I don't know if I broke any actual records, but yeah.

_{This is the (original) album art for "Panic." It's got the whole tracklist on the front and it's gabage-y but kinda neat too.}

The Album

In case you haven't heard, "Panic" is a project I'm putting out for Record Store Day (which is this Saturday). I've handmade 33 CDs and printed up 100 download codes that I'm going to give out to the first few folks who show up at Lunchbox Records.

The CD itself is 10 tracks. Three are more conversational, me-talking-about-stuff tracks, one is a collection of short poems, and the rest are original songs. Some have appeared on earlier works I've done, some may be on future records, and some are exclusive for this project.

I decided, spur of the moment, to make this thing. In fact, it was about two weeks ago when I went out to the building in our back yard, hooked up my recording equipment, and powered through ten tracks. Most of them are single takes.

It was raining the whole time, and you can somewhat hear the rain-sounds in the background, which is super neat and totally unplanned.

The CD Making Process

After recording, mixing, and exporting the songs, I had to get art. Well, I held a Steemit art contest and yielded no results. Which is okay! I opted to try and make my own art and, I think it was Tuesday, I did this goofy comic-style art while listening to a student recital. It's not quality, but it matches the sound of the record.

Anyways, Tuesday and today, I got down to the nitty gritty and made these CDs and boy has it been hard!

It's taken about 7 hours to do around 30 CDs (ones I'm giving away for free, mind you). First, I had to put the songs on disc, which is relatively simple. Since I have the album posted on Bandcamp, I just downloaded a copy and used Windows Media Player to burn the CDs. I marked each one as their number out of 33 and went on.

_{I'm spread out a bit here at the library! Shh!}

Next, I had to do the art, which is super tricky. I scanned the front and back art at my school, emailing the files to myself. Then I had to make them so they would fit in a CD case. The front had to be 4.74 inches (I think) and the back, including the fold up parts (the words on the spine) had to be 6 inches and some change by 4.65 inches. I don't have exact measurements on me, and usually mine are wrong, but a quick search will get you what you need.

Alright, so to make these adjustments, I went on Microsoft Word and used their image insert tools to change the images' respective sizes. The tools to do that are in the upper right, but you have to change the aspect ratio so you can get the decimals right. Otherwise, Microsoft will make the changes according to the images' original ratios, which won't fit in a jewel case.

Anyhow, in the meantime, I made a Paint document, downloaded a neat font from 1001fonts.com, and then copied and pasted the song lyrics into the Paint document from where I'd posted them on Bandcamp. I had to adjust a little so I could have them all fit on the pages.

I then went to print the booklets/tray card inserts out. To do this, I centered the images on the Word Doc, set it to print double sided, and then put all the pages in order, one per Doc page, so when it'd print, you'd have a four panel insert (once you stapled it).

Okay, so I printed the inserts and stuff. Then I had to cut each one out, and I had to do it very carefully so the pages would line up. I stapled the booklets together and slipped them into the front of the jewel case, and then folded up the spine labels on the tray card insert and, after cracking the jewel case open (carefully!), I slipped those in the back.

_{This part takes a while. You really have to love this stuff!}

Some of mine turned out really messy, but others look bomb. It's all about how crafty you are and I'm just, well, not. I try.

Last note. I bought the jewel cases in bulk from Amazon.com. You can get 100 for $33. So they cost .33 cents a piece to make/sell. These won't be sold, but I'd figure up profit by taking that .33, then adding to it the cost of each disc (maximum of .20 when bought in bulk) and then subtract that from the selling price. Since I go to college, I printed all the inserts for free.

So if I was selling these for $5, my profit would be $4.50!

In total, all my materials cost less than $50, and that's enough to make 100 CDs.

So do it yourself guys!!

_{My TARDIS bag is bulging a bit with supplies, but luckily it's bigger on the inside.}

_{The cover is glorious, no? :P}

_{I did the back in kind of a hurry, but I was so indecisive. I made sure to add contact info so this 'giving-away' stuff pays off!}

_{Some of the spine labels are crushed, but that's okay.}

_{This is my favorite part! Lyric sheet!}

_{Here's a censored download card. I'll give these (uncensored ooh!) away after the CDs are gone.}
~

Anyways, that's how you do that.

If you enjoyed this, or want to know more about the album itself, let me know in the comments! If I should do more DIY musician stuff, tell me that too!

Goodnight y'all, and God bless! <3