If you’re not familiar with the difference between “duplication” and “replication,” here it goes… duplication utilizes CD-R technology and it has a standard turn time of one to two days (at DF Dub’s Green Room, Inc). That means an artist can have 50, 100, 300 or 1,000 retail ready CDs in just two days.

Replication is the process where CDs are pressed from a glass master. This process has a standard turn time of eight days and a minimum of 1,000 CDs. Many companies offer lower quantities, but if you check the prices, you find that there is a very small difference between the price on 1,000 units and 300 units.

The printing of the paper and the cases that hold the discs are identical. At DF Dub’s Green Room, you can have retail-ready CDs in as little as one day. Actually, we can have them for you today, but a small rush fee would be incurred.

So why choose one over the other? The main reasons are going to be cost and the quantity of CDs you know you’ll sell in a short time and cash flow as well as the amount of time the artist can wait to receive the final product. I always ask customers how long they want to have how much money in their closet and for what period of time. Or another way to think about it is to ask, “how many CDs will you sell over the next week? Four weeks?” What I’m trying to suggest is that cash flow and a delivery timeline are huge factors when determining which process to use. Usually, CD-Rs are a good choice up until 300 or 400 units (withstanding a rush situation such as a case where you could hit a home run if you had a thousand CDs tomorrow). If you have the time to wait, it generally becomes more cost effective to use the replication process and get a pressed CD if you’re wanting more than 400 discs. If you don’t have time to wait, (your show is two or three days from now), you’re going to do better to order CD-Rs.

Another factor is color. Pressed discs come standard with three colors and CD-Rs are most cost effective with a black imprint — adding color to a CD-R is .85/disc. When doing color CD-Rs, it usually starts making sense to convert to a pressed CD after 250 to 300 units. Again, turn time is always an important factor.

So to sum up, an artist needs to really think about what quantity best fits his or her budget, cashflow and disc graphics as well as consider the time line he or she has to work with. At DF Dub’s Green Room, Inc., we can work with any of these situations and help you find a solution that works great for you.

What would you like to do next?
- Look at Duplication Prices
- Look at Replication Prices
- Look at Flyer Prices
- Look at Poster Prices
- Contact a Customer Representative via Email

About fifteen seconds later, I pulled into the parking lot for the restaurant and saw some 8.5 x 11 inch pieces of paper taped to cars written in colored pencil. When I got right up next to the signs, I could tell that they said, “Car Wash.” But I looked around and I didn’t see anything that looked like a car wash. I started to pull around to the drive-thru and noticed about five kids sitting on the sidewalk – in the shade where they were barely noticeable. One of them had another of these small signs in his hands.

I doubt you’ll be surprised to learn that there were no cars in line for the car wash. I was shocked at how somehow this group of people had not learned what seems to be common information for every teenager in America.

All my life, I’ve seen kids with big signs, covered in colorful magic markers and huge arrows. One kid usually thrusts the sign at my car over and over while another jumps up and down and still another forcefully points where I should drive my car. Sometimes they’ll plea sometimes they’ll scream. Never in all of my life have I seen what I saw on that funny day.

However, I find myself doing the same thing with my own business some times. And I constantly see artists making the same mistake. They assume that if they’re good enough, people will just show up somehow.

If you want people to know about you, you have to be aggressive like most kids putting on a car wash. You have to have a big, bold sign that moves back, forth and sideways and cannot be mistaken. You have to have someone saying in very simple terms, “drive your car here” or the equivalent for your business. And you have to have someone who is willing to say over and over with some sort of loudness, “I am here! Buy my product.”

If you follow the parable of the car wash, history has proven a consistent outcome.

p.s. We duplicate CDs.

As an observer of the Dallas music happenings over the past twenty years, what was most striking to me was the way the article described how the approach to the overall music business has changed. It suggests that going to a concert is no longer about just going to hear some good music, but instead going to get closer to something a fan is already immersed in somehow… usually by way of social networking.

The bands and artists aren’t performing their sets and then going to their dressing rooms to bask in their stardom, but they’re hanging out with their fans. The fans have the opportunity to go on the tour buses and “kick it” with the artists. I got the feeling that they were looking for ways to reach the ultimate accessibility.

It’s a great article for artists, bands and promoters who are looking for ways to evolve in connecting with their audience.  To read the article, click here

I was looking through music videos the other day and I came across an interview with President Obama about his thoughts on hip hop music.  It’s striking from the beginning as he is asked if he listens to hip hop music and replies, “of course.”  He talks about why he likes Jay Z’s latest album, things that he doesn’t like, and then settles down to what sort of role hip hop might play in his administration.

One complaint of President Obama’s is that hip hop tends to be looking at life through a rear view mirror.  He wishes that the music could be balanced by looking forward with hope.  This resurrects the age old question: “is art imitating life or is life imitating art?”  

I think I’ve decided that it’s both.  Both art imitating life and life imitating art are happening in a cycle.  Kids listen to hip hop music and want to imitate it, but eventually someone stops being the button that is pushed and decides to become the button pusher.  Something new ends up being created and eventually, if it’s great, it is imitated.

If you’re interested, you can check out the interview here…

For those reading who aren’t musicians, let me explain that this is complete nonsense.  The similarities between the songs were part of the chord progression and maybe half a bar of rhythm.  What the most non-musician-types don’t realize is that this particular chord progression could be found in, (I’m not exaggerating), thousands of songs.  It is one of the most basic and common chord progressions in Western music – (and I don’t mean Country Western music!)

Fans like to believe that the music in songs is original and created by some incredible stroke of genius.  This is crazy.  However, sometimes I see similar ideas hold artists back.  When a writer starts thinking that he or she needs to come up with something entirely original, they are doomed to either be in a weird denial or to create something that only they can understand.  (Wait a second, I sense some artistic egos drawing their pistolas… hear me out.)

When I was in my late teens, I was practicing the piano ten hours a day with the goal of going to a fancy music school.  After a while with this crazy regiment, I developed tendonitis in both of my arms and had to stop playing for several years.  So instead of giving up music altogether, I studied composition. 

My teacher would have me copy every note, staff and articulation on all sorts of Bach and Beethoven pieces and then we would diagram the form of the piece.  He said several times that every composer was standing on the shoulders of his or her predecessors.

One day I was in the music library at UNM and came across one of Bach’s children’s scores – (several of Bach’s children were composers).  I was very surprised to learn that the first sixteen or so bars of this Bach piece were nearly identical to a piano piece that I had played… by Beethoven.  The Beethoven piece must have been one of Beethoven’s learning exercises and he was building off and learning from Bach.  (If this weren’t an exercise, I think it would actually qualify for plagiarism). 

During these same composition lessons, my teacher broke some very bad news to me.  He explained that the Western music, that we’re all familiar with, is all out of options for new inventions.  There is nothing new to invent.  He compared it to a deck of playing cards which has limited variables and the variables have all been used up – no new games can be invented.  Soon after, I learned about other systems of music that were developed to enable the potential of “new inventions.”  We won’t be hearing any of these on our pop radio stations.

All of this to say, it’s a good thing to build off of a strong musical vocabulary from the past; there is no easy way to come up with a chord progression that is new; and Cat Stevens is really just trying to get some press with the hope of selling a few more CDs.

The winner is Michael Chenoweth with the song “Closer” with 535 votes. Congratulations to Michael who put a lot of work into communicating with his fans and motivating them to vote. We will begin pre-production with Michael on his $4,000 video next week and we look forward to sharing the outcome of the production soon.

Again, we appreciate you taking part in the contest and hope to hear more about your future success.

Brent Tallent
Green Room Productions

If you feel like a vote or votes aren’t showing up for your song, we assume that one of your fans has contacted you and told you that his or her vote did not show up.

If this is the case, please have the fan send an email to info@greenroomprod.com from the same email used to place the vote. Also have the fan include a name and phone number so we can call to confirm the vote.

Remember — a FAN can only vote ONCE and the artist submitting the song can only vote ONCE.

Votes are not updated instantly. Usually only once a day.