Vinyl CD Help FAQ
This page has been provided to assist you in the provision of artwork and audio / data / hybrid masters for jobs placed with us.
Creating Artwork
Some people may have difficulties in the creation of artwork for the vinyl cd. If you do, we offer artwork creation services should you need it. Contact us directly for this service.
A vinyl style disc is a standard size 12cm CD with a black base (data side) and real look/feel vinyl grooves on the top with a 71mm printable area to which we can apply your artwork.
When providing your artwork please ensure the following:
- Artwork must be 300dpi resolution
- Color must be CMYK
- IF supplied as AI ensure all fonts are converted to outlines
- IF supplied as flat artwork e.g JPEG, TIFF, PNG ensure it's high resolution and all template elements are hidden
Some people provide artwork to us as a masked circle and this is fine. Others provide artwork to us as a solid 71mm x 71mm square and this is also fine. Please make sure the stacking ring and center hole is NOT shown on the final exported artwork.
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Example of Correct Artwork
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Example of Incorrect Artwork
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In the example above, you will see that the incorrectly supplied artwork shows the vinyl groove area + center hole, which we do not require. In the correctly supplied example, we see these areas are not shown and the artwork is whole, allowing us to drop non printable areas when printing the actual disc.
Artwork TIPS
The reason we are showing you the example above is because it's very dark in colour. The base colour of the disc is white and it's possible for white areas to show through from the base when printing dark color and black onto the disc face. In this example, we liased with the client to adjust the way in which the artwork was provided to ensure no bleed occurred on the finished disc (see bleed notes for more info below) and that no white bits showed around the edge where the printable area ends and the vinyl groove starts.
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Example of Adjusted Artwork
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Example of Finished Disc
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As shown above, rather than taking the colour (black) right up to the edge of the CD we have left a white gap. In addition to the edge which connects vinyl groove to the printable area, we added a white gap around the stacking rings. By doing this, we avoided any issue with white streaks showing plus no bleed occurred. In this case, the whole artwork was lifted and looked both brighter on the finished disc and crisper.
Issues with Dark Colours and Bleed
If your artwork uses a dark colour or black as above and it's designed to print right up to the edge of the non printable stacking rings, it can cause a bleed into the main design. When we print the discs, we set the machines to print as close to the non printable area as possible, but any ink which gets applied to plastic (stacking rings) runs the risk of bleeding into the main design. Typically this only happens when dark colours are used as this is when any white unprinted elements show up the most. Using the tip above can avoid the problem
No problems with bright, vivid or photographic images
The issues mentioned above relate to dark colors and black only. Bright, vivid or photographic images suffer no problems as any minor white areas will not notice when printed.
Providing Audio / Data Masters
Please send your audio or data on a CD-R to our address (clearly marked with your 5 digit order ID). We can accept certain masters in digital format as follows:
- Audio Master (CD-R or .DDP Image)
- Data Master (CD-R or .NRG, .ISO)
We do NOT accept raw audio files and will not create audio masters for you.
Please check your master before sending it to us. We will take an identical copy of the disc which you supply to us, so it is vital that the disc plays and acts as you require before you send it to us. We advise that you test the disc in computer drive, standalone cd player and car stereo (as relevant) to ensure that your disc is ready for copying. If creating DDP image, please burn the DDP before sending to us to check it includes all ISRC codes, Text etc.
Copyright & Licensing Issues
We do not condone the abuse of copyright and will decline any order which blatently breaches artists copyright. We are members of MCPS.