What do you need to start a CD duplication project?

  • Related Videos
  • Related Articles
  • Related Q&A

While at your local record store, browsing for CDs, you notice how slick and professionally manufactured your favorite artist's CDs look. This may be kind of disheartening if your band's last attempt at a demo was burned on your home computer and labeled with a black felt tip marker. Why not step it up and have your next recording manufactured professionally? There are numerous duplication and replication labs out there that are very affordable. The process is very simple, requiring only a couple of things from you. What do you need to start your CD duplication project?

1. CD Artwork
You will need to create the artwork for your CD face and the artwork for any inserts. An insert is the artwork that is displayed in the jewel case, which includes the "booklet" that comes with many CDs. To create these files, you will need an image editing/creation program. I recommend using Adobe Illustrator, or Adobe Photoshop. But there are many different programs available for you to use that will work just as good.

When creating your artwork, please take in mind that most print houses (CD duplication facilities included) print everything in CMYK format. CMYK refers to the different inks used to print your artwork.

C= Cyan
M= Magenta
Y= Yellow
K= Key (Black)

Fun fact: The reason that black ink is represented by a K and not a B is to prevent it from being confused with Blue.

Fully explaining CMYK printing is an article in itself, and most of you will not need to understand it in any more detail. Just remember that when you open a new file in your graphics creation program, you need to set the file format to CMYK. Also, for high quality printing, your artwork will need to be at least 300 DPI. DPI stands for dots per inch, and is a measure of printing resolution, in particular the number of individual dots of ink a printer or toner can produce within a one-inch space. If your artwork is any less than 300 DPI, the final print will most likely be blurry. Refer to your CD duplication house's documentation for any further information, as specifications vary from company to company.

2. Audio Files
All audio is converted to .CDA format when pressed (replicated) or burned (duplicated) on to a compact disc. If you have had your music recorded professionally, they will provide you with a "master". A master is the original copy of your recording on a disc (or tape), used to create CDs and records. CD quality audio files are usually presented to your CD duplication house in the form of uncompressed 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo .WAV files. You will need to check with the company that is manufacturing your CDs, because like your artwork, specifications vary from company to company.

These two items prepared correctly, will net you a fine looking (and sounding) batch of CDs. Keep in mind, video buffs, that most of these duplication companies also duplicate DVDs. I hope that all of you, musicians and filmmakers, realize now that it doesn't take that much to bridge the gap from amateur to professional quality media. Bring your next project to the next level!

Jason Cole

Jason Cole and http://www.DiskFaktory.com offer great tips and information regarding CD Duplication. Get info about DVD Duplication as well by visiting http://www.diskfaktory.com/tips/CD-duplication-tutorials.asp

Rate this Article: 0 / 5 stars - 0 vote(s)
Print Email Re-Publish

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/what-do-you-need-to-start-a-cd-duplication-project-36071.html
Add new Comment



Captcha

  • Latest Music Articles
  • More from Jason Cole

How to Construct a Diminished Chord in Less Than 10 Minutes

By: Kyle Morrison Lovely | 07/01/2009
Although not as common as major and minor chords, diminished chords are equally as important to understand. Learning how to build diminished chords is a crucial skill for musicians in all genres, and you can learn how to do it in just a few minutes.

Music Review of Freedom Wind by the Explorers Club

By: Darren Tan | 07/01/2009
Freedom Wind by The Explorers Club awed us with the beautiful vocal “Forever”. The moment Jason sang, “She’s the kind of girl who’s in my thought, all night…”, along with James, David and Wally. It was really awesome!

Learn Guitar Notes

By: Ricky Sharples | 07/01/2009
This article will serve as a kick-start to your understanding of guitar notes and their place in your musical progress.

Live Radio Realised to be a Dream Weaver on Websites

By: Nisha Garg | 07/01/2009
Live radio is applauded across the world since its introduction on websites. People have started to enjoy listening to radio on websites that offer free services. The quality of sound and the number of channels available are also impeccable.

Increasing Number of Online Guitar Resources

By: Claude Johnson | 06/01/2009
Learning to play the guitar can seem like a mammoth task for the complete beginner, but with a few tips in the right direction it doesn't need to be out of reach. The first thing to consider when learning playing the guitar is how often you are going to practice, and from where you will access your guitar.

Reading Guitar Tablature: a Beginner’s Guide

By: Presto | 06/01/2009
This article provides a quick guide to how you can use guitar tablature to quickly learn songs.

5 Popular Latin-american Music Genres

By: Steve McMains | 06/01/2009
Latin American Music has been enriched by the contribution of native music traditions European folk music tradition as well as African music. Some of the popular Latin Music genres include Samba, Son, Salsa, Tango and Bossanova.

Buying Vintage Guitars Online Has Benefits

By: Robert Meyer | 06/01/2009
The article highlights the benefits of buying vintage guitars online including a world marketplace and the convenience of shopping from home.

Tracker Software – the Beginning of Software Music Sequencers

By: Jason Cole | 24/01/2007 | Software
Trackers! What are they? Tracker is the generic term for a class of software music sequencers which, in their purest form, allow the user to arrange sound samples on a timeline across several mono channels.

File Sharing Ethics

By: Jason Cole | 24/01/2007 | Internet
Ever since the invention of the internet, people have used it to share files. Be it music, movies, video games, and other copyrighted and non-copyrighted electronic material. This has raised some interesting ethical issues. The debate over whether file sharing is legal and right is one of the most important issues dealing with the internet right now, and has sparked many lawsuits.

Total Hd – “super Disc” an Update on the Battle Between Blu-ray and Hd-dvd

By: Jason Cole | 24/01/2007 | Technology
Alright, we’ve all been following the heated battle between the new Blu-ray and HD-DVD technologies. If you’d like a little refresher on what’s conspired so far, please refer to my article titled “New CD and DVD Technology – Blu-Ray and HD-DVD”. This will run you through how each disc type functions, why they’re better than normal DVD media, and the differences between the two types. But I digress, this article is about the industry’s newest solution to the problem of having two new, very simila

Audio Effects – Vocoder and Auto-tune

By: Jason Cole | 15/12/2006 | Music
Alright, thanks for coming back for my next installment in this article series concerning audio effects. In the past few weeks we have covered quite a few commonly used effects, such as reverb, delay, flange, and compression. These effects all have wide scopes of usage, and are probably used on a daily basis in most modern recording studios, on a wide range of different musical styles.

Podcasting – What is it and How Can you Benefit From It?

By: Jason Cole | 15/12/2006 | Internet
Traditional radio is slowly becoming obsolete as technology in modern times grows in leaps and bounds. We last discussed internet radio, which is basically audio files streamed over the internet to whomever chooses to listen to it. And in this article we’ll be discussing podcasting.

CD Burning – the Differences Between Track-at-once and Disc-at-once

By: Jason Cole | 15/12/2006 | Technology
All of us who own a personal computer have burned at least a CD or two in our days. Being able to download music and create your own mix CDs has been one of my favorite features since the beginning. Software such as iTunes and Nero has made this task even easier, pretty much doing all the work for us. All you need to do is insert your CD-R into your CD burner, pop open either one of those programs, drag in your audio files, and hit the burn button. In a couple minutes your CD is ready to go.

Audio Effects - Phase Shifting & Chorus

By: Jason Cole | 06/11/2006 | Electronics
Audio effects! Is there anything they can't do? We're continuing on with this series, this article being part 4 in the series. I was thinking about the best way to abstractly describe the function and importance of audio effects and knowing your effects well. This is what I came up with. Your studio is basically your tool box, with all your effects and gear being tools in your tool box. Most people know their tools pretty well, but most are not masters.

Setting Up your Own Internet Radio Station

By: Jason Cole | 06/11/2006 | Internet
Radio has been lagging for some years now, seeming to be a dinosaur compared to streaming internet radio, podcasting, XM satellite radio, and the plethora of other technologies that have reared their heads in the past 10 years. One of these new technologies is basically the same thing as old-school AM/FM radio, and that is internet radio.

Article Categories




Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Copyright © 2005-2008 Free Articles by ArticlesBase.com, All rights reserved. (4.18, 13)