, so lets say 4 Euros/record. Usually one gets abut 4,1 - 4,3 Euros/record from the distributor for every sold record. That means that you have to sell at least 400 to come close to break even.

So much for the cost side of things. The real pain starts with distribution. Many of the big distros went bust and it has become tremendously hard to move stock. When you do techno, the local market might be enough, but with the electro scene being scattered around the globe, you have to be able to get them shipped around the globe as well. For small labels that doesn't happen anymore. I tried to team up with Das Drehmoment und Eintakmusik to form a distribution alliance which should have made us more attractive for overseas distros. Didn't help at all.
So even if you have the records pressed, most likely you will en up unable to get them to the customers.

From the sales side: At our best times we sold around 500-700 records. But that went down drastically until at average sales of 150 copies I pulled the plug. Talking to my distro, they told me that even estblished Techno labels are only selling about 300-500 copies. The vinyl market for niche music has broken down.

So there are two things that are totally off balance with vinyl these days: The costs involved and the effort and heart you invest into something that only sells few copies. For me actually the latter was the more painful thing that ultimately lead to us going digital.

Concerning speed of releases: Rule of thumb is that everything in music bizz takes twice as long as planned, no matter ho you plan it. For small labels that are more something like a hobby than a busyness getting things out all at once or with a strict schedule often is just not feasible.

My two cents

A.

About pressing: From our own experience things are more or less as Dr.schmidt mentioned them...so here is our own view... You have to go through Mastering,laquers,labels,sleeves and few more things..plus anything special that someone might wants on his vinyl...Price depends on the quality and of course on the number of the copies that you wanna press..the more the better. An other factor is shipping and distribution..how can the "consumer" recieve the vinyl in cheap price and of course in each side of the planet (at least thats in our mind).

To be honest ,generally speaking by releasing vinyls nowdays you are not going to make money expect of few cases.We have speak with some independent electro artists and almost nobody had sell all of their stock, some of them didnt even cover the cost, but they keep releasing vinyls!
So the obvious question is "then why to press a vinyl?"...my answer to this is:I am glad when tunes that i really like coming out in vinyl format..because i like vinyls and i buy vinyls...and if at least one person wants our tracks in vinyl we have to make him happy, exaclty as somebody else make me happy...thats my romantic view . Furthermore if everybody stopped releasing vinyls then what the DJs would be mixin n scratchin?And i am talkin about the real DJs!

...No problem with the artists that prefer releasing their music only in digital format...its their choice, we just see the things different.

Now about our own release that you mentioned: We know that a lot of time had pass since we announce it BUT we dont want to release sth off-hand (i dont know if i use the correct word) i mean, we go through the things again and again, negotiations take a lot of time until we find exactly what we want and make everything perfect(we are 3 independent persons, with also our normal lives & obligations,not some BIG record label). We promise to release something quality and very special that will satisfie you and worth the long wait!
Ps: Note that we dont only have to cover the pressing plant experts but also we pay studio hours for rappin-vocals and other instruments.And believe me that all these years we have pay a lot . So by releasing this vinyl we are NOT going to make money we dont even kow if we are going to cover the pressing costs but we doing this because we love vinyls and i believe the result worths all these...

About your commercial thoughts and the connection with the SS 1 release:No rush, We really dont care when its the "best" time for the market to release our material.The SS release is sth tottally different in comparison with ours.Vinyl will come out when everything is done properly as i mentioned before!

Sorry for my bad english,hope my answer covered you if not i will reply again!

Peace,

The Krew

Quote from defelectrobeatsv3;27677

And lastly to just put it out there, if there was anything that should have been layed down on wax, it is DEBONAIRE #5 AND #6 b/c they are just rediculously, insanely, "freakin'" sick!!!

4 real!

I did 333 copies + whites for 1.000€, solid quality and blacknwhite artwork label ... i sell at about 5 to the dealers/distro and 8 directly to the people ... if i were sure to sell at least a bit more of hundred copies id press 003 that is ready since this summer ...