The End of CD's

A creative space for business discussions.

Moderators: admin, mdc, TAXIstaff

Post Reply
User avatar
Hookjaw Brown
Committed Musician
Committed Musician
Posts: 731
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 10:29 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Wilds of Northern California
Contact:

The End of CD's

Post by Hookjaw Brown » Wed May 26, 2010 10:00 am

On the last Taxi Live show with Robert Wear, a comment in passing was that Mr. Wear believed that the CD was dead, and that hard drives were the future.

I have been pricing pre-labeled thumb drives in bubble packs, and a drive that would hold 12 MP3 files is under $4.00. What do you all think?
Hookjaw

"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it left". - Seasick Steve

http://www.taxi.com/hookjawbrown

Randall J
Active
Active
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 04, 2010 9:52 pm
Gender: Male
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by Randall J » Wed May 26, 2010 10:43 am

I think thumb drives are a legit way of still having a physical product, I am considering going that route myself. I can't remember the last time I played an actual cd :shock: btw, even dv camcorder tape is on it's way out. I went to buy some the other day for a camcorder that I just bought brand new a year ago and the selection at major retailers is down to nothing, all the new camcorders are chip or hard drives :o

User avatar
t4mh
Serious Musician
Serious Musician
Posts: 1446
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2008 4:05 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by t4mh » Wed May 26, 2010 10:53 am

My keyboard can even record to a stick drive.
Keith
I hear the voice of God in a bending guitar string!
Life is too important to be taken seriously
No electrons were harmed in the construction of this message.
http://www.t4mh.com

User avatar
Hookjaw Brown
Committed Musician
Committed Musician
Posts: 731
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 10:29 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Wilds of Northern California
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by Hookjaw Brown » Wed May 26, 2010 11:23 am

I carry a 'special' thumb drive with all my songs, finished and WIP, Album cover art work, copyright and ISRC codes, liner notes, song notes, lyrics etc. Makes it easy to submit stuff to sites, work with other musicians away from my studio. Course with Terrabyte hard drives for back up so cheap, having current backups is a must do, especially since they use the same USB port plug in.

I got tired of piles of CD's with works in progress hanging out, cluttering up the place.
Hookjaw

"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it left". - Seasick Steve

http://www.taxi.com/hookjawbrown

User avatar
Tree
Impressive
Impressive
Posts: 131
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 9:09 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Chicagoland
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by Tree » Wed May 26, 2010 3:01 pm

I agree, CD's are dwindling in popularity. I haven't watched that video yet (though I plan to) so I don't know what the context of his statement was (for audio or data). I think it will be a long time, another 10 years at least, before they are barely ever used, and I think they will always hold a place like vinyl does for some. Flash drives are definitely a good way to go and you get to put so much extra data on there too. My thoughts are that you miss that easy to store and pretty label associated with CDs though. Can you imagine digging through a box of flash drives to find that one album that you just have to hear right now. What I've been seeing more and more is the digital download card. That way a fan can buy the songs and have a physical product in hand at the show and he just enters the access code and can download the album. I know Discmakers does this a lot now.

As for backing up media, flash drives are still too small for me to hold anything worthwhile. I prefer to just stock up on TB drives. Though once flash drives get a above 100G it will be a very good thing. And there are some now that would be great for temporary backups and having files for easy transportation. I use those small drives that are USB powered, about 300GB. Everything now is way better than CD and even DVD for that type of stuff!
Theresa Brooks
Apocalypse Cow
www.callthecow.com

User avatar
mazz
Total Pro
Total Pro
Posts: 8411
Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 6:51 am
Gender: Male
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by mazz » Thu May 27, 2010 9:56 am

Michael replied in another thread that he meant music libraries distributing their content on a hard drive, not artists necessarily. A library might distribute several thousand songs on one hard drive which would be the equivalent of a crap load of CDs. It's cheaper and easier to go the hard drive route for them!
Evocative Music For Media

imagine if John Williams and Trent Reznor met at Bernard Hermann's for lunch and Brian Eno was the head chef!
http://www.johnmazzei.com
http://www.taxi.com/johnmazzei

it's not the gear, it's the ear!

User avatar
Hookjaw Brown
Committed Musician
Committed Musician
Posts: 731
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 10:29 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Wilds of Northern California
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by Hookjaw Brown » Thu May 27, 2010 10:22 am

I still considering bubble pack and thumb drive for personal distribution. In researching this idea I saw an article on a metal band that had released such a beast and the drive was inset into a plastic gun in a bubble pack. New method to catch the consumer eye.
Hookjaw

"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it left". - Seasick Steve

http://www.taxi.com/hookjawbrown

billg1
Committed Musician
Committed Musician
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:07 am
Gender: Male
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by billg1 » Thu May 27, 2010 3:09 pm

I think it depends on what you plan on doing with the music your distributing. If it's just going to be for fans at a show it probably doesn't matter but many radio stations will only take retail CDs and some stations of some genres (Americana stations for instance) will take CD and/or vinyl. If your looking for selling in indie retail stores Vinyl with a CD and downloard cards included are outselling CD only releases 2 to 1 in some genres, the whole package can be less that your thumbdrives depending on how many you order. This is what I've been looking at, it's really not that expensive and covers all your bases.

Just a thought, but It seems a shame not to give yourself the chance of some non-com, college etc. radio play because of the format of your release.

User avatar
mazz
Total Pro
Total Pro
Posts: 8411
Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 6:51 am
Gender: Male
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by mazz » Thu May 27, 2010 4:33 pm

I had dinner the other night with a publisher who is an ex-vp at Disney. He said that Best Buy isn't going to sell physical CDs anymore, in fact, they've already stopped stocking them and are just selling off the stock they have in their stores.

I'm sure WalMart and Target won't be far behind.
:( :( :cry: :cry:
Evocative Music For Media

imagine if John Williams and Trent Reznor met at Bernard Hermann's for lunch and Brian Eno was the head chef!
http://www.johnmazzei.com
http://www.taxi.com/johnmazzei

it's not the gear, it's the ear!

User avatar
mojobone
King of the World
King of the World
Posts: 11837
Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 4:20 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Up in Indiana, where the tall corn grows
Contact:

Re: The End of CD's

Post by mojobone » Thu May 27, 2010 4:38 pm

Multiple format releases will be with us for quite some time; there's a massive installed user base of CD drives and history shows us that new formats tend to coexist with older ones, rather than replace them. I like the idea of selling thumb drives at shows, they're more portable than CDs (which have a limit of around 750M) You can put all kinds of cool stuff on 'em, from links to artwork, to video/music files in mixed/multiple formats, and the fact that the drive itself is re-useable (and has your band logo on it) makes it more persistent (in marketing terms) and more eco-friendly.
The Straight Stuff; Roots, Rock & Soul

http://twangfu.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/mojo_bone

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests