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How Much Does It Cost to Repair and Convert my Album?In general, most normal (typical, run-of-the-mill, common, usual) audio albums and tapes can be recovered for just $45 per album. This includes:
Most double albums and extended (C90 cassette and 45-minute commercial reel) tapes can be recovered for just $60. By "most", we mean any album that is fundamentally playable - if you wouldn't put it on your turntable, it 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). In particular, 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. Singles can be combined to fill a CD for $6 per single (with a minimum of 6 singles), or $75 per CD, whichever is less. 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. Video tapes and reels that contain material that fits on a single standard DVD (i.e. around 2 hours' worth of video) can be converted for $70.00 per tape. Video footage that is longer than that (for example, E180 or extremely LP (long play) recordings), can be converted for $90.00 per tape. We always take into account blank footage and silent audio; so if there are significant gaps in the recording (audio or video), we only ever 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. There will be a handling fee of $25.00 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. We provide a more detailed discussion of what all these services entail on the various service pages at left; in particular, you can find more information on multiple album pricing, and special service (Critical Care) pricing. Our "Standard" ServicesIn 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 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. Intensive Care (Critical Care) Services
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. Why do we do this? Well, because :
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 PricingRecordings 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! OK. How much is it per track?
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! 'Plain Label' Services
In particular, many lectures, training tapes, relaxation tapes, and other personal recordings don't need to have all the bells and whistles. In these cases, we can easily cater to your requirements at a substantially reduced cost. Of course, we will still provide full noise reduction and transient removal (for example, the annoying clunks as the recorder is turned on and off), and we never, ever compromise on the quality of the final product; but eliminating the glitz can save both time and money. Naturally, turnaround time is usually quicker for these recordings as well. Plain Label services are currently only offered for cassette recordings that do not contain any commercial music content. Album Pricing : Standard 12" Records and cassettes
Double albums (LPs) are priced at AUD$60 per double album. C90 tapes, because they contain up to 40% more content than the longest double album, are priced at AUD$60 per tape. These are all presented as double CDs (unless the total recording time is less than 79 minutes). If the recording only takes up part of the tape (or the double album only runs to a total of less than 79 minutes for all four sides), only the minimum charge applies for the length of actual recording. In other words, if we've quoted $60.00 for a C90 tape you've supplied, but the recording only runs for 50 minutes, we'll only ever charge a single album price ($45.00). We can't say fairer than that! Singles PricingUp to 25 singles (45RPM singles or EPs) can be converted, repaired, and combined on a single CD for a per-CD service price of $75.00. Now, that might sound like a lot, but it works out to be just $3 per single! If you don't have that many singles, we offer the service based on $6.00 per single, with a minimum cost of $45.00 per CD (this covers up to 21 singles). If more than one CD is required to fit all the singles, additional CDs can be used to extend the recording, and we'll charge additional such CDs at a flat pro-rata price of $6.00 per single thereafter. Multiple Album PricingIf 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 $50.00!"
Look, it's good to have a dream... but in this case, it's a bit like saying "I'm going to drive from Melbourne to Darwin, and I want petrol stations to only charge me two cents a litre instead of $1.50". Yeah, it'd be great, but 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 are the CD media, and cover scanning, track separations, mastering, and printing labels and covers and licensing... so we just can't offer prices like $1 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 service, so 100 albums could take anywhere up to 4 months to turn around (it would take over two weeks just to play them, 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 SlidesIn 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 shop! 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! Pricing StructureIn an effort to provide a better idea of the cost of our services, we've listed typical costs for various recordings in the table below.. Please remember, apart from the "Standard" and "Plain Label" services, service costs are always related to the actual length of the recording, not to the actual time we spend repairing those recordings. We need to clarify this because many of our competitors do not price according to the recording, they charge for their time. Believe it or not, there's a huge difference!
What about shipping?Please refer to our Shipping page for more information on how to send or arrange pickup of your albums. Payment Options
Cash: We accept cash, personal cheques, and direct deposit from any Australian or international bank. Credit Cards: Beginning May 1st, 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 onsite. EFTPOS transactions are also most welcome! BPAY: We are a registered BPAY business, so finally, Australian customers can now also pay using BPAY. All the relevant details are included on your invoice, and you can pay using any of your usual methods - electronic transfer, Post Office, phone banking, or by credit card. If you have any specific questions regarding payment, by all means give us a call on 1300 784576 (7 days a week). |
Send mail to Webmaster@audiography.com.au with questions or comments about this web site, or use our Contact form to report any issues.Our street (postal) address is: 20 Churinga Avenue, Mitcham. Victoria. 3132 Phone Details:
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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.
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.
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.
We
recognise that not everyone wants full track listings, full colour cover scans,
or track separations.
Pricing
for our standard service is AUD$45 per
album, including GST. An album is defined by us as one
12" LP record (33,45, or 78 RPM).
That's an actual customer demand.
