by postpunkmonk » Tue Jul 25, 2017 6:51 am
I understand your drive to remaster/reissue interesting artist's work on legitimate CDs. I have spent the last 20 years doing my own vinyl transfer work and have gotten better and more sophisticated at doing it on what is a reasonably low budget. I primarily used to manually edit noise transients in a wave form as my sole means of noise reduction that did not affect the music. There could be a thousand of these done over several hours per song, and it's how I came to the name Post-Punk Monk. My friend likened what I do to making an illuminated manuscript and when I started maintaining an online presence, I went with that. I'm a graphic designer so I pour a lot into the design of the product as well. Putting elaborate posters of booklets into the package. Occasionally making "boxed sets of god," as I call them. Assembling 3-10 discs of an artist's complete rarity output into a single, coherent package. When I create a CD that is as close as something can be to a legit CD that has never existed before, it's the best feeling in the world, so I totally get your drive to do this, no matter how much red tape and naysaying might dog at your heels.
It's all well and good to talk of CD-Rs and to hell with the labels, but even if you use costly archival gold/printables like I do, they are not a glass mastered/screen printed CD. They are delicate and environmentally sensitive to heat. One afternoon in a hot car can ruin your whole day. A professionally duplicated CD is a durable sound carrier. I love CDs because they are reasonably tough and if mastered properly, offer incredible sound and durability in a convenient package. Unlike files, they never heed "backing up." If you want to rip them to your media server, then fine. That's not how I roll, though.
Please have another shot at the Lene Lovich catalog. I am out [what was for me] serious money that the LL website took for her self-produced box [which turned out the be CD-Rs for those who actually received them] as well as the two-disc version of both versions of "Stateless," which as far as I know, no one received. This needs to happen. I also echo the needs of the Shriekback catalog to be bettered. What the band have done ranges from okay to sloppy. While some of them were on glass mastered CD at first, which was better by my reckoning, they are now opting for CD-Rs. Which kind of annoys me. Some amazing stuff is getting released, and I'm happy to tithe to the band directly, but they use top of the line CD-R reproduction: a professionally printed digipak with a silk-screened CD-R in it! This sort of thing drives me nuts. Like wearing loafers with a tuxedo! Duplication for 1000 of these costs about $1.07 each. A glass mastered package of similar specs is only twice that and I'l gladly pay $5-10 more for an actual CD.
Bottom line? Keep pressing on with this. I see nothing but good that could come from this from where I'm standing. If I had more time and money on my hands, I might be starting a actual reissue label too, instead of just pretending to do it as a hobby.
Last edited by
postpunkmonk on Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.