a new source for one-off cd duplication

In the world of indie musicians, it is fairly common to have several boxes of backstock CDs that you cannot sell. They may be sitting in your basement or in a closet, or a garage. Either way, they take up space and most musicians will do just about anything to move them. I've given CDs away, brought boxes of them to record stores to try and pawn them off there, included them as "freebies" with other sales.

Unfortunately, if you want a professional product, you need to press a minimum of 500 discs at a time. (There are a few companies that advertise 300, but the price per disc is very inflated). Then there are companies that do professional looking CDR duplications. Most offer a product somewhere in the $3-$4 range. Along comes Kunaki.com, a company that says it is merely a "machine". There is no customer service, no live person to talk to. You simply upload your product, "it" databases your music and art, and spits out copies when you need them. They'll even send you a free copy to see how it will look like. Sounds promising enough.

At $1.75 per disc, their price makes it even more attractive. Unfortunately, they quickly make up for that with $5 shipping for one disc. If you want to save, you need to order in bulk. If you order about 10 copies, you can get it down to $3 per disc (shipping included). The artwork looks a little fuzzy on the disc face, and their software couldn't preview my 16bit art for some reason. Aside from the three hours it took to upload my product to them online, it was pretty painless.

Best of all, you're not left sitting on hundreds of copies of CDs that you cannot sell. I'll have to report on my experience with them in the future, as I just uploaded my first album to them. But so far, so good.