Glad to see you participate stephen, and for the transparency you offer.
I have no experience with releasing music on vinyl, but the price you mention seems to be pretty hefty, coming in at almost $10 per vinyl.
i’ve heard about minimum starting prices for which you get 500 copies so that’d mean a 100 copies are 5 times as expensive. I can understand people not wanting to press 500 in fear of not selling their stock, or even bringing the pressing down further to make it something collectable.
Choosing to press only 100 is pushing it a bit forcefully into that field Stephen while making cost of manufacturing needlessly high but alas that’s your decision.
Your way of producing the sleeves also doesnt seem a very cost effective way and like deutschmark says there are labels doing very creative DIY cover art that does not seem to reflect in the selling price. Kernkrach did a fantastic job with that, every release a piece of art.
Then finally, ebay indeed asks money, but you dont accept any direct sales either so again this cost is indirectly transferred to the buyer.
Ultimately all your choices inflated the cost of production to a certain pricepoint you probably thought was still acceptable to people. Pressing only 50 would have made the ebay selling price close to double what it is now. Not many people would want to pay that kind of amount for a new release.
For me, the current price, including shipping goes way beyond what i pay for any new release. Truth told, i think the MW releases are too expensive as well, making me more selective than i would have liked to be.
In the end, i’m just sad this release will only find its way into a handful of collectors that are willing to pay the price for it. This band deserves a wider audience. Hence my qualification in the previous post.
Thanks for your response and clarity about your thoughts and processes. My feeling is that, while such music cannot be expected to appeal to a huge number of people (without a celebrity endorsement or something), and not wanting the curse of boxes of unsold records to fall on anyone, it’s a shame when this music is accessible more to collectors (and price speculators) than to a wider potential audience including young artists and musicians such as those who created this sort of music to begin with.* It’s a choice about who the music is meant for.
As far as the Anna Logue orange vinyl edition, such things don’t concern me - I am interested in the music above the colour of the object that holds it. The entire edition of that record is not so severely limited; there are only some copies superficially different. I am glad that release is also available on CD; I do like vinyl but it is heavy to move, expensive to ship, sometimes having extra noises even when it is new, etc.
First I thought you may have made a few points here, but I understand that any second of discussion with you is useless and a waste of time. Your razor-sharp logic and endless wisdom is mind-blowing (apart from you obviously being able to pre-dict the future or market trends .... I think the top brokers on Wall Street are pining over to get you on board….):
[quote author=“obscure”]
I think the only people that are going to make money from my release are the ones that buy it. The first copy that just sold for $41.00 is now worth over $100 instantly.
I understand we do live on the same planet but in too different worlds. I do not want to be part of your world, so please excuse me for crashing into it, it was my own fault, so I recede.
Collector’s value is what people are willing to pay for something, basically. Even with the artificial shortage, these aren’t actually worth 100 dollars, since no one wanted to pay that much. How much is it worth? There is one copy on ebay every week, and the starting bid is around forty dollars. The first copy went for 41 dollars.
That means only two collectors tried to get their copy this week, the other one will get his copy next week. After that, who knows how many you’ll be able to get rid of! The record industry is a harsh place, there are lots of records that no one wants.
For the next 80 weeks, there will be brand spanking new copies available for 40 dollars. If someone wants to pay that, it’s worth 40 dollars. When it’s sold out, the value might rise, but it might also fall.
... I wonder if this logic seems logical to Obscure.
Well, whaddaya know. Both releases sold. The second vinyl went for $48, with four bids, and the second cassette went for 30.99, with two bids. This may be a workable business model after all, but I hope not; it’s too expensive and takes too much time, both for the band, the label and the prospective buyers. There are 78 weeks to go of this!
[quote author=“Bjakk”]Well, whaddaya know. Both releases sold. The second vinyl went for $48, with four bids, and the second cassette went for 30.99, with two bids. This may be a workable business model after all, but I hope not; it’s too expensive and takes too much time, both for the band, the label and the prospective buyers. There are 78 weeks to go of this!
Pure commercially, I think it’s a way of working that could turn out fine for the seller. If all the costs (production + band) are already paid, the only person that still needs his money, is the seller. And if the seller can wait more than one year to get his investment back (with a nice margin), than it’s more advantageous than putting your money on a bank account. Thereabove, by posting here, the seller gets free marketing support and the price can only go up. Don’t forget that the music for itself is, in my humble opinion, very good, so it’s not as if the seller tries to sell hip hop for minimal synth.
I understand both opinions in these matters, but, after all, aren’t we all guilty ? I mean, when I buy records directly from the labels, it’s the only time that I don’t feel ripped off. But, how many times did I already try to buy or trade stuff from “collegue-collectors” and how many times do we ALL get the feeling afterwards that the seller tries to get the maximum of money out of this trade/transaction ? Very normal, I would say, everybody tries to pay the least of money for the maximum of vinyl. So, if a seller tries to do what we, re-sellers, are trying to do, I can live with that. Okay, it’s not the most “buyer friendly” way of working, but I can understand it. (This does NOT mean that I approve this way of working).
where does this guy get off auctioning his @ $29.99 opening bid!?
I can sell anything I want for how much ever I want, and so can anyone else.
This is the truth. Your self righteousness comes accross as arrogant and absurd, and is most likely not truly what you believe.
honestly, i think the $39.99 opening bid for ATMM is annoying, and a tasteless/ineffective way to run a minimal synth re-issue label, but ultimately, this expensive price makes sense with your logic - sounds like very cool music, is authentic early ‘80s minimal synth, and with 80 copies only in existence, it will surely accumulate value in the future. then again, the same would probably be true if you pressed 300 copies and sold it like the rest of the labels on here do. you can create a collector’s item without being tacky about it
as for the tape, yeah sure, you can sell it for whatever you want, but i find it beyond arrogant that you deem your own little minimal synth parodies as being instant collector’s items worth this kind of money.
[quote author=“obscure”]that and the fact that this is practically a minimal synth spoof
There are plenty of people with it on their favourites items to watch on ebay so I would say your opinion is in the minority! as well as it being a cheap shot that you obviously know is false. Do you want me to start putting down quotes of what other people have said about the release? And these are people whose musical taste I respect.
if your music sounded good to me, i wouldn’t say otherwise. to me it sounds like a mockery of “minimal synth” - a spoof… IMO there are a lot of “minimal synth” fans who think every single unheard record with a synth + drummachine recorded ‘79-‘83 is amazing. i’m not one of those people. i don’t care if you gathered glowing review quotes from the top 100 minimal synth collectors in the world - i have my own ears, and i think your tape sounds like a joke. sorry, but that’s my opinion. i will be very surprised if you are able to sell more than 20 of these tapes for $29.99 or more.
personally, i hope that you don’t - i’m hoping your business model fails, so that it reduces your chances of getting the rights to reissue more cool stuff in this tacky way. you getting the rights to the ATMM release deprives most of us from owning this record. i know i won’t buy it, on principle alone
[quote author=“solvent”] IMO there are a lot of “minimal synth” fans who think every single unheard record with a synth + drummachine recorded ‘79-‘83 is amazing. i’m not one of those people. i don’t care if you gathered glowing review quotes from the top 100 minimal synth collectors in the world - i have my own ears, and i think your tape sounds like a joke.
just to clarify this:
the people who are aware of your tape, are “Ebay Minimal Synth Collectors”... now i don’t want to suggest that this is the case with all of them, but for the most part, i consider these people more as collectors, not music connoisseurs. how else can it be explained that even the shittiest obscure minimal synth records are worth paying loads of money for, to them? there is absolutely no synth+drummachine+‘79-‘83+rare record that they won’t pay absurd amounts of money for - if it’s rare… “obscure”... it’s good. i don’t respect the musical opinions of people like this. if they say your tape is good, IMO it is all about how you’ve presented it - they’re suckers for this BS - and little or nothing to do with the music, which IMO is such a parody of minimal synth music, it is practically making fun of the person who will actually sit there and listen to it.
Thanks for appealing to my lesser instincts and pressing my morbid curiosity button, I hadn’t listened to future collector item nr. 1 Aspect Ratio yet, but reading your post I’m afraid I couldn’t resist.
What can I say?
Things you should do in the kitchen: cook something nice, do the washing-up afterwards.
Things you shouldn’t do in the kitchen: try to sing if you can’t & record it.
Gee, if the expression “beyond parody” didn’t exist already, this would be the perfect moment to come up with it…. 8)
But if you good people will excuse me now, I need to record the sound of the clipping of my toenails on a 0-track recorder in my closet in order to make it a 0-copy deluxe edition wrapped in yesterday’s paper…just keep a watchful eye out for it on Ebay….
You are so jealous, and envious of the Aspect Ratio cassette it is palpable.
Why else would you post two separate tirades?
Also, that was a nice non arrogant move to say on a minimal synth forum that all minimal synth collectors have bad musical taste, and your opinion is the correct one.
If I’m not mistaken by a myspace page for Solvent you make techno minimal synth?!
You are free to your opinion, but when someone that makes techno music criticizes minimal synth it should obviously be deemed meritless to people that listen to minimal synth.
Also, It is nice to know that you want the All the Madmen LP as well. I appreciate your endorsement.
I have to go now, but I will respond to everyone soon.
Stephen
p.s. Aspect Ratio- Dimensions Unseen 03 of 100 already has a bid, and there are many people with it on their favourites.
come on now please, this is getting silly. But, with all respect stephen, I can understand the sentiment of “trying to sound like” which is problematic when it is not quite there yet imo. To put things in perspective, it reminds me more of Sonic Mushroom than Transparent Illusion.
Selling it at such a high pricepoint (there seems no justification similar to the one you posted for ATMM) is like enjoying your own farts under the blanket.
[quote author=“solvent”]
how else can it be explained that even the shittiest obscure minimal synth records are worth paying loads of money for, to them? there is absolutely no synth+drummachine+‘79-‘83+rare record that they won’t pay absurd amounts of money for - if it’s rare… “obscure”... it’s good. i don’t respect the musical opinions of people like this.
I have to object to this both as an observation and way of thinking.
First off all this is similar to the mentality of people not interested in anything they are not familiar with. Play anything not directly related to Depeche Mode and you empty a floor on a DM party in less than three seconds (fond memories of berlin what you olaf?). The vast majority of clubs have an audience that will simply refuse to dance to anything that hasnt been featured in the top 40 the last few decades. So many people casually familiar with minimal synth seem to be only interested in the typical flexipop hits.
Then as an observation. Have you actually heard some of those obscure “shitty records” that went for a lot of money? i sincerely doubt so or you wouldnt have said this. But you are free to prove me wrong.
There are literally thousands of obscure and rare synth and new wave records that get sold for a nickel and dime if at all.There are even hundreds of very good obscure and rare records that get sold for a nickel and a dime. It’s what keeps me alive. Those few obscure records that do go for a lot of money…well as a rule they are indeed really, really good. Your observation is simply untrue unless you based it on one certain item that caused the last stir around here on MW.
gosh, i was so pissed off by the attitude that i haven’t even bothered to check the actual music
so this yamaha psr transparent illusion wannabe is the great mr Stephen himself ? :D i just can’t help being nasty and i’m sorry for that, but this is simply hilarious
