Service Costs

As of June, 2009, after much excellent feedback and comments, we no longer use a "one price fits all" pricing structure.

This should make the costs much clearer, and won't penalise you if you have very short (VHS-C or short tape) recordings.

Our basic service prices for recovery and conversion services are as follows:

Vinyl and 78 Recordings

Single LP	$45.00
Double LP	$62.00
Per Single/EP	$6.00
Per 78 Side	$12.00

Tapes

Compact Cassettes, Dictaphone

C-30 (or less)	$35.00
C-60	$45.00
C-90	$62.00
C-120	$72.00

Reel Tapes

2-inch spool	$45.00
3-inch spool	$52.00
5-inch spool	$62.00
7-inch spool	$72.00

Video Tapes

VHS, VHS-C, Beta, Hi-8, and Mini-DV

E-60 or VHS-C	$52.00
E-90/LP	$65.00
E-120	$72.00
E-180	$84.00
E-240	$90.00

If you're comparing costs to select a conversion service based on dollar figures alone, hopefully that will be all you need. Naturally, these prices aren't actually comparable to most service providers, as we include all the "optional extras" that usually cost much more.

However, if you'd like to understand what is involved, or you're looking for a non-standard service, we've provided some ideas and suggestions below.

Payment Options:

Cash and cheques: We accept cash, cheques, and direct deposit from any Australian or international bank.

Please Note: Due to the significant overheads involved with cashing cheques and money orders (not to mention the 5-10 day bank delays and charges for all personal cheques deposited), we would much prefer electronic payment if that's possible.

We DON'T currently charge extra for any payment options, and we don't want to have to charge extra for cheque payments.

Credit Cards: We accept all major credit cards : VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Bankcard, and JCB. You can pay over the phone, or you can use our facilities if you're picking up in person.

BPAY: We are a registered BPAY business.

All the relevant details are included on your invoice, and you can pay using any of your usual BPAY methods - electronic transfer, Post Office, phone banking, or by credit card.

Additional Services

We understand that in a rapidly changing technological era, there are more requirements for newer audio (and video) formats.

We also know that most of the free conversion software currently available does not provide the highest levels of fidelity or compression. The same is true of most non-premium music services, such as Apple's iTunes, Nokia's Nokia Music, Musicmatch, and so on. These services usually drastically filter, downsample, and heavily crop to achieve the highest possible compression and the lowest possible size, with little or no regard to the final sound - even though most of the popular portable devices are capable of surprisingly good reproduction!

So if you're tired of listening to tinny or boomy audio with limited or no stereo effects and audible twitter and warbling, we offer the following additional format options for audio and video recordings, for a fixed cost of $22.00 per format. The cost is simply added to the cost of each final conversion/recovery on a per-recording basis, it's not charged on every track!

We can provide audio that will play on any iPod or similar device (iRiver, MP3 players, etc), most popular mobile phones, and personal video devices as well.

We can also provide ultra-high definition formats for studio editing if required. This includes video (to the highest possible video format from the original video) and audio recordings up to 192kHz/24-bit.

What these costs cover:

Most normal (typical, run-of-the-mill, common, usual) audio albums and tapes will be completely covered by the service costs in the table at the top of the page.

Any recording that is fundamentally intact is fine by us. If you wouldn't put it on your turntable or tape deck, it obviously needs much more delicate handling and recovery, and our Critical Care services will apply (see below for details on the Critical Care services we offer).

Broken tapes can be repaired if necessary, and unless they are badly deteriorated, will be covered by our standard service pricing plus a nominal repair fee.

Slight scratching and track jumps on vinyl or other disk media (bakelite, shellac, etc) are all OK, unless the damage is over more than half the recording surface. In any case, we'll notify you if we find any such problems before we start work.

We always take into account blank footage and silent audio; so if there are significant gaps in the recording (audio or video), we will base our charges on what actually ends up on the CD or DVD - so unlike some other service providers, we don't "cash in" on blank tapes and blank videos.

Unfortunately, a handling fee of $25.00 applies for ALL blank tapes (audio or video), since we must capture the entire tape anyway, and it takes that long to find out there's no material on the tape. That can easily be avoided by checking the tape (if you're able to) before sending it in.

Singles can be combined to fill a CD for $6.00 per single (with a minimum of 6 singles), or $75.00 per CD, whichever is less.

Now, 75 bucks sounds like quite a lot, but that works out to just $3 per track if the CD is completely full. And that's extremely reasonable!

Due to a complete lack of demand, we no longer provide plain no-fix digital captures. All conversions will be properly adjusted and converted unless an un-retouched raw sample is requested before we start work on the recording.

Our "Standard" Services

In nearly every case, our "Standard" service will provide terrific results, and if there's any reason why our standard services don't apply, we'll contact you to let you know what else might be needed. The information below is provided to help you understand what we do and how we do it, and if you have any questions, we'd be delighted to discuss them with you.

Basically, if the record or tape is playable, it's covered by our Standard service agreement. If it's not playable (it's cracked, warped, bent, melted, chewed, flaked, broken in two, split, or covered in mould or fungus), then it's subject to our Intensive Care service.

But there's no such thing as "standard", right?

We treat every recording as unique and individual. One person's copy of "The Bay City Rollers" may be in a very different condition to someone else's - and we don't ever assume that the two are identical.

We always succeed in making both of these 'typical' recordings sound great, but a badly treated recording takes much more work to get it 'into shape'. Typically, we spend about twice to three times the actual playing time to fix an 'average' recording. So if an album is around 45 minutes, it will take us around 5-9 hours to repair and clean all the noises, clicks, and pops.

We don't factor the time it takes to remaster, print, and package the CD, of course, since that's more or less the same for each album we work on, and takes about an hour per album.

This is our broad definition of "standard" - that, within reasonable limits, we'll provide the same excellent quality recovered recording regardless of the original recording's condition. Others call this level of service "platinum" or "personalised" (i.e. "high cost"), but for us it's just the minimum level of service we'd expect if we were customers ourselves.

"Critical Care" Services

If a recording takes a significant amount of labour and skill to repair - for example, if an album is warped, melted, badly scratched or cracked, if it's been mauled by a dog, or if a tape is so badly decomposed that it keeps breaking, or if the content (music, voice, radio programme) is literally buried beneath the noise and heavily distorted, and we have to manually remove each crackle, pop, or noise sample, then of course this falls outside our "standard" service description.

In the past, we've tried to allow for these types of recordings in the standard pricing structure, since this gave every one of our customers the very best results. However, we've been taken advantage of on more than one occasion, and these people have demanded that we apply our written definitions of what constitutes a "bad" recording much, much more strictly. Whether it's a media problem - warped or badly scratched record, broken or mildewed tapes - or a recording issue - personal tapes recorded from far-away radio stations, badly dubbed and distorted recordings, that kind of thing - is irrelevant, the time and effort required to bring these kinds of recordings back to life is enormous, and that's just not fair to our other customers.

If we do figure that it is going to require a major investment to recover and repair the recording, we estimate the actual amount of time and effort to fix the problems, and contact you to let you know about any such problems before we undertake the extra work.

So, we'll let you know well in advance if your recording falls outside our "standard" service definition, and you can make the decision whether to proceed.

Please note that, if you provide the recording on the basis that it meets our standard service limitations, but it actually doesn't, and we then recommend specialised services, we reserve the right to refuse to recover or repair the recording under the terms of our standard services. If you don't agree with us, by all means, let us know, and we may be able to suggest an alternative option for your recording. Possibly one that does not involve actually playing the recording. Of course, your recording will be returned to you promptly and safely in that case!

Critical Care Pricing

Recordings that do have significant damage, or that require specific or specialised handling, will always be identified and quoted before work begins. (This includes albums provided as part of a multi-album price package). We have a fixed basic Critical Care charge of $75.00 per album or tape. This covers all the preparatory work - handling, cleaning, leveling, annealing, aligning, and then recording each part of each album. This work usually takes 10-16 hours per album, so it represents a substantial investment of time and effort! However, the fixed cost covers basic recovery of all possible audio information from the recording.

If the whole album isn't badly damaged, but only one or two tracks are unplayable, then our per-track charge for those tracks will apply, and the Critical Repair fee will be waived. In all cases, we'll notify you up front as to what services are required for the recording.

One we've got the audio off the recording, we'll make a good estimation of the amount of work that will be required to clean and repair any audio problems in that recording. In most cases, that means a couple of tracks will require major editing to get into shape, but most of the rest of the album may be in quite good shape. So unlike some unscrupulous recovery service providers, we NEVER charge a flat fee for restoration work once the audio is recovered!

How much is the Critical Care cost per track?

We only charge a basic per-track fee for badly damaged tracks - we don't charge you for the extra time it takes to recover the audio. Naturally, we do need to cover our analysis and recovery costs, but a "damaged track" flat fee of $35.00 per track applies - we will never charge more than this, no matter how badly damaged the track is, and no matter how long it takes us to repair the track to legibility. In the vast majority of cases we've seen, a maximum of two tracks on either side of a record are damaged in such a way as to require this kind of specialist recovery.

Although these charges may seem a bit arbitrary (and expensive), in practice we've found that a single typical 3-minute track on a badly warped or melted LP will take around 6 hours to recover to a reasonably acceptable level. On very rare occasions, it may take us a day of solid work to clean a single track, in which case it's unfair to you to pay for so much time, but it's unfair to us if we aren't reimbursed for our time and effort. So this scale of payments is offered as a fair and equitable compromise.

Unlike some unscrupulous service providers, we do not and will never "up-charge" a recording. This means that if, for example, one track on an album is badly damaged and requires significant work to recover, but all the other tracks are more-or-less intact, only the Critical Care pricing for the damaged track ($35.00) will apply. We must specify this, as we've had some customers who have come to us because they had recording conversions by other vendors charged at the maximum rate for every track because a single track was damaged! We don't work that way.

And please remember - if there's only one or two tracks that you really want recovered, you can specify just those tracks, and we'll only charge the basic setup fee ($75.00) - if the damage warrants that extra work to get the recording playable - and the minimum required track recovery fee of $35.00. If the recording is badly warped, but you only require recovery of undamaged tracks, they are covered by the basic set-up fee. We really do try to be as fair and reasonable as we can!

Singles and Combinations Pricing

Up to 25 singles (45 RPM singles or EPs, or individual tracks from LPs) can be converted, repaired, and combined on one CD for $6.00 per track, with a minimum cost of $45.00 per CD (this covers up to 8 tracks).

Multiple Album Pricing

If you have a number of albums you'd like to have recovered and archived, we're more than happy to discuss a per-album price. (The same goes for multiple tapes).

If you have 10 or more albums you'd like archived in one go (for example, for extended hospital stays, or to comply with retirement home policies, or any other reason), please contact us first for a large quantity discount. If pricing is an issue, we will provide some alternative options that may save you even more. Please note that, due to being left with a large quantity of unwanted recordings by customers who decided to use us as a cleanup dump from their garage or attic, a prepayment of 50% is required before we accept large conversion jobs (more than 7 or 8 albums).

"But I want 200 LPs converted for $500.00!"

It's good to have a dream... but in this case, it's a bit like saying to a taxi driver "I want you to take me from Melbourne to Darwin, but I want you to do it for $200 instead of $2.20 per kilometre". There's just one fly in the ointment : it ain't gonna happen!

For large numbers of albums, our conversion service overheads (because we don't use automated machinery or take shortcuts) are substantial. For example, a single stylus costs upwards of $185 each (more than $1300 each for particularly specific styluses), and each stylus only lasts for maybe a dozen records. Then there's the cleaning solutions, the premium CD media we use, plust cover scanning, work needed for track separations, printing labels and covers and licensing... so we just can't offer prices like $10 per album if you have 100 or more albums to be converted. Don't get us wrong, we'd love to be able to offer such a service and retain the incredibly high quality... but there's always a compromise lurking somewhere.

Time taken per album figures heavily, too - we aren't a soulless, mechanised, automated brick-wall-filtering service, so 100 albums could take anywhere up to 4 months or more to complete (it would take over two weeks just to play that many, end to end!) - and that's assuming we don't eat, sleep, speak to anyone, answer the phone, or (more importantly) talk to other customers. So a modicum of common sense applies here.

If you do have a very large collection you'd like converted, please contact us directly, and we can discuss your options (for example, you may only need one or two tracks saved from each album, or we can ship the resulting conversions as we complete them). We'll be happy to explain your alternatives more fully.

In short, we will not cut corners just to save you a cent here and there - the results are never as good as we'd like, they're never as good as you'd like, and you'll find that you'd hate us more and more, every time you played any of the recordings. However, if it is important to you, we can recommend other service providers who will definitely do what you want. Unfortunately, experience has shown that you'll end up paying much more for much less. We reckon that's a bad thing, but it's your dollar, and they're your ears!

Photos, Negatives, and Slides

In most cases (i.e. where the photos or negatives or slides are in reasonably good condition), our standard service charges apply, up to a maximum of 24 images.

If you have hundreds of images you need converted, our prices are AUD$0.96 per slide, negative, or photo. A typical DVD will allow the display of up to around 500 slides.

We always include the original, high-resolution files of every image on the DVD. That's why some online slide converters can claim 1500 slides per DVD - you never get the actual digitised image, just the slideshow movie! Using our service means you get the original digitised images, and you are free to print them, send them to your family and friends, or get them printed by a photo printing service or kiosk. Note that you may have difficulty getting the mall-type photo printers to handle these high resolution images, so check before you get your photos printed. Most professional image print production companies will have no problems at all with our image formats (1200dpi, 24- or 48-bit colour). We can even (for no extra cost) provide alternative image formats for you, such as CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) (used for professional photographic reproduction).

We also offer additional services, such as 4800dpi super-high resolution 48-bit colour images, professional colour separations, sepia toning addition and removal, photograph touch-up and repairs, Pantone colour matching, as well as the more usual services like lossless resizing, reduction and enlargements, colour correction, high-resolution gloss or high-definition matte printing, T-shirt logos, etc. Contact us for details about the other photo scanning services we can provide!

Please refer to our Shipping page for more information on how to send or arrange pickup of your albums.

If you have any specific questions regarding payment, by all means give us a call on 1300 784576 (7 days a week).

How Much Does It Cost to Repair and Convert my Recording?