AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF PROMOTIONAL OR DEMO MUSIC RELEASES:
The CD advertised here is a promotional release .... never intended for commercial sale.
This type of CD is commonly distributed by record labels or even the artists themselves with the intention of creating interest in a new release.
Unless noted below, this is exactly the same as the commerical release but in a very basic form - often just the CD or at best, the CD with some bio/song information.
Most important:
Usually (but not always) these releases are made using CDr media NOT pressed CD's that you will find in a retail store.
Also the face of the CD can be either screen printed, inkjet printed or thermal printing direct to the CD.
Both the choice of media and the type of printing comes down to the costs involved in have a "full blown' screen printed/pressed CD and the numbers required. Often a record label or the artist may only want to send out 100 copies and these sort of quantities are simply not viable to have screen printed and pressed, besides, most CD manufacturers will not accept such small numbers.
So the label either undertakes to make 'short runs' themselves or engages a 3rd party provider (that is what my business used to do years ago) to produce the smaller numbers.
SPECIAL NOTE:
The following information DOES NOT apply to this CD but this is for a 'heads up' re some of these promotional releases
Unfortunately, 'in house' production can lead to problems if the label/distributor doesn't use the correct media type (not all CDr's are created equal, especially for audio writing - there are well known reliable brands (Taio Yunden is a good one) and then 'others' which give rise to issues being read. Unfortunately some of the promotional CD's I have fall into this group and I will be listing these separately as complete 'give aways' because they have TOC problems (won't read properly) on my TASCAM and MARANTZ station equipment but with perserverence they 'probably' can be read - I am not going to go to that bother and will just collect them all together and offer as one lot - once I have a decent number built up.
Packaging is also usually very basic, a plastic sleeve is common, perhaps coloured paper or even a clamshell style of case (not often though as this increases the costs considerably)
The idea is to produce a product that hopefully gets airplay or at least a favourable critique by a program manager. Artists will also offer these for sale at their gigs to help make a little bit of extra cash on the night or to promote other (previous) commercial releases.
With these things in mind, treat the media with respect and MAKE SURE your CD player can cope with reading CDr media (some older equipment has trouble)
Never use a cleaning solution on the face, particularly inkjet but it also applies to a thermal print - it will be substantially damaged if you do clean the CD face!
Why would you want one of the 'promotional releases'?
Sometimes there are unique releases, promo's that were sent out and for various reasons there never was a commercial release i.e they can be very hard to find.
Some music lovers collect ALL music by a particular artist, no matter if it is demo's (highly sought after due to their nature of often being 'raw product') or a promotional release.
These promotional releases were NEVER intended for sale!
I am NOT selling this CD and my asking price is to barely cover the time of describing each release and listening to the entire CD to ensure there are no technical or audio problems. I don't have masses of these for each artist, usually just one copy.
Record labels do sometimes use special encoding on their audio discs so that they can read back the embedded data and this allows them to track where a promotional release has come from, who it was originally provided to and maintain control of their promotional releases.
These are NOT illegal "rip's"
NEVER EVER STEAL AN ARTIST'S MUSIC or the property of a record label - it deprives them of income and devalues their hard work.
JUNIOR BOYS - It's All True
Domino Records
Cat# PROMOTIONAL PRODUCT RELEASE
2011
Australian 'industry only' release
Simple clear wallet with track listing sticker on one side. CD face is thermal printed (Rimage or similar equipment) NOT inkjet!
NOTE: Domino have 'watermarked' this CD to assist tracing the source if copied and provided to others. This watermarking inserts a small data sequence into the usual datastream and it can be read separately from the music with suitable software. We made a number of tests of this technology when we were involved in short run production but quite frankly found it to be unreliable.
CDr media is in very good condition, visually inspected under a bright white halogen light source and I can see NO marks or scratches at all - pristine.
Even though CDr media can 'look' great, I always play the release in case something was not quite right - writing a CDr for audio use can be 'touchy' at times. especially if the incorrect CDr media formulation is used, I have played the ENTIRE release, every track, and there are NO issues with playback at all on any track.
TRACKS: Itchy Fingers, Playtime, You'll Improve Me, A Truly Happy Ending, The Reservoir, Second Chance, Kick The Can, EP, Banana Ripple
