[HANASHIR:14885] Re: Recording Camp CDs

[Josh Miller <jmiller...>]

Hey All,

I was co-producer of Shir l'Yom Chadash, the most recent of the Camp Swig
/ Camp Newman CDs--it was a really amazing (albeit labor-intensive)
experience for me, my fellow producers, and the campers and staff who
sang on it.

Here's my response to Joy and Daniel's questions: 

Recordingwise, we brought our recording team in with high-quality mikes
and recording equipment and recorded the voices of the camp kids at
camp in some of the main areas where we did song sessions. Another
option I've heard of (used on the previous Camp Swig CDs) is to set up an
in-camp studio in a lesser-used space and then bring kids through in
smaller groups to record the tunes.

The cost of producing a Camp CD can vary quite a bit, depending on how
high-quality you want it to be, how much access you have to recording and
duplication equipment, and how much expertise you personally have with
the process. If you (or someone you know well) really knows what they're
doing, I would think you could produce a budget CD on some decent
home-recording equipment with borrowed gear and duplicate it yourself and
the only expenses would be CDs, labels, a few royalties and a lot
of your personal time. An even cheaper option would be to generate
MP3s and post the songs to the camp's website and forgo the CD production
altogether!

If you can find the funds to spend, you can produce a higher quality CD
by deciding to hire in a professional recording team, mix in a
professional studio, have a professional graphic designer work on the
cover/label, outsource the CD duplication, etc. These expenses can easily
add up to over $10,000 (as it did with Shir L'Yom Chadash) although some
of that can be made back (but probably not all of it) if you decide to
sell the CDs as opposed to give them away for free.

In terms of copyright permissions--following the advice of Randee
Friedman and others (and the law), we were pretty diligent with getting
copyright permissions for the songs on Shir L'Yom Chadash, even though
the project was a not-for-profit venture (all proceeds from the sale of
these CDs go back into a fund we set up to support the camps' music
programs). Using the hanashir list and other contacts we managed to track
down just about all of the composers to tell them about the project and
ask them for permission to use their songs. They were all super
supportive, and nearly everyone agreed to waive the royalty fees (one or
two did not so we cut them royalty checks). Just to be safe, we had
composers sign a simple letter stating that they were waiving royalties,
and in exchange we sent them each a copy of the CD when the project was
done. The other upside of getting in touch with the composer--they can
help make sure you spell their name and song-title correctly on the CD
jacket, and can tell you the correct copyright year!

I'm happy to be contacted directly by anyone with additional questions
about this process. I think making a camp CD is a big project but
certainly a worthwhile one!

Hope that helps!

- Josh Miller
  jmiller (at) songleaders(dot)org

At 02:00 AM 7/17/2003, Joy wrote:
> How did you do this, recording
> wise?  Did the kids go somewhere where they had that
> equipment?  Was it brought to camp?  Was it donated?  How
> much did it cost if it wasn't?  How did the copyright/distribution
> components work out?  Just....I want to learn about this, maybe for
> next summer!!!

At 02:00 AM 7/17/2003, Daniel wrote:
> Hi all---I'm a camp songleader and
> have a question that I think other 
> people might be interested in, too.
> We're making a CD of camp songs that the kids are recording----
> If we are NOT doing this for a profit, do I still need to secure 
> permission to record other people's songs?

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