Do you guys feel duplicating CD's for a release is still worth it?

With the cost of manufacturing and all, is it still worth doing that? Or is it more sensible to do digital download only releases? Are your fans still wanting to buy physical hard copies?
 
It is my hope that physical hard copies still matter. But I am not confident that that is the case. It seems everyone is downloading. I am old fashioned I guess, still thinking that the concept of an album in it's entirety in a form that I can hold is important. 

As a fan(I'm not a musician), I like to buy a CD when I they're sold at a show that I enjoyed.  It's like a souvenir.  I don't think a download would have the same effect at a show and they can't be autographed.  So, it might be worthwhile to replicate a few CD's to sell at a gig. 

+1 to what rain said. The only time i buy cds is when i bump into an artist at a live show or street musician.  The moment i rip the CD it is never opened again.  My son has never purchased a cd in his life.  It's an almost foreign concept to him.  i think it is worthwhile if you do shows where you can sell merchandise on the spot, but otherwise they are just coasters with writing.

I guess it depends on how many you would expect to sell to some extent. On a personal level I still prefer to buy cds - one because I refuse to have itunes or anything apple for that matter, two because I still like to have an object to hold and look at and three because household contents insurance often does not cover the cost of digital downloads, but does cover cd's so if your computer / gets stolen or destroyed somehow you'll get a new pc, but you won't get your music back from itunes unless you want to pay again.

ha-Rain-Paulo had me worried there-but then if you don`t backup your library you deserve to lose everything.
cheers

Rain - my daughter did an IOS upgrade on her Itouch.  (this was 2 or 3 years ago - maybe things have changed)
 
She did not do a back up to itunes on a PC of her itouch and of course when the IOS upgrade was done, all her data was gone, all her apps were still there at the itunes store, but the music was all gone.
 
She had downloaded a lot of music from the itunes store direct to her itouch and never synched with itunes on a PC.  Once downloaded that was it. 
 
She got on the phone in tears and apple did her a favor a restored them as downloads.  (there was like 300.00$ in music !)
 
JR

that is one downside with iTunes:the software is so stubborn.
I purchased some albums years ago,probably under the influence,found I didn`t want to keep them and deleted them but everytime I launch iTunes it tells me I have purchased albums ready to download!
reminding me not to shop online drunk!
ps:you can re-download them in lossless format if you have great hearing..  
 

Should also mention that FLAC is becoming popular with some young folks who are just discovering this thing their grandparents are always going on about: high fidelity. A 2GB thumb drive (usually < $5) is big enough to hold your album in two versions: MP3 and FLAC. Could be a selling point.

if you can sell them, yes.
 
if you gig, and can have them in front of customers to purchase one while they're getting into the show, yes.
 
otherwise, no.
 

Rain

paulo
if your computer / gets stolen or destroyed somehow you'll get a new pc, but you won't get your music back from itunes unless you want to pay again.

All content purchased from Apple can be re-downloaded at anytime - music, movies, apps like Logic. You can access them from any authorized computer and whatever you've purchased that is not installed or downloaded on that computer will automatically be listed as available downloads.

OK. I don't have itunes, I was just going by this statement from itunes store T&c's......
 
"Products may be downloaded only once and cannot be replaced if lost for any reason".
 
 

I have produced many albums for artists that have still gone on to press physical CD's and in nearly all cases they have sold them all at gigs and often get reprints done too. There is just something nice about holding that product in your hand.
 
It also completely short circuits all the crap regarding compressed and inferior sounding files too. The CD's just sound better, end of story.

Rain
...
As a fan, I hate those things. I buy CD's because they're often the only (or the most inexpensive) way to get high quality audio. But the only thing I do is to unpack them, rip them and then put them on a shelf somewhere where they gather dust and take space.

Agreed!
 
Honestly, though, I don't think that the downloadable stuff will have a longer shel life than the CD work will by any band. This has been the case on the progressive side of things in music!
 
The problem is that the download'able stuff is just low quality, compared to the CD as Rain mentioned, and I totally agree.
 
So my take is, if you are just trying to get your 12 minutes and make a quick buck, and then you're done, then the downloadable and such is the way to go. But if you are into making this last longer and be appreciated longer, I would think a CD is better!
 
I'm not happy with the "hit" oriented mentality of the music business, and I think that this is the definition that you have to take on ... are you going to do your own and not worry about anyone else, or do you want to wait for Godot to write you a check that never arrives, and if it does it's for 14 cents from ASCAP, or BMI!
 
Wooopeeedoo!