Is it acceptable to sell burned cd's of my own music?
By ringbearer25
@ringbearer25 (402)
United States
November 15, 2009 9:32pm CST
I was just wondering how you feel about the idea I am having. I am a musician. I used to tape myself playing, as well as with others. I have many cassettes of my old bands playing live. I also have an album which I do not own the rights to nor do I see any royalties at all. I recently began to upload the cassettes to mp3's, cleaning them up a little bit along the way. I've put some up on Myspace, the link is on my profile. Anyways, I thought, what if I we're to clean these recordings up as much as I can and create a cd or cds. I could also make the covers. I then could offer these for sale to anyone who might be interested for $5. What do you think of my idea? Do you think people will buy a burned cd that is not 100% perfect?
3 responses
@ringbearer25 (402)
• United States
17 Nov 09
Thanks for your support! I am an artist and I'd love to earn a little cash on the side from these recordings I have. My dilemna is really that they are live recordings. Not perfect. I think they are great, but, not perfect. The sound quality does not match that of a professional studio record (which I also have available, but, see no royalties for...long story). I wonder if selling them as cheap as I can, like 5 or 6 bucks would compensate for that or will I just be hurting my reputation.
@EdTv00 (298)
• United States
17 Nov 09
If its your original work, meaning there are no stolen riffs, lyrics, or no cover songs, then yes you can do what ever you please with your music. But what I would suggest doing is re-recording them before trying to sell. Three reasons why, number one you want the best quality possible, number two you can correct any mistakes and or add new ideas to the songs to make them better, and number three you want your customers/fans/people to hear your best work so you turn them on to your music not turn them off because of being lazy.
@ringbearer25 (402)
• United States
17 Nov 09
Thanks Ed. You made some points which I have been wrestling with myself. I have a professional cd already, it was sold in stores and is played on a few radio stations. It is available for purchase on the web at the record company's website. Problem is, I don't receive any royalties from that and the band is no longer together. What I have posted on Myspace, and I have more of, are tapes of my bands performing and other impromptu recording projects made with my Tascam 4 track. I've been uploading and cleaning up all my master cassettes. I had an idea that I should put them up and see if anyone is interested in buying some of it. But, as a musician, I hesitate because while the quality is decent, it's a live performance. It's not perfect professional, studio quality. At the same time, I would offer the cd's at a very low rate, such as 5 or 6 dollars. I could get a small amount manufactured and sell them for that. But, will people buy any; and, will it hurt my reputation as an artist?
@EdTv00 (298)
• United States
17 Nov 09
10 years ago getting signed to a label was a big deal, but now my advice would be to be independent. This way you get all the profits, from your music and merchandise. I know its hard keeping a band together, because allot of people are full of bs and cant keep their egos in check. Good luck with your music, if your dedicated and serious you will get far.
@crimsonladybug (3112)
• United States
16 Nov 09
There are actually some stores (F.Y.E. and Hastings, that I know of right off) that will sell them for you. They take a cut of the profits and they don't really do any marketing/promotion for you but they often have a special section of the store set up just for local artists.
You could also go to concerts of bands that have similar sounds to your own and pass out your CDs after the shows. This isn't going to make you any money but you could just pass out samplers that have four or five songs and information about where people could buy a full length version.
And since you have a MySpace page already set up you can produce the CDs through a printer like Lulu and they handle all the transactions for you. Again, they take their own cut of the profit but you can sell them to anyone around the world that way. Here's a link to their CD/DVD publishing page: http://www.lulu.com/publish/cd_dvd/?cid=publish_portal
@ringbearer25 (402)
• United States
17 Nov 09
Thank you for your ideas. I will have to check out those links and see which route I want to take. If I decide to do this at all. I had thought about online distribution sites, but, I am thinking about printing up a small amount of cds of live performances and selling them as cheap as I can. If I decide to go with a distribution site, I'm thinking I might start rerecording from square one.
