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Diy Demo Cd's
Entry posted by Ravi Nair
2,522 views
A month ago my band mate and I decided to give away CD's with our material to those who seemed to like our music. Since we are students and mostly live with a limited amount of money, getting a professional/industry type CD done would've costed a lot of money off our wallets. We tried to find a way around this situation. At first it was all about Saving Money but we soon realized it was about Authenticity, Looks, the LOVE and Saving Money.
Google was my best friend throughout. All the stuff was made and tested on a computer running Windows 8 OS. Click on the images below for a better view. If you are planning to give away or sell CD's with your content, then i hope this post helps you. We made around 30 discs for under $17 in the first run.
1: Decide what you want to put in the Disc!
All we had was our debut Single and a live audio set. It seemed like less stuff for a CD, so we added the artwork and testimonies too. Since an audio disc can't have anything apart from audio, we had to create data discs. Our disc was optimized for computer viewing. There was an autorun feature which included the links to our FB, Youtube, Soundcloud, Myspace, Bandcamp & Reverbnation links apart from all the other data. So the discs we made weren't recognized by a few audio CD players.
This is what i used to create the autorun program. If you know FLASH or other similar software you can create your own interactive program. If you have a lot of songs then you can create a good old Audio CD. If you don't know how to create audio or data discs, do a quick search, its not too hard.
We made two different discs, one was for music enthusiasts and one was for Venues/Organizers, you'd ask how it matters; I'll tell you how, Venues/Organizers need much more than songs, they need the Band's/Musician's profile and the Tech Rider with other things, and yeah it makes quite a difference. Everything a venue or an organizer needs to know about the band is there in a disc. Starting from a demo to the requirements of the Band if its plays somewhere.
This is the Autorun menu for Giveaway
This is the Autorun menu for Organisers/Venues
Make sure that you create content that applies to the audience/venue/organizer that you generally cater to, it'll be very useful.
2: CD Case & Sticker for CD!
The case for the CD was an issue, i did a few searches and found out this website. Filled out the details and took a print out on an A4 sheet that can be folded to accommodate a CD.The printout had numbers that tell how to fold, but I
Its a good idea to print two copies on a high GSM (thicker) A3 sheet and then later cutting them into two individual sheets. You get a full size print and it costs lesser.
If you don't like the paper cover, you can get a traditional cover. Don't forget that there are many other options you can find online.
I designed a sticker to stick on top of the CD. Its a good idea to keep the centre empty, i didnt though. You can also use the same stickers as giveaways. We asked the Printers to make high quality prints. Your printer guy can also put holes in the centre so you don't have to do it yourself. We later used these leftover centre stickers to seal the disc and distinguish the venue/Organizer CD's from Giveaway CD's.
3: Giving it Shape!
Alrightey then, now its time to do the physical part. First off, you need to buy enough number of CD's you so don't run out too soon. Buying a larger quantity generally costs less. We also got enough re-sealable plastic covers for the final product.
Stuff Required
I recommend that you first burn the disc to an iso image so you can identify any errors in the autorun or anything else in specific. Saves CD's for sure. You can mount these images using softwares like Daemon Tools or Power ISO. If you're running Windows 8, then you can directly mount the image.
After you do a good check, burn the CD's, put the stickers on top, fold cases, put CD's in the sleeve. And put the unit in a re-sealable plastic cover. Trust me they look pretty cool, once you've put in some work.
After our next gig, we gave these CD's and people had good things to say. Afterall it's the LOVE that matters more than anything else!!
You can directly download everything i used and made :
This is what we did, you can be as creative as you like. Let me know if you try this. How was the experience and what was the reaction from people on the other end.
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