Independant Record Labels

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My question is this - I'm looking to start up an independant record label - how much is expected in start up costs? Can anyone point me to any article on line which would be realistic o the amount of money I would have to put in?

― dean martin, Friday, 27 September 2002 18:41 (twenty-three years ago)

DONT DO IT.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 September 2002 18:42 (twenty-three years ago)

It's going to happen. Just need help on this one, thank you.

― dean martin, Friday, 27 September 2002 18:48 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm gonna be silly and say: forget abt money, what are you intending to release?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 27 September 2002 18:49 (twenty-three years ago)

That's not silly - it's just that I need to look at some realistic start up figures to make this into a reality.

― dean martin, Friday, 27 September 2002 18:52 (twenty-three years ago)

What country are you in and how much you looking to sell and how many releases are you expecting to do and what type of music and will you service campus/comunity radio or zines or have a record shop to operate out of?

And know that you will lose nearly all the money you put into it.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 27 September 2002 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

You can do small pressings (500+) of CDs for $1000. Vinyl 7"s will run you about the same. Other than that, yr major costs would be printing (sleeves, promo stuff, etc.) and whatever time you spend hassling people, making calls, writing e-mails, etc. You really don't need much of anything besides a desire to do it and a willingness to communicate with the necessary people. To me the real trick is distribution - getting stores to carry your stuff, finding networks that will pick it up and sell it, getting it available on the internet, etc.

I say do it. Putting out stuff is easy. Making a living at it is a different problem, but making things and getting them around to people is its own reward. Mr. Noodles asks the right questions (what do you plan on releasing, how much, etc.) and is right - you will be pouring all your money into a hole that it will probably never come out of. But that's the beauty of it!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 September 2002 18:55 (twenty-three years ago)

forget about money. contact some other indies to create a distro, find some bands and release a tape comp, then if you wanna be proper schmindie, send a tape/dat of some songs to a pressing plant (there's a cheap one in czechoslovakia i'll find the URL for you) and spend about 100-200 squid on pressing about 400 7" and sell them thru yr own label and other labels distros. OR if you want to be more DIY just make CD-R's - that way you can create to demand and save lots of money.

― _sf_, Friday, 27 September 2002 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

are vinyl costs really the same as CD costs? i imagined they were much more

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 27 September 2002 18:58 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a whole book about this ... The Indie Bible. I think there was at one point a website belonging to the book, but I'm not sure where it is.

― kate, Friday, 27 September 2002 19:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Start a major label instead. A little more investment money and sexual favors, but oh could it pay off!

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 September 2002 19:07 (twenty-three years ago)

(my point being: given the way major label mechanisms have been working, any label someone decides to start on his/her own will be independent by definition, therefore, no use of the term necessary)

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 September 2002 19:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Search on "Simple Machines." That label has gone under, but their guide to starting up a label was still online at several sites last time I checked.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 27 September 2002 19:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't say I'm not good to you. Simple machines.

Note it's a pdf doc.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Friday, 27 September 2002 19:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks for the help and the guide - invaluable. I think what we are talking about here is licensing mostly other independant product.

― dean martin, Friday, 27 September 2002 20:10 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm the bookkeeper at a fairly big indie, so I should be able to tell you. But I usually just stare out the window and dream of desert sands.

― andy, Friday, 27 September 2002 20:11 (twenty-three years ago)

if you're looking into licensing it may be worth noting that music industry law and practice is not standardised and varies considerably from country to country. All You Need To Know About The Music Business is an okayish and comprehensive book that looks at the differences between the UK and US and should give you some concrete information on where to go with your planning.

― Wyndham Earl, Friday, 27 September 2002 20:58 (twenty-three years ago)

...how to be a rock n roll star .. http://www.preromanbritain.com/gwem/rocknroll/index.html

― jk, Friday, 27 September 2002 22:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't do vinyl. Please. I started my 'record label' with an expensive, unsaleable piece of plastic, which effectively means I'll never put out another release. A CD version would have cost half as much and would have sold (as vinyl versions of small Melbourne indie bands tend not to sell all that much)

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Saturday, 28 September 2002 00:04 (twenty-three years ago)

no wonder diy labels are in decline; you lot make it sound like fucking rocket science.

― _sf_, Saturday, 28 September 2002 12:14 (twenty-three years ago)

actual diy rocket science

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 28 September 2002 12:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Curious, jim; a friend was told by his distributor to do 7"s and not cd singles or they'd never sell, because the kind of people who buy stuff by bands/labels they've never heard of prefer vinyl. Or something. Not saying he was right, but that's what he said. It seemed kind of strange and annoying at the time since CDs are so much cheaper and easier to produce.

Rocket science: no, it isn't, but it is very hard to make anything other than a huge loss, isn't it?

I reckon http://www.indiecentre.com/ is well worth a look. It contains the Simple Machines guide already mentioned above but I think there's a fair amount of other stuff too. My other links on the subject are mostly dead, it seems.

― Rebecca (reb), Saturday, 28 September 2002 13:23 (twenty-three years ago)

but surely creating an independent diy label on with profit pretences is just plain WRONG?
you're right that about people preferring vinyl; i think it's more of a product concept than expense ie. most like the idea of a well produced sleeve, and 7" have long been the preferred veihcle for a band/label's political idealogies re: slampt, K et al.
tho' personally i think that a true DIY label should employ true DIY beliefs, anyone can get a dictaphone record a few songs on it make 100 copies of a tape - ditto CD-Rs.

― _sf_, Saturday, 28 September 2002 14:25 (twenty-three years ago)

my typing wand clearly failed me in that last post

― _sf_, Saturday, 28 September 2002 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Hang on, I didn't mention profits, I mentioned attempting to make less of a loss than you might otherwise, y'know, so you don't have to give up eating for too many months and might even be able to release more than one record.

If you're going to do a small 7" run then you're going to have to throw a thousand pounds or so at it with no guarantee of getting anything back and the near certainty that you'll make a loss overall; it'd probably be nice to think you hadn't spent over the odds on the pressing stage for an end result that wasn't noticeably better, or that you hadn't just sent everything to a plant with a reputation for screwing stuff up. I don't know about you but my definition of "selling out" or whatever "WRONG" implies doesn't include reading around to find out which pressing plants are cheap and reliable.

― Rebecca (reb), Saturday, 28 September 2002 16:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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