January Sale at Another Timbre

[simon reynell]

Happy new year, everyone.
There's a January sale at Another Timbre, with virtually all CDs down to £5 and all CDRs at £4.
Plus news of the next batch of releases for the end of January, and a brief statement about future changes to the way the label will operate.
http://www.anothertimbre.com

[laszlo juhasz]

Happy new year, everyone.
There's a January sale at Another Timbre, with virtually all CDs down to £5 and all CDRs at £4.
Plus news of the next batch of releases for the end of January, and a brief statement about future changes to the way the label will operate.
http://www.anothertimbre.com

Osvaldo Coluccino - Atto

Best news so far this year, Simon!

[Dan Warburton]

We want to start adapting to the age of digital distribution and making changes before economics compels us to. Over the past year we have been thinking about what a label is or could be in an era of digital distribution. This process of re-thinking is ongoing, and we welcome your thoughts and opinions about how you would like to see the label change. Over the next year we intend to radically transform the way Another Timbre operates. Though we don’t yet know the details of these changes, they are likely to include offering downloads in addition to discs, and releasing music on CDR more than on CD. We also want the website to become much more central to what we do, offering projects and resources instead of being just a virtual shop window.

I had a real panic about four months ago when I realised that many of my precious CDRs, including my beloved Absurd discs, wouldn't play any more, or skipped or died. How long are these CDR things supposed to last anyway? Upshot being I've been spending far too much time extracting the music from the CDRs as wav files and backing them up on external hard disk. All that to say beware the CDR! Especially when, Simon, some of your best releases are in that format. Anyway, look forward to more details on forthcoming releases.

[simon reynell]

I suspect it all depends what kind of CDRs you use. If you use the cheapest available at Asda / Wal-Mart, then their lifetime is likely to be short. But if you use Taiyo Yudens, then I'd expect anything burnt today to be playable in 25 years - by which time I'll be dead, and hardly anyone will still be listening to music off plastic discs anyway.
AT has sold over 1,500 CDRs - all Taiyo Yuden - and I haven't had a single one returned (whereas I have had a handful of CDs sent back as faulty - albeit from a larger sample, as many more CDs have been sold than CDRs).
Yes, in the ideal world I too would like to stick with CDs, but that's not where we're living (look at the UK government for a start....) The simple fact is that not enough people are buying discs any more, and mostly people now get their music in different ways. Unless you're rich and can afford to subsidise CD production (which I'm not), then it's increasingly unviable to manufacture CDs in niche areas of music like this.
But for me personally there's an upside in going (mainly) to CDRs: it frees the label up from minimum runs of 500, which don't make sense for a lot of the more abstruse music that I seem to enjoy most these days. If it allows me to focus more closely on the particular areas that I'm most interested in, without having to worry about whether there's enough star value attached to sell many copies, or whether critics will get it, then that's ok; simply making the music publicly available is perhaps enough as far as I'm concerned.

[Alastair]

But for me personally there's an upside in going (mainly) to CDRs: it frees the label up from minimum runs of 500,

Simon, have you explored Mobineko http://www.mobineko.com/ ? Minimum runs of 100 for glass-mastered CDs.

[simon reynell]

thanks, Alastair, I did look at them some time ago, but it's certainly a good time to have another look now.

[simon reynell]

Just bumping this because there's only about a week to go on the sale. (thanks to anyone here who has ordered)
Plus there are now audio samples for the new batch of releases on the site: http://www.anothertimbre.com

[Adrian]

those sound very promising - consider them ordered...

[simon reynell]

thanks, Adrian

...in fact double thanks, because with that plus the proceeds from the sale so far, I can probably now afford to put in that order for a helicopter and another giraffe

[billygomberg]

thanks, Adrian

...in fact double thanks, because with that plus the proceeds from the sale so far, I can probably now afford to put in that order for a helicopter and another giraffe

well there really is nothing like that brand new giraffe smell.

[simon reynell]

Wildlife aside, just two days to go on the AT sale. Last chance for grabbing CDs at £5.