Often we advise our clients to obtain an ISRC Code, but what exactly is a ISRC code, where can I get one and how do I apply to the tracks on the cd......
WHAT IS AN ISRC CODE?
The 'International Standard Recording Code' (or ISRC code) is a unique identification system for sound recordings and music video recordings. Each ISRC code identifies a specific unique recording and can be permanently encoded into a product as a kind of digital fingerprint. It can then used for sales tracking by the music download and streaming platforms. So whether your music is being played in Skegness or Sweden, it will be instantly recognised, all thanks to your ISRC code.
Is an ISRC code the same as a barcode?
No. ISRCs are for individual tracks/recordings. Barcodes are for the complete product (album/ep/single) that the tracks come together to make.
What does an ISRC code look like?
An ISRC Code follows a standard template and looks like this:
IE-LFP-19-12345
Let’s break that down:
IE is the country (US for United States / IE for Ireland / AU for Australia)
LFP is the unique letters assigned to your record label (at Ditto Music our code is LFP)
19 is the year
12345 is a unique number assigned by the label themselves. Most record labels assign them sequentially so their first recording of 2016 would be IE-LFP-19-12345
HOW DO I GET AN ISRC CODE?
You can get an ISRC code from the PPI Ireland or similar MCPS / IMRO organisation
And you should never pay for ISRCs. They are always free.
WHY DO I NEED AN ISRC CODE?
Thinking of skipping the ISRC code? Think again! Digital stores will NOT put any track on sale without an ISRC code – they need it for sales tracking.
Also remember, each individual track needs to have a different ISRC code. It’s the recording not the track that it’s attached to. Same applies to releasing music physically. So if you want to release a single online with a couple of remixes, a live version and a b-side, each track will need its own code.
WE WILL APPLY YOUR ISRC CODE FREE OF CHARGE TO ALL OF YOUR TRACKS - JUST ASK !!!
The Eco-Pak is the exceptional alternative to standard jewel case packaging. Made entirley from thick card, the packaging is shatterproof and allows great graphic display. Originally used for the album packaging of leading musicians, this packaging option are now priced reasonably enough to be used for any CD or DVD project. It can be made to accommodate a booklet either by placing in a die-cut slot or gluing onto one of the panels. In addition, the panels can be increased from 4 to 6, 8 or more.
Choose either a Gloss or Matt or Semi Matte / Semi Gloss finish as a finish on the Cardboard Case Album.
OK you spend all that money perfecting your next single release. Its time to get it out to the radio stations or upload to Spotify, but do you really want to send a compressed mp3 to the DJ. Surely it wasn't recorded in a compressed format, is it not best to send high quality wav on cd or FLAC.....
Here we explain the different audio formats and how you could be losing out.....
There are two types of audio quality: lossless and lossy. Lossless music keeps all the audio quality of the original source—in most cases, CD—intact, while lossy music compresses the files for space savings (though at slightly diminished quality). Lossless files include:
WAV and AIFF: Both WAV and AIFF are uncompressed formats, which means they are exact copies of the original source audio. The two formats are essentially the same quality; they just store the data a bit differently. AIFF is made by Apple, so you may see it a bit more often in Apple products, but WAV is pretty much universal. However, since they're uncompressed, they take up a lot of unnecessary space. Unless you're editing the audio, you don't need to store the audio in these formats.
FLAC: The (FLAC) is the most popular lossless format, making it a good choice if you want to store your music in lossless. Unlike WAV and AIFF, it's been compressed, so it takes up a lot less space. However, it's still a lossless format, which means the audio quality is still the same as the original source, so it's much better for listening than WAV and AIFF. It's also free and open source, which is handy if you're into that sort of thing.
Apple Lossless: Also known as ALAC, Apple Lossless is similar to FLAC. It's a compressed lossless file, although it's made by Apple. Its compression isn't quite as efficient as FLAC, so your files may be a bit bigger, but it's fully supported by iTunes and iOS (while FLAC is not). Thus, you'd want to use this if you use iTunes and iOS as your primary music listening software.
APE: APE is a very highly compressed lossless file, meaning you'll get the most space savings. Its audio quality is the same as FLAC, ALAC, and other lossless files, but it isn't compatible with nearly as many players. They also work your processor harder to decode, since they're so highly compressed. Generally, I wouldn't recommend using this unless you're very starved for space and have a player that supports it.
The Lossy Formats: MP3, AAC, OGG, and More
For regular listening, it's more likely that you'll be using a lossy format. They save a ton of space, leaving you with more room for songs on your portable player, and—if they're high enough bitrate—they'll be indistinguishable from the original source. Here are the formats you'll probably run into:
MP3: MPEG Audio Layer III, or MP3 for short, is the most common lossy format around. So much so that it's become synonymous with downloaded music. MP3 isn't the most efficient format of them all, but its definitely the most well-supported, making it our #1 choice for lossy audio. You really can't go wrong with MP3.
Most MP3 encoding software allows the user to select the bit rate when converting files into the MP3 format. The lower the bit rate, the more information the encoder will discard when compressing the file. Bit rates range from 96 to 320 kilobytes per second (Kbps). Using a bit rate of 128 Kbps usually results in a sound quality equivalent to what you'd hear on the radio. Many music sites and blogs urge people to use a bit rate of 160 Kbps or higher if they want the MP3 file to have the same sound quality as a CD.
Some audiophiles -- people who seek out the best ways to experience music -- look down on the MP3 format. They argue that even at the highest bit rate settings, MP3 files are inferior to CDs and vinyl records. But other people argue that it's impossible for the human ear to detect the difference between an uncompressed CD file and an MP3 encoded with a 320 Kbps bit rate.
AAC: Advanced Audio Coding, also known as AAC, is similar to MP3, although it's a bit more efficient. That means that you can have files that take up less space, but with the same sound quality as MP3. And, with Apple's iTunes making AAC so popular, it's almost as widely compatible with MP3. I've only ever had one device that couldn't play AACs properly, and that was a few years ago, so it's pretty hard to go wrong with AAC either.
Ogg Vorbis: The Vorbis format, often known as Ogg Vorbis due to its use of the Ogg container, is a free and open source alternative to MP3 and AAC. Its main draw is that it isn't restricted by patents, but that doesn't affect you as a user—in fact, despite its open nature and similar quality, it's much less popular than MP3 and AAC, meaning fewer players are going to support it. As such, we don't really recommend it unless you feel very strongly about open source.
WMA: Windows Media Audio is Microsoft's own proprietary format, similar to MP3 or AAC. It doesn't really offer any advantages over the other formats, and it's also not as well supported. There's very little reason to rip your CDs into this format.
Quality graphic design is expensive and can be time consuming. Thats why we at CD Duplication Ireland offer this service free of charge. In fact we are the only cd manufacturing company that design your album or single artwork free of charge.
In order for us to re-create your unique design we will require the following
1) Choose what you want designed.... Supply High resolution pictures and indicate what your cover picture should be etc
2) Write the design brief... any specific details - type of font to be used etc
3) Email us your track listing / credits and make sure spellings are correct
There is are quite a few good reasons as to buy your music on cd or vinyl, one in particular is quality but here is interesting article published just this week by cnet - which debates this issue...its definitely food for thought
The fact is, no one has to buy recorded music any more. Most of it is available when and where you want it on YouTube for free. You could also pay for a Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, or whatever subscription. It's basically a rental, which is really convenient, but also has its downsides.
Based on my very unscientific polling on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the folks who buy and collect music are more likely to spend time listening without multitasking. That makes sense to me -- they loved the music enough to buy an LP, CD or download, so their interest was more than casual. They have a deeper connection with music.
Another reason to buy music on LP, CD, or Bandcamp is to support, financially, the bands you love. Many of the collectors who talked to me are adamant in their beliefs that subscription services are cheating artists.
Rock icon Peter Frampton, for example, isn't exactly cleaning up with streaming services. He tweeted this in August of this year: "For 55 million streams of, 'Baby I Love Your Way', I got $1,700. I went to Washington with ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers] last year to talk to law makers about this. Their jaws dropped and they asked me to repeat that for them." A lot of musicians and composers feel cheated by the subscription companies.
Another collector reinforced that point. "As a musician, it's a huge difference between what we make from the sale of a CD, or even a download, let alone vinyl, versus a subscription, which is streaming. The difference is an order of magnitude. If you want to support an artist, buy the physical media, or buy an actual download, preferably from their website or Bandcamp."
In 2018 bands still record music, but its prime function is to promote the band for live shows, which are generally more lucrative. If they're not famous, they probably have little or no expectation of making much income from recorded music. So they record less and less. The band's legacy isn't what it could be.
Another friend tweeted, "I still own the first CDs I bought back in 1992. With streaming, your favorite recording might be deleted overnight. CDs allow you to decide exactly how to build up your library. With streaming you must wait for the service to make a deal with a label, which might never happen."
Someone else said, "...it really comes down to a sense of physical permanency, a footprint of my musical history. That being said my listening now encompasses digital download and streaming as well as CD/vinyl."
When you stop paying for your music subscription, you have nothing. Buying a worthwhile music collection has intrinsic, lasting value. Many of my LPs and CDs are worth many times more than I paid for them. Think about it, a $10-a-month subscription adds up to a $120 a year, in five years that's $600! You could have bought a lot of music with $600.
No doubt subscriptions make sense for a lot of people, but if you really love music enough to see it as something you want to have a long term relationship with, consider buying it. You also get the added benefit of supporting the bands you love by buying a piece of their recorded legacy
1. Don’t print lyrics unless you have sufficient space
Are you thinking of cramming the lyrics to 12 songs onto a four-panel digipack? Where are you going to put the album credits, copyright info, and crowdfunding thank-yous? Who’s going to be able to read that tiny font anyway? Lyrics in the album packaging are great – if you can read them.
2. Don't include social media URLs
Remember when everyone put their MySpace addresses in their album art? How 2005! Social media sites come and go. Even Facebook may soon be yesterday's news. So, consider not putting your social media URLs in your album art. It'll date you. Instead, you absolutely should put your own website's URL in the album art. That will never go out of style; your web address is eternal.
3. Envision your album cover as a thumbnail
The majority of people who encounter your album will do so online. They’ll see a smaller version on digital music platforms like iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon, or on review sites and blogs. Often it will appear as small as a thumbnail. Before you commit to an album cover design, shrink it way down. Does it still capture your attention? If so, you’ve got a winner. If not, try a different approach for your album cover.
4. You might not need your artist name or album title on the cover
Conversely, because most people will see the album online (where retail stores, blogs, and review sites will display your artist name and album title next to the cover), it's less important that your band name and album title appear in bold on the cover art – though that approach worked wonders for The Black Keys. In fact, you might not need them there at all, especially if your CD or vinyl package comes with a sticker on the shrinkwrap that does have your artist and album name. You can let the internet (and that sticker on the packaging) do the magic of conveying the facts, and then use that extra visual space for some great design.
5. Design in CMYK and not RGB
A big no no is design your artwork in RGB. CMYK is the print format that should be applied to all cd / vinyl artwork - we have more on this on our blog.
6. Get your fans to interact with you online
Putting your website address in your CD booklet is fine (and you totally should do that, of course), but if you can offer a little something extra, you'll increase the chances that someone who bought your album will go online and check out your site. Make sure the text in your album art mentions that visitors to your website will get access to an exclusive download, essay, PDF, etc. – in exchange for an email address.
7. Album covers with faces get more attention
We don’t really have any hard data to back up this claim (though it'd be interesting to look into), but for many of us at CD Baby who see hundreds of new album submissions every day, it seems like album covers that feature actual human faces draw more attention to themselves than ones that have... something else. Maybe it's just that feeling of personal connection which comes from seeing someone's eyes, or that you can get an instantaneous sense of the artist's musical style and aesthetic based on his or her fashion, posture, the setting of the photo, etc. But something about those covers (when done well) seem more immediate and engaging.
8. If you’re not going to feature a human face, make sure your design is striking and original
Your album design shouldn't just look cool. It should convey something about your musical style and even your personal beliefs. For a great example of a record that breaks the rules and sends a message with its album art, check out Aphex Twin’s Syro, where the cover shows an itemized list of every expense that went into creating and marketing the record (instrument costs, promotional meet-and-greets, advertising, etc.).
9. Minimalism is in
This is probably related to number three and number four above, but the starker the image, the more it seems to capture our attention. Maybe the modern sensibility is, "Things'll get shrunk, so things should stay simple." After all, it'd be really difficult to make out all the faces on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s when reduced to a thumbnail.
10. Print your artist and album name clearly on the spine
Imagine your CD is sitting on the shelves of a radio station library. Can you find the disc among all those other albums? Many DJs are still heavily reliant on CDs, and they need to be able to pull your disc off the shelves quickly. It's for this very reason that many stations don’t even accept albums sent to them in thin sleeve packaging. So if you’re serious about a radio promotion campaign, you should consider packaging your CDs in digipacks or jewel cases, and then be sure that the writing on the spine is big, bold, and highly legible.
MP3 is a file format. It is a digital object which contains data. That data can be read by a program and interpreted as music, speech, or other sound. Fun! There are many different files which can store sound, each with its own respective parameters, strengths, and weaknesses. MP3 is among the most common because it is compatible with many different programs, it compromises fidelity and quality for speed and size-efficiency, and it is a generalized tool rather than a specific one (meaning it is useful in more places for more people and thus proliferates). MP3s, like many other audio formats, can be put on a CD, whether for storage or playback.
CD is a physical format. It is a physical medium (an optical disc, to be more detailed) that stores digital data which can be read by a device and interpreted as all sorts of things. This commonly means programs (games, antivirus suites, graphic design utilities, music or video, etc), but nearly any sort of file can be written to a CD—text documents, pictures, proprietary work project files, business card information, and so forth. In some ways, it is like a tiny portable hard drive, unlike MP3 which is a way of organizing information in a self-contained way on something like a hard drive.
Audio CD is a CD (physical medium) which is designed for audio, or is pressed or burned with audio data. Formally released audio CDs will generally meet particular industry standards, ones which surpass your run-of-the-mill blank CDs. Those blank CDs can also be burned with audio data and play similarly to CDs which were pressed by a factory, but most burning processes will not follow the same exacting standards of professionally created audio CDs. The term “audio CD” is often useful in situations where multiple kinds of discs or disc content are included in a product or it is not clear what form certain content will be taking.
So, digital files and physical formats are different because they are different kinds of technologies serving different purposes. They are related insofar as they can work together for us to meet particular goals, like playing some music while driving, but they are independent tools and different types of objects.
Audio CDs are a particular kind or use of CDs. Sometimes it means that the disc is a special kind of disc which is designed for or mostly limited to burning audio, other times it simply indicates that a disc contains audio (as opposed to video, a program, or other data).
One final thing to mention is that audio CDs should contain lossless audio sources (usually burned as WAV files)—putting MP3s on a CD means you are losing out on quality and versatility. If MP3s are all you have, you can still put them on a CD, whether for archiving or to make a playable disc, but it is better to get the original files or highest quality copies desired when putting audio on a CD. This is particularly true if you are wanting to play something through a speaker system, sell a product, or share audio files with someone who will be using them for something more than just listening (such as composing music or doing forensic analysis).
The compact disc is a miracle of modern technology. Here are some facts:
They are made principally of injection-moulded polycarbonate.
The diameter is 120mm.
They are 1.2mm thick.
They contain up to 680 megabytes of data. This is the equivalent of 250,000 double-sided leaves (500,000 pages) of A4 text (which would be 83 feet high and need 8 trees to make).
The music on a CD is imprinted in the form of pits of varying length on a spiral track 3.52 miles (5.66 kilometres) long.
There are approximately 16,000,000,000 pits 0.11 micro-metres deep.
The largest pit dimension is 3.054 microns; the smallest is 0.833 microns.
The width of the pits is half a micron -- which is the distance a human hair grows in two minutes and a fingernail in seven minutes. It is 700 times smaller than a pinprick.
The space between tracks is 1.6 micro-metres.
Read by a red-light laser beam, the CD plays from the centre to the edge, rotating at a speed varying from 400 times a minute at the beginning to 250 times a minute at the end. This is equivalent to flying round the earth one inch above the surface, up to 400 times a minute, counting every blade of grass on the way.
Your CD is read by the laser beam and makes over 44,000 arithmetical calculations every second in at least two dimensions. It is adding up columns of numbers ('digits'). But many of the numbers are missing because there are thousands of errors on the average CD. Therefore the numbers are added up laterally as well as vertically, enabling the CD-player to fill in the missing numbers by cross-checking them. This is all quite normal and is called 'error correction'.
When a disc is inserted into a CD player, the disc’s track is scanned by a low-intensity infrared laser with a 1-micrometre-diameter focal point. In order for the laser to maintain a constant scanning rate, the disc’s rotation rate decreases from 500 to 200 revolutions per minute as the light beam spirals out from the disc’s centre. (Some CD players use two additional lasers to help control the disc’s rotation and the scanning laser’s focus.) When the light beam strikes a land, it is reflected back to a photodiode, and an electrical pulse is generated. When the light beam strikes a pit, however, no electrical pulse is generated. This is because light reflected from the pit, which has a depth of approximately one-quarter the wavelength of the scanning infrared beam (0.78 micrometre), is out of phase with light reflected from the adjacent separation track, and thus the reflected light is reduced below the level necessary to activate the photodiode. Each “dark” pit on the track is interpreted (based on its length) as a sequence of 0s in binary logic, and each “bright” land is interpreted (again based on its length) as a sequence of 1s. A device known as a digital-to-analog convertor is necessary to translate—and correct for data misread because of minor surface blemishes on the disc or imperfect laser alignment—this binary information into audio signals for playback (see alsodigital-to-analog conversion). The standard CD will hold more than one hour of music.
The laser scanning method employed in compact disc playersAn infrared laser is focused onto the metallic reflective layer of the disc, where a spiral track of “pits” and “lands” represents the zeros and ones of digital signals. The return signal is converted by a photodiode sensor into a digital electric signal, which is converted to analog form for reproduction of the original recorded sound. Optical recording, introduced by Sony Corporation and Philips Electronics N.V. in 1982, allows accurate reproduction of sound over virtually the entire range of human hearing.E
One of the most common questions we get asked at CD Duplication Ireland is, how come the names of the tunes dont appear on my CD .... here lies the answer
It's important to do the following:
Upload Your CD Metadata to Gracenote
Gracenote is a free service that maintains and licenses an Internet database of album content and information. It is through Gracenote that services like iTunes and Windows Media Player have your album info and share it with millions of users. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to upload your finished project using iTunes to the Gracenote database.
NEEDS:
To upload, you will need a physical copy of your album (ideally a final pressing), iTunes, and a reliable Internet connection.
UPLOADING VIA ITUNES (v10):
Place your CD into your computer’s disk drive.
When iTunes opens up, DO NOT import the CD into your library. Simply click “No” in the dialog box.
Select your first track then right click and select “Get Info”.
Fill in all the information in the “Get Info” tab, then click “Next” and continue the process until all the tracks have information.
Now, within iTunes, select the “Advanced” tab and click “Submit CD Track Names”.
Wait 2-3 days. Gracenote has many servers around the world, and sometimes it can take a little while to make it to all of them. Then, place the CD back in your drive. Now go to “Advanced” and select “Get CD Track Names”.
The album information is now coming from the Gracenote servers.
The steps are similar if you are using earlier versions of iTunes. For example, If you are using v1, follow the guide below:
Gracenote may think that your album information has already been uploaded. If this is the case, simply hit “Cancel” on the dialog box and continue with steps 1 and 2 from above.
Go to “Options” and select “Submit CD Track Names”.
A new “CD Info” box will pop up. Fill that with the applicable information and then hit “OK”.
An “Accessing Gracenote” scroll bar then dialog box informing you that your information has been uploaded to Gracenote.
Wait 2-3 days. Place the CD back in your drive and go to “Options” then select “Get CD Track Names”.
The album information is now coming from the Gracenote servers.
If there are any issues with your upload, please contact Gracenote support to diagnose your specific issue.
Below is a link that provides a similar step-by-step guide and answers to general FAQs that you may come across.
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