Costs associated with reissuing an album

I've been thinking it would be awesome to reissue something relatively obscure on cassette, but I don't know the first thing about the associated licencing costs (or really anything else regarding reissues for that matter). Anyone have experience in this area?

Don't be sure that the first-generation masters you want are tucked away at some record company vault. More likely, they've be lost or stolen or their whereabouts have gone otherwise unknown over the years, and it's up to you to do some research and find the best available source for each individual track, including tapes, acetates, pristene vinyl, and the best stylus and tape players to use for each.

If a master is available, what would the label ask for in licensing fees for an album that's been out of print for a while?

$25.

To be really blunt, if you have to ask questions like this, no very serious label is going to licence anything to you, so do a LOT of homework first. That said, it's very unlikely that any serious label will licence something to you for release on cassette.

To be more specific with your question, there is some material that no label will ever ever ever licence to a third party. There is also a lot of stuff where - by some quirk of corporate acquisition or lost paperwork - no one knows definitely who owns it, or what the terms of the contract might be. That stuff's off limits, too. Generally, a label will assess the potential sales for a catalog album, your trustworthiness and reputation, your financial backing and distribution and then calculate . . . something. Generally on the basis of more units than you'll ever sell. Especially on cassette, which is why that idea's a big loser. (I'm guessing you don't have deep pockets or distribution either.) A label like Sundazed - run by an industry insider of many decades' standing) can license stuff under somewhat favourable terms. A novice might expect that a label would ask them for an advance on royalties of about 175 - 200% of what the label thinks they could shift if they did it themselves, plus "tape search" fees, mastering and (generally, if it's a major) upfront manufacturing costs (they're going to want to control that.) I've known of tape search fees costing in the many tens of thousands of dollars . . . with nothing found!

It would helpful to know if this was a major label release, or a big indie, or a self-release or what. But without experience, and doing it on cassette, you'd better be a *really* good talker!

Hard to give advice when it's unclear even what sort of music you're talking about. But before you start thinking about getting access to a label's vaults (let alone a major), you might try tackling something "easier," like tracking down an obscure band who could use some help getting their old material out there. (One with rights to their music.) Be prepared to spend a lot of time and money (that you won't see back) doing this. Be prepared to hit up any friend with audio and graphics expertise so as to get that work done cheaply. If you're going to do a bunch of things, it won't be a crazy investment of time and money to start learning your way around a good audio-editing program. Transferring, restoration, and remastering aren't cheap, especially if you're paying a studio to do it. And then figuring out how to distribute. Do all this successfully a couple of times and an actual label might let you talk them into licensing something. But the larger the label, the more likely it is that they'll have an inflated sense of how many copies can be sold, especially if they aren't attuned to today's numbers—in which a thousand of an old, obscure thing is a lot to sell.

Most reissuing right now is being done on vinyl. When reissuers are unsure of how many copies they'll sell, they'll often get 1000 sleeves printed (since printing fewer doesn't save much money), then press 500 LPs, with the hope of doing 500 more eventually. But the numbers are bleak. I won't crunch them here, but between finding sources, baking reels, transferring, restoring, remastering, cutting a record, plating , pressing, graphics, printing, shipping, and maybe a touch of promo, you're well into the red at 500 copies. Maybe breaking even at 1000, depending on inserts, quality of vinyl, complexity of graphics, and so on. So there won't be much money for licensing, or even paying the band out of sales. You can promise to get them a bunch of copies, and you can offer them access to the restored files for future use.

All boils down to finding a band (good luck getting all of them aboard....) that will trust you enough to let you trade your time, energy, and money for the chance to practice on them. Then you can try for something bigger.

If you want advice about reissuing/licensing, I'd contact some label that does exactly this...

http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/contact-us/