I dedicate this post to those who endure the process of making cassettes and CDs by hand. It's not easy.
Keep reading to find-out how I made these Dance More CDs. I'll give you my advice in advance.
Dance More by Tetrahedroseph
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DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!
Have them made. If the music is good enough, just pay to have 100 made by someone in your town. If the music is not good enough and you still want to have CDs... pay someone else to make them. A professional will be able to print on the CD and create replicas and save you headaches, gas, COVID-obstacle laden scavenger hunts, over crowded craft stores, and... sh¡t, it's a good thing the worlds best donut shop has two drive-thru lanes.
The following images depict the process I used to create the Jewel case insert, and the CD label's text.
(I smashed several collages together to create a shorted post. I hope it looks good. Short a sweet!)
In the image below we can see preliminary art and sizing experimentation. We can see the actual CD temple I use to achieve a perfectly sized CD insert. (See first image in the second row.)
In the images along the last row of the image above, we can see I am holding up the puffy sticker letters. I purchased these letters at Daiso. (It's gonna be backwards.)
I recognized their foamy surface as something that would work well for holding ink. Almost like a rubber stamp. It soaks-up a lot of the ink, but I'm not worried. I purchased a strong ink pen on the same day. (I'll reveal the pen later, in this post.)
Writing on the CDs by hand didn't appeal to me. I didn't want to write on them by hand, no punk rock... YET!
I want it to look slightly refined and the title, "Dance More" isn't very long. I used those puffy stickers as stamps... backwards, yeah... I'm not sure how to use them forwards, like proper letters.
All good though. I like the backwards look and it looks even better when I add the blue highlighter pen to it. (Luckily the foam soaked up the black ink and it didn't ruin my hight lighter.)
The black ink pen I was referring to earlier is visible in the top row of squares in the image below.
Budget:
Lol, it's so wittle!
I casually kept track of my budget. I quested that I was probably going to spend more than what the total amount my receipts added up to. This budget is low. Maybe $20, only buy clearance items unless the item is very specific. Reuse clean slim cases, make tools like the ol' days... Easier said than done.
Color copies turned out to be about $12. (Not including gas, time, and COVID-19 avoidance.)
Each CD is about $0.65 and the case is about the same... lets just call it $1.45 per CD with it's slim case. I mentioned reusing CD cases, but those are probably going to be "give aways." Also, I purchased a 25 pack of colored slim cases. (I wanted some of the colored cases to match the themes of the various Tetrahedroseph albums.)
(Does not include gas, freelance time, and COVID-19 avoidance stresses and costs.)
I'm not going to include the cost of the nice pen and the other supplies I purchased... YET! I will use them again and I can make them last a long time.
Sub Total: Over $40. (No, not me, the budget.)
Ahh, pew. That was hard and taxing to my budget, but now I know I can do it and that I did do it. Better than nothing. Healthy distraction.
Grand Total-ish: $12 + $4.35 (1.45 x 3) + $2 (Gas) + $10 (Donuts/Chicken Sandwich) is $28.35. I can't include my usual hourly rate.
Have them made professionally. Focus on making the music better. Create all the nice art, imagine it, sleep on it, look at the art again and the when you are convinced, pay for a CD maker to do it. Go to a local guy if you can't afford all that CDBaby, TuneCore stuff.
I was trying to do everything as cheap as possible. Next time, I will use black and white prints only. When that gets old, I'll use black and white images on a colored paper. It all looks great if we laminate it afterwards. (Don't Laminate The CD Label)
MUSIC VIDEOS:
Ha ha, after all that you could have just watched this video:
Songs from "Dance More" have been used in many of the Tetrahedroseph videos on YouTube. We wish those videos were on 3Speak. Hopefully, sometime soon if it's not discouraged by the Hive community.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Cdm_xlbcJy1Hb0DmdkQ_ymdvo8e7ICH
(Unsupported https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1917766719/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/)
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