Originally Posted by
The_Laughing_Man
CD is a dead duck.
Physical media in general is just not worth while for independants.
I looked into this when I decided vinyl was chekcing out of the game.
A) Manufacturing costs are pretty much the same as vinyl.
B) No one stocks or sells CD`s in any record shops, and those that are stocked, don`t sell very well unless they are big name mixes.
C) Digital distribution of WAVs, FLAC and mp3 is better for everyone.
The costs to the label can be put into production/mastering and promotion, instead of materials.
The store has no packaging, posting, or warehousing to deal with.
Also, distributers these days are so money concious they are beyond taking risks with more underground music that willpush the progression of the music as a whole.
So currently we have a situation where everyone is playing safe, treading water, worrying about sales, all to sell just 500-1000 records at most. The distributers are dictating too strongly what is releaed on physical media, and the progression of underground music, and techno in particular, has slowed right down.
The freedom of digital media will allow people to experiment again without worrying so much about risk, which in turn will allow the music to develope and change more quickly and remain more relevent in terms of the Zeitgeist.
Anyone, anywhere in the world can access whatever music they like without having to wait for snail mail or travel to their nearest decent supplier.
CD`s will not effect file ripping at all.
Ripping from a CD takes 1 minute on a decent CD rom drive, far quicker than ripping vinyl, and yet people still rip every single bit of vinyl released.
The buyer buys the file, which they can then back up to hard drive, Cd, DVD, and also, should they wish to use a CDJ for some reason, burn their own, easily replaceable copy.
this eliminated problems of theft and damage, as you always have the music backed up.
Personally I think it is nice to have something physical, but mostly, the younger generations just don`t give a damn.
I feel it is much better to flow with the river on this subject, rather than get left high and dry.
Mp3 is still fairly young, once the stores get better and less generic, and have a better quality control policy, online shopping will become easier, especially when it comes to sorting through all the trash.