DISC MAKERS - YET MORE INCOMPETENCE, FIVE YEARS HENCE

In an industry that is slowly dying, you would think that a company like Disc Makers would do their best to hire competent people, so as to hold onto repeat business. After all, i receive new catalogues from them almost every week, featuring lower and lower prices, offering faster and faster turnaround times. Clearly, they are virtually clawing to stay relevant.

If you've been following this blog for any significant length of time, you might recall the misadventures that i endured during 2008-2009, while pressing THE GOSPELS OF THE GASH 2XCD.
Here's a refresher:

http://annihilvs.blogspot.com/2009/02/gospels-of-gash-2xcd-update.html

Since then, most of the projects i have worked on that were pressed by Disc Makers have gone relatively smoothly, and i have often been shocked when there have been no problems. However, it seems that Disc Makers are still not above employing people who are simply incompetent.

Gordon lazarus at OPPRESSIVE RESISTANCE RECORDINGS is having the THEOLOGIAN+THE VOMIT ARSONIST collaborative release pressed at Disc Makers. I personally created the layout, using Disc Makers templates, as i have done several times during the past decade.
This time, those eminently incompetent folks are telling him the following:

Thanks for your inquiry! You will actually be approving the proofs yourself from your online My Account. I did take a look at your artwork, and noticed a few issues that our Pre-Press Review team may reject your project for:
·         your template layers are embedded in the art - you'll want to remove them prior to uploading your artwork. Leaving templates in the art can cause your art to shift out of alignment, and that template will be printed on your artwork
·         your disc surface artwork has a hole cutout - we print all the way to the center of the disc, so you can extend your background all the way through the disc surface, leaving no hole cutouts. Just ensure that your important text or images are outside of the green safety area (the area in the very center of the disc template)
After you've made these changes and reviewed & approved your proofs, you can upload your audio content and proceed to checkout. Don't hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns; we're here 9am-8pm ET Mon-Fri.
>>  
>> Thanks again,
>>  
>> Jamie
>> Disc Makers Online Sales Support

Now, i don't know how many prepress people work for Disc Makers, and i don't know how many designers they employ, in their so-called "award-winning design department", but i have submitted many layouts to this company, and it has always been with the templates intact. how would they know how to position the artwork otherwise? additionally, poor Gordon has been on the phone with them repeatedly, and they keep telling him THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO TURN OFF THE TEMPLATE LAYERS IN A PDF.

What kind of idiot works in a design or prepress department and doesn't know how to open a file and turn off a layer in photoshop?

MALIGNANT RECORDS recently released a proper CD reissue of YOUR SUFFERING WILL BE LEGENDARY, which was originally released on CD-R as part of the limited boxed edition for THE GOSPELS OF THE GASH, back in 2009.

When i received my copies, i was shocked to find that, while i'd left ample room in a specific spot on the back panel for them to place a barcode, some moron had dropped the barcode right on top of the catalogue number, cutting the top of the text off by a few fractions of an inch. only an idiot would make this mistake.

(layout by Jorden Haley)

I sent a screencap of the above image to Disc Makers to show them that they had just pressed another of my releases, the layout for which had been submitted with the templates intact, and asked why if this was done with no problem, why suddenly it was a difficult process for them to turn off the templates. they didn't reply to my email.