How popular are CD's nowadays?

[fishdreams]

It depends on the music genre, and market/audience's age, taste and geographic region.

For example, patrons in Japan and Europe, for certain genres at least, have cd players at home, value a physical music collection, and will purchase one if they like your show.

That said, I would not take the route of CDrs (duplication) since they often wont play in laptop cd drives which is where a lot of people in the US will stick them. You wont have that issue with replication ('real' cds made from a glassmaster). Most manufactures will require a minimum of 500 for a replicated project, but there's a good manufacturer in Taiwan I've worked with who starts from a minimum of 100 copies glassmastered cds. Mobineko Short Run Vinyl, CD Pressing and Cassette Tape Duplication

To give you an example, we are considering the following for an upcoming release:
Considering that in our scene
* very few people will buy a cd; however some press will not review the music if its not on a proper cd;
* if younger folks buy a physical medium its either an oldschool lp or a cassette.
* most people will listen digitally through some sort of subscription service

We plan the following:
* to distribute digitally (several services offer full-on distribution on all the known channels, for very little money)
* have a small run of cassettes made as the physical objects (lps are the best, but also expensive to manufacture and at a minimum of 500 copies; cassettes with cool artwork are relatively cheap to have manufactured locally at any number of copies )
*Have a handful of cds made for review purposes

With all that said-if your goal is maximum exposure for the least amount of money, just take the digital distribution route and be done with it.

Good luck!

 

[Pirate Captain]

I think CDs are on an upswing because a lot of used cars have a CD player...also, there is a lot of great jazz that was only released on CD

 

[slowjam98]

I find that industry data is really useful for these kind of questions.

U.S. Sales Database - RIAA

 

[maxschrek]

Vinyl and cassettes(?!?) are all these folks are buying these days, per my experience anyway.

 

[BrBss]

Everyone says CD's are dead, but they're currently the only thing we have turned a profit on from our merch. They sell surprisingly well at shows and have a high profit margin. Vinyl has a very high cost which reduces margins, streaming has a very low payout.

 

[Captain Chaos]

If you want to be hip, vinyl is the thing to do today. If you're into electro or cold wave, you can try cassette tape.
Both shall come with either an usb key full of mp3s or a link to download the songs.
CDs currently are in a hiatus except if your target demographics are 40+ yo

Only the really expensive vinyl comes with digital download, $60+ and even that most don’t come with a code.

 

[DanGroove]

Whenever someone wants to hand me a CD I generally just say “do you have your tunes online on SoundCloud or iTunes or Bandcamp or something? Because i promise I’m not going to listen to a CD. I’ll go buy your album off iTunes but your free CD is a coaster.”

 

[Williethump]

They are popular with me, it's how I get my music. Priced at .50 to a dolla fitty, 2nd hand thrift shops and yard sales are full of them.
But I ain't no luddite despite being an old person of 68 anos. I listen to the songs and store them locally on PC, tablet and phone.
If stored in the 'cloud' (someone else's server) they are not yours and they will all be deleted, lost or else Google (motto: Be Evil) will discontinue their music player and you have zero tunes.
I use Linux to rip the CDs to digital-Sound Juicer. I copy the files to at least 3 thumb drives or hard disks for archival storage, then I store the CDs away just in case.
Cumbersome yes, and the song must be on my particular gizmo for me to listen to it. But it's safe, secure and in my hands-ain't going to vanish someday when I'm not looking. And did I mention how CHEAP it is?
Signed,
Old Tightwad Wid Tunes

 

[jamersonburton]

what's a cd?

 

[arbiterusa]

CD: I might as well try selling 78RPM records these days - I know no one with an actual CD player nowadays, and most laptops don't have CD drives any longer. Anything I do goes up for streaming. Been doing that since I put my first website together in 2004.

I just recently had a guy try to give me a CD of his latest project and had to explain that I didn't have anything to play it on.

 

[bassdude51]

what's a cd?

Cds are these "things" for making clocks and crap.

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[5StringBlues]

 

[Keger Jupit]

I think the best way is through bandcamp, you can have the cd/vinyl/tape sales, digital release, merch and list of places where you will gig all on the same place. Simpler than setting up a website.

You are also able to set the digital release to whatever the buyer can or want (including for free)

Here's an example:

Melvins

Thanks @ihaveaquestion, but I have another question...how do we solve the "we're old" part?

 

[JRA]

The USB thing is interesting, but I personally wouldn't want music that way.

your own preferences aside: do you know of bands/musicians who use that format with any 'success'?

As a way of preserving my investment I have downloaded everything to .flac files. The encoding there is quite good

i've always archived using .wav files. what advantages are you getting from .flac --- aside from storage space?

If I were doing it for money, or in hopes of it leading to something, I’d put it out on all available channels and formats: streaming, MP3, FLAC, CD and even vinyl if I could afford to do it. It’s like the answer to the question: which payment methods should my business accept? And if you’re at all serious about your business, the answer is: all of them.

a good manufacturer in Taiwan I've worked with who starts from a minimum of 100 copies glassmastered

thanks for that info/reference!

 

[Rob Martinez]

I put out two CDs of original music in the last three years. I am putting out one more, and that will be it. It is a lot, these days, to ask people to listen to ten original songs. SOME will, a LOT won't. Better to put out one song at a time. IMO.

 

[Tony In Philly]

i've always archived using .wav files. what advantages are you getting from .flac --- aside from storage space?

Apparently not too much except for the ability to have metadata included with the files. They both have similar fidelity.

Here is a good write-up on the contrast between the two:

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Also on some hardware devices and software players such as VOX, .flac is the preferred default encoding method.

 

[cnltb]

I buy CDs.

 

[arbiterusa]

I went to see Chicano Batman

I'm from SoCal...how come I've never heard of these guys? Awesome. Thanks for posting that.

 

[Hambone70]

what's a cd?

Certificate of Deposit (CD)

 

[socialleper]

your own preferences aside: do you know of bands/musicians who use that format with any 'success'?

I have never had anyone offer me music on a flash device or seen it for sale on a flash device.