[Deströyer]

Question: when did the price of demo tapes of new bands suddenly rocket? The trend now seems to be pro-pressed glossy printed coloured tapes for demos. What ever happened to just blank C90 tapes copied by the label/band with a black and white (printed or xeroxed) insert? This seems to have all but disappeared, but I'm only talking maybe 5 years ago or so. When placing an order at a distro I hardly ever buy a random demo tape anymore...
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[Fallen_Empire]

The latter still exists, no doubt.
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[Saevus]

I've been getting plenty of home dubbed tapes lately, but mostly directly from bands. The last one was pretty expensive, but when I did the math, the band charged me around a buck after postage.

I have nothing against pro tapes though. I personally think it's worth it to just go ahead and get 1-300 pro tapes done. Cheapest format to get done in low quantities.

One thing people should start doing more of is dubbing demos they get and spreading them to their friends. Who cares if you are directly getting it from the band or have an original copy. Demos are for getting as many people to hear your music as possible early on.
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[N.W.D]

I'm still getting more dubbed demos (with xeroxed inserts) than pro pressed demos. Only change I've seen is in the postage prices.
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[Vega360]

People have forgotten what a demo is, nowadays people will put 40 minute full lengths onto tape cause nobody can afford to make CDs and people just want to vomit out music mindlessly. You say slow down, nobody under stands, they just vomit out more music. I've forgotten so many bands that I'll hear their first recordings and be like "yeah there is potential here" then just watch them do something stupid to piss it all away.

Making pro covers is actually a lot easier and nicer looking then just going to the copy place, plus it is much much less work. However a lot of those titles that you see like aren't actually demos, just tape albums or tape EPs. Honestly there isn't much appeal to sell actual demos. Usually that kind of shit gets sent to labels by the bands as either CD-r's or online stuff.

The price jump is mostly thanks to us American here making a mess of everything by letting the art project/collector's item aspect of noise creep into tapes. For noise that kinda makes sense as noise is more about performance art then black metal is (hence why the two can't function when attempted to be blended together and why I'll never have a black metal band) but for black metal it is simply dumb.

But despite how dumb it is, there is money in it and stupid people will buy it. Discgo's just made it worse, I see the prices for some of this and just get mad.

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?label=Winter+Solace+Productions&ev=lb

I put time and effort into giving the world those tapes and seeing people charge anything more then what I'm charging just pisses me off.

Another aspect of why prices increase for tapes is because most people are having to substitute tapes for CDs (as tapes are a great way to prevent piracy) and thus you gotta go make them at a factory or import chrome tapes (something that may result in a WS distro price increase if I ever get money/time to upgrade equipment here) because again tapes are the format for poor people and I highly doubt anyone will ever have money to mindlessly buy underground Lps or CDs anymore.
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[under a funeral shroom]

Heh, was just going to mention the noise scene and cassettes. Sometimes the packaging is worth it but then there are $40 Hospital Productions tapes sealed in a 50 cent white envelope that are dubbed as poorly as a Crepusculo Negro release. Not that I waste money on those.

[astralvesl]

[Demoniarch]

...interest in pro printing all goes hand in hand with... you got it! Collectors and collecting appreaciates and desires fancy over ...well dubs I suppose.

Everyone these days wants a slick factory job over a slightly less than perfect 'copy' via a dub or photo copy of the cover.

Thats my guess as to changes where demo's are concerned.

[Haunt In The Dark]

It's been hinted at already but I think demos are getting more and more expensive because the term is losing its meaning and people don't use them to show what they're up to, to find a label, etc... Nowadays, people are using them as proper releases (and then hope to have them reissued on label by some idiot with too much money to waste.) What bothers me the most with that trend is how crappy the quality of those demos repressed on vinyl can be at times.

I also don't really like glossy covers or pro-printed tapes for demos.

FYI, one of my bands just got 100 tapes pro-pressed and it costed ca 120€ for everything, including shipping from another country to us. Even if we make some nice photocopies for the cover, we'll be more than breaking even selling them for 2€ per copy...

[Dalen]

I think 4€ for a tape is ok. I do think it's kinda losing its beauty when full releases are put out on tape format though. There are really few albums I own on tape, I mostly prefer to buy some demo, or ep on this format, unless I can get something dirt cheap.. I never say no to an extra well priced goodie, hehe.
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[S.P.]

[Werewolf]

[Pestkrieg]

I know it's already been raised, but the price and availability of equipment to make a good quality makes the demo issue somewhat redundant.

In the past, demos were made to 'demonstrate' the potential of a band to a label, who would then give them the finances to make a professional quality recording. That's not the case anymore, certainly not within the underground, where very few labels pay for recordings and something like the Bolzer demo tape has the audio quality of an album.

A good quality recording should be released on the best sounding format, in my opinion.

[ADB]

Ummm, actually, demo tapes were originally meant to get you gigs at pubs. The whole label deal thing came way after that
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[medarov]

Tapes are expensive these days. 4-5 euros for a tape...fuck it. Still...here blank tapes are pretty cheap, despite the fact that only one workshop/office is still dealing with them. Something like 0.40 euros for a 30-minutes tape with case. Also they put logos and song-titles. It looks something like this:



If you have proper dub-system and do it yourself, than tape+dub+layout will be something like 1-1,5 euros.
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