HOW DO PROMOS WORK?

[ihatefakers]

who and when makes the promos. are promos the same as TPs?

do u tell the pressing plant u want x amount of promos either additional to ur bulk or instead of some of the offical released units??

[relaks]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=test+pressing+wiki

[ihatefakers]

that is useless info

thanks anyway tho

wiki is shit

[surface_tension]

lol. at Let Me Google That For You haha...

anyway, generally when you have your tunes mastered by the either the people who will press the finished copies, or will work in tandem with another group, it's a part of the fee...

Part of the cost of mastering in most cases is going to include either some Test Pressings or Acetates in the final price... generally it's not that many, like 15-20 at the most.

We only have like 10 of them ever floating around, mainly because we don't sell them and use them to actually determine if we like the quality of the press/mastering and make a decision on whether or not we're clear for a full release. At least, that's how it works for us.

So who does it... the people who will press the finish copies of your release.

[ihatefakers]

lol. at Let Me Google That For You haha...

anyway, generally when you have your tunes mastered by the either the people who will press the finished copies, or will work in tandem with another group, it's a part of the fee...

Part of the cost of mastering in most cases is going to include either some Test Pressings or Acetates in the final price... generally it's not that many, like 15-20 at the most.

We only have like 10 of them ever floating around, mainly because we don't sell them and use them to actually determine if we like the quality of the press/mastering and make a decision on whether or not we're clear for a full release. At least, that's how it works for us.

So who does it... the people who will press the finish copies of your release.

yeah

this is what i mean...

so basically all a promo is, is a TP..

so maybe the big labels order like 50 TPs and sell them as promos...?

this is what ive been wondering

[ST100]

so basically all a promo is, is a TP

I don't think so... No...

[thinking]

lol. at Let Me Google That For You haha...

anyway, generally when you have your tunes mastered by the either the people who will press the finished copies, or will work in tandem with another group, it's a part of the fee...

Part of the cost of mastering in most cases is going to include either some Test Pressings or Acetates in the final price... generally it's not that many, like 15-20 at the most.

We only have like 10 of them ever floating around, mainly because we don't sell them and use them to actually determine if we like the quality of the press/mastering and make a decision on whether or not we're clear for a full release. At least, that's how it works for us.

So who does it... the people who will press the finish copies of your release.

yeah

this is what i mean...

so basically all a promo is, is a TP..

so maybe the big labels order like 50 TPs and sell them as promos...?

this is what ive been wondering

no, all wrong...

a Test Pressing is just that - a test vinyl to see if the mastering and metalwork are perfect. If there are any problems with the TPs, it's the last chance to go back and sort things out before you press 100s of shit vinyls. However, if you DO have to go back and re-master/re-cut, it is expensive - at least 300 pounds or more...

Test Pressings are often pressed on slightly cheaper vinyl, so are not exactly the same as the finished article. They're also more expensive to press, so if you do see them on sale they're often priced higher. Some labels press extra TPs to sell, or to give out to DJs to get radio/club play.


Promos, which can be either white labels or full artwork copies, are proper pressings of the finished vinyl. Promos exist for 2 reasons:

- to gauge demand for the finished full release. A limited amount may be made available to shops, and depending on how quick they sell and feedback from retailers, the label/distributor gets an idea of how many to press for the full release.

- to comply with UK law, labels should be paying a small fee per unit pressed to the MCPS (a royalty collection society), but a certain amount of the pressing run can be exempt from this charge if they are sold as promos - in theory they are supposed to be labelled as such too. There can often be VAT breaks on promos too.


Hope that clears things up for you.

[Hibbie]

lol. at Let Me Google That For You haha...

anyway, generally when you have your tunes mastered by the either the people who will press the finished copies, or will work in tandem with another group, it's a part of the fee...

Part of the cost of mastering in most cases is going to include either some Test Pressings or Acetates in the final price... generally it's not that many, like 15-20 at the most.

We only have like 10 of them ever floating around, mainly because we don't sell them and use them to actually determine if we like the quality of the press/mastering and make a decision on whether or not we're clear for a full release. At least, that's how it works for us.

So who does it... the people who will press the finish copies of your release.

yeah

this is what i mean...

so basically all a promo is, is a TP..

so maybe the big labels order like 50 TPs and sell them as promos...?

this is what ive been wondering

no, all wrong...

a Test Pressing is just that - a test vinyl to see if the mastering and metalwork are perfect. If there are any problems with the TPs, it's the last chance to go back and sort things out before you press 100s of shit vinyls. However, if you DO have to go back and re-master/re-cut, it is expensive - at least 300 pounds or more...

Test Pressings are often pressed on slightly cheaper vinyl, so are not exactly the same as the finished article. They're also more expensive to press, so if you do see them on sale they're often priced higher. Some labels press extra TPs to sell, or to give out to DJs to get radio/club play.


Promos, which can be either white labels or full artwork copies, are proper pressings of the finished vinyl. Promos exist for 2 reasons:

- to gauge demand for the finished full release. A limited amount may be made available to shops, and depending on how quick they sell and feedback from retailers, the label/distributor gets an idea of how many to press for the full release.

- to comply with UK law, labels should be paying a small fee per unit pressed to the MCPS (a royalty collection society), but a certain amount of the pressing run can be exempt from this charge if they are sold as promos - in theory they are supposed to be labelled as such too. There can often be VAT breaks on promos too.


Hope that clears things up for you.

Big up. Btw what do you mean by metalwork? Always wondered what people mean when they mention this.

[thinking]

when you cut a record, the tunes are mastered, then cut onto lacquers which are like oversized dubplates - one lacquer per side of a record.

These are then sent to the pressing plant, where they're coated in metal via electrolysis. Then metal is poured onto this metal disc to make a negative impression of the grooves - so they stick out instead of in. These are the 'stampers' which are put into the vinyl press, then they stamp the grooves into the fresh vinyl.

Someone posted this a while back, well worth a watch:

www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=82961

[ihatefakers]

in order to press a small enough number to put out as promos you would surely have to have a very good relationship with the plant or do the distributers sort this out if there doing a pnd with the label?

if ur paying for the mastering and metalwork then u would have to press at least 250 - 350 promos just to justify the costs surely

[paulie]

Thinking >>>> everyone else on this forum.

[seckle]

in order to press a small enough number to put out as promos you would surely have to have a very good relationship with the plant or do the distributers sort this out if there doing a pnd with the label?

if ur paying for the mastering and metalwork then u would have to press at least 250 - 350 promos just to justify the costs surely

people tend to road test a tune for up to a year , even longer in this scene, so that when it comes to the TP/Promo stage, there's enough demand to guarantee that even a promo run of 100-250, let alone a full press of 500-1000, would be gone in less than a week.

unless you can guarantee that your tune is big enough to fly out of stores, its a risky business, any other way.

[boogiemeister]

I would think that a lot of the white label promos you can get are basically just test presses in higher quantities as Thinking pointed out already.
I think hardly anyone in dubstep presses more than 1000 copies of a 12" (except the more reputed artists like Skream or Benga maybe), so I don't see why they should slang out 100-200 white labels which cost just as much in manufacturing as the regular pressing.

[ihatefakers]

in order to press a small enough number to put out as promos you would surely have to have a very good relationship with the plant or do the distributers sort this out if there doing a pnd with the label?

if ur paying for the mastering and metalwork then u would have to press at least 250 - 350 promos just to justify the costs surely

people tend to road test a tune for up to a year , even longer in this scene, so that when it comes to the TP/Promo stage, there's enough demand to guarantee that even a promo run of 100-250, let alone a full press of 500-1000, would be gone in less than a week.

unless you can guarantee that your tune is big enough to fly out of stores, its a risky business, any other way.

thats not what I mean

what i mean is why would anyone do a promo run of 100 and then just pull it. If they did that they would loose money. Once uve got the masters and the metalwork it doesnt cost much more to press an extra few hundred so why would anyone ever just press 100 to test the market.

that is ridiculous, no label would pay for mastering, metal work and a press of 100 just to test the market. its just not cost effective,

is it not just the case that once the full or first set of units are pressed, labels just sell a few copies of the full release early and call them promos to hype the release and create a demand??

and also i dont think it is corrrect what u said...

if a label signs a tune from an artist, I think it would be wrong of them to "road test" the tune for a year or more and then if there is not hype just cancel the release with artist.

obviously the big labels have a que of releases lined up so it may take over a year for a release to come out once its arranged, and whilst their waiting they will give it to DJs to play obviously, but im not sure about all this cancelling releases if there isnt a demand business..

[ihatefakers]

I would think that a lot of the white label promos you can get are basically just test presses in higher quantities as Thinking pointed out already.
I think hardly anyone in dubstep presses more than 1000 copies of a 12" (except the more reputed artists like Skream or Benga maybe), so I don't see why they should slang out 100-200 white labels which cost just as much in manufacturing as the regular pressing.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ihatefakers]

i suppose at the end of the day all a promo is, is a record ment for promotional purposes, wether its sold or given away.

so it doesnt really matter how the labels decide to go about this, maybe its often any one of the methods mentioned depending on the label.

[thinking]

I would think that a lot of the white label promos you can get are basically just test presses in higher quantities as Thinking pointed out already.

they're not, I can assure you. It would be way too expensive and the labels/distributors wouldn't be able to make any profit at all.

It's just the way things have always been done, press a few hundred whites, see how they sell, use that info to decide how many to press with artwork for full release. It's tried & tested.

To be fair it was more useful when vinyl (e.g. DnB) used to shift 1000s of units per release, but nowadays it's just tradition.

[surface_tension]

tbh the whole "let the tunes get played completely out of style before the public gets to buy a copy" aspect really annoys me.

[infectiouspr]

I concur with everything ThinKing says.

I don't know about dubstep, but for most D&B labels a promo run will be a minimum of 300 white label promos (300 is usually the lowest press a plant will do that isn't stupidly expensive) followed by the full release.

More and more commonly though people are doing "full art" promos, where they may get 500 units pressed along with the artwork and then just release them in two different stages.

The reason for doing this is a little odd, because the point of promos is supposed to be to tell you how many full release units to press, however these days there is a demand for promos so that DJs can feel a bit more exclusive than the next man, so the tradition has stayed on.

Different distributors have told me different things about how successful the idea of "full art" promos is too.

[WatchYourStep]

HOW DO PROMOS WORK?

no need to shout, i can see it just fine