cv313 - Seconds to Forever

Has anyone received his copy yet? I see people in Discogs saying how great this album is and I haven't got it by mail yet. Also everybody seems to have respected the label's will to keep this release exclusive, ie NOT LEAKED.

  On 8/12/2011 at 12:30 AM, Enter a new display name said:

Has anyone received his copy yet? I see people in Discogs saying how great this album is and I haven't got it by mail yet. Also everybody seems to have respected the label's will to keep this release exclusive, ie NOT LEAKED.

Not received mine yet, but then I am in the UK. To be honest I'm still a little worried because my Discogs order still says "New Order" as the status, but then Matt is organising this all on his own so I guess it's taking some time to sort it all out.

I wanted to buy it but $30 plus shipping for a jewel-case CD seems pretty outrageous, even if I love the music on it.

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:43 AM, Mellow U said:

I wanted to buy it but $30 plus shipping for a jewel-case CD seems pretty outrageous, even if I love the music on it.

Those were the promo copies before the real copies were manufactured. They are actually released in a digipak. See for yourself: http://www.discogs.com/cv313-Seconds-To-Forever-Extended-Live-Excursion/release/2983083

Just got mine in the mail yesterday. I'm not a collector but putting the serial number on a sticker on the outside packaging made me lol.

Only listened to it once so far but the musics are ace. About to blaze and have a second go at it

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:49 AM, Enter a new display name said:

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:43 AM, Mellow U said:

I wanted to buy it but $30 plus shipping for a jewel-case CD seems pretty outrageous, even if I love the music on it.

Those were the promo copies before the real copies were manufactured. They are actually released in a digipak. See for yourself: http://www.discogs.c...release/2983083

Never once saw anything of the sort mentioned on the official Echospace Facebook feed, other than "Oh we've pressed 100 more due to high demand", which is kinda bullshit I think since there is still not an "official" larger pressing run of this, digipak or otherwise.

Also, if the "real copies" were released after the "promo copies" then where were they for sale under the $30 mark?

Coming back to my post, I don't want you to think I'm being angry with you, I'm just generally put off by the whole situation. I run a couple small record labels, and have pressed up several releases in the EXACT same fashion as this in the past (jewel case, manufactured CD, run of only a couple hundred) and let me tell you, there is NO reason they should have to charge so much per unit for that. They're selling the release for a collector's price before it's even hit a collector's market! That'd be like if the only way to buy tickets for a concert was from a scalper for three times the normal cost. So lame, esp. coming from one of my favorite artists.

  On 8/12/2011 at 8:56 AM, Mellow U said:

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:49 AM, Enter a new display name said:

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:43 AM, Mellow U said:

I wanted to buy it but $30 plus shipping for a jewel-case CD seems pretty outrageous, even if I love the music on it.

Those were the promo copies before the real copies were manufactured. They are actually released in a digipak. See for yourself: http://www.discogs.c...release/2983083

 

Never once saw anything of the sort mentioned on the official Echospace Facebook feed, other than "Oh we've pressed 100 more due to high demand", which is kinda bullshit I think since there is still not an "official" larger pressing run of this, digipak or otherwise.

 

Also, if the "real copies" were released after the "promo copies" then where were they for sale under the $30 mark?

There was a pressing of 250 copies, whereof 150 was initially planned to be sold and the rest for the labels own people and whatnot. They then sold 50 more copies to the public due to the high demand. Matthew explains this in the thread on discogs.

  On 8/12/2011 at 9:59 AM, azatoth said:

  On 8/12/2011 at 8:56 AM, Mellow U said:

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:49 AM, Enter a new display name said:

  On 8/12/2011 at 1:43 AM, Mellow U said:

I wanted to buy it but $30 plus shipping for a jewel-case CD seems pretty outrageous, even if I love the music on it.

Those were the promo copies before the real copies were manufactured. They are actually released in a digipak. See for yourself: http://www.discogs.c...release/2983083

 

Never once saw anything of the sort mentioned on the official Echospace Facebook feed, other than "Oh we've pressed 100 more due to high demand", which is kinda bullshit I think since there is still not an "official" larger pressing run of this, digipak or otherwise.

 

Also, if the "real copies" were released after the "promo copies" then where were they for sale under the $30 mark?

 

There was a pressing of 250 copies, whereof 150 was initially planned to be sold and the rest for the labels own people and whatnot. They then sold 50 more copies to the public due to the high demand. Matthew explains this in the thread on discogs.

Right, but still, why the high per-unit price? It isn't like the pressing cost them anywhere near that much to make?

I guess I just think it's shady to pull that kind of artificial market inflation on your fans just because you know somewhere, there are 200 people who will not question it.

$30 equals about £18.50. I'm not entirely convinced I'd call that a "collectors" price. I've had to pay more than that for a copy of an LP imported from the US shortly after it's release date because I missed getting a copy from a UK store. It was a little expensive, even by echospace [detroit] standards (their 12" singles were always pricey too) but not so much that I felt I had to start wringing my hands over it. A number of people on the discogs thread actually were questioning the price though, now you come to mention it.

Am I right in thinking digipaks in small runs are much more expensive than jewel cases?

Got my copy today. 131/200. Will need to acquire some herb to give this a listen. This was slightly more expensive that I would pay for a shop CD here, including shipping.

  On 8/12/2011 at 10:37 AM, Jamesqdot said:

$30 equals about £18.50. I'm not entirely convinced I'd call that a "collectors" price. I've had to pay more than that for a copy of an LP imported from the US shortly after it's release date because I missed getting a copy from a UK store. It was a little expensive, even by echospace [detroit] standards (their 12" singles were always pricey too) but not so much that I felt I had to start wringing my hands over it. A number of people on the discogs thread actually were questioning the price though, now you come to mention it.

 

Am I right in thinking digipaks in small runs are much more expensive than jewel cases?

No, digipaks are not THAT much more expensive. Discogs, right now, will make as low as 100 copies of a CD (not CD-R) with full-color printed discs, full-color digipaks and a UPC code for only $401.00, including shipping. Doing the math on that makes it obvious that even if the band made 100 (instead of the 250 they actually produced, which would be cheaper per unit) then they would have only had to charge $4.01 per copy to make their money back, putting their profit margin at or around $25 each.

Which is scalping, if you ask me.

I understand a lot of folks see this as some sort of immediate collector's edition thing, but that's where I don't. Short run vinyl is one thing, but even that doesn't cost as much off the shelf and it isn't being sold so exclusively. What they did with this release, and how they sold it, really is like if I took an entire run of CDs and marked each one up for a collectors price, and exclusively sold it on Ebay for people to bid on and fight over. This is where I draw the line as a fan. I don't care how much Rod and Stephen want to maintain "the mystification of the music and the band" - that's bullshit. You're selling music on the internet. It is a jewel case or digipak CD. The track is an extended version of one previously pressed to a 12" I already have. There is NO mystification there. It's pure hype.

I think the big conflict for me here is that Rod and Stephen are two of my favorite musicians, currently, and not the kind of pretentious types that I would expect to take their fans for granted. Beyond that, even if Echospace themselves do not believe this, which I doubt, the man they have put in charge of selling this release is pushing a double standard with it. On the one hand, in his Discogs forum posts, he says there are no limits on how many copies any on person can buy, despite the limited nature of the release, and that it's "all about the music", but on the other hand, he says that no one should leak the music on the internet, and is backed up by others who want the release to be a "special secret club" for all those who had $30 to spend on a CD in the midst of an economically dry summer. So, by that logic, he's already decimated the amount of people who can even hear this music by restricting people from sharing it, but not restricting some enterprising asshole from buying five of them just to slap them back up for sale for $70-$500 (as three enterprising assholes have already done).

That is just SO awesome.

Following up on my Discmakers pricing example, my numbers are in slight error. The $401.00 is for CD-Rs, not CDs. However, I went back and made sure it was a CD this time, and even 300 digipak CDs will full-color everything are only $818.00, bringing the per unit price to break even to a whopping $2.72 if they sold all 300, or back up to $4.09 if they only sold 200 copies and kept the rest.

Oh and the price quote in the original post should be for Discmakers, obviously, and not Discogs. Just woke up.

My copy arrived today and had been damaged pretty badly in the mail. Extremly frustrating to pay 36 USD for a cd with a digipak that won't hold the disc in place.

I'll agree that the pricing was/is a bit obscene. Basically the way I justified buying it was that I've acquired a bunch of their stuff through 'alternate channels' over the past few years (pretty much all of which sells for exorbitant aftermarket collector prices) and while I'm not averse to digital, buying flacs through boomkat is still a gouging if you're paying in $.

Hot damn there's a belter of a track around the mid point of the CD.

  On 8/12/2011 at 7:04 PM, Bob Dobalina said:

I'll agree that the pricing was/is a bit obscene. Basically the way I justified buying it was that I've acquired a bunch of their stuff through 'alternate channels' over the past few years (pretty much all of which sells for exorbitant aftermarket collector prices) and while I'm not averse to digital, buying flacs through boomkat is still a gouging if you're paying in $.

  On 8/12/2011 at 7:04 PM, Bob Dobalina said:

I'll agree that the pricing was/is a bit obscene. Basically the way I justified buying it was that I've acquired a bunch of their stuff through 'alternate channels' over the past few years (pretty much all of which sells for exorbitant aftermarket collector prices) and while I'm not averse to digital, buying flacs through boomkat is still a gouging if you're paying in $.

See, I totally understand the logic there. Buy it now for less than what the market price will be later. BUT, the inherent issue I have with this is...it's ultimately a bad excuse to buy anything for more than it's essentially worth in the first place. Just because the band themselves encourage artificial market inflation, that shouldn't mean that to even hear their releases, a fan has to pay two or three times as much just to acquire the stuff in the first place.

Anyway, all my bitterness will wane once my NM copy of the Oktember 12" by GAS arrives in a few days. Which, incidentally, cost me only $20 more than this cv313 disc would have.

Actually I worded that kinda poorly ('cept for the unintentional basic channel, good catch eandn :sup: ) - having pilfered a fair bit of their stuff via the internets (unwilling to pay collector/fanboy prices), I didn't mind paying a 'little' more for this one. But I absolutely agree with your point.

  On 8/12/2011 at 9:41 PM, Bob Dobalina said:

Actually I worded that kinda poorly ('cept for the unintentional basic channel, good catch eandn :sup: ) - having pilfered a fair bit of their stuff via the internets (unwilling to pay collector/fanboy prices), I didn't mind paying a 'little' more for this one. But I absolutely agree with your point.

Ah, yes! The ol' filesharing guilt. I think the reality is that most DeepChord fans, myself included, are guilty of nabbing most of that stuff online because it's just so impossible to find AND afford. So no judgements there sir!

However, I did actually buy my first slab of DC wax recently: Picked up the DCV08 12" by Techniker/Delayvarience for $35. Still a bit steep but $20 or $30 is manageable for a pretty scarce 12". Unfortunately I will probably never own many of the other DCs, since they routinely go for $150+...

I haven't bothered to get that early DC stuff (although I managed to get the Vibrasound compilation on Silentes as new and at a normal price, which holds some of those rare DC tracks), but managed to order all my echospace stuff from a record store without paying a premium on it. They aren't that rare and some of them have gotten represses it seems.

  On 8/12/2011 at 10:31 PM, azatoth said:

I haven't bothered to get that early DC stuff (although I managed to get the Vibrasound compilation on Silentes as new and at a normal price, which holds some of those rare DC tracks), but managed to order all my echospace stuff from a record store without paying a premium on it. They aren't that rare and some of them have gotten represses it seems.

Yeah, same here. I have a lot of the Echospace/cv313/Intrusion vinyl, no problem. It's the DC stuff that goes for huge flaming wads of ca$h!

Also, someone must've reconsidered that whole "keep it to yourself thing" - it leaked four hours ago at What.

just got this for free from what, thank you mysterious leaker

Lossy or lossless?