Making and publishing a music CD or DVD: how its done!

[Alain Briot]

Making and publishing a music CD or DVD: ask your questions!

I published two music CDs featuring Travis Terry playing the Native American flute.

I would be more than happy to answer questions about how you can publish your own music CDs and/DVD. The process is relatively simple but consists of many separate steps. If you are interested just post your questions and I will do my best to answer them. You can ask questions about any aspect of the process. Just be specific.

Alan Briot

 

[Alain Briot]

Thank you, Asher.

I thought there may be other photographers interested in doing a similar project. I thought of writing an essay about how I completed this project, but haven't done so yet. Answering questions is a good way to start. It's not complicated but there's many parts to it. It's also a great way to branch out in a field outside of photography while creating a connection between photography and music.

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

Hi Alain,

In my understanding from talking to engineers, producers and labels, it is not a simple process and has many pitfalls. A couple of questions come to mind.

What did you do to protect the songwriters rights?

In my understanding it is one of the most important tasks a publisher has to perform. The most common way to do this is by formally registering songs for copyright protection. In the US, this is done via the US Copyright Office. - How did you do it? -

In the United States, one of the larger issues in terms of protection comes into play when a publisher attempts to license a song to a record label. Since the record label is the entity paying out the mechanical royalties, they can attempt to pay less than the amount they are required in accordance with US copyright law. (According to copyright law, the current royalty rate you are entitled to receive — called the 'statutory mechanical rate' — Cuurently it is rated from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2007 at 9.1 cents or 1.75 cents per minute of playing time or fraction thereof, whichever is greater.

They accomplish this not by breaking the law, but by having you sign documentation that allows the record company to pay you a lower royalty rate or pay royalties on fewer albums. By asking songwriters to accept less money than they are potentially entitled to receive, record companies save millions of dollars in mechanical royalty payments each year, known in industry parlance as a controlled composition clause.

http://www.ascap.com/musicbiz/ascapcorner/corner15.html

How did you arrange the split? Usually this is defined as the share of income that both the publisher and songwriter will be entitled to. Percentages often range from 90/10 in favour of the songwriter to 50/50, usually common when a company invests a large amount of money upfront to a songwriter as an advance against future royalties (advance/recouping).

On a technical level, did you send your material to a mastering house?

 

[Alain Briot]

The CDs & DVDs are produced professionally by a "mastering house" though here it is called a duplicator/replicator.

The copyright is taken care of through the copyright office in Washington. There is a form specifically available for music copyrights to fill out making the process very simple.

Regarding details of the contract I have to talk to Travis regarding whether we should discuss this aspect of music publishing in public, and on this forum, before answering questions.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Here I'd also like you to deal with the choice of the art/photography to go wutg the CD/DVD album.

This part is especially important as music is partly attractive by the picture associated with it.

In this case, where are ithe pictures and how were the deciisons made. After all one can represent the look of the artist or the sense of the music itself or both?

Asher

 

[Alain Briot]

Here I'd also like you to deal with the choice of the art/photography to go wutg the CD/DVD album.

This part is especially important as music is partly attractive by the picture associated with it.

In this case, where are ithe pictures and how were the deciisons made. After all one can represent the look of the artist or the sense of the music itself or both?

Asher

What Travis and I did is select photographs for which Travis composed music based on his inspiration from the locations depicted in each photograph.

Travis and I are intimately familiar with the places depicted in my photographs, since we both lived in Canyon de Chelly (Travis longer than me) and we both visited the Grand Canyon on numerous occasions. This makes it possible to work together on this project without having to explain to each other what each location means in detail.

There was no final selection. The number of photographs we originally selected was equal to the number of songs that were created.

The songs were recorded in chronological order in the Studio . Our goal was to keep the process as simple as we can make it.

The photographs of Travis were taken by me and used on the cover. I took photographs during the recording as well, in the Studio, and these are used inside the CD brochure and in the Commemorative Booklet that is sent to Grand Canyon CD owners. Natalie took the photographs of Travis and I that are used inside the CD Brochure.

 

[Alain Briot]

A very important aspect of this process is the design of the CD insert (the brochure inside the CD Case which folds to show the cover), the CD print (the graphics printed on the CD itself) and the CD back design (the printed piece folded and inserted inside the back of the CD case).

These consist of 3 separate pieces which are very important since they represent the visual appearance of the CD (and the DVD also).

These were all designed by myself in InDesign. I also created an 11x17 promotional poster. All of these are visible on this page:

http://beautiful-landscape.com/Travis-Terry-Navajoland-CD.html

 

[Alain Briot]

I just remembered that I wrote a short piece last year on the process of creating a music CD.

This piece is titled "Becoming a music producer" and is available at this link:

http://beautiful-landscape.com/Thoughts37.html