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Making a dream come true


thanosp81

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I am an oldschooler Goa fan, and as most people at my age we don’t do good with digital releases, especially if you have the collectors bug. But this is the 21st century and since our music is not commercial either, it makes sense that a lot of releases are only digital. Free, quality digital only releases, don’t make things any easier for me. So what happens with that? So far I was able to push those releases to the back of my mind and pretend that they do not exist.

 

However, there are some releases they keep coming back to haunt me. Notably, these are:

 

The two lives of Hol Baumann

Live At Sonic

Live Nuit Hypnotique #4

 

The live versions of Elysium tracks:

Live Versions

The Live Remixes

 

So I decided to print them myself and make them look like a proper release. They don’t look professional by any way, but still they are good enough to quench my thirst.

 

For some time.

 

And then it hit me. Kickstarter, 100 copies limited edition, 2xCD 8-panel digipacks. I didn’t see any reason they artists would refuse, I wouldn’t lose any money since all expenses would be included in the Kickstarter campaign price (if successful), all the extra income would go to the artists (I have a full time job, I don’t do it to make money, if any), could it really happen?

 

Ehh, no.

 

Too many things to consider for someone that has no experience in things like that would probably make my first try a disaster.

 

And here I am, asking your advice, help, recommendations. Do you think that there is a market for that? Would you contribute to the campaign? Do any current label managers, artists, graphic designers want to help/get involved or just express your opinion? Everyone getting involved would be paid of course and the sum asked would affect the final amount price asked on kickstarter.

 

For now other albums/comps I would like to see released in physical format are:

 

LSD’s digital releases

All Is Not Lost, All Is Dub (The Remixes)

The Cerronnos Dub Rituals EP

 

Zion604’s digital releases

(one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)

 

Entheogenic’s digital releases

Gaia Sophia, Enthymesis, Anthropomorphic, A Singularity Encoded

 

Please get involved. What I only need at this point is your opinion. Discuss away :D

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I understand your pain very well - I never buy digital releases if physical is available, if it's not available I *convince myself* they don't exist and if they're free I struggle to enjoy them (case in point - I never appreciated Lunar Dawn's 1st album until I got it on a CD :))

 

Having said that, it's getting more difficult each month to pretend I can continue like that - in reality 90% of music I bought over the last few years is still shrink wrapped, because I'd typically get the files with my purchase (Bandcamp, Psyshop, etc.), I don't remember the last time I actually played something from a CD (I'm using a tablet when at home / work, smartwatch when jogging, USB stick in car) and I'm quickly running out of space where to keep it. For the longest time the prospect of digital was scaring me simply because of how unorganised it seemed - there were dozens of stores, various formats and mp3-tagging standards; and on top of it it always felt intangible or frugal - you bought some files that you never truly own and that could be easily lost / deleted. Nowadays, with services like Bandcamp, Spotify, Google Play or iTunes (and probably others) most of those concerns seem to be addressed - with some exceptions you can really just shop in a one place, you can buy individual songs or albums but you can also subscribe and have unrestricted access to everything, you can maintain your collection, rate and review stuff, share and compare it with others. Also, with Google or Apple services you can be fairly sure they'll stick around in the future, so your collection is safe there (and you can always back it up yourself, obviously). Furthermore, Google's Play store is also doing the pricing right - the digital albums cost usually 1/4 - 1/2 of physical release, which seems fair considering that no printing & transportation is necessary.

 

So, coming back to your "dream" I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. Those niche physical releases are really only working either for highly sought after releases (what DAT Records is doing with Pleiadians, Crop Circles, Doof, etc.) or for more mainstream styles, e.g. IDM where the audience is broad enough to find sufficient number of buyers for limited-edition gold-sprinkled, see-through vinyl ;)

 

I'm personally moving to Google Play - for soundtracks and general electronica for the time being, but ultimately for everything. It was fun collecting CDs while it lasted, but I don't see point in it going forward. :(

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Will defenatly donate to this experiment.

Digital will never be part of my life i guess, i missed out on tons of good music.

There are lots of releases i want to see on CD format.

 

If this goes well, and you do manage to get those releases you want on CD format, please consider releasing 'Circular - Nordic Circles' on CD.

Such a whonderful trip, 'Clicking play' on it as a file just rubs me wrong !

 

Best of luck :)

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@antic604 No worries :) That's the reality anyway. And I understand the cd sales are really low, but is a number like a 100 so out of reach? Maybe the label owners could shed some light, although I'm afraid it will be dark as well :P

 

@U.F.Orb That's the spirit ^_^

 

@psychedelic chipmunk Hard to explain, it has been discussed many times before. In the end it is a matter of preference and whether you actually OWN something digital. I have the same issues with books. Reading a pdf just doesn't do it for me. And books are a lot bulkier than cds. I'll soon need another room for my collection :unsure:

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And here I am, asking your advice, help, recommendations. Do you think that there is a market for that? Would you contribute to the campaign? Do any current label managers, artists, graphic designers want to help/get involved or just express your opinion

My opinion: if there would be a market for that, labels would do it by themselves.

 

 


I didn’t see any reason they artists would refuse

I do. Copyrights, License Agreements, Producer Agreements, 3rd party fees (i.e. for the artwork), ...

If you wanna do that, you need to approach the labels, not the artists.

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OT: What is the problem with having a digital copy?

 

I don't know how old are you, but for some of us that started their musical journeys with tapes, vinyls and CDs the digital-only era is hard to accept.

 

As @thanosp81 said, in part this has to do with intangibility of it - you don't really get anything for your money, nothing physical that you can touch, to look at, to smell (the smell of freshly opened CD!!!), to proudly display on your shelf, etc. For a long time it was also a question of quality, i.e. 44khz/16bit wav on CD vs. 128kbp mp3-s but that's in the past now. And as I said above, until recently buying digital was also quite messy with multitude of sources, formats, file-types, etc. and wasn't really competitive price-wise. Lastly, there was the issue of piracy which is obviously much more of a problem with digital releases that can be easily copied and distributed, so those buying CDs/vinyls could feel "superior" that they're the ones supporting the artists / labels / scene...

 

I'm fully aware it's irrational and I'm embarrassed by it, but I *still* find it difficult to pay adequate attention to music if I don't have it on CD. There's so many great *free* releases on Ektoplazm, Neogoa or music available only in digital formats, yet somehow I don't have the patience to go through them, to dedicate enough time to it. At the same time I will commit to listening a bad CD 10+ times, because I bought it...

 

To certain extent I really envy my 14 y/o son - he couldn't care less about physical media, he just listens to whatever he thinks is interesting on Spotify or Youtube, doesn't really care for "full albums", genres, production values, mastering, etc. Sure, I could say his interest in music is much more superficial than mine, but it's very likely that - on average - he gets more joy out of it than I do :)

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If this goes well, and you do manage to get those releases you want on CD format, please consider releasing 'Circular - Nordic Circles' on CD.

Such a whonderful trip, 'Clicking play' on it as a file just rubs me wrong !

 

Best of luck :)

 

 

Me as a hard copy collector I'm in. I also was a little disapointed when some nice releases went digital only Fast example Beat Bizarre, or Zion EPs

Just started the thread and we already have requests for future releases, lol.

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Guys, I wish you success, but speaking for myself, I have zero interest in physical copies, I handle my whole music collection digitally as 320 kbp mp3, this is just so more convenient. I believe the last time bought a CD was in 2010 or so. I still have some CDs, when I have time i grab mp3s from them and then throw the discs into thrash (my wife hates my CDs because they occupy some useful space in our flat and she constatntly asks me when I'm going to be done with the grabbing process)

 

I'm one year older than the OP if that matters, my melomania started in 1994.

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My opinion: if there would be a market for that, labels would do it by themselves.

 

 

I do. Copyrights, License Agreements, Producer Agreements, 3rd party fees (i.e. for the artwork), ...

If you wanna do that, you need to approach the labels, not the artists.

 

Remember that some day there was not a market for Crop Circles album either. And I'm talking about a limited number only, probably around 100 copies. It would essentially be like an inside thing. If we want something as a community we can publish it ourselves. Self funded in a way :) That should make things a bit easier.

 

As for copyrights etc etc most of the music I have in mind is available by the artists themselves (and mostly free) so why not? ^_^ They will get as much as possible back.

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Guys, I wish you success, but speaking for myself, I have zero interest in physical copies, I handle my whole music collection digitally as 320 kbp mp3, this is just so more convenient. I believe the last time bought a CD was in 2010 or so. I still have some CDs, when I have time i grab mp3s from them and then throw the discs into thrash (my wife hates my CDs because they occupy some useful space in our flat and she constatntly asks me when I'm going to be done with the grabbing process)

 

I'm one year older than the OP if that matters, my melomania started in 1994.

I can't say I don;t envy you in a way. More releases available for you to buy, cheaper, easier to get etc etc.

However I love my music and I love my cds as well. And since I don't to any crazy extents I don't see any reason to stop.

Moreover, my 10 months daughter loves playing with my cds anyway, especially that pink jewel case of Chi-A.D. B)

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As for copyrights etc etc most of the music I have in mind is available by the artists themselves (and mostly free) so why not? ^_^ They will get as much as possible back.

 

If this is all self-released stuff, ok.

But if it is released via a label, the label will hold the copyright for sure, not the artist.

 

And free != free.

Like if it is released on ektoplazm with Creative Commons License - Non-Commercial you already have an issue, because you want money and you even want send out money to the artist. So you are making it commercial, which is not allowed according to the license it was published with.

You get my point? Artists usually don't care about that stuff at all and this why I proposed to contact the label. They will know about licenses and can tell you if re-releasing it is ok, or not. Label and artist can be the same person ofc for self-released stuff ;)

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@Purple Sunray And that's why I started this thread ;)

 

Maybe I didn't make it clear but this is just a theoretical discussion. It goes without question if I ever reach the point that I feel is doable I will contact all the people involved first.

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Bascially, the only way to go is: pick a release you want to have on a CD -> contact the label managers and dicuss the details with them. Artists usually aren't the people who may make the decisions like that on their own, unless they have released their stuff themselves (they own the lables or the music is of "not on label/self released" kind).

 

I have a bunch of tracks released at various labels and the agreements I've signed basically don't allow me doing anything with the released tracks, I guess these argeements were more or less standard.

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@Purple Sunray And that's why I started this thread ;)

Maybe I didn't make it clear but this is just a theoretical discussion. It goes without question if I ever reach the point that I feel is doable I will contact all the people involved first.

Yeah - understood.

Just wanted to point you to the right path, so that you do not run into legal issue with labels afterwards, because the artist told you "yeah no problem dude, just release, I don't care" :D

Like recursion loop said, the only way to find out how do this is to talk to the label managers. They might have their own ideas of what they want to allow and what not - we can just speculate about ;)

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Some very nice releases mentioned here. I would buy Hol Baumann & Circular releases( if they have Ultimae packaging )

 

Also one of the reason I buy cd is the artwork/print cards/booklet with stories & other stuff.

The way you'll enjoy the Ultimae release if you have the digipack in hand is completely different than listening to digital releases on phone/iPods.

 

100 CD's take a lot of time to sell I guess. Unless it's been advertised properly, the material is classic and either the artist should be a big name or the label should be trustworthy.

 

Let's analyse the releases mentioned above.

 

So Hol Baumann releases will be sold easily, even circular should attract the same takers. (Downtempo/Ambient has a strong collectors base.

 

But your list will keep on growing and the buyers base will keep on reducing. Yearly I see one or two massive collections for sale. So out of the very few collectors we lose a couple or more every year. These are the guys who buy every good release. Guaranteed buyers, hard to replace. So release selection would be a key. If this initiative really takes off , then definitely people will take notice and after that you can go for tricky/uncertain releases like Cosmosis. In fact I think all Goa releases will be tricky.

 

 

This is a nice idea. Many have done it in great style.

 

Inspiration:

*Ektoplazm has done it - one man show!

*Blood-Music has done it- again, One man show!

*Vinyl 200, releases digital and other non-vinyl music on vinyls.

*Silent Season - this dude is killing it. A collector gone crazy, opened up a label which kicks ass with amazing cd+vinyl releases. They are so big now that an edition of 400 CDs costing 16 each without shipping gets sold in a month!

 

Good luck! :)

 

 

My requests:

Nervasystem 3

Nervasystem 4

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Yeah - understood.Just wanted to point you to the right path, so that you do not run into legal issue with labels afterwards, because the artist told you "yeah no problem dude, just release, I don't care" :DLike recursion loop said, the only way to find out how do this is to talk to the label managers. They might have their own ideas of what they want to allow and what not - we can just speculate about ;)

It seems you have enough knowledge on how it WOULDN'T happen, how about you pretend you're the OP and try to give him a play by play breakdown of how it WOULD happen. Share your knowledge to get him started.

 

I'll give an example of what I'm saying in the form of making a sandwhich.

 

1) decide what kind of sandwich you want

2) talk to the lunch meat worker at the delivery and get your meat

3) pay for the meat and bread

4) put sandwich together

5) eat it

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It seems you have enough knowledge on how it WOULDN'T happen, how about you pretend you're the OP and try to give him a play by play breakdown of how it WOULD happen. Share your knowledge to get him started.

That was all of my knowlege, I do not own a label :D :D

1) Decide what releases you want

2) Conact the label managers and present them your idea

 

What I have written is nothing specific to music. Same rules apply to all kind of digital stuff.. video, software, e-books, ect.

'Releases' always have a license attached to it.

If you wanna do something with it, where you are not sure if it is allowed / convered by that license, you go and conact the copyright / license owner and clarify stuff.

Just the normal way of doing "digital business" - nothing special :D

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That was all of my knowlege, I do not own a label :D :D1) Decide what releases you want2) Conact the label managers and present them your ideaWhat I have written is nothing specific to music. Same rules apply to all kind of digital stuff.. video, software, e-books, ect.'Releases' always have a license attached to it.If you wanna do something with it, where you are not sure if it is allowed / convered by that license, you go and conact the copyright / license owner and clarify stuff.Just the normal way of doing "digital business" - nothing special :D

I found the knowledge, and YOU to be special. Now get over here to give me a hug. Haha jk. Thanks brother.

 

Maybe someone else can provide more info beyond what the cool purple sunray has?

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I found the knowledge, and YOU to be special. Now get over here to give me a hug. Haha jk. Thanks brother.

hahaha, that's just on virtual reality.. (at least I hope so xD)

I mean.. the main purpose of public internet forums is it, to have a place for practice trolling. And then there are some where I try to be serious, but it is difficult to pause the troll just like that :D :D :D

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Knowing what to avoid is equally important. That said, if you don't know what to do then you just stay in limbo don't you? Hopefully, when the time comes the psynews people will be enough to point me to the right direction. Either way, sooner or later I will give it a go, be sure of that.

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