MRH: I noticed that you offer both digital albums as well as physical CDs?

GF: Yeah, this is a huge point for us. Digital allows smaller labels like us to exist. Even now, our first 2 CD releases – Hatchet (2006) and Frozen (2010) - are massive for us to do.

It’s a whole process, whereas with digital it allows us to use very little start-up money and be able to get a product out there and have it accessible to the world, without worrying about fulfillment, credit card processing. Even getting the CDs pressed is a huge ordeal. We’ve had to delay Frozen and Hatchet, due to pressing issues already, whereas with a digital-only distribution model, there is much less to worry about.

MRH: In the past, there used to be much larger CD runs, even with a standard soundtrack (comedy, horror, etc.), but now, unless it’s a major studio release, 500 to maybe around 2000 copies is the norm, and 500 is no long unusual. From my standpoint as a fan, as a collector and so on, is 500 a fair amount that would sell, in light of the changes in buyer demographics where most people are used to the digital format?

GF: 500 for a physical release is a fair amount, especially with the advent of digital, as CDs are normally purchased by score aficionados and not just someone looking for the film score.

There is a downside to digital however, and that is quality: on iTunes and Amazon, the music is compressed, leading to a degradation in quality (though nothing very noticeable).

To combat this we’ve set up what I believe is the only score label to offer lossless downloads (in the Flac format) through our own service, which allows people to get the full CD quality, but as a digital release.

That being said, you still can’t beat what a CD has. You’re not just buying the music; you’re buying the case; you’re buying the collector’s item. It’s not something that digital can replace, so 500 copies is a pretty small number when you’re talking about pop music, but when you’re talking about a score for an independent film, 500 copies starts to sound like a fair amount.

Plus, let’s face it, these other score labels don’t have a lot of money, so they can’t press 5000 in their first run and just hope they can sell them; they have to be sure that they can sell these copies, and we have to be, too, so it’s why you’re seeing the numbers getting smaller and smaller.

MRH: I guess in that respect CDs have become like vinyl; they’re regarded as an audiophile format.

GF: It is. It’s the collector’s piece. Frozen and Hatchet are prime items for a digital release, but the reason why I want to do physical is because there’s lots of fans, and those fans want collector’s items, and that’s something we can offer above and beyond just the score material in a CD-quality format.

MRH: Are there significant rights issues unique to digital albums, or are the rights easier to negotiate in order to distribute an album online, so that anyone around the world can buy the album with no extra fees?

GF: We haven’t reached that size where we have to worry about those rights. Most of the time if a studio requests, we do a blanket license for both physical and digital, in case we ever went back to a back catalogue item and decide to do a fully pressed physical release for it. It gives us the most coverage over things.