The best way to a stress-free manufacturing process and flawless finished product is to ensure all the elements of your project are in perfect shape when they arrive at our plant. The extra care and time you take in preparing your materials before production will be rewarded with deadlines being met and lots of happy fans and bandmates. Here are some things to keep in mind when preparing your order:
1. Your audio master
Make sure your audio master (the disc you’re sending us–or file you're uploading–of your finished recording) sounds and functions exactly the way you want it to. The finished discs you get back from us will be an exact match of the master you send us (unless you’re ordering post-production mastering), so it’s important that your master sounds exactly the way you want it to, with all of the tracks in the correct order and the right amount of spacing between songs.
If you need professional mastering, the audio engineers at The SoundLAB at Disc Makers can give your music the soaring highs and booming lows you need to compete with the other releases out there. They’ll even do a free mastering review to let you know if your recording would benefit from post-production mastering.
2. Your design files
If you are providing completed graphics in a Disc Makers CD template, there is a lot you can do to ensure your finished product looks greata nd your project moves along as smoothly as possible.
- Make sure you leave the size of the template page as is. Simply place your art into the print area following the bleed, trim, and safety guides as shown. Don't copy the template elements into a new page of your own, crop the page, or move any of the template elements around.
- When you're happy with your design, export your file from your design program as a PDF/X-4. This PDF export preset yields a high-resolution, press-ready file for the best possible results on your printed product. If you'd like to see how to export a PDF/X-4 from the design programs that we support, we've made videos to show you how it's done.
- Before you export, make sure the "Template Guides" layer is hidden or set to non-printing. If the Template Guides layer is on or printable, the guides are going to show up on your finished product. You can verify that you've exported your PDF properly (without the guides) by opening the PDF you've exported and taking a quick look before you upload.
- If your file is taking a really long time to upload, it may be the result of unnecessarily high-resolution image files or complex, un-flattened artwork. Make sure your images do not exceed 300 dpi at 100% output size and complex transparency effects are flattened before you export your PDF.
Read all of our design FAQs for answers to more of your questions.
If you need professional design services, consider the award-winning professionals at the Design Studio at Disc Makers. You’ve poured your heart, soul, time, and money into the writing, arranging, rehearsing, performing, and recording of your music–don’t let amateur design bring your project down.
3. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) & mechanical licenses
Before we can legally reproduce the product you’re ordering, we need to know that you own the rights to the music. Without a completed IPR form, we cannot start your order. Click here for more information about Intellectual Property Rights, samples, copyrights, and more.
You'll need to make several decisions about how you want your final product to look and feel!
This is the first step - You'll need to create and save a quote - https://www.discmakers.com/quoter/default.aspx or give us a call at 800 468 9353 and we can guide you through this!
You'll need artwork templates to design with (These can be downloaded after you have saved a quote) or (you can design online for many of our packaging options)
You'll need artwork (images, text, etc)
You'll need content (individual audio tracks, master disc, etc)
You'll need to complete an IPR form stating ownership or the rights to manufacture (located in your saved project and completed after you upload your content)
You may need copyright or licensing information - https://support.discmakers.com/hc/en-us/articles/214496667-Disc-Makers-guide-to-copyrights-and-licensing
You may need Audio manufacturing agreements (if this is a compilation project)
You'll need the funds to complete your order.