Elusive Disk now has 82 tapes for sale.

c1ferrari

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Can they establish provenance? Are there, at minimum, level and azimuth tones printed on the tape? :confused:
 

Ron Resnick

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c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
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It appears a substantial portion of the titles are sourced from Opus 3. The Opus 3 titles I own have tones printed at the head and were duped in real time from the stereo mix master.
I would not know, at this time, if Elusive Disk's Opus 3 tapes are of the same generation. BTW, Opus 3's simply mic'd, live-to-two track, analogue recordings are eminently listenabl
e.
:D
 

XV-1

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May 24, 2010
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JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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come in spinner :) A Jacinta album worth $599 - LOL indeed

That was my first thought! Honestly if I have to sit through Here's to Ben one more time......okay, I'll just shut my trap now.
 

astrotoy

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May 24, 2010
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Two or three years ago I bought a bunch of the Opus3 tapes (direct copies of their master tapes, which they were doing to order in Sweden.) I got a little discount since I bought 11 titles (22 tapes all together). I bought them through Kevin Berg, who works for Elusive Disc, though it was directly through Kevin and not through ED. From what I am surmising, Kevin is the point person for ED for the tapes. Clearly, ED needs to make some money out of this arrangement, where they become the US source for these tapes. In both the Tape Project and Acoustic Sounds tapes, as well as just about all the other smaller companies (UltraAnalogue - Ed Pong, Yarlung - Bob Attiyeh, IPI - Jonathan Horwich, etc.) you are dealing directly with the producer of the tape. It looks like ED is acting like the US dealer for these mostly (all?) European based companies. ED has to deal with customer service issues, including maintaining inventory, taking returns, etc. Don't know whether the price justifies this. I have ordered tapes from companies based in Europe and it generally is more of a hassle than dealing with the US based companies (at least for a US based customer). ED may increase the volume of sales for these companies enough so that the companies can afford to absorb the margin that ED needs to be the dealer in the US. Normally, a manufacturer who sells direct to the end user makes the factory to customer price the same as through a dealer, since they don't want to undercut the dealer. If they don't, then there will be some (many?) customers who will bypass a dealer, not good for either the dealer or the manufacturer.

Larry
 

Bruce B

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Apr 25, 2010
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what do you think is the appropriate price ? Keep in mind a niche market and licensing fee's...

I've pondered this for the past few years. I've even had folks run the numbers and provide algorithms. Here's my take.

To break even, given artist/label license fees, taking in the fact you have machine maintenance, packaging, shipping, etc...., Tapes should be approx $112/reel for a production run of 300pcs (Or $137 for 500pcs). That's "IF" you can unload all the samples!
 

c1ferrari

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^^ Interesting. What's an average mark-up :confused:
 

astrotoy

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Thanks, Bruce.

For retail sales, normally the mark up is given in points of the retail price, which is what I think Bruce is referring to. So an Acoustic Sounds tape album that retails for $450, may have a 40 point margin (or wholesale price of $270). That would be a markup of 67% from wholesale.

The Tape Project and Acoustic Sounds tape albums are two reelers which sell for $450. The retail price of the blank tapes with metal reels is around $125 for the two reels. If they are buying in quantity, they may be able to lower their tape cost by 20%, don't think it would be much more than that. Added to that is the cost of the album box, which is probably contracted out, labor for mastering, duplication, quality control, royalties for the use of the tapes, logistical costs of getting the tapes, testing them (and sometime rejecting the tapes if the masters are defective), and then packaging and shipping costs - not including postage.

Also making running masters, if you are doing runs like TP and AS do, including any editing - like reducing three track masters to two track running masters, like AS does with their RCA tapes. If you are making copies from master tapes, then you need to figure in the cost of the master tape production and amortize that cost, unless you have used the tape to make CD's or otherwise recouped the production cost. Labor costs also include all the costs involved in determining what tapes to do and the negotiations to actually procure the tapes. There is the additional cost of marketing - advertising, promotion (attending shows, including transporting the necessary equipment and paying fees).

The cost of the machines (amortized over their expected lifetime), maintenance and repair of the machines. The cost of the machines is a sunk cost - it has to be made before the first tape can produced, and is not easily recovered if the business is not successful.

Of course there is the general overhead of the operation (renting of building, cost of communications - computers, telephone, internet,etc., financing costs - either borrowing money or use of your own capital, accounting and legal costs, and general administration - answering the phones and email, attending meetings, arranging travel, etc., etc. ). Having run a business for a decade (a non-profit operating foundation that I founded and grew, so it had to break even and build a small surplus), we had a very low general overhead of about 10%. However, that was after we grew to about $35M in annual revenue. When we were smaller, the general overhead was more like 20% or more, since we didn't have as much economy of scale. I would guess that just about all of the companies involved in producing tapes are quite small. They either have fairly high overhead or are writing off the overhead on other parts of their business - like what I think Acoustic Sounds is probably doing. Of course, they probably want to make some profit, so that will be on top of that, and then taxes are paid on the net profit.

Bruce has an important additional point - the inventory cost, if not everything is sold, you are eating that cost.

If I were going into the tape production business, I would make sure I had another job that was producing a steady income (or a rich aunt or wealthy patron). I think that is what just about everyone is doing who is in the tape production business. It is like the question of how to make a small fortune in the winery business. Start with a big fortune. Elusive Disc has the easy job - just selling the tapes, especially if they can return unsold material. Not as easy if they have to buy inventory and eat defective product (like they often do for vinyl or other music products they sell).

Larry
Larry
 

Edward Pong

Industry Expert
Jun 24, 2013
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Thanks Larry for spelling it all out...!

I'd like to add.... for those that are making new recordings... you can add in the cost of flying the musicians in, feeding them, housing them & paying them... for the 7 days it takes to make the recordings....
So quickly you can see this is really a "labour of love..." for this music...

I've had people complain about the cost of shipping.... (my actual cost is the charge..) & also ask if they only want certain tracks, can they save some $$$

I'm not complaining, because this allows me to be so close to the music I love, played by some of the most talented young artists today....
And I want to share it with the audiophile community.

I want to thank all who have supported me on this journey...!

Ed
 

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 15, 2010
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Nice, Larry -- thanks!
 

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