How's every doing with his/her recording project?

Just some thouhgts on the final form that the product of the Piano World CD Project will take:

1. If every body submits what he/she declared (with some guesstimates for those TBD entries), it's likely that our compilation will have 250+ minutes (4+ hours) of music! (See Table .)

2. 250+ minutes of music will take up 4 discs if we use Audio CD format through out. That adds cost to the project -- not only because we have to press more CD's, but it also complicates the packaging and adds to shipping cost because of the added weight. So I am tempted to press MP3 CD's.

3. BUT, I think it'd be nice if we can also have an Audio CD that people can pop into their stereo/car CD players the minute they get their CD's -- instant gratification has its appeal after all. So I'm thinking perhaps we can extract the "favorite bits" from each submitter and put those in the Audio CD but keep the rest in a separate MP3/data CD. (E.g., If a submitter submits four short pieces, we'll let the submitter pick his favorate piece and put that in Audio CD. If a submitter submits a three movement sonata, the submitter will select his best movement/section for the Audio CD.) But nothing will be discarded -- the MP3 CD will contain EVERYTHING that's submitted. Pressing an MP3/data CD will also allow us to include graphical and textual information that submitters provide (e.g., photo of submitter/recording setup, description/photo of piano used, info about the pieces, lyrics if applicable, may be even the sheet music from folks who submit original compositions).

So I guess I'm suggesting a 2-disc set (with 1 Audio CD and 1 MP3/data CD) to balance cost and benefit. Or would you all be happy with a single MP3/data CD ?

(Just for reference -- a 1000 unit pressing of a 2-disc set, including a jewel case, a 4 panel insert, packaged and and shrinkwrapped would cost close to $2000, and that's before tax/shipping. It'd be about $1500 if we go with ONE CD before tax/shipping. Pressing fewer than 1000 copies is not very practical either because most CD pressing houses don't take a job that small, and most of the cost goes into the overhead anyway. I'd be happy to hear about lower cost alternatives. )

Any thoughts? Comments?

I like your idea of the 2 CD set, one that I can immediately put in my car for listening.
With regard to cost, how should we handle this part? Should we have Frank set up something on the site to "pre-order" our CD set to help with the cost?
Jon

The only problem that I see (aside from cost) is that all of that music probably wouldn't fit onto just one audio cd (for normal cd players), where as MP3s are small in size and you can fit hours of music onto just one MP3 disc.

I would be fine with a straight MP3 disk but I understand why some would want an audio CD as well.

Would an MP3 only format allow a single disk to be pressed?

We are coming along pretty good. We are doing another recording session tomorrow. Should be about 75% - 100% done depending on how the session goes.

I like your idea, Axtremus. Fine by me. Use the Rachmaninoff as my stereo cd choice if you do it that way.

Elena
http://www.pianofourhands.com